Surviving Devastation and Turning it Into Spring

Image taken from http://therealsouthkorea.wordpress.com/2009/01/07/spring-in-busan-korea/

While I was still working as a Technical Writer for a small tech company down in Pleasant Grove, Utah, in the community chat it was brought to our attention that the sister-in-law of one of the founding members of the company was going to be on the Oprah Winfrey show.

I decided to check it out and followed the link. What I found touched my heart and broke it. What I found was a woman who had suffered a horrible small plane crash, with her husband. The pilot, a close friend, was killed. Her husband had to bang and rip their way out of the burning aircraft. He got out. She could not. He ran to the window and you can imagine the panic, the desperation and the fear. There was no other way, except the way that he had gone, which apparently was engulfed in flames. Somehow, she turned herself in the direction she need to go and she made it out. She rolled around on the ground putting out the flames. Burns covered over 80% of her body. She was put into a medically induced coma for multiple months so her body could heal. When she woke up, her children did not recognize her, her baby who had only been a few months old at the time of the accident, would not come to her. *She* didn't recognize her.

Her ordeal is not over. However she has walked a good portion of the beginning path in this new life. She has had up days and down days, sad days and glad days, mad days and joyful days, desperation and exaltation.

When I found the link to her blog, I spent a couple of hours, pouring over it--backwards--from most recent to the furthest back. I read her story by days and by moments. At times she made me smile and my heart leapt with her bravery, and her sense of humor. At times, her story and her frustration and heartache brought me to tears.

This woman is a woman of courage. A woman of fortitude. A woman of faith.

She is a woman whose life was catastrophically altered from the happy, beautiful path it had been on--changed into something new, and something different, but hopefully, and what is looking to be, a new, happy and beautiful path, just of a different kind.

Her story also speaks of the power of family; of commitment; of love; of marriage through sickness and through health; it speaks of the power of community and of loving and serving your fellow man. It speaks of seeing the things that are truly important, the things that are inside of a person--not the shallowness of clothes, of cars, of shopping, of physical appearance--not the shallowness of keeping up with the neighbors, or having the latest and greatest of whatever trend is floating about on the moment. There is beauty in the human soul--in the divine spirit that is in all of us, if we will only open our eyes to it, and people, all of these people that walk around us and inhabit this planet with us, are more than just a brain inside a physical vessel of flesh that talks and breathes and eats and does.

She does not know me. I do not know her. But she is a person that can touch you just the same, if you let her. I admire her for her perseverance, for putting her feet on the floor every morning, for her tears and for her love; I admire her for her faith and for her hope; I admire her for not losing her trust in God and in a bigger picture. I admire *Her*.

Her name is Stephanie Nielsen. If you are looking for somewhere that hope is, if you are looking for somewhere where love is, if you are looking for something uplifting or something that will help you to put life into perspective, her story, her perspective, may help you to find those things.

http://nieniedialogues.blogspot.com/

Here's to you Stephanie--may your recovery continue successfully--may your heart always grow--may your faith wax strong--and may you continue to touch the hearts of strangers and loved ones alike.

Double Time to Party!

Image taken from: belloyescakes.com

1,000+ Visitors

Wow!

So I've surpassed the 1,000th visitor--that's pretty exciting...especially since I began my true visitor count from "0."

I'm not sure who all of my interested parties are, well, I know who some of you are, but I think there are quite a few who happened on my site by chance. Thanks to all of you for the visit! I hope you've had some fun perusing around and checking things out. I know I've sure had a lot of fun putting it together.

The other big milestone I see is that I've had my blog for a whole year! October to October. Honestly that's amazing!

Happy Birthday Beautiful Distractions!
One GIANT year old!

Image Taken from: foodchannel.com

I have to admit that I haven't posted nearly as much as I expected to, but I'm hoping to get better at that. One thing though, I've loved keeping in closer touch with friends and family, I've enjoyed the new friends I've made, and I have loved reading and looking and exploring other blogs here on blogspot.

Thank you one and all...and I hope you stop by again soon!

October is here at last...

My Photograph of the Mountains in Utah County, September 2009

"Delicious autumn! My very soul is wedded to it,
and if I were a bird I would fly about the earth
seeking the successive autumns."
-George Eliot-

October is my absolute most favorite month of the year. It is primo Fall -- the middle of Autumn and everything delightful before the weather changes and really turns into Winter. The leaves are changing, the air is crisp, night comes on earlier, the cooling air smells like leaves, grasses, apples, hay and dirt and like it is actually clean. The geese and ducks fly away, away, away, in great masses over head. They stay over in the fields as they make their journey, and their honking and quacking wakes the morning skies.

