Just in case you do not already know, then I am here to remind you! Today is National Grandparents Day in the USA. I hope you are having a Grand day.
For those whose grandparents may be far away or somewhere over the rainbow, take heed ... There are plenty of elderly people out there who would love it if you would give them the time of day.
Creating and collecting picture postcards is a passion of mine. Grandparents are people I am compassionate towards, especially those who are long distance grandmas and grandpas. I combine my thoughts on the two in an article on the Squidoo writing platform. I do believe postcards a positive way to bridge the Grand generation gap!
Now it's time to hop on over to link up with Squidoo Sunday with Noner Says! It is always a pleasure to see what treasures she's sharing on her blog hop this week. Come along and have yourself a peek!
"Beast cometh to round us up and to chop us down in our own dirt," snorted Stallion at the lead of a flying stampede.
"Dreamscape the legend of the land," Mare cries in bloodcurdling neigh to her faraway foul. "The day shall come when men of the wind find themselves flogged with the horsewhip of our nightmarish end."
To wit: Hellfire cometh for mankind for his heinous crime while wild horses shall be freed to roam with the herd in a heavenly home here on earth governed by golden bird.
Ah! there is but beauty to behold in the tale of tenfold!
I have been out of the loop with my blogging of late but writing my way back to my blogs and a pastime I thoroughly enjoy - linking up with other bloggers and blog hops.
That said, today I am linking up with Noner Says and her Squidoo Sunday linkup for the discussion and sharing of our Squidoo articles. Hop along with us each week!
If you are not yet a member of the Squidoo writing community you can join Squidoo here and then join Noner Says on Sundays too.
This past week I did not create and publish any new articles on Squidoo. I have been working on updating a few older articles there instead. In fact, this afternoon I have been updating my dog Tidbit's web page on Squidoo in preparation for tomorrow being National Dog Day in the USA. Hopefully I will get some major work done to Tidbit's page before day's end as it is so outdated. Oh my!
I do have a couple of articles I am working on that I hope to publish to Squidoo before month's end. Most assuredly one of these will be about postcards! So do check back soon to see the details of anything new.
Yes, I am back to collecting postcards and enjoying it immensely. Are you a collector of postcards?
Whatever your plans for the upcoming love day or if you have not yet made plans for Valentine's Day, I am here to tell you about a special Love Day dance.
Yes. I am a woman who has fallen victim to child abuse and domestic violence. I am fortunate to be a survivor of these demons, unlike my mother, whose death was a direct result of domestic violence. You can read my story amid the prose and poems of Arise Against Abuse.
Link up with SHARE the LOVE blog hop no later than Midnight EST on February 13th, 2013. Include the hop badge and link in your blog post as well as Add Your Link to the list at the end of this blog article.
Linking your end violence against women blog post up with SHARE the LOVE before February 14th, 2013 is your official entry to the Giveaway. All entries will be confirmed and if incorrect will not be included in the random giveaway drawing.
Drawing will be held on Valentine's Day, February 14th, 2013. Winner will be notified by email and on this blog. (So be sure your email address is left in the comment section this post so you can be contacted. For example you may use this format for your email: ruthcox at abitosunshine dot net) Winner will have 48 hours to reply to their winning email with shipping details, and if do not reply, a new winner will be randomly chosen.
Will you rise up and dance domestic violence away this Valentine's Day?
Link up your end violence against women blog post to confirm your entry to the Love Day Dance and Keychain Giveaway!
Additionally, you are, of course, invited to link up with SHARE the LOVE blog hop with any blog posts on the topic of Love throughout the month.
Submit the TITLE of your BLOG POST and the LINK URL for your BLOG POST to this list for any SHARE the LOVE blog posts you publish in FEBRUARY of 2013.
My first thought is that I simply must find more time for sharing the love on this blog! In my quest to share the love with my readers every day I fell behind in January and I am already a bit behind for February, gheesh! Oh well, I have plenty of time to catch up throughout the year.
That said, I invite you to blog about love this month and link your blog posts up with Share the Love blog hop!
February is the month of Love so let us share the love together.
