When I lost my dad, it was the worst thing yet to happen in my life.  I went through months of grieving, anger being the strongest emotional reaction to the feeling of loss I had.  I spent many hours dealing with healing, and in that time, I had to learn again why I believed what I believed, as for a while, I couldn't believe in anything!

The hardest period of my life was living without believing, feeling so much pain and anger with God for taking my dad away, that I had trouble releasing that...
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The best part of life is having choices whereby we can make the most of our dreams.  The worst part of life is having so many choices whereby we can become lost in all the confusing options we encounter trying to make our dreams come to fruition!  I don't know how we get into stages of life with virtually no sense direction, but we do sometimes.  We can honestly be so overwhelmed with our own freedom, so frightened by the sense of absolute emptiness in our life, that the very knowledge of reb...
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Whenever I've gone on vacations, or visiting new places, I've always had the chance to discover the beauty of the scenery, the culture, and the people; in my life, I've seen some really beautiful and amazing places!  Recently, after visiting yet another new place, I had the opportunity to learn not only about the culture, the people, as well as to experience the amazing splendor around me, but I also had a startling realization about myself!  I'm not just the sum of my exterior parts, which h...
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There are always turning points in our lives, the places we come to along the journey when we have to veer, make an amended plan or alter our course because we've run out of usable road! It's inevitable! We simply must correct as we go. The difficulty arises when we stalwartly cling to our familiar places, our constant patterns, the things to which we are most familiar. It's not easy to adapt when we are hanging on for dear life to what we don't want to release!

What is is about those turning ...
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Life is not easy . . we reach stages in our lives when things happen which we simply do not understand, nor have answers for, which test our self-confidence or take hostage our self-esteem.  We feel challenged and pinned up against a wall, immovable and often incapable of progress.  When in these states, we often feel completely out of control, unworthy and stressed to a high level.  It might be a personal problem with a close associate or loved one; it might be from health issues we seemingl...
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Sometimes in life, we have to learn to say our goodbyes.  It's inevitable.  Life happens, situations change, circumstances occur and those we love leave.  It's not ever easy . . if it were, there wouldn't be a whole industry dealing with grieving and therapy wrapped up in helping people to cope with losses.  The simple fact of the matter is that we are always going to have to learn to face the inevitable thief who comes to steal our steady contentment and joy, replacing it with fear, anger, p...
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I haven't posted anything for a while, I usually regret the time when I have "dry spells" of either motivation or insight, or perhaps I have distractions which cause my blight.  I don't know all the reasons this time to explain away a few months of silence in my thoughts, but I do know what, or rather whom, has inspired this latest entry.  I have a very special reason for wanting to share something from my heart, and the avid desire to write now is only explained by the unbearable ache of his...
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The trouble with me is that I can intend to not let my emotions get the best of me, but just when I am resolved to be determined to not let that happen, that is when they get to me the most!  Our mountains, those challenges which we face, are there to strengthen us, but in that process, they can take us down.  We might be stronger ultimately, but in the process of building our strength, of learning our lessons, in shaping our beings internally, we might just fall, flounder, and err.  We might...

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Some days our cares rain down on us like a torrent . . they pool at first, we hardly notice.  Suddenly, we realize we've been getting our feet wet, we're not comfortable anymore.  The puddles amass as our cares compound, we can no longer find a way to shelter ourselves from the storms.  They come too frequently, they're too intense, we are soaking in troubles, uncomfortable and wishing for a day when we are carefree again, but it seems so far off now!

Wouldn't it be nice if instead of drowning...
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Happy Any Day of Love . . . today, tomorrow, the day after . . the next!! Each day should be a day we freely give of our love, not just one day earmarked for it. You don't have to proclaim it one day for it to be "heard", nor felt by somebody's heart on any given day! There are cards, songs, balloons, candies, gifts, all wrapped up for giving tomorrow, but the greater gift is your love given every day hereafter!

It's not just one day of the year we should choose to share our love or make someo...
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Dry spells, we all have them.  Our creative energies fizzle, our ideas die on the vine, producing no fruit.  We are at a loss for words, we cannot come up with thoughts worthy of expressing and we seem at some miserable place of low creative juices.  Simply put, we haven't a desire to share our spirit!  It's not feeling that sociable!  I have been stuck in such a period for about six months now, unable and really unwilling to share a thought, an idea, longer or more productive than a sentence...
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I've not written for a while, not for lack of thought, but rather for an accidental "drought" of spirit!  I was besieged by a situation which was taking my total energy to concentrate upon the best way to manuever through, around, or over it. 