Here in the mountains, everything changes very quickly. One day it's 98 degrees and the next it is delightfully cool and down in the 50's and 60's. Unfortunately it lasts for a very short period of time, which is really my only complaint.

"I want to tell you what hills are like in October
when colors gush down mountainsides
and little streams are freighted with a caravan of leaves,
I want to tell you how they blush and turn in fiery shame and joy,

How their love burns with flames consuming and terrible
until we wake one morning and woods are like a smoldering plain--

A glowing cauldron full of jewelled fire;
the emerald earth a dragon's eye
the poplars drenched with yellow light
and dogwoods blazing bloody red.
Traveling southward earth changes from gray rock to green velvet."
-Margaret Walker, October Journey-

Looking out my window at work, I have an amazing view of the mountains, and I've noticed the color pattern changing over the past couple of weeks. Reds and yellows have replaced the dusky greens and some of the browns. Today, the mountains are white capped from the snow they received yesterday. It rained in the valley but snowed up in the mountains. I'm o.k. with that. No snow down here just yet, but white, snowy, beauty at a higher elevation...I'm all for that!

Fall always reminds me of the excitement of change. Probably because after a fun summer it was time to go back to school. Time for learning and libraries, books and papers, sweaters and jackets, apples and popcorn, crisp walks outside, kicking crunchy leaves with booted feet, football games, new friends and if I was lucky, maybe some kissing and hugging from a new love interest. Of course, some of that is long gone in the past, being an old married lady these past 17 years...but a girl can remember and dream about what use to be.

"Well, it's a marvelous night for a Moondance
With the stars up above in your eyes
A fantabulous night to make romance
'Neath the cover of October skies
And all the leaves on the trees are falling
To the sound of the breezes that blow
And I'm trying to please to the calling
Of your heart-strings that play soft and low
And all the night's magic seems to whisper and hush
And all the soft moonlight seems to shine in your blush."
-Van Morrison, Moondance-

All of my romances took place in the Fall--meaning that's when they kicked off. Every last one of them. No matter when they ended, they always kicked off with sweaters and falling leaves. Not sure how that worked out but it did. By October, love was always in full swing. Maybe that's why Fall weather always conjures twittering heartfelt emotions and I always look forward to it. What's not to love about love and leaves and sweaters and boots?...o.k. and maybe some hot chocolate too!

I remember the thrill of a new love! Sparkles in the eyes, coy looks and sidelong glances, secret smiles and contemplations, schemings and dreamings, secret hands held under the cover of an afghan hoping that no one noticed but not really caring in the end if they did. I remember well the kissing on the picnic table and the gentle groping and grasping and sighing by a glowing campfire, the smell of leaves and smoke, noses and cheeks nipped at by cool mountain air. Flushed cheeks, warm skin and dusky voices murmuring against swollen lips and against dewy napes of necks. I remember leaves in my hair and a little stick or two, from tumbling around on a blanket under an Autumn Moon. What is not to love and value and sweetly reminisce about love found and indulged and coaxed along in the magic of an Autumnal eve?

"All things on earth point home in old October: sailors to sea, travelers to walls and fences, hunters to field and hollow and the long voice of the hounds, the lover to the love he has forsaken."
-Thomas Wolfe-

October is always magical for me. Mystical almost. I always have felt earthy and close to nature...feeling that Mother Nature is at her "homiest" during this time. I know, I know, all you crazy people who can't wait for Spring, and all the rejuvenation that comes with it...I get it...but Fall...that's when everything is quieting down, calming down, cooling off, resting, finally so much work is done, and now it's time for a chair by the fire. The bottling of fruits and vegetables has been done. Harvests have been reaped or are in the last stages of being gathered in. The garden has been plowed under, dirt turned and seeds are going to sleep. The cacophony has tempered and your ears are resting. The heat of the summer sun has diffused and the sun is lower in the sky, easier on the eyes. It's a great time for walks, and contemplating what has been and what will be moving forward.

I have always felt fully a woman during the autumn. Knowing of herself, of her mind, of her soul. I have always known that there is more than just the daily grind. The moving of cars and people, the flickering on and off of electric lights and plumbed water. In autumn, the soul sings out in its fullness, letting everything around it know that there is more than the mechanics of living, but that there is also light and vibrance and beauty, that there is music and magic and myth to be sought, and seen and found!

"On the motionless branches of some trees, autumn berries hung like clusters of coral beads, as in those fabled orchards where the fruits were jewels..."
-Charles Dickens-