I am inspired by this photo. I have a collection of about 40 vintage cream colored vases. I want to find a way to display them and enjoy my collection. This cabinet is wonderful, maybe I will find a piece of old furniture similar to this one. The hunt is on, it will probably take some time to find something like this.

Adore Each Phase of Your Life

Dear Gorgeous Soul,

Beautiful friend . . . Try not to wish your years away. Wishing you were younger, or older. Wishing the signs of aging would go away, or wishing you could get through this phase of your life in a flash.

The world needs more women who embrace their wrinkles, who love their time at home when their children are small, who know the power of wisdom gained through being alive for so many years, and who are absolutely comfortable in their skin. The world needs more women who sing through life's winters, who dance even though their bodies jiggle, who count the laugh lines as decades of wonderful memories.

We are women. We are brave, and we are beautiful, and we are real.

Let's be happy exactly where we are, now, and at every age.

When we can adore each phase of our own life, we give each other encouragement to do the same — wrinkles, cellulite, crying children, loads of laundry, bifocals, and all.

You are so so sooooooo loved...just the way you are.
xoxo

Melody Ross     www.bravegirlsclub.com

Keys To Happiness from The Daily Positive

While there are a lot of things that contribute to feeling happy, there are 3 specific keys to happiness that I want to share with you.


The ability to live in the present moment.

The ability to accept and love yourself just as you are, no matter what happens.

The ability to freely BE yourself, no matter where you are.

1. Living in the Present Moment
Whenever you’re able to stay in the present moment, and not get lost in your mind, it is SO much easier to be happy.

You know what happens when you’re mind wanders backwards and dredges up the past, and what happens when it drifts off into the future. Usually this results in all sorts of uneasy emotions and thought patterns that don’t work for you.

But when you stay in the present moment, none of that exists. No past, no future, just now. And in the now, you’re here, and you get to just BE. That is a place of ease and peace, where happiness shines through.

2. Loving Yourself
When you accept yourself, like yourself, feel love for yourself despite everything, then you shift out of judgment, comparison and resistance.

What remains is ease and peace, and happiness shines through.

3. Being Yourself
And when you love yourself, the flow on result is you’re much more likely to willingly BE yourself in all situations in your life – irrespective of who you’re with, what’s going on, or what you’re doing.

You’re comfortable in your own skin, and you show up as the same authentic you in all moments.

Common Sense
It makes sense right… because obviously being lost in your mind isn’t a recipe for happiness. Your mind seems intent, when left to its own devices, to focus on things that aren’t helpful and finding reasons not to be happy.

And when you don’t accept, like and love yourself, and you’re therefore not comfortable being yourself, there is no freedom. There is no genuine happiness.

For these reasons, learning to live in the present moment and learning how to accept, like, love and be yourself in all moments, are KEYS to a happy life.

From The Daily Positive www.thedailypositive.com

Small Steps In Your Life

The greatest things that have ever been done in life were all made up of a whole bunch of little actions, taken one after another. There really is just about nothing that didn’t work this way.

This is very good news, fellow soul, because this means all of the tiniest decisions we make, and the littlest acts of courage, and the smallest steps we take toward our dreams really are making a difference. This means ALL of us are capable of great and amazing things, if we remember to keep valuing and doing the little things we feel compelled to do and our hearts know are important. Sometimes, these small things don’t seem to be much at the time, to ourselves or to anyone else. But, all of the good things matter, every single one of them.

Sometimes, the good things we do change us, and that was the purpose of those things. Sometimes, the good things we do help others, and that was the purpose of those things. Sometimes, the good things we do are one tiny piece of a giant puzzle, that would never be complete had we not done those things. Sometimes, the good things we do meet all of these criteria! Do you see how every one of these things matters?

So keep taking tiny steps, doing simple things, valuing the small and the beautiful.

It matters. You matter.

You are so very loved.
xoxo

Melody Ross    www.bravegirls.club

Mug Rug from SewCanShe - free pattern

Tea Time with Friends – BFF Mug Rugs Tutorial

JANUARY 22, 20194 COMMENTS

Valentine’s Day is just around the corner and we have the perfect little gift for your BFF! Our BFF Mug Rug is here to celebrate that person in your life that will sit with you and chat over tea, coffee or hot chocolate. We’ve designed it to work like those Best Friends Forever necklaces from when we were kids – you have one and your BFF gets one also. So make a mug rug for your friend and keep one for yourself! Come on, let’s get started …

Supplies:

• One Mini Charm Pack or 18 – 2.5” squares (Red-iculously in Love Mini Charm Pack)
• One 10” square or scraps for the hearts (SKU# 22362-12)
• One Fat Eighth or scraps for the mug rug backing (SKU# 22363-11)
• 12wt thread for heart line (SKU# MK12-2435)
• Coordinating 50 wt thread for sewing and quilting (SKU# MK50-2250)
• Spray Baste or Heat ‘n Bond for applique
• Batting (SKU# 8020-8SQUARE)

Instructions:

Choose nine different mini charm squares. Using a 1/4” seam allowance, sew them together to create a nine-patch unit. Make two.

