It’s Alright…He Moves In Mysterious Ways…

God, that is.

I cannot get the U2 song out of my head as I just lugged home a box of someone else’s ‘trash’ under one arm for two blocks while trying to hold a dog leash in the other. Proved to be anything but easy…but it was worth it and I will tell you why.

I was not planning on adding to my collection of ‘stuff’ as I set out to walk Maggie for her mid-afternoon romp around the park.

In fact, it couldn’t have been more opposite. This past week I have been on a spring cleaning rampage. I keep warning Justin that if he doesn’t keep moving he might get thrown out as well. THAT is the kind of mood I have been in lately. My good friend Bo Wong from Myorganiclife blog has been inspiring me lately to get rid of just about any and everything-especially that which no longer serves me.

She has managed to fit her past 8 years of life down to a mere 8 boxes or so-and if she can do it-I sure can get rid of unnecessary items too!!! It has felt liberating loading tons of unused clothes, unread books and the such into the car and driven to the local thrift store. I actually FEEL lighter upon getting back in the car and driving away from it all. The importance of de-cluttering my life is another blog post idea altogether, which I will absolutely write and give it the proper attention it deserves, as it really is changing my life in a few new and exciting ways.

Let’s backtrack to the past 5 days or so as I have been brainstorming of creative ideas for my sister’s upcoming baby shower I am throwing for her in a couple weeks and I have held myself to a strict budget.

It’s going to a a garden tea party-very anthropologie-style if you can imagine that in your head. Having just dropped my work days at the salon to a mere one day a week now-even tighter budgeting and penny stretching is essential. My idea for sending each attendee home with a lovely little something started to add up to more than I was able to afford at this time but I wanted it to be something beautiful in celebration of my new niece or nephew on the way.

So I settled on the idea of mason jars topped with these awesome rusty chicken wire lids that have separate sections to put picked flowers in and separates them by stem. It makes for a beautiful and rustic arrangement, which is the look I am going for…

On my to-do list yesterday was to order the supplies-both mason jars and toppers. I placed the orders for the toppers and felt good about the deal I was getting by ordering in bulk. Then I looked up mason jars online and they were not exactly expensive-but not exactly budget-worthy at this time. I was surprised but told myself to sleep on it and make a decision in the morning as to where and how many to buy. I scoured my own cabinets and managed to come up with half of what I would need.

I felt better knowing that I could try to purchase only 8-10 more and hopefully find a deal.

I went to get some blood drawn earlier this afternoon and as always I can’t wait to jump in the car as every time I do I get to listen to inspiring podcasts from Hay House and other encouraging and teaching sites.

The woman being interviewed-Esther Hicks-was telling a story about how she started this way to deal with feeling overwhelmed by how much she has on her to-do lists (I am pretty sure we can ALL relate to this) and so she has learned a method that has helped her much.

She divides a piece of paper into 2 columns. In the one column she writes the things from her other list that are ‘very important’ that she do that day-things that she absolutely has to take care of.

The other column is then filled with all of the other things that she really does not have to address that minute or that day for that matter…and she labeled that column ‘things that the universe has to do’ for her instead. I was driving along and laughed out loud as I heard this and thought- wouldn’t that be great if I can try to do that??? Just let things that are not really that important but still make the list-just go and let the ‘universe’ or God deal with it for me.

Intriguing.

I decided to start a little experiment of implementing this new technique into my life and see how it goes.

This is where it gets funny. No sooner did I get home form the errands when I needed to take Maggie for a walk. But I told myself-as soon as I get back I will separate my list and see what unfolds.

And on that list in the back of my mind were the mason jars.

The next steps that followed were interesting-the walks that always seem to turn out the coolest and most intriguing are the ones that take turns and twists I never saw coming. I had intended to take Maggie for just a short walk around the block as I didn’t have much time today.

However, she began pulling so strongly toward the park that I gave in and off we went on completely different route than I had set out to go.

No more than 5 minutes into our walk I noticed that the local school was just getting out and that the usual serene park was filling up with kids screaming, carpool lines and buses with their engines running. Craving more of a quite and peaceful outing, I turned down a street I rarely take just in order to bypass the noise and impending pollution.

We wandered down a quiet street toward the beach instead and got whiffs of the salty beach air as well as a glimpse of the silvery waves of the ocean as the afternoon sun shone upon them. This is much more what I had in mind. I said a thank you to God for the lovely detour as we rounded the corner and headed home toward our street.

Not more than 5 houses from the corner Maggie stopped to go potty and I let her wander over to a bush to do her business. a box on top f a recycle bin caught my right eye and I turned my head to see a box of-you guessed it-MASON JARS sitting there right at waist level.

WHAT? All perfectly clean.

All exactly the size mouths that would fit the lids I had ordered. And there were exactly 8. Which is so far the amount I am needing based off of the number of RSVP’s so far.

Here’s the kicker- plopped right in the middle of the jars was a brand new unopened box of lipton tea mix-a bigger box-completely wrapped and perfect.

As if I needed to ask what that was for. Hello-tea party?

I was wanting to offer many different types of tea and one I had in mind was an iced sort…this one is a good base for either hot OR cold. Incredible. Might seem like a small thing to some-but I knew it was a gift exactly for me.

So…if this is the kind of thing that happens without even making a list-imagine what will start when I do….

THANKS GOD.