I just finished the last season of Big love. I am obsessed. It really hits a lot of nerves. My family on my father's side is from Utah and original settlers and polygamists. I went to the University of Utah for my graduate degree and lived in Salt Lake for four years. We go back every so often for family reunions and get togethers. I will be leaving for Salt Lake next week and will be there for my birthday and Christmas with my oldest daughter and my grandsons. They have a lot of snow right now and will probably have more by the time I get there. I can't wait to see the next season in January.

Kicking It
This is an amazing video I watched today. Very moving. South Africa is in my radar these days it seems.

Invictus

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll.
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

William Ernest Henley

Woke up with Walking on Sunshine, by Katrina and the Waves in my head. It has been raining for about four days and the sun came out this morning. After this I'm going for a long walk. I'm playing the song as I write this. I never really liked the song all that much, but it sounds good this morning. Went to see Invictus yesterday. I looked up the poem and read the background. The man who wrote it, wrote it from his hospital bed after he had his leg amputated. Nelson Mandela supposedly had it on his prison cell for 27 years in South Africa. Turns out he actually gave another poem by Theodore Roosevelt to the team captain, Francoise. I woke in the middle of the night with gratitude and thanking God for all that I have. It is so easy to focus on the part that is not there in the glass. I have so much. My cousin is working with families that are sleeping in their cars. I'm going to make gingerbread this morning. I love the smell of it baking.

This morning I got the bright idea to start a blog. I have been unemployed now for seven months and have zero dollars in my bank account and several thousand dollars in debt. It could be a lot worse. This is going to be an account of all the miracles that start occurring from here on out.
Like millions of others, I watched The Secret a couple of years ago, and since then my life has been a roller coaster of ups and downs, miracles and dissappoinments. I need to get my active, creative, thriving life back. I want to start living the life I've always dreamed about. I have come to understand that my inner life is much more complicated and negative than I ever realized. There is a dark side to me that I have pushed away and tried not to confront or even recognize.
So, today is really the first day of the rest of my life. A step in another direction.