With right side up, place a nine-patch unit on an 8” square of batting. Using coordinating thread, quilt the nine-patch unit.

Trim the quilted nine-patch unit to measure 6 1/2” square.

Using the BFF Heart Template cut out two hearts.

Using the photo as a guideline, place each heart on the quilted nine-patch unit. We used spray baste to keep them in place.

Using a blanket stitch on the sewing machine, sew the hearts in place.

To add the lines, use the BFF Heart Line Templates as a guideline and use an erasable pen.

Using the 12wt thread, stitch on the drawn lines. The thicker thread will give it a hand-stitched look!

With right sides facing, layer the backing fabric on the mug rug top. Using a 1/4” seam allowance, stitch around the outside edge. Leave an opening on the bottom of the mug rug to turn it right sides out. Clip the corners to prevent bulk.

Turn the mug rug right sides out. Fold the opening closed. Using a 1/8” seam allowance, stitch around the outside edge of the mug rug.

Wholehearted Living

Let's Be Brave Together

Can we promise one another to stop hiding? To stop playing small? To take up space and allow the bigness of who we are – the brilliance of who we are – come forth?

Here’s to showing up for ourselves. For living our truths. For giving permission to others to do the same.

I’m over playing it safe.

May we unleash our WILD, our UNCOMMON, our EXTRAORDINARY.

May we unburden ourselves from all that keeps us caged.

And may we show up – every day – for our singular, precious, sacred journeys.

Let’s be brave together.

Kelly Rae Roberts  www.kellyraeroberts.com

Living In Your Integrity

Hold yourself to a higher standard – to always live in your Integrity. YOU BEHAVE WITH INTEGRITY BECAUSE THAT IS WHO YOU ARE. 

Be the powerful person you know you are, at all times, even when the person you’re dealing with is serving you up nothing but problems. 

Decide what type of person you want to be, what your values are, how you want to treat others, what type of energy you want to bring to the world each day. 

You choose to be a conscious human being in this world, and even when others are not treating you well, YOU hold yourself to your own higher values.

Kindness and Boundaries

There’s a common misconception about kindness. It results in leaving one person okay and one person feeling damaged. The fact is, we never ever have to put up with being mistreated in the name of our own selves being kind. Kindness is a beautiful superpower that intentionally leaves all parties better than it found them. When we allow others to continue mistreating us, and we think our job is to just remain kind and allowing, nobody walks away better.

Good boundaries are a combination of truth, kindness, clarity, and courage. We can speak the truth with kindness, even when what must be said is a hard thing to say. When someone is treating us in ways that are demeaning, abusive, dismissive, and disrespectful . . . and we want to be a person who practices kindness, we can respond by respectfully stating our boundaries about what we will and will not allow into our lives and what is and is not okay with us. There is no reason to deliver this kind of truth in an unkind way.

When we continue to pretend that abusive behaviors are okay with us, by returning them with cheerful niceties, both we and the other person are not improving. In fact, we probably walk away from those encounters feeling a deep lack of respect for ourselves, and the other person most likely cannot feel respect for themselves either.

We can leave each other better than we found each other, when we up level the expectations to be that everyone deserves dignity, respect, and REAL kindness. We can do our part by being clear, in a kind way, that true unkindnesses are not okay with us.

You can do it. Just practice. It will leave things better than you found them.

You are so very loved,

Melody Ross   www.braveliving.com


I want to add some thoughts. Boundaries are very important to set when we have mean spirited, toxic, abusive people around us. The toxic venom spewed from others is not behavior that is allowed. We must take care of ourselves and not allow these persons into our lives.

Grow Your Soul

Dear Growing Soul,

Please, dear friend, let yourself keep growing. Do you hear me? LET YOURSELF KEEP GROWING. Let yourself change. Let yourself learn. Let yourself become. Let yourself let go of who you once were if it’s time for you to become something new.

And the fact is, it’s time for all of us to become something new all the time. We are living, growing beings. This means that every time we grow, we are different than we were before. There is no shame in this, there is nothing wrong with this and there is also not a real way to prevent it from happening. Because it is supposed to happen this way.

Who you were is different from who you are. Who you are is different from who you will become. You are meant to progress in this way, everyone is. Don’t let anyone steal this miracle from you and don’t let yourself try to steal it from anyone else. 

Sometimes we have giant growth spurts and we grow out of everything that fit us before. There are growing pains, but it doesn’t mean that it’s wrong. Change is hard and and change is beautiful and change is absolutely necessary.

Grieve and let go of the old, and open your hands joyfully to the new. It will make everything just a little bit easier, beautiful friend. 

