Just a little note…

Dear Friends,

This will be short, but first of all, thank you for your continued support to my little corner in the land of blogging. It’s been over ten years and I’m still truckin’ along, loving the journey and wonderful connections this community offers. Not to mention, the online classroom, so many forms of poetry and writing tips shared.

More gratitude for those who have offered tremendous support in any way for my latest book, More than Coffee. You are greatly and graciously appreciated. I apologize for the sappy component. Then again, it’s intentional. 🙂

And in closing, I’ll be taking a little time off from blogland to focus on family. So, I regret to miss your posts, but we all know the feeling that whirls around us when a break is needed. And perhaps, life nudges us with clues as well. Comments are also closed. But I look forward to seeing you all in the beginning of May.

Take care. Stay well. Be happy. Hugs of gratitude coming your way…

Don’t forget to enjoy the sweetness life offers!
And the beauty!
So much beauty! ❤️

© Lauren Scott, Baydreamerwrites.com – All rights reserved.

After All This Time…

Dear Friends,

My blog sat alone for almost a year and a half, so I wouldn’t be surprised if Baydreamer and I had been forgotten. At the end of 2018, I posted about the success of a medical procedure, and then I fell off the blog for over a year? Since then my health has been back to normal, but soon after, I felt the need to disengage from technology. Now, I’m drawn to blogging again because with physical distancing, the connections that blogging offers are welcomed. As to writing, I drifted from poetry; instead, I have been writing personal essays and trying my hand at fiction, which has been challenging but rewarding. Occasionally, though, a poem begins to form.

How surreal I return in uncertain times, living in a pandemic world. I realize when the sun shines and the sky brightens to a beautiful cerulean blue, my attitude shifts to positive thoughts. When I stroll around our backyard, enjoying all the spring blooms, I wonder if the flowers have the slightest hunch of what Covid-19 is and its impact on human society. Probably not, which is why they bloom in spite of the bleakness all around the globe.

Don’t these flowers radiate joy? How can the same elation flood through our veins despite hearing the grim accounts of this virus? Answers vary, but two thoughts come to mind: Faith and Hope. Whatever you believe in and no matter how far you need to stretch to grasp even a fraction of Hope, without these, we can easily become defeated and remain in that gloomy headspace. It seems taking one day at a time is applicable once again.

Even while practicing physical distancing, there is some good that comes to light: I have seen more smiles on the street while walking our chocolate lab mix, Copper. Not to mention, the neighborhood has never been so joyfully packed with people of all ages out for a walk. This truly is a welcoming site. Stories of people helping each other are abundant – offering to grocery shop for a neighbor or reaching out to those who are lonely where isolation is more challenging. These simple gestures are a means to stay sane in the midst of this insane scenario. Acts of kindness make us feel good and they afford a sense of purpose. At 8 pm each night in our community, everyone howls in gratitude for the heroes working in essential jobs risking their lives for us. My family participates in this gesture of appreciation, and Copper sings his part in the chorus, too.

However, five weeks into sheltering-in-place does not advise complacency. It’s not over until it’s over. We still need to be responsible in taking precautions to help mitigate the spreading of the virus. We wash our hands a million times a day, hand sanitizer and antibacterial wipes stay within reach, and we wear masks and gloves, not just to protect ourselves but to protect each other. Those who have lost loved ones to the virus remain in our hearts. This health crisis is serious and if any doubts arise, simply turn on the news. There is no exemption card. The effects from Covid-19 are devastating, overwhelming, and heartbreaking.

But while staying at home, the time is at hand to find beauty in each day: an opportunity to complete unfinished projects, spend quality time with family, get exercise, pick up a good book, put thoughts to paper, or step outside where flora and fauna are abundant. I revel in the gorgeous spring blooms where hope blossoms. They provide a sense of normalcy in these most abnormal circumstances. My family and friends are doing well and we are beyond grateful. And after all this time, thank you so much for stopping by, but mostly, I hope you’ll stay safe and healthy. 