We all have times like that in our lives, when something more than a speedbump, but rather a major mountain of a problem comes along, one which takes our energy, our joy, our very peace if we let it.  I have spent the last month considering how to keep ...
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I am aware that there are angels amongst us . . . those of divine form, and those of human flesh, performing their functions sometimes unaware of their role in influencing our lives.  They are also angels, those without wings, those who live amongst us and take human form, able to show up and be there just when they are needed.  Accidental you ask?  No, I think not.  I am sure of God's grace in this as well.  For when we but only take notice, there are many instances of prophetic intervention...
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I've gotten several mammograms now . . not my favorite thing to do, as it represents aging, time passing, another potential for my health to go downhill with time.  It's not supposed to be anything other than a preventative measure, but it's been more for a couple years now, as from almost the beginning, they've been a bit abnormal.  It's never been definitively disease, fortunately, I'm so happy to say I've not had cancer, but I felt vulnerable.  I felt vulnerable each time the tech would re...
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Do you find yourself envying someone their mood?  Maybe they are always having a great day, happily enjoying life seemingly all the time!  How can this be?  Surely they have bad days too?  Perhaps the difference between your day and their's isn't in the actual events of the day, but rather how they view the events of their day.  Maybe, just maybe, their day is so great, they are so happy, because they choose to view their day as positive, happy, and filled with blessings!

Maybe absolutely noth...
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If you haven't realized it lately, you don't have to have a reason to celebrate being you, you just have to be you, you don't need to do anything nor be anything but just be you!  Too many times, we convince ourselves that we must accomplish things to applaud ourselves, to acknowledge our worth, or to give ourselves accolades.  We needn't, we don't have to have any reason.  Just being is reason enough . . . that's what is called, shining for no reason!

When was the last time that you just real...
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You needn't wait upon a sea of blessings to consider yourself blessed!  You are blessed and should feel thankful even if there is just one thing today, right now, that you can consider a blessing.  Although, I would dare you to muse further and realize the others!

Look at your life, did you wake up anew today?  Then you are blessed.  Did you share a greeting, exchange some words of love, compassion, or warmth with another living soul?  Then you are blessed.  Did you witness something in nature...
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Life is a process, you can dream about your whole life, plan it out in minute detail even, following your own set course, up until the time that life happens for real.  When life intrudes on how we are living, we must make a detour, we must set our course to new geographical coordinates, and find a new direction suitable for our amended goals.  All of us are learning as we go, we are taking our cues from what happens to us as we proceed, and when we are confronted by things which we must corr...
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In the quest for one trait which would serve me better than others, I would ask for patience, in far greater measure than I have it, nor know it now!  I am a "work in progress" when it comes to patience . . always seeking more, always hoping I will strengthen that "gene".

When it comes to me growing older, my most depleted characteristic, which plummets in direct relationship to the escalation of my age, is my patience.  I don't know as if this can be scientifically proven, but I believe, in m...
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If you want to have a big life, you have to make big plans, design your own big dreams and dream bigger dreams than people think are possible achieving!  Life isn't a trial and error process, it's in the execution of purposeful living.  If you persist that it is only filled with obstacles and occlusions, then guess what?  That's what you'll encounter each and every step of the way!  When you see the inability to achieve something easily as a minor inconvenience which forces you to amend your ...
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You know, you can have your whole way known, your whole life pointed in certain directions, but things can happen which change those courses without your permission as it were.  Suddenly, your pathway isn't the familiar one you were just traveling.  You are pushed into an area of discomfort and fear, all the way around you is cast with a pall of something foreign to you.  

What do you do when you don't recognize your way?  How do you know what to do and how to proceed?  I've found those places...
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Are you always left to wonder, hopeless or hopeful romantic?  We live in a world, where, by the nature of our lifestyles - the busy way we proceed through our days, we are often hitting and missing the mark with one another . . . love is left stranded and abandoned on the rocky shore, battered by the waves, we are beaten down.  We search, we seek, we hope, we wait. We give and expect, until we think, surely there is nothing worth giving and waiting for.  Just when we think we will find love, ...
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It is in the simplest moments when our lives are truly definable.  We can either find our peace, by finding our joy, our spirit's contentment, our live's fulfillment . . .or we can deny ourselves all of this by living as slaves to time, to modern society's expectations upon our lives, and by forgetting to stop along our daily pathways to just be.

