Give thanks for Spring.

March

by James Wright

A bear under the snow
Turns over to yawn.
It’s been a long, hard rest.

Once, as she lay asleep, her cubs fell
Out of her hair,
And she did not know them.

It’s hard to breathe
In a tight grave:

So she roars,
And the roof breaks.
Dark rivers and leaves
Pour down.

When the wind opens its doors
In its own good time,
The cubs follow that relaxed and beautiful woman
Outside to the unfamiliar cities
Of moss.

Happy Spring Everyone!  It’s bright and sunny here in Boulder, Colorado; but, the air is cold.  Daffodils are showing off their post-it yellows and some brave cherries are blooming puffs of white.  All signs that Spring’s here and hibernation is about over.  Still, I’m groggy.  How about you?  Better look alive before I start singing “wake-up, wake-up you sleepy head; get-up, get-up, get out of bed; cheer-up, cheer-up, the sun is red; live, love, laugh and be happy….”  Hey, when a girl’s gotta sing “the red, red Robin comes bobbin’ …” she’s just gotta let it out!

James Wright’s last image: “unfamiliar cities of moss” reminds me of how neighborhoods look once the trees have leafed out.  Sometimes I don’t even recognize where I am.  Do you ever get distracted by a bed of flowers and find that you’ve missed your turn?  Happens to me all the time.

If only Spring wasn’t such a dizzying burst of activity.  There’s so much magic happening at once.  Spring must be one of Mother Nature’s most laborious times.  Pushing out leaves, grasses and flowers; thawing, cracking, moving rock & soil; not to mention prying grumpy hibernators out of warm, safe dens; it must take as much energy as birthin’ a baby!   Poor Mother Earth, no wonder she’s in a hurry.  She’s pushing through the labor in anticipation of her long awaited, beautiful creation: Spring.  Sounds familar.

Before closing, I want Joann Spicer to know that I received her great cards.  Many of them were children’s birthday cards and they were a blast to look at.  Here are two examples, sorry for the bad picture because these cards are CUTE!

There’s so much talent in the card artist community; it just floors me!

Thanks Joann and everyone else who makes Project Give Thanks a continuing success!

Bright Sunny Hugs for you all,

Sonja

PS  Can’t find my glasses so this post may have some doozies in it.

Give thanks for a blast from the past…

This is my 81st blog message.  Thank You Everyone for supporting Rocky Mountain cancer fighters through Project Give Thanks.

Here is one of my first posts introducing myself, my sister Michelle Zindorf and explaining my hopes for Project Give Thanks:

Day & Night – Yin & Yang – Sonja & Michelle

Hey, thanks for checking in with Project Give Thanks and me. I am a spiritual life, lived in the moment.  Surviving breast cancer is one of the many things I’ve experienced in the last 51 years.  I’ve also grown two beautiful children, Sarah & David, and helped raise two year old grandson, Bodhi.  My passions are people, plants and music.

My sister is the famous (sometimes infamous) artist Michelle Zindorf.  I’m just kidding, as you know she’s a totally good egg, now.   But, it’s my privilege as the oldest to jerk her chain every now and then.  Being the oldest must have some rewards to make up for the “old age” jokes one endures.

While Michelle is the artist who makes radically awesome cards, pastels and water colors; I’m the writer who fills cards, journals and blog pages; the one who spent several teenage years locked in her bedroom writing cool & groovy poetry from under overgrown bangs.

Lately, I’ve admired Michelle’s wonderful art community and watched for a way to join in.  I’m not a stamper.  In fact, on my first attempt at stamping it took me almost an hour to stamp three bees in a straight line and Michelle is still laughing!  Finally, now I can connect with card-artists on my own, through Project Give Thanks.  They are generous and fun loving people and I am confident they will help support Cancer Survivors through Project Give Thanks.  Just watch!

There are so many possible ways for people to connect, communicate and support one another.  I hope that this humble project will do all of that and more.  I Give Thanks for your interest and support.

