Beautiful Day

Today has been beautiful for many reasons. Mainly, I have friends and a the beauty of nature to thank for that. Look at the treats Mother Nature gave me this morning when I stepped out my back door that leads to my garden....

What a beautiful thing to wake up to! Thank you Mother Nature for the sunflowers, yellow crookneck squash, Roma tomatoes, cabbage, squash blossom and butternut squash.
Also, you'll notice...my blog is beautiful again. A big thank you to Lyndsay (again)! She had me test adding an html code widget to set my background (rather than her logging into my blog to fix things) to see if it worked and wha-la, it worked perfectly. Please visit her new site HERE.....if you are looking for someone to beautify your blog, she's your girl!
There are certain days when one would be remiss to not mention certain things or people that need to be mentioned. So today I hope you won't mind me highlighting a friend (I hope she won't mind for that matter)!

T has been a friend of mine for as long as I can remember (we're talking elementary school here so 20 plus years). We recently reconnected thanks Facebook (where else)?

Today her son would have turned 18. She lost him a few years ago due to circumstances I'm not quite clear about. What I do know for certain is that it was beyond tragic, as any loss would be for a mother. He was a beautiful boy with his mother's eyes.

I don't know how she's getting through it, but she is. She's as strong and as beautiful as she was when I met her as a spunky girl at Sirrine Elementary School in the late 1980's. Some people just have that spark- that fire inside that keeps them going when others would just give up. She's one of those people, an inspiration in my book.

Tonight I feel really grateful for my friends and family. What a blessing it is to learn that it's people, not things, that make life happy (and yes, I know some people have the ability to make life not happy...but you know what I mean, the people who build you up, who love you and support you).

The people in my life mean more to me than gold...the old friends, the new, the locals and those across the sea, the chosen family, the blood family, the besties, the sisters, the casual ones, the old school friends, my church friends, and of course blogger friends....the lot of you. ThAnK YoU for making my often rocky, bumpy (and of course hilly) life much more joyful than it would be without you.

Remember: today is a gift...that's why the call it the present (I know, I know, feel free to insert an eye-roll at that catch phrase, I can see some of you now....but, it's true).