Best career ever.

I was a stay at home mum for about 11 years until I started getting part time jobs. As I keep on looking for a full time job. I find myself realizing ever more that the best job that I ever had was been a stay at home mum. I really took it all for granted. Every summer holiday I was off and I got to visit England every two or three years. This coming summer I will not have seen my Mum for 4 years in the summer of 2011. So many of us take so much for granted. I know I have.
The time I am off work I Cherish with my children.
I often think about my brothers children who have no mum and dad now. I often wish I could hug them all tight.
So to all of you who wish you could spend longer with your children or miss your home.
Air Hugs to you all.
Truly I believe God sees our hearts and our yearnings.
Please have a cup of tea with me today.

Angels in our midst and just kind people.

This Thanksgiving has been a blessing. It has also been one that I am sad not to be around my mum and I miss my brother. I also have meet along this road recently people who make me think. Their calm spirit seams to be so peaceful so mesmerising and draws you to truly think of where you are in life. I have been in a battlefield so long that when a person like this comes along it truly makes me think. I have people say kind words to me that I have never known. Made me smile, just listen to me, made me feel like I was a person. To these few people I believe that God sends them into our lives.
I just hope they get to stay a while.
Happy week to you all.
Please have a cup of tea with me today.

Thankfulness.

This year has been a AHHHHHHHH. However I am thankful for many things. My girls,friends, my brother and his family and the time I did spent with them in 2007 and telling him that I loved him before he died. My sister and her family. My mum, church and God's grace. Oh and the rain that reminds me of home.

So in pictures is a few things I am thankful for.

Happy Thanksgiving.

Please have a cup of tea with me today.

Compassion.

If our eyes could tell a story they would flow with how our hearts really felt. What tears we had cried the grief and hardship, we had gone through. Maybe even bitterness would flow. Out of our heart flows so much. Yet in a world where so little compassion is. I see people hug complete strangers as they cry in the streets. Their life changed their dreams shattered a moment in time and life changed forever yet a hug an Angel you might say appeared to offer compassion to a broken soul. My eyes have glistened, my eyes have cried yet through it all I want a heart with compassion.
Today was very foggy so much like England. So much fog sometimes is in our lives.
My hope for you is that you hug that crying person in the street.
Please have a cup of tea with me today.

A Brit in America.

I have never thought of myself as a Pioneer. But as I watched Ree Drummond on the Throw down with Bobby Flay I could not help but think of myself as exactly that. Ree is an amazing woman and her blog The Pioneer Woman is just enchanting. I suggest anyone read it.
I might not live in the mid west like Ree. However I traveled 3000 plus miles to be in Raleigh North Carolina from England. I have learnt to grow water melon to love to decorate my home for Autumn and to enjoy the Carolina Blue skies.
I have learnt that been a single mum in America is a jolly hard job, and I have seen people smile when I simply give them a hug or listen to their needs.
I may not be a pioneer woman like Ree but in my own way I am indeed a pioneer making a difference.
I encourage you, to like Ree be a pioneer in your own lives. Please go to her blog it is a shear delight.
http://thepioneerwoman.com/
Please have a cup of tea with me today.

Three little women and one Nana.

The other day at work I thought wow the girls and I are like three little women. Then there is my mum who rings them faithfully and my daughter reads to her. In a day when politeness seams to have died there is hope even through a phone call. We laugh at times cry a lot even run around in the rain. In the madness of looking for a full time job, trying to sort out the mortgage there are glimpses of hope.
I love the book The Penderwicks and I love the hugs my girls give me. My dogs chasing each other.
My life may not have much Sunshine but in the moments I hear my mum laugh or hug a person going through a trial. I see true hope.
May you find a silver lining in your day.
Please have a cup of tea with me today.

Lumps of coal in my tea.

