Smell the Flowers

A few months back I was blessed with the opportunity to attend a local high school retreat/campout with one of my youth groups. The youth group was calling it "Pause," signifying the goal of the weekend was to get away from everyone's hectic lives and take a break to breathe and get some time alone with God. It worked.

The time I spent at Pause gave me an opportunity to take a much needed time of relaxation, and reminded me of the importance of taking time to just rest. In today's culture, everyone is always busy. There's a never-ending list of things to do, places to be, and people to catch up with. Sometimes it feels like you're only falling further behind, and never catching back up. It doesn't take long before you're overwhelmed, exhausted, and feeling like you're failing. It's an easy trap to fall into. And a hard one to climb back out of.

I still haven't found the secret to avoiding this pitfall, but I've found a few things that help. One of my biggest is stop procrastinating when I need to do things, and not keep "finding" distractions. But another thing I've found that helps, is allowing yourself some time to stop and rest. Give yourself a break. As one of the other youth groupers put it, take time to smell the flowers.

It's unbelievable how much it helps to take a few minutes, a couple deep breaths, and calm down. Giving yourself permission to rest is key. Don't worry about everything on your to-do list. Just go outside, enjoy God's beautiful creation, read a book, photograph, journal, do whatever is relaxing to you. Forget the stresses of life—allow yourself to rest. And just breathe.

Recently, my "theme song" has been Jonny Diaz's "Breathe." I'd highly recommend it if anything I've said today resonates with you.

Don't wait until school lets out or you get a break from work. Take time right now, this summer, and through the rest of the year to pause, take a breathe, smile, and thank God for your many blessings. Be refreshed and don't regret the moments you spend. Take time to smell the flowers.

Springtime Photos

Today I wanted to share a few of the most recent photos I've taken with you since your votes said that pictures were among your top favorites of my posts. The flower pictures were all taken at a friend's house on the day before Easter. As much as I wish it was still winter, spring is beautiful! Enjoy.

I like the setting on my Fujifilm where it makes everything black & white except a certain color.

You might want to view this one in full screen—I love how it came out!

Isn't this little one so cute?

Oops, how'd that one sneak in there? My kitty!

All photos are © Bethany R. and are not to be used without her permission.

What is spring looking like at your house this year?

February Highlights 2017

Pauses. Sighs. Scratches head. Sighs again.

How should I describe February? It was a relatively "normal" month. At least, as "normal" as my life ever gets. :) While I didn't get half as much done as I'd hoped, I still accomplished a decent amount and I'm pleased with the overall results.

~Summary~

Okay. I figured out how to describe the biggest portion of my month—stress. For the greater part of February I have been studying like crazy for my amateur radio test to get my operator license. The test was Monday night and I had the most amazing feeling going into it. Instead of being horribly nervous like I thought I would be, I had total peace. Even during the test and while waiting for the results, I wasn't very nervous. And guess what? I passed with 97%! I'm so thrilled. Yesterday morning I got my temporary call sign but I hope to change it to something more personal. I am officially an amateur radio operator! Yay!

Besides radio classes, studying, and lots of school, I've also been continuing to attend two awesome youth groups and build stronger relationships with my friends. My younger sister went to Hume Lake at the beginning of the month and had a wonderful time. While she was enjoying the snow, I had a wonderful time staying with my marvelous grandparents. I always love sitting and talking with them, and I had plenty of time to do so!

A few weeks later we went to Pacific Grove to visit with my grandparents again for a birthday. It was a nice time, and we got several more great sunset pictures. How can you not get good ones when the sun is setting over the ocean? #beautiful ;)

That's my Dad taking a picture. ;)

It was also an interesting experience in that because of all the rain and wind storms, trees were falling left, right, and center and power was out in Pacific Grove for over 24 hours! We toasted bread and heated water for coffee over the fire and managed just fine. By the time we needed to turn on the oven for our pizza, power came back on. Perfect timing. Can't go without the pizza. :)

All in all, it was a good month despite the stress. I would ask for prayers though for my Mom, who found out yesterday that she has to have some major dental work done. Thanks!

~Reading~

February started out as a very good month for reading, I was ahead in my plan for reaching 10 books despite the short month but then it came to a grinding halt as studying grew more intense. I managed to complete only three for a total of 738 pages plus about half of the book I'm in the middle of, A Time to Die, which will be added to March's book list.

1. Land of Shining Water: The Icecutter's Daughter, Tracie Peterson (331 pages)
2. Chiveis Trilogy: The Gift, Bryan M. Litfin (407 pages)
3. Ilyon Chronicles: The King's Scrolls, Jaye L. Knight (397 pages)

However, I can say that all three books were extraordinary! I'd highly recommend all of them and I can't wait to get book three in both the Chiveis Trilogy and Ilyon Chronicles. Hopefully March will enable me to get a significant amount of reading done now that the radio test is behind me.

~Writing~

While I still didn't write nearly as much as I'd hoped to, I did accomplish more than 4,000 words on my Dragon Chronicles, which is actually a lot considering everything else. I also set a record for the most amount of words I've ever written in a day—the new total is 2,612! That was a happy day. :)

I've also been continuing to edit for some friends, and I'm finding that I really enjoy editing. Another accomplishment was writing my first draft of a synopsis for my Dragon Chronicles. I'm really glad to have come up with something that I think I like for it.

~Photography~

It was a good month for photography! With all the rain, there were lots of rainbows and everything looked fresh. In addition to the sunset pictures I have above, I also got to do a brief photo-shoot with my sister and our horses.

In a "normal" year of rain, this river is half the size. (Taken in January.)

This is one of my favorite pictures I've taken! Isn't it gorgeous?

All the above pictures are © Bethany R.

~Great Quotes~

A found a few cool quotes this month that I thought you might like too.

“She read books as one would breathe air, to fill up and live.” -Annie Dillard

"If you ask me what book I'm reading I'll either go into a long winded and enthusiastic summary of the entire thing or just lift the book to show you the title and keep reading." -I can't find the author

I don't think this counts as a quote but . . . here it is. :)

~Blog Posts~

I managed four posts in February, the most popular of which was my January Highlights post, followed by A Question of Honor Cover Reveal and Faith Leads to Understanding. I was delighted to find that I got several new followers this month as well—welcome to the blog! I'm so happy that you found me. You helped me reach 40 google followers!

As far as other blogger's posts, I'll just mention two things here. The blog tours for both A Question of Honor and The Princess and I have begun! Both books release March 3, so if you are interested, be sure to check those out! Click on the book title to view each author's first post of the blog tour. I've been too busy to participate in either, but know that if I could have I would have! Congratulations Jesseca and Rebekah! I'm so excited for you both!

Wow, I guess a busy month calls for a long post but I didn't anticipate this being THAT long. Well, if you read all of that, thanks! I hope you had a great February and have a delightful March!

Nature Shots

I recently visited my grandparents in Pacific Grove and pulled out my camera. I only got a few photos of the ocean this time, but I got several of a seagull and my grandma's flowers. To view them larger, just click on the picture. Enjoy!

Isn't the expression cute?

I was so happy with the clarity of this one.

Believe it or not, I didn't take these in sepia. Aren't they cool?

This is probably my favorite of the flower pictures.

I like the framing and colors on this one.

All photos are © Bethany R.

What do you think? Which is your favorite? Any tips for me? Also, as a side note, now that Camp NaNo is over, if you would like to enter the writing challenge but weren't able, I will still be accepting entries for a few more days. Thanks for stopping by!