Just by being in our lives, we can heal many holes which can rip us apart.  We are not victims unless we allow ourselves to be defined that way.  We ...
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We know these days, the ones which each year stand out and become our most hoped for days!  I'll call them remarkable, but in truth, all of our days should be remarkable!  For us to not label our days this way, each and every one, we cheat ourselves of our precious time.  We have only what number we were promised when we were designed by our Father.  From our first to our last, we decide how and what becomes our legacy of days.
 
This day, 10/10/10 is only going to happen once.  We with our mor...
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Let your sun shine, let the fun shine . . . be your joyful self, let the joy within you out, let your inner child reign!

I realize that as adults, we are all inundated with adult dilemmas.  We are overcome by problems, situations, a world plagued by worries and doubts, troubles and tribulations.  Where does that leave us these days?  We are often unable to find our own sweet natural smiles.  How many days do we walk under a dark dreary cloud, not able to muster a smile, nor to enjoy our lives?...
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AY YI YI . . . that's where this story begins!  I am a proclaimed technophobe.  There is nothing which scares me more than the premise of this box called the computer and all the pratfalls and traps, stumbles and mistakes it enables me to make in the name of progress into the 21st century.  It is my nemesis, my friend, my companion, and my biggest black hole of uncertainty.  It breaks, I go nuts.  It breaks, I go nuts, and it breaks, I go nuts!

Today, after doing without the laptop for about a...
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A classic to me, that movie, "You've Got Mail".  I enjoy the interaction of the characters played by Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks.  It's romantic, simple and lovely.  Two people defy the odds of life, they fall in love despite themselves, with all their animous, they are "meant to be".  Are two people really meant to be?

Well, I guess that depends who you ask.  If you ask a romantic, positive-thinking person such as myself, then the answer is an unequivocable YES!  People aren't limited by love's ra...
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You've all heard this little jingle, at least in America, that the fabric of our live is cotton.  Well, I say, the fabric of our lives is love.  It has been and always will be the binding tie which connects us all.  We are all united by humanity, which is a byproduct of love.  Love is the seed of all creation, whether or not your birth can be a recognizable as the personification of something loving or a result of something less noble, such as an act of lust between two strangers, or even sci...
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Life's a series of lessons, learned as we live, not known beforehand.  They're sometimes scoldings, sometimes they are trophies, awards, and accolades for "jobs well done".  Mostly life lessons are an uncertainty, a way to evolve through the knowledge, discipline, experience, and time, which will all help to form the final form which makes up you.  Life is a way to become more than you started out being, and if you're fortunate, you take your lessons and make the later versions of "you" new a...
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Life is like a sea, sometimes we are on top of the waves, feeling like surfers tackling our problems and making headway with a big grin for all the success we feel. Other times, the waves are complacent little bobs of nothingness,which although still slight swellings responsible for some motion, which barely take us anywhere and we end up feeling stagnant, like we're stuck. Then every now and then, we get those tsunamis, sometimes even in clusters of multiples, which not only scare us, but ta...

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When we are young, we look at our lives ahead as endless, infinite expanses of unfulfilled promise.  We see days stretched out before us as limitless miles left in our tanks, nothing to restrict us, nor to restrain our momentum.  We don't consider ramifications, complications, situations, nor implications.  We only take one day after another like we've all the time in the world!

Somewhere along the way, hopefully later rather than sooner, we begin to see small foretellings of the possibilities...
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Call me special, call me unique, call me one-of-a-kind, but I will not live my life according to the paperdoll cut-out images copied by anyone else!  I want my own life, my own pathway, I don't want to shadow anyone else . . . I want a life that is authentically mine, not a carbon copy, nor a duplicate, nor a contrivance, but rather, reality . . . my own sweet, messy, sometimes stressful, but always real, and a bit bumpy, less-travelled road!

