food for thought

What is this self inside us, this silent observer,
Severe and speechless critic, who can terrorize us,
And urge us on to futile activity,
And in the end, judge us still more severely,
For the errors into which his own reproaches drove us? -- T. S. Eliot

Jayme

You are so precious Jayme! Daddy, Mommy and I cried tears of joy when you were born. When you were just minutes old your Daddy talked to you and you opened your beautiful eyes and looked right at him! Mommy then talked to you and you looked right at her too! You knew instantly those voices! When I held you we looked at each other for a long time. Then you wanted to be fed. You didn't like having to suck on your tiny fingers. When you wrapped all of your fingers around my one finger you melted my heart. You are very loved by your family, your g'mas, g'pas, aunts, uncles and cousins!

View from our room

I'm sure the outdoor pools are a hit in the summer! Kalahari is expanding the waterpark. It will be the largest indoor waterpark until the sister company in WI completes their construction.

The pool size hot tub was great! I didn't stay long though because my hair kept freezing (it was 31 degrees outside after all). The covered waterslides are definitely a kid ride. We decided to try one. Ken's yelled all the way down! Right then I knew I was in for a ride I wasn't going to like. When I pushed off zip there was only inky darkness. It freaked me out so I just closed my eyes. That helped a little bit. I couldn't even yell. I had to tell myself to shut my mouth. I was on a water slide after all and didn't want to choke. I was pushed from one side and zipped into the next turn immediately, Up, around, right, left, up, almost over. I heard Ken quit yelling so I opened my eyes to light. SPLASSSSSH! I couldn't even talk. My legs were jelly. Ken laughed at the look on my face - pure terror!! Never a covered slide again!

More things to do at Kalahari

I am beginning to understand why Alyssa and Trina like going there so much!

There are outstanding restaurants, shops with all sorts of African style art, necklace shops, swimwear shops, t-shirt shops, yummy chocolate treats, a great gormet coffee shop, a pizza place, a grand lobby with a fireplace that had choirs some sing for Christmas, Santa and Mrs. Clause, baby tiger and lion cubs that for a price (of course) you could feed and get your picture taken - we just watched them play, a convience shop with post cards and any other thing you might need, a Tree Top Playhouse for young kids, and of course the water park - which was a blast!

Things to do at Kalahari

There is

putt-putt golf

cookie decorating

stuff-an-animal

paint the pottery

caricatures

bead in the hair braiding

karioki

arcade games

swimming fun

interactive games

and the list goes on and on.....

The Spa at Kalahari

Oh the wonderful Spa!

The Spa at Kalahari

Oh the wonderful Spa! it was soooooooooo relaxing! The locker room (if you can even call it that mundane word) was elegant. After changing into the robes, from the locker area you went into a lounge area with overstuffed couches, glass topped coffee tables, greenery along the walls, and carved wood statues. The massuse came and got you for your massage or whatever you were having done. The Spa has a wide range of relaxation treatments. After your massage you could take a shower. I highly recommend the shower since they use oils instead of creams for the massage. The shower had two heads - one rainforest type that spinkled you with rain drops and then a second smaller shower head that was about hip heigth on me. You could adjust it to any combination of relaxing sprays you wanted. They had green tea peppermint shampoo, creme rinse, and shower gel. I smelled sooooo good when I got out of the shower! Of course Ken had to spoil me and buy me the shampoo and creme rinse. At $13 a bottle it was a bit pricey but it is sooooooo nice to have at home.

The Naked Monkies

The band was awesome! The guitar player that was roaming around and I danced during one of the songs. It was a hoot! I got a great picture of Deb and Greg Blunk with DeAnna.

Kalahari

We had a blast!!! The party was great. We got our picture taken with Kalahi the elephant mascot, had a carricaturist do our portraits in a golf theme, rode the waterslides - some only once -, ate great food, danced, the list goes on. We haven't packed that much fun into a weekend since our Myrtle Beach vacation!I can see this getting better every year!

Remodleing again

This is the last bedroom to get remodeled. Brannon has become my great contractor! He's laying the floor in what will become my sewing room.

Mr. and Mrs. Claus

And who does this look like?

