Intentions and Curve Balls...

The richness of our own lives, creative and receptive,

depends on how closely we identify ourselves with the struggles

and problems, individual and social, as well as with hopes

and ideals of the age in which we live.

                Anita Block

Life has a way of throwing curve balls at us at some point in our lives. If you have ever watched or played a baseball game you will understand what that means. Unexpected changes in our lives that throw us into a different direction and we must deal with it. That is what it means to me.

There have been a few curve balls thrown into my life and the lives of a few people that I care about lately. I have never been that skilled at dealing with curve balls, but I do my best when they do come along. Some of these I have hit out of the park and wondered how. Some I have missed completely and wondered why. There have been a couple of them that I have clipped just the corner of and have hurled them off into the land of unknown. Those ones even with the best of intentions have gone afoul and disappeared out of sight, possibly to return once again. The odd few have been caught by the people in my life who understand me and they have held that ball until I could once again build up the strength to begin swinging again. I know this sounds familiar to many of you out there dodging or hitting those curve balls thrown into your own lives.

Story telling has always been a huge part of my life. During my lifetime, I knew that when those proverbial curve balls have been hurled at me, I would always be able to turn them around or at least get through them by using my imagination and my pen. I am so grateful for that. This blog means a lot to me. My blogger family has always been here to support me through many of my curve balls, and I am also grateful for that. I will continue to blog about my life, dodging curveballs and giving and receiving support from those of you who are dealing with their own curve balls. The ones that were missed completely, or hit into the unknown and not knowing if they will return. This is the place (Blogland) where we all can celebrate together those hits out of the park, a place that has gotten us all through the curves.

I am sharing this with you now because one of those curve balls has had me thinking about a new way to try to straighten a curve ball. My Mom has now been placed into a nursing home, to get the extra care she requires. This was something I guess we all knew would have to be done eventually, but I think we were not emotionally as ready for it as we had hoped.

My Mom has always responded to my stories, the same ones I share with all of you on this blog. The stories of cows, and the shenanigans that go on in my everyday life have had her giggle out loud and smile, that has always been our connection. I had a thought. Could these stories make others smile and giggle too? That thought had me approach the coordinator of the activity center at the nursing home and volunteer to read my Buttons stories to whomever would like to listen. My hope is that my stories will help make people smile just like they do my Mom. I hope she will be sitting in the front.

If I do not faint or get booed off the floor I think this will be a good attempt to straighten out one of those curve balls to make it into a positive thing not a negative one. Wish me luck.

If my blog posts seem to be a bit irregular for a while, you will now know where I am.

Later