It is going to be okay. You are going to be okay. You are just right just as you are, and you were just right just as you were, and you will be just right just as you become. Trust this. Life is a beautiful messy process and you’re growing new wings.

You are so very very loved.
xoxo

Melody Ross   www.braveliving.com

There is something incredibly sad about a person who resists change and growth. A person holding tight to the old.... Old ideas, old clothes, old ways of being, and the fear of new, of change, and of becoming a joyful and beautiful person with changes in your life.

Onion Rings

Today we received a free gift of 50 lbs of onions. There is a local towing and salvage company that had a full 40 ft trailer of onions, from a wreck they took care of last week. We were fortunate that a neighbor filled his truck with many 50 lbs bags of onions, and he gave us a bag.

Hubby decided that he would make up a batch of onion rings today, to eat with dinner.  The seasoning was fantastic, and they tasted terrific. Wonderful!!

Hear Your Heart

Dear Spectacular Soul,

You are so beautiful. You really are. Today is a great day to take a deep look at your beautiful self. What a gorgeous sight you are!

Look right into your own face. You probably wear a smile more often than you feel like smiling. You probably do it to take the burden off others. Look past the smiles and look into your own eyes. You are heroic, you know that?

Did you know you don’t always have to be the hero? It comes so naturally to you, but sometimes it’s okay if it’s too much weight to bear. Take a look at yourself, then close your eyes and hear yourself. Put your hand on your heart and say, “I’m listening to you, beloved, I’m listening.”

Do you hear your own heart? Hear the beating of your own beautiful heart. Hear the longings. Hear the awe and the gratitude. Hear the sorrow. Hear the joy. Hear the excitement for another day of being alive on this earth. Hear her. Hear how wise and beautiful she is. Hear her yearnings, and her calls, and hear her love.

Now do you feel her? Do you see her? Do you know her?

You do know her. She is you. You are her. She is lovely, and beautiful, and trying so hard. She is brilliant, and courageous, and exhausted. She is so full of life and so full of dreams. She is the same you she was as a child. She is full of wisdom now. She is sometimes worried, and sometimes brave, and always so so good. She is you.

Be merciful, kind, and loving to beautiful you. That is how you deserve to be treated. That is how you’ve always deserved to be treated.

You are so very loved.
xoxo

Melody Ross   www.braveliving.com

Promise Yourself

Pruning In The Garden

from Pinterest

This is a great idea to use the grapevine cuttings, it would be a fun thing to create with my cuttings. Then again, it just might end up with a big ol' yellow jacket nest in it!!!

Today, we had a beautiful sunny warm today, about 58 degrees F. This weather is so very unusual for western Oregon.  There is normally snow and cold this time of the year.

I cut back all the asparagus, and grapevines. I removed all the raspberry vines because I want to use the area for other plants.

The raspberries have not been producing, and I am ready to change some of the things that I grow in the garden.

I will been putting two new raised wooden garden beds into that area. One will be used for new strawberry plants. The other will be for new rhubarb plants. I have about 1" of mud on my boots now.....later this week I will be putting organic material in some vegetable beds.

Let Yourself Keep Growing

Hello dear kindred, here's your daily truth...

Dear Growing Soul,

Please, dear friend, let yourself keep growing. Do you hear me? LET YOURSELF KEEP GROWING. Let yourself change. Let yourself learn. Let yourself become. Let yourself let go of who you once were if it’s time for you to become something new.

And the fact is, it’s time for all of us to become something new all the time. We are living, growing beings. This means that every time we grow, we are different than we were before. There is no shame in this, there is nothing wrong with this and there is also not a real way to prevent it from happening. Because it is supposed to happen this way.

Who you were is different from who you are. Who you are is different from who you will become. You are meant to progress in this way, everyone is. Don’t let anyone steal this miracle from you and don’t let yourself try to steal it from anyone else. 

Sometimes we have giant growth spurts and we grow out of everything that fit us before. There are growing pains, but it doesn’t mean that it’s wrong. Change is hard and and change is beautiful and change is absolutely necessary.

Grieve and let go of the old, and open your hands joyfully to the new. It will make everything just a little bit easier, beautiful friend. 

It is going to be okay. You are going to be okay. You are just right just as you are, and you were just right just as you were, and you will be just right just as you become. Trust this. Life is a beautiful messy process and you’re growing new wings.

You are so very very loved.
xoxo

From Melody Ross www.bravegirlsclub.com

This is Me...Everyday!

A Good Idea for Sewing

OK, I just saw this idea....isn't it cute. I will definitely be watching for one of these while I am junking. It is a great idea for sewing - crafting spaces.

Your Life is a Reflection

Our life is a reflection of our mind. We create everything in our life because of the beliefs we have, the thoughts we think and how those drive our choices, actions and results. Everything you want in life is waiting for you. Goals, dreams, aspirations, peace, happiness, health, love, abundance, success... When you master your mind, you master your life.