Of course, I believe we should share the love with everyone, not just for the designated love day for Valentines. Hence, my sharing of many different aspects of love here for the Share the Love blog hop and I also share similar thoughts on my "Share the Love on Valentine's Day" article on Squidoo.
In keeping with food for thought, how about creating a healthy dessert for your loved ones this Valentine's Day? Or, any day, for that matter!
If healthy is not on your mind at the moment I am sure you will enjoy whipping up some easy to make and bake blackberry cobbler!
Of late, I feel as though I am in the business of love as I seem to be looking at everything through love-addicted eyes, always keeping an eye out for the next scoop of love to share with my readers. In fact, I just finished reading an article over at Forbes.com entitled The Business Of Lovethat you simply must read. It certainly sheds new light on romance finance!
Over the course of my lifetime I have become older and somewhat wiser in the ways of love. One of the most important things I have learned is that in some ways a love relationship does need to be treated like we would treat a business proposition.
The business of love is a give and take relationship. No, that does not mean on one side there are givers with takers on the other side. What it does mean is that we do business together; in turn, we give and we take. We each have wants and needs and we join forces with those who can fill the bill, much like a supply and demand deal.
A perfect example of the give and take scenario: As a writer on the Squidoo forum I often include links to products which can be purchased at Amazon.com. Unfortunately, it is against Terms Of Service to purchase products from my own article links. No problem! I simply visit a fellow Squidoo article writer friend and click on one of their links to Amazon, search for the item I want to buy, and make my purchase. The Squidoo lensmaster whose link I followed to Amazon gets credit for the sale and earns a little bit of cash! And I can rest assured that my turn to be on the receiving earnings line as a Squidoo lensmaster will come eventually.
Another example of the business of love is doing business with family, friends, and aquaintances online and offline. We do this to help sustain the businesses of those we are committed to and of those persons we somewhat know. See how easily business and relationships are tied together?
I love doing business with those I know and now that my community of business relationships has grown immense with my internet activity, I pretty much always know someone I can do business with that is not a total stranger.
My in-the-business-of-love relationship with Backwoods Bracelets and More is a prime example of doing business and loving the fellas with whom I am doing business. Products, service, and artistic design talent are excellent when in the hands of Adam and Edmond (Facebook Page).
Check out those lovely paracord hand-woven crosses I ordered for Christmas--two as gifts and one for myself. Can you guess which of the three crosses now dangles from the rear-view mirror of my car?
Earlier today I contacted Adam with a query about a yin-yang design. Within minutes Adam had shared a couple of photos of his ideas brainstorming around my ideas and my order was placed--again, a gift for a friend. Ain't love grand!
Are you in the business of love with someone?
I invite you to SHARE the LOVE in a blog post and link up with me!
Submit the TITLE of your BLOG POST and the LINK URL for your BLOG POST to this list for any SHARE the LOVE blog posts you publish in JANUARY of 2013.
I have been pondering the balancing act of life of late. In fact, I have come to the conclusion that quite often LIFE gets in the way of LIVING.
I have even left this phrase as a comment once or twice this past week on articles published by friends.
Yesterday I wrote myself a note to write about the topic of life getting in the way of living and loving.
Well, today, I have reason to pretty much table that article; rather, table the time frame of the writing as well as the reason for writing on the topic.
Life is a balancing act, as most of you well know. We must often weigh work and responsibility against love and laughter. Today, I choose to balance the two alongside one another because of an article written by a friend which tipped the scales right over!
Each Thursday, my friend Brenda publishes a blog post through her blog hop Pondering With A Purpose. Brenda issues a writing prompt and all are welcome to write their own blog post and link it up with hers through the blog hop.
The Pondering With a Purpose writing prompt for this week?
That word is linked directly to her post. Go ahead, click on it, read it! I did! And it touched my heart to tears when I did so.
On my list of ToDos for the day was to post my blog article for my own blog hop, SHARE the LOVE. When I weighed that responsibility with my work day it was plain to see that I could not in all good conscience write my blog post without love and laughter tipping the scales in Brenda's direction.
