{"id":1847,"date":"2014-11-30T13:59:00","date_gmt":"2014-11-30T19:59:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/savor-life-and-blessings\/"},"modified":"2019-02-18T10:01:52","modified_gmt":"2019-02-18T16:01:52","slug":"savor-life-and-blessings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/?p=1847","title":{"rendered":"Savor Life and the Blessings"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\">\n<a href=\"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/ChristmasNanaKids2-1024x576.jpg\" imageanchor=\"1\" style=\"clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" border=\"0\" src=\"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/ChristmasNanaKids2-1024x576.jpg\" height=\"225\" width=\"400\" \/><\/a><\/div>\n<p>It&#8217;s quiet in my home tonight. &nbsp;The &#8220;gang&#8221; have all left for their homes in Texas and Seattle. &nbsp;I&#8217;m savoring the sweet times we were able to cram into such a short span of time. I&#8217;m archiving so many things that I&#8217;ll remember for a lifetime.<\/p>\n<div class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\">\n<a href=\"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/ThanksgivingLexiBrysonCloset2.jpg\" imageanchor=\"1\" style=\"clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" border=\"0\" src=\"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/ThanksgivingLexiBrysonCloset2.jpg\" height=\"320\" width=\"240\" \/><\/a><\/div>\n<p>My not-so-big home handled all eleven of us. &nbsp;My big concerns about how we&#8217;d make it, were for naught. &nbsp;We were together &#8212; and that&#8217;s what mattered. Laughter, sweet stories of the past, playing pickleball, and getting our family photos taken at such a fun place and fun is what we had. &nbsp;The sweetest memory I&#8217;ll carry with me is Alexia and her little buddy-cousin, Bryson, with their blow-up mattresses in my closet, turned out to be their favorite adventure. <\/p>\n<div class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\">\n<a href=\"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/ThanksgivingLexiBrysonCloset.jpg\" imageanchor=\"1\" style=\"clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" border=\"0\" src=\"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/ThanksgivingLexiBrysonCloset.jpg\" height=\"320\" width=\"240\" \/><\/a><\/div>\n<p>Alexia built a box movie theater that held her iPad for their movie. When I went in to check on them, they shused me out &#8212; they didn&#8217;t want to be disturbed. LOL!<\/p>\n<div class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\">\n<a href=\"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/ThanksgivingNanaPaytonSurprise.jpg\" imageanchor=\"1\" style=\"clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" border=\"0\" src=\"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/ThanksgivingNanaPaytonSurprise.jpg\" height=\"240\" width=\"320\" \/><\/a><\/div>\n<p>Then today, the doorbell rang, and there was a big box sitting on my porch. &nbsp;It was a beautiful new HD TV. &nbsp;My 14-year old Payton (the entrepreneur and technological whiz-kid) went to Best Buy and negotiated the best deal he could for his Nana. &nbsp;My family has been patient with me in my reluctance to get rid of the &#8220;dinosaur&#8221; TVs in my home. &nbsp;Why would I want to get rid of something that works just fine for me? &nbsp;But I think the big football games they didn&#8217;t see in high definition (HD), gave Payton the desire to bless his Nana. &nbsp;And that he did today. <\/p>\n<div class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\">\n<a href=\"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/ThanksgivingPaytonNana.jpg\" imageanchor=\"1\" style=\"clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" border=\"0\" src=\"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/ThanksgivingPaytonNana.jpg\" height=\"240\" width=\"320\" \/><\/a><\/div>\n<p>I was overwhelmed by his precious love for me. He spent so much time investigating to get just the right one &#8212; speaking to the Team Manager, then the Master Team Manager, then the Store Manager. &nbsp;He got the best deal. <\/p>\n<p>Just before the Wallace&#8217;s headed out for home, they had to have a final pickleball match, while my sweet Alexia sang on the clubhouse speaker system. &nbsp;And the finale of the day, was hide-n-go-seek in the clubhouse. &nbsp;We all laughed and ran around trying to keep from being caught. &nbsp;Precious times!<\/p>\n<p>Now, Christmas music is playing in the background as I&#8217;m putting up Christmas decorations. &nbsp;It&#8217;s quiet and peaceful here, but I&#8217;m already missing the sweet sound of laughter, the sibling tiffs, the life that my precious family brings.<\/p>\n<p>And here&#8217;s what I want to leave with you on this Friday night of Thanksgiving weekend. &nbsp;I refuse to call this day &#8220;Black Friday&#8221; and to get caught up in the buying frenzy of this day. &nbsp;Every Friday, is Good Friday, and here is what I wish for you as we approach the most beautiful time of the year: &nbsp;That you STOP to FEEL and SMELL and SAVOR &nbsp;and ACKNOWLEDGE &nbsp;the precious gifts that God provides for you every single day. &nbsp;That &nbsp;you fully appreciate the blessings in your life and not miss a moment. &nbsp;That you take them in and savor them in your senses as if you might lose them tomorrow.<\/p>\n<p>Savor your life and blessings. And thank our God for the gift of it all. &nbsp;And, to know that my life taught you something about your own, would truly be your gift to me. &nbsp;I hope you embrace the moments, the season, the joys and the hopes that this beautiful season of Christmas brings.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It&#8217;s quiet in my home tonight. &nbsp;The &#8220;gang&#8221; have all left for their homes in Texas and Seattle. &nbsp;I&#8217;m savoring the sweet times we were able to cram into such a short span of time. I&#8217;m archiving so many things that I&#8217;ll remember for a lifetime. My not-so-big home handled all eleven of us. &nbsp;My&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[11050,251,11051,11052,11053,1077,2859,8253,11054,11055,862],"class_list":["post-1847","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-blow-up-mattresses","tag-christmas","tag-closet-dwellers","tag-hide-and-go-seek","tag-ipad","tag-laughter","tag-memories","tag-pickleball","tag-savor-your-life","tag-stop-to-smell","tag-thank-god"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1847","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1847"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1847\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3071,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1847\/revisions\/3071"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1847"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1847"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1847"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}