In a brochure recently I saw advertised some bandaids. BUT…these weren't just "ordinary" bandaids. They were special ones as they were coloured and had little pictures of animals on them! They were labeled as "kids bandaids". They looked so cute! Perhaps it would make any cuts or any times that you  needed to use them make healing occur  quicker! Every time you would look at these bandaids , you would always have a little smile to yourself!  Sometimes people are hurting inside, and all you want to do is put a big happy animal colourful bandaid all over them and make things better. Of course, we can't do that. But we can throw a soft light quilt of love over people by caring about them and how they feel. A smile, a "thinking of you" word, an encouraging action, are all parts of a

patchwork quilt that can bring so much warmth to a person. Knowing that you are loved and showing your love and care to another are the most precious things in the whole wide world!!

The other day, we received a letter but the sender had accidentally forgotten to put a stamp on it! The address on the front and their own written address on the back were very clearly written…all that was missing was the stamp! The funny thing was that it was postmarked just the day before, so it had only taken the single day to reach us, and yet at other times letters can go missing for days and days even though they are correctly and clearly addressed and stamped! Names are very precious things. When we think of a person's name, it can bring so many lovely thoughts and memories and shared time remembrances into our minds. Thinking of the name of a loved is a treasured thought! And every person who we meet in our lives does leave a "stamp" on our life. Sometimes the "stamp"may be the footstep of a tiny ant, but it still is someone that we may remember years and years later. I am thankful for people who leave ant footprints, elephant footprints, teddy bear pawprints, and all other sized footprints in my life, for each print is a beautiful expression of love, joy and preciousness. Thankyou for the special stamps you make on each other's lives and hearts! ❤️

I was thinking the other day about the dilating eye drops that eye doctors put in your eyes when examining them so as to open up your eyes wider so that they can see more closely the areas of your eyes. For quite a while afterwards, your  eyes look quite wide open and bright! Perhaps we need to drop imaginary eyedrops into our own eyes each morning when we wake up, and have a look at

the world around! May we see the beauty in other people, look closely at our family and friends and people we meet that day with loving concern and seek to support them, and be ready to "stop, look and see"!

I was thinking the other day about the saying: "it is the best thing since sliced bread", and it started me thinking about all the different varieties of bread that can be bought! We can buy white, wholemeal, multi-grain, seven seeds, soy and linseed, pumpkin, white with added fibre, white with added calcium, herb, vienna, cob, sourdough, french stick... and the list goes on and on! There are lots of different varieties of breads, and they all taste differently, but they are all known as being bread. It is a bit like people! We all look differently, live in different places around the world, have different interests, likes and dislikes, have different jobs or go to different schools or unis or kindergartens. We all may spend our days differently, get up and go to bed at different times. BUT…we are all people…who love and care about others and are loved, who breathe and smile and cry and feel happy or sad or excited or fearful. We all have such special travellers with us on this journey through life. Thankyou, each one of you ,for being you, an extra extra special person!

With the cold weather now here, particularly with the low temperatures overnight and in the mornings, it must be quite a busy time for the RACV being called out to assist drivers who go outside to start up their cars when going off to work and school in the morning…only to find that their car won't start up because the battery is dead! Many RACV drivers  need to "come to the rescue" and get these cars going again!

Batteries are important to cars. In our own lives,
being loved and loving each other are what keeps us going, "motoring on" through the day and through our journey through life. Seeing a smile on someone's face is a bit like hearing a friendly "toot" of a horn as a friend passes you by in their car, and the scenery of life is always nice through life's front and side windows as we share our road trip travelling alongside of our family and
friends

We live in a very colourful world! When we look around us both outside and inside there are millions of different shades of colours that we can enjoy seeing every day! The colours of clothes, the flowers and plants outside,

the food that we wear, images that we see in a book or magazine that we are reading or see
when watching tv…all are very colourful sights for our eyes to see. We not only can say something is coloured blue, we can also see lots and lots of shades of blue, or shades of yellow, red, green, purple and other colours. May we all enjoy looking and seeing all these shades of colours. At the same time, may we be thankful so much to our loving Master Painter Whose
 paintbrush of love is beautiful in people and our surroundings

We have now started the last month of Winter which is great, because soon Springtime will be here! Springtime brings with it lots of colourful flowers, andnice gentle flower petals! As you walk down life's pathway, may you always

walk along a road of soft petals under your feet. Wherever your feet take you as you walk through each day, may the perfume of love and joy surround you as you walk on these petals. May the delicateness and fragileness of petals remind you of life, and may we all take each moment to love and care for each other!