So today, I share the love with Ms. Brenda and I ask that you do same. Read her post. Introduce yourself. Leave her a comment to let her know she is loved or say something to give her good reason to smile.
And if you feel the need to commit a balance act of love for yourself or someone else--blog about it and link right up with SHARE the LOVE.
Submit the TITLE of your BLOG POST and the LINK URL for your BLOG POST to this list for any SHARE the LOVE blog posts you publish in JANUARY of 2013.
As I thought about my post of Celebrate Magazine Love for today, I could not help pondering if Magazine Subscriptions of the printed kind would one day find themselves a thing of the past. I'll hold on to that thought for another article another day.
The magazine subscription I wish to share with you today is one that many of my peers subscribe to online--Celebrate Magazine on Squidoo.
Celebrate Magazine is your go-to gift guide for all occasions, holidays, and celebrations! Naturally, we are all signed up on Squidoo to create and publish articles so this would be a magazine of interest to us. Of course, not only do we subscribe to Celebrate, we submit our own articles to the magazine!
From this contributor list you will be taken to that Squidoo lensmaster's page which lists some of the articles they have in the Celebrate Magazine on Squidoo.
Ruthi ... Yes, shameless self-promotion of my own articles.
My introductory image for this article show you my current favorite magazine subscription--the print version of Poets & Writers Magazine. Yes, I am a die-hard lover of print publications!
So tell me ...
Are you Subscribed or Will you Subscribe to Celebrate Magazine on Squidoo?
Feel free to share your Squidoo Magazine Contributor links with your comments.
Also, you are invited to blog hop along with SHARE the LOVE throughout the year. I look forward to what you feel love and share worthy.
Submit the TITLE of your BLOG POST and the LINK URL for your BLOG POST to this list for any SHARE the LOVE blog posts you publish in JANUARY of 2013.
Many of my readers might agree, we cannot share love without sharing s bit of ... I guess nobody can tell us about it better than the one, the only ... Paul Anka
There are, of course, those big ol' boys who jump right into our lives on all fours and take over our hearts. I will let Buckhawk introduce you to these Gentle Giants; rather, Great Danes.
For you ladies out there who are the truest of puppy lovers, I ran across the cutest puppy dogs ever--puppy dog purses! Yes, handbags! Head on over to the puppy purse gift guide, by GabrielaFargasch, and pick out your pooch!
Now, no longer in my teens, I have cried my share of tears over lost loves, including the truest of puppy loves--that of a loving companion of the canine kind--my dog, Scratchy Sunshine.
No doubt you have a tale of puppy love to share.
Share it with my readers right here; or, better yet, write your story as a blog post and link up with SHARE the LOVE blog hop!
Submit the TITLE of your BLOG POST and the LINK URL for your BLOG POST to this list for any SHARE the LOVE blog posts you publish in JANUARY of 2013.
If you follow me across various blogs and forums you will learn from whence I came, with one of my favorite descriptive phrases for such being "Buckeye born and bred in the hills of Ohio, USA" which, of course, I added to one of my postcards.
Earlier today, I was reminded of one of the things I love most about my home state of Ohio and that is its state motto: With God All things are possible.
Growing up in the hills of Ohio I pretty much lived in rural areas. One of the belly-warming memories I hold dear is an often eaten meal baked up by my Momma. Squidoo friend, Frischy, will tell you all about the Johnny Marzetti Recipe and where it originated.
There is much to love within the state of Ohio; the best of all being that here is where the loved ones in my family mostly live.
Where do you live?
Is there something to love from whence you came?
SHARE the LOVE in an article or blog post and link your love up in the blog hop!
Submit the TITLE of your BLOG POST and the LINK URL for your BLOG POST to this list for any SHARE the LOVE blog posts you publish in JANUARY of 2013.
On this journey of love I began for the new year I fully expected to travel many roads leading to many different kinds of love. And, sure, I expected self-love to be one of the paths I might encounter. However, I did not expect it to be me so soon nor did I expect the pathway to loving oneself to arise in such a roundabout way as I discovered in my wanderings today.
Sharing with you where a few little love jaunts took me to but first I want to simply ask that you spend more than a few moments really listening to the words of this video share.