Hugs, Sonja

Michelle Zindorf & Sonja Knaisch Florida 2004

PS  If you don’t know Michelle’s work, check out her daily tutorials http://zindorf.blogs.splitcoaststampers.com/category/tutorial/

They’re free and totally awesome!

Give Thanks for patience.

Patience of Ordinary Things

by Pat Schneider

It is a kind of love, is it not?
How the cup holds the tea,
How the chair stands sturdy and foursquare,
How the floor receives the bottoms of shoes
Or toes. How soles of feet know
Where they’re supposed to be.
I’ve been thinking about the patienceOf ordinary things, how clothes
Wait respectfully in closets
And soap dries quietly in the dish,
And towels drink the wet
From the skin of the back.
And the lovely repetition of stairs.
And what is more generous than a window?

Recently, I considered closing Project Give Thanks.  It was breaking my heart but cards were not magically appearing and all of the card fronts had been made up and given out.   Evidentially I was not being patient enough!  Last week my mailbox had packages of cards and card fronts in it every day!  Woo Hoo!!!

Here’s who saved Project Give Thanks this time:

Jeannie Kenney of Freeport, IL (plus $10 for envelopes, wow!  thanks!) (a Stampin Up demonstrator)

Kellie Cook of Champaign, IL (who has a Yorkshire Terrier living in her purse

Michelle Zindorf of West Alexanderia, OH (aka “my Sista”)

Valory Johnson of Zeeland, MI (who repeatedly gives thanks)

Heather Lewis of Apo, AE  (I’ll use Heather’s many “Save the Hooters” cards to send to women I meet who confess to not having a monogram lately or EVER!  Yes, let’s do save some hooters!)

and…

Jo Spicer of Kansas City, MO emailed to say a package is on it’s way!

Did I already say WooHoo?  Ladies, Project Give Thanks lives!!!  I thank you.  Rocky Mountain Cancer Center thanks you.  And, of course the brave folks fighting cancer Thank You!!!

Check’em out…

I’d fix these wacky photos but I have got to run to get Bodhi!

Hugs All!, Sonja

Give thanks for visitors (well, some visitors).

Hey All, I was just thinking… if you want to be motivated to tidy up the house invite a friend over.  If you want to be driven to vacuum under the furniture invite an interior decorator.  But, if you want to get all-out-curraaazy and clean at the cellular level, find mice in your kitchen!!!

That’s what’s happened in my cooking sanctuary; my poor lil’ kitchen was invaded.  There’s been a frenzy of mice, traps, bleach, bubbles, cussing…  Tomorrow, I’ll rebuild and hope there are only two legged visitors from now on.

The critters know we’re getting a big snow storm tonight.   So do the babies.  My daughter said that yesterday the entire labor & delivery department, in Cheyenne, was filled to capacity and crazy with activity.  Glad we’re not expecting a baby house guest, you know what kind of cleaning that entails!

Hope all your visitors are welcome and full of joyful hugs,

Sonja

Give thanks for pen-pals.

The small act of sending a card is a "big thing!"

I’ve had a pen-pal for almost two years.  Her name is Cathy DeVere.  She and I breifly  worked together at a plant nursery in Boulder.  Because she “did the books” she mostly stayed in the back office.  Routinely, I’d to go back and share some enjoyable chit-chat.  We considered each other friends but didn’t hang around outside of work.

Two years ago Cathy was diagnosed with a form of throat cancer.  I don’t even know the name of the disease because it wasn’t a common one.  Cathy fought hard.  She continued to work even though she needed to be fed through a tube.  A specialist would come to work, hook up the feeding tube and feed her.  Working was her way of staying alive.  Also, one of her Sons was going to be married on a beach in a foreign land and she was hellbent on being there with him.   She had to work to afford the trip.  With great difficulty and with as much energy as Cathy could create she went to the wedding and she said it was worth every bit of struggle. When she talked about the wedding and family time together, her smile revealed her joy.