Loving Yourself

Hello dear kindred, here's your daily truth...

Dear Radiant Soul,

One of the most difficult parts of life, one that requires so much constant learning, growth, and commitment, is that we need to love ourselves in a healthy way.

Loving ourselves and caring for ourselves does not make us indulgent and selfish. In fact, it makes us behave in ways that lead to self-respect. We make decisions and take actions that feel respectful.

When our feelings about our own life and our own worth are true and in balance. We would always want to act from a place of love. It has to start by realizing — that we an infinitely valuable human being.

This is why it’s so important to do the work of healing, and identifying old patterns, beliefs, and trauma keeping us from valuing, loving, and respecting ourselves. 

Our love deepens, expands, and matures when we first start with loving ourselves. It is worth the work, dear friend.

You really are so very loved.
xoxo

Melody Ross  www.bravegirlsclub.com

The Challenge

You really can't begin to know how spectacular you are or how much you are capable of or how strong and brave the depth of your soul is. Because we all understandably see things from such a limited and incomplete point of view, because we haven't learned everything we need to learn yet, it is hard to see that things that feel like failures or roadblocks or hardships are the very things that exercise our soul muscles and keep us in top shape to be able to live out our beautiful and constantly progressing potential.

Life would be so sad and so boring if there were never any wonderful and sometimes painful and difficult opportunities for growth. It is in the growing and the changing and the stretching and the soul exercise that the biggest joys come.

Keep your head up. Keep sweatin' through the soul lunges. You are spectacularly fit for the challenge, you really are. You can do this.

You are loved.
xoxo

You Are Going To Be Okay......

Writing Your Own 2019 Manifesto

Writing a personal manifesto is an amazing experience, when you really think about the things that are important in your life. I did this at a Brave Girls Camp, and some of the women wrote the most amazing papers. I am planning to write a new one for 2019. I believe that many of my readers would find a challenge and enjoy the process.

This is an example for you.

“This is your life. Do what you love, and do it often. If you don’t like your job, quit. If you don’t have enough time, stop watching TV. If you are looking for the love of your life, stop; they will be waiting for you when you start doing things you love. Stop over analyzing, life is simple. All emotions are beautiful. When you eat, appreciate every last bite. Open your mind, arms, and heart to new things and people, we are united in our differences. Ask the next person you see what their passion is, and share your inspiring dream with them. Travel often; getting lost will help you find yourself. Some opportunities only come once, seize them. Life is about the people you meet, and the things you create with them so go out and start creating. Life is short. Live your dream and share your passion.”

— “The Holstee Manifesto”, written by Holstee founders Michael Radparvar, Dave Radparvar, and Fabian Pfortmüller in 2009.


This information is from Lisa Sonora. Visit her at Lisa Sonora

How to Create Your Own Manifesto

Follow these 4 steps to create your own manifesto:

1. Answer the writing prompts in this post. Stream-of-conscious, first thoughts encouraged!

2. Circle your boldest statements and convictions. Rewrite them to be bold and succinct.

3. Find inspiration from the other manifestos shared in this post, and take the ideas that resonate to your own manifesto.

4. Make it visual. Add some images to your manifesto, or use beautiful typography and make your manifesto into a poster you can hang in your home or art studio.



Create Your Own Manifesto Prompts: here are some ideas.


Quirky things I cherish about myself…

Things I like to do alone…

Things I want to try at least once…

I want to say yes to…

I will dare to say no to…

I believe in…

New Year Day

Dear Valuable Soul,

On this most miraculous day of beginnings, remember to let yourself revel in all that it took to get you to this very day and this very moment in your life. You have traveled so many roads of so many different sorts to make it to this place, and it’s only right to look back and honor all you have survived, built, learned, celebrated, endured, healed, burned, planted, and created, all the way up to this day.

It’s wonderful to think about where you want to go next, too. But just for a moment, allow yourself the time to sit with every victory, every failure, every lesson, every relationship, every miracle, every blessing, every sickness, every project, every bounty, every famine, every mountain you’ve climbed, every sea you’ve floated in. All of it.

To make it all the way to this day was a feat that deserves a sense of awe from every cell of your being. You did it. You made it. It took thousands of people who came in and out of your life. It took millions of decisions you made moment by moment. It took so much strength, so much bravery, and SO MUCH FAITH AND HOPE to keep going on lots of those days, didn’t it?

Your life is important. It’s a miracle. You are so valuable that countless things have come together and conspired on your behalf, to get you to all of the exact places you were always meant to be. And you showed up for all of it.

Never forget, dear one, that you are beloved beyond comprehension. You matter and your life matters.

You are so very very loved.
xoxo

From Melody  www.BraveLiving.com