April Love 2015. Day 29. My Eyes

I am near sighted and have worn contacts since about 1976. As I have grown older, I also need reading glasses, so they are permanently hanging around my neck (I never got bifocal lenses to work for me). Due to hyperthyroidism, my eyes are not symmetrical, and my eyelids are very heavy. So heavy that in 2006 I had eyelid surgery, courtesy of our national health. Since then they have dropped down again. I also recently found out that I have starting cataracts on both eyes, and will probably need surgery for that, maybe soon.

April Love 2015. Day 28. Clouds

I wrote earlier about my current obsession, which is collecting found hearts. This little heart cloud was one of the first ones I found, about 4 1/2 years ago. I was sitting on our deck, Sigve was home from hospital, recovering, and life was good.

April Love 2015. Day 27. Love is...

Love is a journey,

not a destination.

April Love 2015. Day 26. Something beginning with A...

For this one I have to go with Artwork. 

Here is one of my doodles.

April Love 2015. Day 25. Simple pleasures

Today I wore a skirt (well, anything other than jeans actually, for anything other than a special occasion) for the first time in years, and last night I had a glass of wine in a plastic cup in my hotel room. I'm at my practical spirituality workshop, which is amazing.

April Love 2015. Day 24. Trees

I have lots of tree photos in my archives, but I can't access them right now. I'm on my way to a weekend workshop on practical spirituality, and walking in our inner landscapes. This tree was my view as I was waiting for the ferry to get off the island I live on. Photo taken through the car window. It was cloudy and raining, but I'm excited for the weekend.

April Love 2015. Day 23. When I was small

It was the early 50's, and my parents and I lived in the south of Norway. My dad was adventurous and the job market was difficult, so he and my mom decided to try for a life in the United States. My dad went first, to get a place to live, a job, and get settled, and my mom and I followed a year later. While we waited to go, he would send me presents like pretty dresses, and when I got this doll, I was over the moon. Those kind of things were not that common in Norway back then. 

We lived there for three years, from I was 3-6 years old. I went to kindergarden and first grade, and the english I learned while there made me bilingual ever since. 

However, my mom was homesick and not comfortable being so far away from all of our relatives, so they decided to move back to Norway. My mom, my 2 year old brother and I went back first, while my dad stayed on to work and save up more money before he joined us two years later. 

April Love 2015. Day 22. Spring/Autumn

Leon, our youngest grandson is just starting out in life, and he was 2 months old when this photo was taken, six months ago. It was 5 days after my husband Sigve's 59th birthday, and 11 days before he died. I am so glad Sigve at least got to spend the 2 months with Leon, but at the same time I'm sad that he won't get to see him grow up.

April Love 2015. Day 21. A Happy Memory

The birth of our first grandchild,

and grandparents get all silly.

April Love 2015. Day 20. My scent

I don't use any kind of personal scent, even my deodorant is unscented. Perfumes are allergy triggers, so I have avoided them. I also worked in a shop, and in consideration to allergic costumers we didn't wear any scents. 

I do like to light incense in my house, though.

April Love 2015. Day 19. I live here:

April Love 2015. Day 18. Sweet

Sweetness beyond anything I could ever imagine. My two grandsons, Helmer (4) and Leon (almost 8 months).

April Love 2015. Day 17. A life changing book

I would have to say "The Secret". I actually saw the movie first, 

in the summer of 2008. I was attending a training program, learning to use The Lightning Process, and a fellow participant recommended it to me. It was the gateway to my mindfulness and self help journey, and it really did change my life.

April Love 2015. Day 16. 10 years ago

10 years ago my husband and I, both slightly reluctantly, went on our first cruise. We didn't know if it would be our kind of vacation, but we had decided to give it a try. As it turned out, we loved it, and went on many more over the next 10 years. Some of our very best friends were made on one of them.

April Love 2015. Day 15. Yellow

Every night I slice up a fresh lemon, 

soak the slices in water overnight, 

and drink the lemon water in the morning, 

sometimes hot, sometimes cold.

April Love 2015. Day 14. My current obsession

is so definitely finding hearts in nature

April Love 2015. Day 13. Love note to self

My darling,

You have lost so much, and I feel your pain. Your heart has been torn to pieces. Sometimes you have no energy, you are sad and lonely. I get that.

Allow yourself the time it takes to heal. You are so much stronger than you think, and you have already started the healing process, even if you don't see it yet.  

Be lovingly bold and brave as you seize the opportunities that come your way. You deserve all the goodness there is for you. And I promise you, you will like it, your new life. It will be different, but it will be awesome. You will be so grateful you're alive.

Please stop feeling bad when you feel like you don’t measure up.

Don’t be so hard on yourself.

When you do your best, it is always enough.

Love myself xoxox

And a love note from my late husband:

This rock heart holds a very special meaning to me. Last week I was walking on a small rocky beach near to where my late husband and I lived for 25 years. I always find heart shaped rocks, and that day as I was chatting to Sigve in my mind, I said: "draw my attention to a heart, but let it be special and let there be no doubt that it is a heart. So none of the rocks that could be a heart if you look at it from a certain angle." So I was looking and found several of those could be hearts, and I nearly gave up and prepared to leave when my eyes fell on this one. There was no doubt in my mind. The rock is the size of the palm of my hand, so I took it with me.

