days with frog and toad...

Have my blogs been a bit negative lately? For some reason I think maybe they have, but I'm not going to look. I think the fact that I don't want to look may be a good indicator. Well, I'll let you be the judge, but just know that it is not my intention to be gloomy. This morning when I woke up it was sunny and beautiful & I thought, maybe I can go out to the garden for a few minutes before we start school, but I decided instead to write a blog. The next thing I knew, I looked up and the sky was gray and sprinkling rain. Coincidence? Maybe. All I know is that showers will come, and they usually come in April. This morning I read a seemingly negative statement, not on my blog, somewhere else. At first glance it sounded uber depressing, but as I thought about it, it actually encouraged me... a lot. It said, "Maybe all one can do is hope to end up with the right regrets." I have a lot of regrets. My life is riddled with regrets. They follow me around, yes, like a little toad, or in this case a frog, but also like a kite tail, I must say. This blog can only hold one picture at a time, but the point that I'm trying to illustrate here is that I can't shake 'em. Everytime I look back, there they are, dancing and taunting me, begging for attention: I haven't taken as many pictures as I'd like...I haven't spent enough time playing with my kids... I need to pray more... and I've neglected long distance friends and relatives. These things bother me, and the fact that they bother me bothers me, but this morning I had a breakthrough with this little quote I found. I hope I don't soon forget it. These are the right kind of regrets. Though I'd rather not have any, if I'm going to have them, these are the ones I want to have. These are the things that keep me up at night, and I think I'm okay with that now. Maybe I'm not such a terrible horrible monster of a person. Maybe I just love the things that make life beautiful and as a created, creative, loved, loving being, I just want to keep moving forward. We all have regrets, I think. The trick is not regretting regrets. That kind of ultra negativity is debilitating. What are you lamenting? If you find your heart fighting for more of what's beautiful and lovely in life, I say let it fight.

P.s. I changed the title for this blog three times before I settled on this one. I'm not going to tell you my other choices, because I'm happy with this one. It's a title robbed from a beloved children's book- a family favorite. If you're not familiar with Frog and Toad, please familiarize yourself a.s.a.p.