The Beauty of Life!

I still remember being so nervous in my public speaking classes. I always remembered that my professor said to make sure to catch someone's attention at the very beginning and try to maintain that throughout the speech. I am hoping to do the same with my blog. I tried to do that with my beautiful background of the blog. The background is just a template that I found while developing my page. The picture that I have posted I actually got to take from the deck of a cruise ship. It is always so vivid in my mind watching the sun setting down over the water. It almost looked as if you could sail off the edge of the earth. Now that I've explained my reasoning behind the sun sets I feel the need to explain my feelings a little bit more.

A sunset is a very beautiful and peaceful reminder of the beautiful things in life that we take for granted every day. Life just seems to get so busy that we never get a chance to stop and appreciate our surroundings. I don't know about everyone else, but time seems to fly by these days. Sometimes you realize that without even knowing. You can just be driving home from work with so many thoughts going through your head. Then you suddenly look up and notice that all the clouds look like they have been painted purple, yellow and other colors that look so amazing. Whatever was on your mind just goes away for that moment to notice the beauty of life.

I realized just how much I had taken for granted after my accident. I remember being in the ICU, isolated from the outside world by walls. I finally got moved to a regular room, but I could hardly see out the window. The little bit that I could see was the top of the hospital. I finally moved to the Shepherd Center in Atlanta, a month later. I didn't see much of outside while I was strapped down to the stretcher and being put in an ambulance for the ride over. I remember getting out of the ambulance and everything was so bright to me that I didn't really get a good look of the outside world. So later on, they put me in a wheelchair for the very first time. I got to go down the hall way for a test drive. I went back into my room and noticed a window. I drove straight to the window and looked out at the trees. It was so amazing just to see life happening again. Through the trees I could see cars pulling in, and people going on with their everyday life. For that moment, I forgot about everything going on in my life. I was at complete peace, by the simple view through the window.

From that point on, until now I have made sure to take time to appreciate all the beauty surrounding us every day. My challenge to everyone is to take moments every day to look at your surroundings. Just stop and clear your mind for just a few minutes to look into the sky. Maybe you have an inside dog that just wants to go outside for a few. Watch them as they study every little inch of their surroundings even though they have checked it out 1000 times. There's just something peaceful about nature. Even during the dark stormy days you can find peacefulness with the sound of rain. You can also be fascinated by lightning as it crosses the sky. So no matter what is going on each day take a few moments to relax your mind. I hope you have your own peaceful moment.