This is Alyssa. But she's laying just like Katrina did for so many years. It is wonderful to hear Katrina tell Alyssa to "sit up right!'

Invitation

I ran across this and have ponderred on it for a while. What do you think?

The Invitation © 1999

by Oriah Mountain Dreamer

It doesn’t interest me what you do for a living.

I want to know what you ache for

and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart’s longing.

It doesn’t interest me how old you are.

I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool

for love

for your dream

for the adventure of being alive.

It doesn’t interest me what planets are squaring your moon...

I want to know if you have touched the centre of your own sorrow

if you have been opened by life’s betrayals

or have become shriveled and closed

from fear of further pain.

I want to know if you can sit with pain

mine or your own

without moving to hide it

or fade it

or fix it.

I want to know if you can be with joy

mine or your own

if you can dance with wildness

and let the ecstasy fill you to the tips of your fingers and toes

without cautioning us

to be careful

to be realistic

to remember the limitations of being human.

It doesn’t interest me if the story you are telling me

is true.

I want to know if you can

disappoint another

to be true to yourself.

If you can bear the accusation of betrayal

and not betray your own soul.

If you can be faithless

and therefore trustworthy.

I want to know if you can see Beauty

even when it is not pretty

every day.

And if you can source your own life

from its presence.

I want to know if you can live with failure

yours and mine

and still stand at the edge of the lake

and shout to the silver of the full moon,

Yes.

It doesn’t interest me

to know where you live or how much money you have.

I want to know if you can get up

after the night of grief and despair

weary and bruised to the bone

and do what needs to be done

to feed the children.

It doesn’t interest me who you know

or how you came to be here.

I want to know if you will stand

in the centre of the fire

with me

and not shrink back.

It doesn’t interest me where or what or with whom

you have studied.

I want to know what sustains you

from the inside

when all else falls away.

I want to know if you can be alone

with yourself

and if you truly like the company you keep

in the empty moments.

Greg, DeAnna, and Deb

He cleans up VERY well!

Kalahari

One of the restaurants we ate at while at Kalahari was the Great Karoo. While eating the great meal on our last day, Ken said "that would be a great picture." When I turned around kids were congregating around Kahali, the elephant mascot. Our energetic, and very friendly waitress, Carol, said she's take our picture with Kahali. It a spure of the moment, kid thing to do! It was FUN!

Kalahari

Here's what Ken looked like when he tried to sit on the inner tube raft for the first time. He scared the daylights of the the peite, young lifeguard. Ken is all belly and no butt. He flopped on the inner tube and in slow motion flipped over backwards landing under water on his head. I thought "he better have a good breath!" I pushed on his feet and he popped up like a cork. We laughed to hard!

The pic is from the comic strip B.C. It ran in the Sunday paper and just fit so perfectly.

Garbage

How can you renew when you are full? You're full of all the stuff that needs to be dealt with in your life. I call it the garbage and garbage needs to go. You can stuff any more trash in the bin when it is at the top.

Miriam Webster defines garbage as discarded or useless material; inaccurate or useless data 2 a: trash. What inaccurate or useless data are you holding on to that needs to go? What inaccurate thoughts, feelings, and emotions are building in you? If feelings are unacknowledged they build and build and become trash just like the garbage that goes to the curb each week.

We all have garbage in our lives we hang on to because it is comfortable, is "how it's always been" or for any number of other reasons. It does not mean that the garbage is good for us mentally and physically. In order to dump the garbage, we must first acknowledge its presence, come to terms with what ever the issue, feeling, or emotion we are holding on to is, and then consciously rid it from our minds. We must consciously remove the garbage because that is the last step to ridding our house (self) of trash. Sometimes the garbage tries to sneak back in to our thoughts. When that happens we haven't thoroughly come to terms with the issues and must revisit them again, work through the issues and dump them in the trash again. Only by coming to terms with the issues can we learn self-love which leads to self-acceptance. When we love all the past parts of ourselves that we can not change, then comes acceptance of ourselves, and that's when we dump the garbage for good. Self-acceptance will not have room for trash because self-acceptance is self-love. Love has no room for garbage.

I do not say this process is easy – only essential for our self-worth and growth.