My Birthday in Pureto Rico!

Although this is not a picture of Puerto Rico, I have to say that I'm really in Puerto Rico for my birthday, today April 2nd!!! I'm on vacation. My schedule is so hectic at home that I didn't have time to talk about me going on vacation. But, I'm here.

I will be in Puerto Rico for two days before getting on the cruise ship. Yes, I will be crusing the Southern Carribean for seven days and let me tell you, what a great way to spend time looking within.

I want to say that I got up this morning for dawn meditation and prayer but I didn't. I wanted too, but there is always tomorrow. I got up to get online to handle a few things that I forgot to handle and I'm sitting by large double windows of my hotel room feeling and seeing the sun peek between the buildings. It's letting us know that it is a new day - new beginnings. How we are so magnificently blessed to get so many new beginnings!

If everyone in the world all took a long and deep breath at the same and exact time, we would still have enough air and sun to take a million more! Feel the joy in knowing the abundance that we live in!

Better Basket Blog Hop by Hershey

I'm so excited Dori From a Yellow House in England pulled my shirt tail to bring my attention to this sweet way of making an everlasting deposit into this world and I'm so happy to do so.

I love baskets and especially when they are full of love. I accept.

Just today, I helped plan and participated in my daughter's Easter Party and yep, she and her classmates ran crazy with their paper baskets looking for those colorful eggs. It's a joy to see, hear and be a part of innocent laughter.

I aim to hear the voices of other children through the Children's Miracle Network via their Hershey's Better Basket Blog Hop. Hershey’s has pledged to donate up to $5,000 to the Children’s Miracle Network. How wonderful is that?

I'm going to pass the torch to others that can help in this effort. Join in to make your deposit into life! They are:

SeLah's Necessary Room

Cam's Journey Wildly

Thank you Dori and thank you ladies!

HERSHEY’S BETTER BASKET BLOG HOP RULES*

Copy and paste these rules to your blog post.

Create a blog post giving a virtual Easter Basket to another blogger – you can give as many Virtual Baskets as you want.

Link back to person who gave you an Easter Basket.

Let each person you are giving a Virtual Easter Basket know you have given them a Basket.

Leave your link at BetterBasket.info/BlogHop comment section.

You can also find the official rules of this #betterbasket blog hop, and more information about Better Basket with Hershey’s there.

Hershey’s is donating $10 per each blog participating to the Better Basket Blog Hop to Children’s Miracle Network (up to total of $5,000 by blog posts written by April 4th, 2010).

Please note that only one blog post by each blog url will count towards the donation.

We See You

We see you.

We recognize you.

We respect you.

We adore you.

We honor you.

We understand you.

We feel you.

We pray you.

We see you.

We. love. you.

Listen to your heart: Yele Haiti delivers Over 400,000 Gallons of Water Throughout Port-au-Prince

Soak in Beauty

After returning home from a three-hour class thinking about what topic I will select for my school project and while my daughter sometimes sleep soundly in the back seat or listen to her dance music, I can't help but to feel sometimes the pressure on my shoulders to handle it ALL.

Taking deep breaths is equivalent to taking long hot bubble baths scented with lavender. Deep breaths are fast and easy to do and you want to talk about pleasure? It is sometimes so pleasurable for me that I am engulfed in sheer relaxation. Then I'm able to soak in the beauty of all the wonderful things around for us just to simply enjoy.

When I get out of the car and the weather is perfect for viewing the stars, my daughter and I gaze and listen to the stars speak to us in the same way the ocean demands our attention. We can soak in all of Creation. It is our gigantic bubble bath. All we have to do is recognize Creation, speak back to it by showing our gratitude and with our souls, love it!

We are blessed with the ability to soak in Creation's beauty. Take full advantage of it!

Do you truly want peace?

Sometimes we feel we are surrounded by walls of rigidness, lifelessness and yes, even doom. But understand these feelings come from one place and that's from our minds. Fortunately, our thoughts are not who we are. You've read this statement many times here on Operation You. Writing this statement with repetition reminds me that my Essence is the source that I want to feed my mind, allowing positive thoughts to flow through me. I write to remind you as well.

Peace doesn't come through our minds. It comes through our essence, our being, our souls, our hearts because we are peace. We were born with peace. We generate peace. We receive peace from one source and that is our Creator! Peace is breathed into us every minute of each day.

All we have to do is see peace everywhere we look and we will, without a doubt, feel it because it is within. We are able to see it in others and in any event. The beauty is that no matter what chatter is going on in our minds and what situation or event that is plastered on the television, we can still see and feel peace. Awesome!