I've had some successes and some failures in my lif...
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Feed your soul with what you require for this life, starving it of anything you truly need for its preservation can lead to its slow demise.  The soul, just like the physical body, requires certain essential nutrients.  Those for most are:  love, companionship, joy, laughter, spirituality, close relationships born of confidence, and peace of mind.   Some may find they can exist easily without any or all of those, but rarely with a contented soul.  The being which dwells within, your spirit, s...
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Whimsy, the art of finding joy in doing the silly things you love to do!  I categorize whimsy as the random desire to frolic, twirl, doodle, lolligag, linger, twiddle, and even dally!

Whimsy is the non-deliberate pursuit of nothingness, of pleasing oneself by partaking of happy-go-lucky random silliness.  I recommend that each one of you partake of random acts of whimsy each and every day, as that is the only way to alleviate the burdens of this world's big weights upon your shoulders.  Whimsy...
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Have you ever stopped to realize why all the adages you've heard your whole lifetime exist?  Because they're true!  Somehow, the good and smart people before you, involved in similar circumstances, decided to forewarn you.  So they made up some clever and precise adages, which people toss around and some actually pay heed.

My favorite is: no good deed goes unpunished.  That is so true.  When you do something for someone else, no matter what it is, if you have any expectation attached, you wil...
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You know, no other organ retains a sense of your emotion like your heart!  It is not just functional, providing the life-giving beats which drive the oxygenated blood through your body, in rhythmic fashion to keep you alive.  It does this without even one action on your part, it is part of a "subliminal" system, an unconscious system which keeps your body going.  The heart also monitors your emotions though, as it most assuredly senses the changes of love's breezes blowing over it's bows.  Th...
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Right now in my life, I'm like an unfinished masterpiece.  I was reminded today when looking at the infant niece of a friend, who is ill and facing heart surgery, that life's brevity is enough inspiration to constantly let yourself be shaped and formed!  I whine too much.  I moan and complain over such silly things.  I know nothing of pain, nor enduring it, in comparison to that of a tiny little 2-month old baby fighting for hers!

When God gives you challenges, it should automatically make you...
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Dreams are what drive us to compose our lives, they make our lives rich with color, beauty, and motivate us forward like our own inherent propellers.  Reality, though, now that's a concept! 

I'm insistent in pointing out that the counter-balance to fantasy is reality.  Seems like that should be common sense, but many people live their entire lives wasting possibilities because they refuse to see the beauty and joy within reality.  It's filled with imperfection, so reality isn't going to be "p...
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I'll be frank here, dreaming is always in competition with my more practical side, the realistic side which screams, "Don't you open up your heart to those foolish dreams, you're just asking for trouble!"  I've admittedly been broken down, busted apart and found myself wondering why I ever dared to dream when they pan out and fall to pieces.  I've always gotten back up, stepped back into my "fantasy", and hoped all over again.  The true nature of a positive thinker is optimism, but also the v...
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I wish I knew then what I know now.  I didn't, and so, I made mistakes, I lived my life with a flawed sense of reality, sometimes quite selfishly focusing on all the wrong things, the things which don't really matter when it comes right down to it.  But you know, I suppose that is what separates me from sainthood, I didn't know, I wasn't perfect, and all I could do was the best I knew to do when I knew to do it!  Lighten up . . . we are imperfect creatures, designed with flaws, made in flesh ...

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As long as we have evil revealed through infertile thoughts, words and deeds of men, we will need to find our comfort and our rest in God's abundant, verdant pastures. - Cheryl Ries, September 9, 2010


We are fast approaching an another anniversary of September 11th, a most notorious day for realizing in modern terms the extent of man's hatred, based on a centuries-old tradition of religious intolerance.  We've seen it played out all too often throughout the history of civilization, as long as ...
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When I was young, there was only one reality for me.  I was only interested in being a wife and a mother.  Looking back, all the things I did, all the activities I practiced, my play, my favorite times, my significance, all was vested in that journey.  Lo and behold, the two things of significance I have not done in my lifetime are those very things which I spent my childhood playtime and chore time in preparation.  I knew how to cook, bake, clean house, sew and I observed with admiring eyes,...
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Welcome . . . I'm using this first post to introduce myself, my name is Cheryl Ries, and although I've written blog posts for a company blog I co-founded, this is my initial entry into self-promotion!  What do you think so far?  Ah, you say it's too soon to tell.  I can only qualify my attributes, my abilities, by explaining my desire to fulfill a lifelong passion for writing.  It's either you who become my noble guinea pigs, or I make my beginner's mistakes in a more serious arena such as a ...

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