Without hesitation, my initial response to the simple question was, No. I do not. I do love myself but with conditions.
Then I listened to the words of unconditional love being shared with me and I knew, know, that I have loved myself unconditionally, just as I have loved others unconditionally. I know there are times when I love myself and others just the way they are but then there are those times when I do not love the way I am or the way 'they' are, so I guess my love is not as unconditional as I would like it to be.
For the betterment of self and of others, you can bet I will be spending a bit more time on the simple question of unconditional love.
Did you ask yourself the simple question of unconditional love hidden in the words of the video?
Please share your response.
Visions of valentines are fluttering about in my heart and mind, lovingly induced by MissMerFaery. You simply must visit her lovely Valentine Fairies to enjoy the magic of love via the fae. I found quite a few divine valentines amid the festival of love and romance.
Now, this truly is a live greeting card! We could send these greeting cards all over the world and together we could plant and grow a world-wide-web garden of "I Love You" beans.
Chris Brockman is, among other things, gifted with a talent for writing words of love. Chris is a published author and I will share his latest publication with you in a moment. Allow me first to introduce Chris through a sampling of his love poetry.
Today I did not have to look far to find a bit of love to share with you. A visit with Sara Duggan was emotional as well as inspirational. Sara's Welcome 2013 post for New Year's Day centers on mother love.
While reading Sara's blog post and listening to the video song she shared in her article, I was reminded (through a teardrop or two) of how mothering is not always easy, for the mom nor for the child. Yet, I smiled, for as I read and listened memories of my mom and of my son flooded my mind. For awhile I allowed only the memory of good times as a mother and as a child to enter my stream of thought.
Thank you, Sara!
And yes, I will share my own creation of the day, inspired by Sara Duggan...
Did visiting with Sara inspire childhood or motherhood thoughts of love within you?
I invite you to share those loving thoughts here today. Better yet, why not publish a blog post of your own about love and link up with SHARE the LOVE blog hop!
Throughout 2013 I will be blogging each day on the topic of love. You can link up with me any (or every) day to share your own posts on the topic of love.
Submit the TITLE of your BLOG POST and the LINK URL for your BLOG POST to this list for any SHARE the LOVE blog posts you publish in JANUARY of 2013.
When love is on the mind the scent of love fills the air, leading the way to
lovely things to share with one another. Planning to post a SHARE the LOVE collection on my RedGage profile I was sidetracked just a bit by the Romantic Art
of PoeticEnigma.
My favorite in the artwork collection is, for the moment, Stages of Love. Browse through the collection and let me know which is your favorite.
Yes, I was delighted to discover a link to this artist's work on Zazzle, too! Visit gothicpoet's Store at Zazzle for designs available for purchase.
Happy New Year blessings and a bit o' sunshine to you in this first week of the year 2013!
I am preparing to get back to writing about love this year and delighted to be doing so via the blog hop SHARE the LOVE, and yes, this is a blog hop I just an hour or so ago decided to introduce here on abitosunshine Love and Writing.
The idea came to me while updating an article of mine on Squidoo, so I switched gears and began blogging. Share the Love on Valentine's Day will get updated on another day!
Do you agree the world will be a better place if we all share the love? Good, then blog hop along with SHARE the LOVE!
Of course, getting this blog hop idea today puts me behind already! All is fine, though, as I will catch up before the year is through as a year is 365 days!
My first share is a treasure to give and to keep and I will let LisaAuch tell you all abouthow to give the gift of love in a keepsake box. Lisa's heart is obviously filled with love, much like the gift box she shares in her article.
I certainly plan to follow Lisa's lead and directions for creating a gift box filled with love to give to someone who is in need of a bit o' lovin'. How about you... Do you think Lisa is on to something here that can be used to share the love throughout the year?
Submit the TITLE of your BLOG POST and the LINK URL for your BLOG POST to this list for any SHARE the LOVE blog posts you publish in JANUARY of 2013.
Now it's time to hop on over to link up with Squidoo Sunday with Noner Says! It is always a pleasure to see what treasures she's sharing on her blog hop this week. Come along and have yourself a peek!
