Stories to Celebrate and Prizes to Win

"Nobody can be uncheered with a balloon." ~A.A. Milne

Have you ever had balloons on your birthday? Balloons just seem to say let's celebrate. Just ask Winnie the Pooh. That old bear can float around with a balloon and enjoy every day, birthday or not. 

So today here are some balloons to get us in the birthday mood and to remind you that this month I'm celebrating getting older by giving away some prizes. Three winners will get gift cards and their choice of one of my books. Check out complete prize details on my website. Entry is easy. Just send me a message from my website or leave a comment here on a new blog post in September. Please remember to leave a way to contact you in case your name rises to the top of my drawing hat. For fun, you can share a birthday story and get a bonus entry in the giveaway. 

I love hearing your stories and I will eventually get around to reading them all. My surgery has slowed me down a little, but I'm getting back up to speed. Of course, with adding on another year, speed is a relative term. Perhaps I should say I hope to keep plugging along. 

Age wasn't a problem for Karen in this birthday story she shares. She was turning that magical "I can drive" age. But the license issuing offices just would not stay open for her. Here's Karen's story.

I'll be ?? on November 11th. Now my birthday is a federal holiday so all state & federal government offices are closed on 11/11 and where do you go to get your driver's license? Right, a government office. Well, when I turned 16 I was very anxious to get my first driver's license. I was so upset that the DMV office was closed on my birthday that I called about a week before to see if I could get my DL on the 10th since it wasn't MY fault they weren't open on the 11th. LOL Well, of course, the answer was NO. That year my birthday was the longest day ever waiting for the 12th to arrive and I could get my driver's license. Don't we sometimes wish we had those youthful days back again?

Indeed, Karen. Oh, to be 16 again, but then I don't think I want to take that driver's test again. I was soooo nervous when I had to take a ride with the state policeman giving the test. But maybe not as nervous as he was. LOL. 

When Karen told me I could share her story forward she added how the story makes her smile now when she thinks about her impatience. To add to her anticipation, her brothers were both in the service and had left their old Chevy at home and given Karen permission to drive it. So there was that car in the driveway just begging her to get under the wheel and start it up, except her parents hid the keys. Our parents just know us too well sometimes. For sure that day had to be Karen's "longest day ever!"

But about those balloons again. They aren't much fun until we put a little effort into filling them either with our own breath or some helium to make them float. Did you ever wonder if you could float up in the sky if only you could hold onto enough balloons? 

As Karen says, oh to be young again with a zillion dreams clasped in our hands as life beckoned us down dozens of exciting roads. Each birthday is a milestone and one we're celebrating with balloons today.

Making Time

"Time is but the stream I go a-fishing in."  (Henry David Thoreau)

How we do talk about time! We save it. We waste it. We beg for it. We need it. We wish for it. If I only had more time, we're wont to say. With time, I could do so much more, we promise. Where did the time go, we ask. And the truth is time hasn't gone anywhere different than it has since the beginning of time. It ticks by. Each second irretrievably gone as it makes way for the next second to follow.

Leonardo da Vinci said, "Time stays long enough for anyone who will use it." He certainly used his time to make a place in history. Perhaps that was part of his genius - the mastery of his time.

But these days, we are so sure we can make time that we even add and subtract hours. Last night we added back the hour we subtracted last spring. That's what has me thinking about time. That and the fact that lately a question surfaces in my mind several times every day. How much time do I have? Not the big question of how many days I have left here on earth, but the little question of whether I have enough time to do this or that task before I must do this or that other thing.  

Time has been something I've seemed to have in short supply lately. Of course, that's not true. The time in my days is the same. It's the use of my time that is giving me troubles. Perhaps this quote explains my problem. "Time is like a handful of sand - the tighter you grasp it, the faster it runs through your fingers." (Unknown author)

I don't have as much available to work time as I did before my mother began walking through her confusing valley of dementia. But I still have time enough if I could only reach for that time with determined patience and not worry that it won't be time enough. Then again, who among us knows if we'll have time enough? And time enough for what? Perhaps that is the question we need to answer first. What is it that we want? Tomorrow when we look back on today are we going to be pleased with our spent time?

I know you've heard people say use it or lose it. But with time it passes whether we use it or simply let it slide past. So here's one last quote from A.A. Milne that I'm hoping will inspire me as I come up with a new schedule for working in the weeks ahead. "Time is swift, it races by; Opportunities are born and die...Still you wait and will not try-A bird with wings who dares not rise and fly."

Do I have enough time? I suppose only time will tell. But I don't want to be the bird with wings who dares not rise and fly.

What do you think about time? Do you have time enough for the things you want to do? My wish for you is that joy will fill the hour glass of your life. Thanks for reading.