i turn 30 today.

i turn 30 years old today.  and i’m okay with that.  i’m actually happy to embrace a new decade.  the last week has been fun to reminisce memories with vintage photos. 

below is a poem audrey hepburn wrote when asked to share her “beauty tips.”  it was read at her funeral years later.  i aspire to the wisdom and grace that she portrayed.

 

for attractive lips, speak words of kindness…

for lovely eyes, seek out the good in people.

for a slim figure, share your food with the hungry.

for beautiful hair, let a child run his/her fingers through it once a day.

for poise, walk with the knowledge that you never walk alone…

people, even more than things, have to be restored, renewed, revived, reclaimed, and redeemed; never throw out anyone.

***

 my 2nd birthday.  1980.

  

   

the introductions: incrediblehusband

it’s been awhile coming… but i think it’s high time to introduce the main characters in my life.  today we will start with incrediblehusband, next post will be toddlergirl and then myself (in which i have yet to come up with a superhero name for myself yet.  hmmm… any suggestions?)

meet incrediblehusband

(he may also be referred to as “IH“ in the future for ease of typing)

this is very much his look.  deep in thought.  thinking.  probably thinking about the zany wife and daughter he has to inhabit a home with.  he’s very intelligent, amazingly patient and deeply loyal.  we met in our high school years (long distance relationship -2 provinces apart) and married young.  he is the guy that brings me a whole rose bush instead of roses because roses would be just “too ordinary.”  he writes poetry about peanut butter or crappy studentmobile toyota tercels in iambic pentameter- well… just because he’s that smart.  soccer player, canada’s jamie oliver, marketing-business-entrepreneur guru.  so an ode to my dear husband- incrediblehusband.  you’ll only hear me write good things about him.

weakness is beautiful.

“blessed is the person who knows his own weaknesses, because awareness of this becomes for him the foundation and beginning of all that is good and beautiful.  for whenever someone realizes and perceives that he is truly weak… he becomes all the more watchful of his soul.”

“”but no one can perceive his own weakness unless he has been remiss a little, has neglected some small thing, has been surrounded by trials, either on the matter of things which cause the body suffering, or in that way in which the soul is subject to selfish bondage (the passions).  only then, by comparing his own weakness, will he realize how great is the assistance which comes from God.”

“when someone is aware that he is in need of divine help, he makes many prayers, and once he has made supplication, his heart is humbled, for there is no one who is in need and asks who is not humbled.  a broken and humbled heart God will not despise.”

“as long as the heart is not humbled it cannot cease from wandering; for humility concentrates the heart.”

~St. Isaac the Syrian

“for whenever someone realizes and perceives that he is truly weak… he becomes all the more watchful of his soul.”  i love that line.  how watchful of our souls are we?  i’ve learned that with truth comes transparency.  in upcoming posts i plan to share more of what has shaped me and changed me- things that are raw and real.  so thank you for your continued reading and care.

to better things,

steph

ps- the above photos were all taken in saskatchewan when i used to go on a regular 9km gravel road walk.  some days i wouldn’t see any people, vehicles, dogs, cows, in the 2 hours it took me to walk it.  that takes solitude to a whole new level.

happy easter

 

 i thank You God for most this amazing

day:  for the leaping greenly spirits of trees

and a blue true dream of sky; and for everything

which is natural which is infinite which is yes

 

(i who have died am alive again today,

and this is the sun’s birthday; this is the birth

day of life and of love and wings:  and of the gay

great happening illimitably earth)

 

how should tasting touching hearing seeing

breathing any- lifted from the no

of all nothing- human merely being

doubt unimaginable You?

 

(now the ears of my ears awake and

now the eyes of my eyes are opened)

 

~ee cummings