Ever caught yourself chuckling over a simple, unexpected joy like a quirky coffee mug? On the latest Create Harmony podcast, I, Sally Burlington, delve into the enchanting world of 'glimmers', those fleeting moments of pure delight that can unexpectedly brighten our days. I'll share a personal tale that's sure to tickle your funny bone and demonstrate just how these tiny sparks of happiness can weave a thread of joy through the tapestry of our everyday lives. And it's not just about laughter—these glimmers can anchor us with a sense of peace and safety amidst life's whirlwind.
As we bask in the glow of life's simple pleasures, I'll update you on the raised bed garden project that's been growing at our house this spring. So, whether it's sipping coffee from a mug that conjures memories or tending to the earth's bounties, let's cultivate an awareness of the good that's all around us, and let those moments lift us through the ebb and flow of daily life.
Ever caught yourself chuckling over a simple, unexpected joy like a quirky coffee mug? On the latest Create Harmony podcast, I, Sally Burlington, delve into the enchanting world of 'glimmers', those fleeting moments of pure delight that can unexpectedly brighten our days. I'll share a personal tale that's sure to tickle your funny bone and demonstrate just how these tiny sparks of happiness can weave a thread of joy through the tapestry of our everyday lives. And it's not just about laughter—these glimmers can anchor us with a sense of peace and safety amidst life's whirlwind.
As we bask in the glow of life's simple pleasures, I'll update you on the raised bed garden project that's been growing at our house this spring. So, whether it's sipping coffee from a mug that conjures memories or tending to the earth's bounties, let's cultivate an awareness of the good that's all around us, and let those moments lift us through the ebb and flow of daily life.
To learn more, go to mycreateharmony.com
Speaker 2:
Welcome back to the Create Harmony podcast. This is a podcast about savoring life's blessings and setting an intentional rhythm. So together we learn how to use our imagination as a way of listening to God. And if you are looking for a place to raise your well-being, you can find it right here. You are looking for a place to raise your well-being, you can find it right here, and if you need to refresh your life, you'll probably find a lot here that you love. In this place, we'll take a few minutes to celebrate those everyday joys and we will remind ourselves to notice goodness all around us. So I'm your host, sally Burlington, and this is episode 74.
Speaker 2:
So in the intro, you heard me say that we look for everyday joys and we want to know how to notice goodness all around us. So we've been having a conversation about those everyday joys, and that conversation has surrounded the concept of glimmers. So glimmers are small moments of peace, joy, safety, etc. And so that's really been on my mind lately. I've been trying to pay attention to things that give me the feeling of peace, joy and safety, even in tiny little, small doses in my life and in my life rhythm. So, on that note, I have a story to tell you.
Speaker 2:
A few years ago we were having this big family gathering. We'd had a lunch and some of our family had driven from further away to attend the lunch and we had the gathering and we were saying goodbye to my cousin. So I got ready to say either have a good one or have a good afternoon. But somehow mid-sentence I really kind of failed to make a decision between these two phrases and what came out, or at least according to my brother, what came out was have a good'n. Have a good'n. Like you in Now, I am a Southerner and we do like to soften our consonants on most words. Sometimes we stop our word before including the G at the end. We are hanging out and eating snacks and talking, so that's a normal part of our conversation here in the South. But have a good'un was a few steps further than I normally go. This is not a phrase that I would normally say, and my brother and my sister-in-law, they had a big time teasing me about the fact that I said that to our cousin. I don't know that that's what I said, but they insist that I said have a good'un.
