I always have such bold intentions of keeping this more updated. And then life picks up and before I know it we haven't had one free weekend in September and my poor blog is, yet again, out of date. At the moment, I'm a little burnt out, on a down-swing from a stressful week, and am now suffering the consequences with a nasty cold. I drank some herbal decongestant tea and the good news is that it seems to work. The bad news is that it tastes like I steeped a gnome and they recommend 3 cups a day.

With Mike in school (ECE) 2 nights and 1 day a week it's been quite the balancing act figuring out "our" time together, the things we have to do and the things we want to do. We are not always entirely successful and often it's the later category that suffers, but, oh!, we are learning!

Recently I was at a womans retreat. We had the usual coffee and tea and yummy things to eat as well as stamping and making a card. But we also had some yoga, a game of "I've never" that turned a little PG when we ran out of things to say, and took some time to walk a labyrinth in reflective/contemplative prayer. The tables were decorated with sunflowers and quotes from various people. This one was my favorite and I'll leave you with it now.

God speaks to each of us as he makes us,
then walks with us silently out of the night.

These are the words we dimly hear:

You, sent out beyond your recall,
go to the limits of your longing.
Embody me.

Flare up like flame
and make big shadows that I can move in.

Let eveything happen to you: beauty and terror.
You need to keep going. No feeling is final.
Don't let yourself be seperated from me.

Nearby is the country they call life.
You will know it by its seriousness.

Give me your hand.

~Rainer Maria Rilke