Pen-pal relationships: unique, beautiful and nourishing

After Cathy was first diagnosed I sent her a card expressing my outrage over the unfairness of it all.  It was a full card of wishes, encouragement, hugs, and healing vibes.  She returned a card thanking me and that was the beginning of our pen-pal relationship.  At the time, I didn’t know that I too had cancer.  You can imagine that after my diagnosis our letters became something extra-special that we needed and cherrished.  Because we were both undergoing treatment, it was challenging to get cards.  (This is one of the ways that I knew cancer fighters needed beautiful free cards available to them in the chemo infusion room.)

Bodhi helps deliver YOUR Project Give Thanks cards to RMCC.

This last 8 months, Cathy has received your cards, from me, as I encouraged her to stay present, eat whatever made her happy (frosties & Jamba juice) and to spend time sitting near a sunny window with her cat in her lap.  She was loosing her battle.  Cathy sent me a card saying that she “needed a miracle.”  I ached to give it to her.  By then she wouldn’t let me see her because she weighed 95 pounds and “was a concentration camp prisoner.”  I sent a pair of warm, soft, extra-small pajamas, home baked cookies full of nutrition and continued to send cards.  This Christmas her husband sent a card to me on her behalf.  It was the last from my pen-pal.  Cathy passed away on Monday, January 23rd 2012, pie day, now a bitter sweet day for me and those who loved her.  Cathy didn’t know about pie day but she would have liked it.  Wherever she’s gone I hope she’ll find another pen-pal and someone to celebrate her release from the painful grip of cancer; from her “prison.”

Thank you, everyone, for helping me encourage and comfort Cathy with your beautiful handmade cards.  She sincerely enjoyed them and always commented on their beauty.  I felt giddy over sending them to her because I knew they would make her smile every time she looked at them.  Also, I sent her 6 of your PGT cards to use and she sent one to me!  It made me so happy.

Your art is filled with the essence of who you are and that brings paper, images and words to life.  I encourage you to send your art to everyone you know and maybe save one or two for someone you don’t know.

Today, all of my hugs are going to Cathy.

Good-bye Cathy, enjoy your peace. I'll miss you pen-pal.

Love, Sonja

Give thanks for time to “stand and stare.”

Leisure       by William Henry Davies

What is this life if, full of care,

We have no time to stand and stare.

No time to stand beneath the boughs

And stare as long as sheep or cows.

No time to see, when woods we pass,

Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass.

No time to see, in broad daylight,

Streams full of stars, like skies at night.

No time to turn at Beauty’s glance,

And watch her feet, how they can dance.

No time to wait till her mouth can

Enrich that smile her eyes began.

A poor life this if, full of care,

We have no time to stand and stare.

This is a gentle reminder to take time for yourself today.  Experience something you were missing before and give thanks.

Sending tree hugs to you,

Sonja

Give thanks for holidays.

Good Grief!  I missed it!  How is this possible?  I live for pie.  How could I have missed National Pie Day?????

Well, I won’t miss it next year and neither will you.  The American Pie Council says “ celebrating the wholesome goodness of pie is as easy as 1-2-3.”  (that’s 1/23)

Tomorrow I’ll make up for this gross oversight.  I’ll buy not one but two pies!  Mom’s Pies, of Niwot Colorado, here I come!

I encourage all of you to treat yourself to a hot cup of tea, a warm piece of pie, a scoop of vanilla bean ice cream and a sunny window to enjoy it in.

So now what?  Valentine’s Day is weeks away.  What yummy sweetness is there to look forward to now that Pie Day has passed?  Can’t imagine anything as satisfying and tasty as fresh baked, flakey crusted apple, cranberry, peach, blueberry, pumpkin… pIe.  Sigh…I feel a sugar crash comin’ on.

What’s this you say?  Whaaat?  Today!   Today is National Chocolate Cake Day!   Man, I gotta GO!  Somewhere in Boulder, there’s a triple decker dark chocolate – mocha filled cake with my name on it.   Ya’ll fend for yourselves.  I’ve got some thanks to be giving. Till next time…

Hugs, as light and sweet as shaved Belgium chocolate and as warm as apple pie à la mode,

Sonja