Speaker 2:
So at Christmas that following year I received you guessed it I received a coffee mug with the words have a good'n written on it and we all had a good laugh. You know we thought it was funny. But let me tell you the rest of the story. When I opened that cabinet in the morning and I see that mug, it's a reminder of the laughs that we shared. When I see it I think to myself well, I believe I will have a good one today and I just grab that coffee mug and I make my coffee. It raises my spirits, it brightens my day and even in the tiniest little dose that just tiny little dose and I share this story to demonstrate how small a glimmer can be. It's a coffee mug with something funny on it and you've got those things in your life too. You've got some funny stories with. You've probably got funny coffee mugs that maybe you're not even paying attention to. But just look around and let those things spark some small moments of joy for you and you can write them down. Maybe you listened to last week's episode and you found a way to capture and dwell on good things. So you know, add some more of those to your list, because there are lots of challenging things in life. We do not have to look hard to find challenging things, but if we mix in those good things, maybe the challenges will get a little easier to endure.
Speaker 2:
So now, at this point, I'm going to shift a little bit and I'm going to give you a garden update. So if you've been listening this spring, you know that we've been working on a raised bed garden project. We built the raised bed because we moved last fall. We're new in this house, so we built a raised bed garden and we put some plants in it, and so the last time I talked about it, I think I had gotten my herbs. I planted some dahlia bulbs, maybe some beets, but since then we've gotten some more plants. We got cucumbers, we got tomatoes. My husband even planted some blueberry bushes beside the raised bed garden. So we got the irrigation going and we were ready. I mean, we have spring started here with our raised bed. But I'm gonna have to tell you there was also a development.
Speaker 2:
So I added some large pots into the raised bed, like we have this big, flat raised bed, but I put some big pots in there to contain certain plants like mint and lemon balm, and these plants, if you don't contain them, they'll grow over all of everything else and they're very invasive. So I thought that it would be a good idea to just buy some big pots and sort of sink them down in there and put the mint and the lemon balm and those invasive things into there to keep them from running all over everything else. However, I forgot a step when I put the pots in there. I forgot to add drainage holes to the pots. So I kind of sunk them down about halfway into the soil and when the irrigation came on and watered them they became like a bog and my new little plants my mint, my lemon balm are just floating around in this bog.
Speaker 2:
So this is a little challenging to fix because it's a full pot of soil that's buried down into a raised bed with a plant in it. My husband was out of town when this happened, but I knew that I couldn't just leave my plants just floating. These are not water plants, so I needed to fix it in some way. So I got the drill and I lifted up a couple of the pots and attempted to drill some holes in the bottom, but what I made was a mess. I mean that soil and the bog and it was muddy and the plant fell out and I was muddy and anyway, it was not the lovely garden I had envisioned and lots of parts of this had to be redone.
Speaker 2:
I did end up finding solutions and getting everything settled back in, but it was a bit of a process and I share this as a reminder to myself and to you that life is going to have unexpected challenges. We know this, but it's just a reminder that in my mind, I had this beautiful garden and I was gonna, you know, grow these things and these fresh herbs, and I was harvesting everything. But you're going to have challenges when you grow a garden, because that's just the way it goes. Now, my garden challenge is pretty benign but frustrating, but it's just a reminder that life is not like what we see on Instagram, full of highlights, right. However, it's worth wading through those challenges to get to the fruits of our labor. You see what I did there growing fruits and vegetables fruits for our labor. Anyway, we all already know that, but sometimes at least, I know that I need to be reminded and I thought that maybe you might too. So there you go Now for our closing.
Speaker 2:
Today, I'm going to share a poem by Donna Ashworth from her book Wild Hope. This poem is called and On we Go. And it goes like this. There is much power in the phrase and on we go. We break and rebuild, knowing we will break again. We lose but still love through and we know the pain won't end. We struggle along alone, yet we stop along the way to help another stand to see a brighter day, no matter what we have faced, how hard we have smashed against the rocks of life, how hard we have smashed against the rocks of life, we wash up, we shed tears, we wail to the skies, we let go, we rest, we brush down, we shake off and on we go. Thanks so much for checking in today and hearing more about some good things and talking about everyday joys and glimmers. Hope you have a good one as you continue your week and we'll be back next week to talk about some more everyday joys. And until next time, peace.