Mum bought me a Valentine's Day balloon! It was red and had hearts on it. When she bought it, she was told by the lady who sold it to her that there was only a guarantee that it would stay up in the air for one day. It was very "floaty " when Mum brought it home... But the next day it looked very "saggy" and could only remain on the ground ! It looked very tired!

Sometimes people feel a little like this balloon... a bit tired and out of energy. A caring thought and a smile can really make the person gain strength and feel lifted up like a balloon. I send you a balloon filled with lots of special thoughts from me to you , for you to look at when you are feeling a bit tired, aching and have pain. It will never deflate like an ordinary balloon does.

I send a rainbow of hellos to you ! Yellow to send some sunshine into your days and thankfulness for the yellow warmth of family and friendships. Blue for bluebells to chime out a melody of music to brighten your day. Orange and red as a reminder of the sight of a beautiful sunrise or sunset. Green for grass, that as you walk along life's pathway may a carpet of soft flowers be always under your feet whatever your daily lives hold .

This is a very nice picture of Dutch Springtime scenery. It is a lovely scene of colourful tulips with the background of a windmill.  The rows of different coloured tulips are just like life. Our world is made up of millions and billions of people from all countries around the world and we all join together to create the scenery of life on Earth.

We all live our daily lives, enjoying eating, sleeping, studying, playing, laughing, crying, chatting and working. Every person just like every tulip brings beauty into the world each day. Thank you for the extra special , precious, and lovely role that you have in this world!

I have been having  the most "squishiest" red plums lately !! Mum bought a white polystyrene  plate of plums from the green grocers that were very ripe and squishy! They were put out cheaper because they were ready to eat. But... some plums weren’t  completely ripe so that was great because we could leave them a few days whilst we ate the ripest ones. They tasted very nice, but Mum got very purplish reddish fingers as she peeled off the skins! The red flesh decided to stain her hands!

It is a bit like life. May the love we have for others leave a stain on their  hearts. May we be like plums that are soft inside , and let caring loving concern for others leave an encouraging imprint on their day!

Daylight Savings Time ends next week. I always remember what way to change the hour by remembering the saying  : " Spring forward , Fall (Autumn) backwards" We turn our clocks backwards next weekend.

Moments, hours and days pass by. Sometimes they skip along as quick as can be, like a young child happily hop skip and jumping along a pathway. Other times they are like little snails that poke their heads out, have a look at the sunlight, then poke their heads back in and the time very slowly ticks over. Each moment we spend with our loved ones is very special. May we treasure, enjoy, take delight in and be thankful for the moments of our everyday daily life!

     It is nice looking at all the pretty coloured foil papers  that are around  chocolate Easter eggs. The only thing is that the inside is empty! It is the opposite to normal eggs where the shell looks plain but the inside which is the yolk and whites are the tasty parts of the eggs when cooked or used in meals. There are though Easter eggs that have creme filling in the middle or contain smarties or other lollies in the middle! Little tiny eggs are rock solid with chocolate ! Eggs come in all sorts of varieties when I start to think about it! Some are  hollow, some chocolate solid inside, others with liquidy  yolk and white, some have pretty outer coverings , whilst others just have a white shell.

May loving helpfulness and care explode from inside us like a yolk or white does when its shell is cracked, and may the prettiness of the foil of Easter eggs come in the form of the beauty of a smile that we give out each day!

We received a postcard last week from a lady who has travelled to Lord Howe Island for a holiday with her daughter. The pictures on the front of the postcard were very nice! She said that it was a very calm, scenic and restful place to stay. It was great that she wrote a lot of news in the very small space that you are given on the back of a postcard!

She used quite smallish handwriting! May we be like postcards. May we write messages of love on people's hearts through caring words, smiles and thoughtful actions. Just like the front of a postcard, every person has such beauty inside them bursts out from them. Thankyou for the specialness and beautifulness that you bring to everyday life for those around you.