Isn't it surprising in life when you are down and you want that sweet kind of friendship to help you through. Instead you get as I like to call it lumps of coal in your tea. They make your tea and life feel heavy and leave nasty marks of feeling rejected and hurt.
Through my brothers death I have understood that coming along side a friend in hard times, sending an email saying I care or giving a hug is worth more than gold. It makes the tea in life glow and makes that person for a moment in time feel warm and fuzzy inside.No nasty mark is left they feel loved.
My question to you is what are you doing we can all make rude and nasty comments it takes effort to add words of honey and wonderful sugar and those are the ones that help any person through tough times. The tea is sweet and healing.
The last words I ever said to my brother was how much I cared and loved him.
Make your words pure and wonderful sugar and not lumps of coal.
Please have a cup of tea with me today.

Living in another perspective.

LLiving in another perspective. I have been separated over a year now, in it I have cried a million tears, sat and ate ice cream out of a tub, dealt with the death of my brother. Oh yes my children left their private school, I now work, clean and have learnt names to do with a car that i am not to sure if I ever really cared to know. In it all I have learnt a lot about me. Through Scott's death I have seen truly I knew nothing about death nothing how someone felt or was going through. Maybe I thought I had compassion but in truth death can either change someone or make someone bitter. It has also helped me to have compassion for my mother in-law dare I say I even miss her at times. I value life differently. I see how a simple word of kindness can change a person how a smile can lighten a day. A hug is worth a million. I remember the day my brother died and I just cried in my friends arms. I also have seen a long my road of life I did not always make wise decisions, I never appreciated how hard my own husband worked to keep his job and to pay the bills. Nor value the times we spent together. So easy is it to pick fault than to just be quite and see the good in a person. Off course a long the road add a lawyer in the mix and life is never the same. It is so amazing just to want the best for a person regardless of what they say to you. To help a person if you do not know them. I helped a man gather a view shopping trolleys the other day his face smiled like I had given him the crown jewels. In fact he had given me them because he had made me see doing what is right is more rewarding than simply just ignoring it.No one has to be right all the time no one has to have the last word. So my life has changed I see life in a different way. I thank my brother Scott, God and some wonderful friends.My hope to you is that you do not have to go through anything that I have gone through just do what is right forgive and see the good instead of the bad in this life the bad will always out weigh the good.

Please have a cup of tea with me today.

Forgiven?

Forgiveness is what? Forgiveness is one of those cringy words, that cause us to either think or just say i have nothing to forgive. But come on you might not of liked that another person at school got to be the main role in a play or that you did not get where you wanted to in life because you feel someone else got there and you so deserved it. The issue is none of us deserve anything. God is gracious enough to forgive us only He sees true forgiveness it is not in our own eyes that anyone can forgive. I have thought about this with my brother dying it is not in just grieving but forgiving that Scott has died. I will never get to say Happy Birthday to him again nor hear him say I love you Lee or see his smile. Yet in my heart I have to say God knew best. I am not finding it easy. Nor in the fact i still need a full time job and soon I don't know if I will have medical. I do know for years I held onto a unforgiveness and the only person who got hurt was me.

Forgiveness is kind of like the white snow and the unforgiveness like the trash however if you let go of all that unforgiveness you are like the snowman a true work of art.
No road is easy but at least the road of forgiving brings hope to the person who is brave enough to say I forgive.
We all need to be forgiven.
Please have a cup of tea with me today.

Mighty is what?

Have you ever heard that is a mighty person either of God or they are so spiritual or so strong. May I suggest after much thinking about this that it might not be what we think. Perhaps mighty is someone who has gone through hard times and tried to turn their lives around perhaps mighty is a person who has seen the pain that others goes through and tries to reach their lives by reaching out to another person. Mighty might well be a person saying how are you and actually wanting to listen. Mighty could mean having a forgiving heart and wishing the best for someone. Mighty might well be seeing the pain in someones life and giving them hope. Simple words, you are doing great, I am proud of you. I care. To me that is mighty. It is like the ant small little creature but oh so mighty.
Whatever you think remember it is not always how we think mighty is so much more it is a heart willing to change willing to listen. It is like beautiful can be in a thunder storm or in a cob web or even as this harsh ice hit all of England this past February, it is in how you decide to see it.
Please have a cup of tea with me today.