I'm so thankful! I leave these words with you from Howard Thurman. Read them out loud because when you do this, you will understand that all there is for us to do is to be open to our purpose here on this Earth. We all have a purpose or else we wouldn't be here!

The Goal of Life is God!

The source of Life is God!

God is the goal of man's life, the end of all of his seeking,

the meaning of all of his striving.

Howard Thurman

(Taken from 40 Day Mind Fast Soul Feast - Michael Bernard Beckwith)

Leap of Life

Hey Everybody!

Well, it's been a long, long time since I last posted but I do have some exciting news. I've been diligently working on completing my first manuscript. This one is my baby. Sure, I have other incomplete works that are sitting around begging for my attention but the one I'm working on now is my first leap into writing novels. The title is called Stone Cold Secrets and I have an elated soul because I have the opportunity to be creative until my heart is content!

It's amazing how Life takes you on this wonderful and sometimes bumpy ride only to drop you off right where you started. It's the purity, peace and creativity that scurried you along when you were a child. It's the enthusiasm to see what is just around the corner that will thrust your soul forward. You have to make the leap and if you don't, the bumpy part of the journey of Life becomes the reminder of the smooth part. That smooth part of Life's journey is where and what you should be doing to make a meaningful deposit into Life.

I'm thankful for the bumpy part of the journey because it is the piece where guard rails are GENTLY and lovingly supporting us on both sides to keep us going on the path of Life. We will eventually end up right back where we started and that is to love Life, ourselves and others and to give of ourselves unconditionally. My friend, this love is a natural stepping stone to ultimate creativity and that's how our Creator expresses itself through us. We create beautiful masterpieces in this Life and our essence is a stamp on other people's lives along the journey!

Happy Inspirational Monday!

Lovin Ms. J!

She loves to sing

She loves to dance

Her eyes tell what she is feeling within

She is strong and yet meek as a lamb

She is silly and yet the pain of others she understands

She hides her face from violence but she goes boldly towards peace

Her name is Ms. Jannah

I'm soaking in all of her lovin!


She takes photos all day, everyday!

Love Conscious

I've missed yet another Conscious Friday over at Se'Lah's Necessary Room. I continue to think about Se'Lah and Conscious Friday so I consciously feel like giving a little consciousness in dedication to Se'Lah. Loving Se'Lah is so easy!

Everyday my sincere intent is to consciously check my love status. From minute to minute, I evaluate my words, my thought patterns and my actions to understand my behavior and what place my reactions or responses come from. I ask myself, " Is that ego or love talking?" I began doing more of this looking within after attending the meditation retreat.

During meditation, I'm so excited to understand the clarity that resonates within me. I understand why specific people are in my life and believe me, I write it all down in my journal to remind me over and over again. I discovered that every single person that is in my life is there for a reason and I am in their lives for a reason. When I wrote my chart identifying the names and the reasons why they are in my love, peace and understanding swirled around me like the winds of a tornado. I no longer needed to ask that question, why?

I consciously practice love. It can be so challenging sometimes especially when my mind/ego tells me that this person doesn't deserve my love for whatever reason. I am love. We are all love. To try and separate love from the essence of who we are is like our bodies trying to function without a heart. Love is breathed into us by our Creator. Isn't that just divine? The very breath that we take to keep us alive is love. Love heals us. It challenges us. It feeds us. It showers us with compassion. Love allows us to be thankful and grateful. Love is peace. It is simply our lifeline! It has to be or else we wouldn't be a part of this beautiful creation!

I'm consciously loving you and accepting love everyday. Every hour. Every minute! I know you are too.

"I Love You" Month - Ms. Kim

For a long time I wanted to write about his spectular woman but there weren't any words within me that could begin to measure the respect, love and admiration I have for her. When you are gifted with a person in your life that strives to see love and only love in everything and everybody, it's only a matter of time before you aspire to see the same love.

Kim has been my "bestest" friend for over twenty years. We have cried together, laughed together until we held our bladders and yes we have even disagreed, but we never once stopped being friends, "sistafriends." Neither of us won't let that happen. My sister Doris who has left this world coined the word, "sistafriend," or maybe she got it from somewhere, I'm not sure. But Doris used "sistafriend" to describe Kim simply because she was closer than our friend.

My sistafriend loves God with all her heart and has the strength and confidence to stand boldly in the love that heals all! I'm so grateful that her spirit chose me and and my spirit chose her to reflect on this gift called life together and we have a great time doing it!

My daughter calls Valentine 's Day, "I love you" day so I decided to call February, "I love you" month along with Black History Month. I wanted to reflect on the people that I love just because...

So, I'm sending love to all of you and all the joy that is within all of you wonderful Beings, I pray that it shines brightly!!