April Love 2015. Day 12. Evening rituals

While this is not a big ritual, sometimes I need to collect my thoughts before I go to sleep, and since I let go of my former belief systems, the old evening prayers didn't work any more. So I came up with this one instead.

April Love 2015. Day 11. An inspiring person

They are so many. Some of them are:

- My son, who was diagnosed with 2 autoimmune diseases at age 13, and struggled with them until he died at 29, in 2012. He had so many odds against him, but he hung in there to the very end. His courage and strength continues to inspire me.

- My husband, who through our 35 year journey together until his death in 2014, taught me to “take every opportunity you get to do the things you want now, “later” may be too late”. And “if you can’t change it, handle it the best way you can”.  

- My daughter, who first lost her brother and then her father, but through it all, she was and is my rock and support.

And then there’s Paolo Coelho.

April Love 2015. Day 10. My superpower

My superpower is the knowledge that I am enough. I don’t need to depend on anything outside myself to make me good enough.

I was raised in a Christian family and environment. I was taught to trust and fear God, love Jesus, believe in the Bible and that Christianity was the only true Way. God was good, just and almighty, and He kept his eye on me. By myself I was a horrible sinner, not worthy or in any way good enough. I could only get God’s acceptance through what the bible said Jesus did for me. I could never be enough by myself. 

In later years things happened in my life that made me start to question this belief system, and long story short, I had to get rid of some old baggage for my life to make sense again. I had to redefine my image of god, and in doing so, I ended up rejecting most of what I used to believed in. 
I have realized that I am enough as I am! 
So this is it, this knowledge, that I have the ability to bring out the resources and powers I need in my life. I just have to look inside, it’s already there, and has always been.
(I mean no disrespect to anyone who finds comfort in their beliefs, but this is right for me.)

Min superkraft.

Min superkraft er erkjennelsen om at jeg er nok. Jeg er ikke avhengig av at noe utenfor meg skal gjøre meg god nok.

Jeg har vokst opp i kristen familie og miljø. Jeg ble opplært til å frykte og stole på Gud, elske Jesus, tro på Bibelen og at kristendommen var det eneste rette. Gud var god, rettferdig og allmektig, og han holdt øye med meg. Jeg selv var en forferdelig synder, uverdig og på ingen måte god nok. Jeg kunne bare bli akseptert av Gud gjennom det bibelen sa at Jesus hadde gjort for meg. Jeg kunne aldri bli nok på egen hånd.

I de seinere år skjedde det ting i livet mitt som gjorde at jeg begynte å stille spørsmål til dette trossystemet jeg hadde, og for å gjøre en lang historie kort, så måtte jeg bli kvitt en del gammel baggasje for at livet mitt skulle ha mening igjen. Jeg måtte fullstendig omdefinere gudsbildet mitt, og dermed endte jeg opp med å måtte gi slipp på det meste av det jeg tidligere hadde trodd på.

Jeg har skjønt at jeg er god nok som jeg er!

Så dette er min sannhet, at jeg har evnen til å hente fram alle de krefter og resurser jeg trenger i livet mitt. Jeg trenger bare lete i meg selv, de ligger der, har alltid gjort det.

April Love 2015. Day 9. Five years ago

In 2010 Sigve had received the leukemia diagnosis and was facing a stem cell transplant (with stem cells donated by his sister Gerd). The prognosis was not great, but we were positive. So in July we went off on a camper van vacation, both of us very conscious about the fact that it could very well be our last vacation together. I am very grateful that the treatment went well, and we were actually given 4 more years together.

On one of the last days of our trip I shaved off most of his hair, as he was going to have chemo, and we thought it was better to lose a little rather than a lot of hair.

April Love 2015. Day 8. From where I stand

This was my hiking area for 25 years before I moved a year ago. I went back and walked there today, and it was pure nourishment

April Love 2015. Day 7. What nourishes me

My 2 grandsons are my heart and soul. I love spending time with them, now often with a bit of a bittersweet feeling because my husband won't get to see them grow up, and they won't get to know him. 

My husband's death last October threw me completely out. We were married for over 33 years. I have lost my soulmate, best friend, the love of my life. My biggest supporter and fan of my artwork, my hiking and travel companion.

There are so many things I have to learn how to do on my own now. it is such lonely work.

I have very few friends close by, so my online community is very important to me. 

Art nourishes me. I make silver jewelry. i draw, write and photograph.

I love spending time in nature, especially by the ocean.

Travel nourishes me. Seeing new places, meeting old and new friends.

I dropped out of most of these activities when Sigve died. I have managed to keep up hiking in nature and photography.

I need to ease my way back into what I know works for me. 

April Love 2015. Day 6. Touch

Sigve and Helmer
My husband (who died on Oct.30. 2014) and our grandson. 
They had a very special bond.

April Love 2015. Day 5. Favorite colors

- sometimes they are the greens of spring.

April Love 2015. Day 4. Shadows

and hearts keep finding me

April Love 2015. Day 3. An inspirational quote

April Love 2015. Day 2. Favorite flowers

These days daffodils are showing up in gardens around here. They are a sure sign of spring, even though they were covered in snow yesterday.

April Love 2015. Day 1. My morning view

My morning view 

is a lovely pot of fresh basil on my kitchen counter.