For those of you who are new to my site or who haven’t visited my other pages, I encourage you to visit my “About Me” page and sign my “Guestbook.” 

In Love and Friendship,

Lauren

 

Lauren Scott (c) 2020

 

 

 

Timeless Echoes – New Release by Balroop Singh #bloghop #poetry

I’m excited to participate in the Bloghop for promoting Balroop Singh’s new poetry book – Timeless Echoes. The cover alone gracefully pulls the reader in only to be captured by Balroop’s amazing poetry that will surely resonate with all of us. One of her lovely poems is included in this post, as well. 

Balroop Singh

Getting to know the Author:

Balroop Singh, a former teacher and an educationalist always had a passion for writing. She is a poet, a creative non-fiction writer, a relaxed blogger and a doting grandma. She writes about people, emotions and relationships. Her poetry highlights the fact that happiness is not a destination but a chasm to bury agony, anguish, grief, distress and move on! No sea of solitude is so deep that it can drown us. Sometimes aspirations are trampled upon, the boulders of exploitation and discrimination may block your path, but those who tread on undeterred are always successful.

When turbulences hit, when shadows of life darken, when they come like unseen robbers, with muffled exterior, when they threaten to shatter your dreams, it is better to break free rather than get sucked by the vortex of emotions.

A self-published author, she is the poet of Sublime Shadows of Life and Emerging From Shadows, both widely acclaimed poetry books. She has also written When Success EludesEmotional Truths Of Relationships Read FREE with Kindle Unlimited and Allow Yourself to be a Better Person.

Balroop Singh has always lived through her heart. She is a great nature lover; she loves to watch birds flying home. The sunsets allure her with their varied hues that they lend to the sky. She can spend endless hours listening to the rustling leaves and the sound of waterfalls. The moonlight streaming through her garden, the flowers, the meadows, the butterflies cast a spell on her. She lives in San Ramon, California.

Book Blurb:

Certain desires and thoughts remain within our heart, we can’t express them, we wait for the right time, which never comes till they make inroads out of our most guarded fortresses to spill on to the pages of our choice. This collection is an echo of that love, which remained obscure, those yearnings that were suppressed, the regrets that we refuse to acknowledge. Many poems seem personal because they are written in first person but they have been inspired from the people around me – friends and acquaintances who shared their stories with me.

Some secrets have to remain buried because they are ours
We do share them but only with the stars
The tears that guarded them were as precious as flowers
Soothing like balm on festering scars.

While there are no boxes for grief and joy, some persons in our life are more closely associated with these emotions. Their separation shatters us, their memories echo, we grieve but life does not stagnate for anyone…it is more like a river that flows despite the boulders. When imagination and inspiration try to offer solace, poetry that you are about to read springs forth.

How to order your copy:

Title: Timeless echoes
Author: Balroop Singh
Genre: Poetry
Available at: Kindle Click on the link

US UK DE FR ES IT NL JP BR CA MX AU IN

The Editor’s Review:

Half of what we say are lies although they might be considered true, but truth with one’s self is an accepted bundle of lies except for those rare moments of self-realization. These lines right at the start of Timeless Echoes, ‘Each moment is precious, we try to cage it within our heart, where it perches in perfect rampart, embalmed by memories,’ reveal how this book is a healer, promising to lay bare the ills of the soul as it soothes, cleanses, and nurtures; instilling in us a will to learn and live without fear, and a will to not hurt others: ‘Why can’t our hearts feel the hurt we hurl at others?’

Balroop’s new book is a steadfast repudiation of those ills that we painfully hide under the covers of our flesh to present the polished exterior as truth. This magnetic collection of poems highlights our precious human lives with all their varied emotions and imposing relations: the lives often blinded by the strictures of the self-made duplicity, an excessively common phenomenon. ‘Listen to your heart, my friend. It knows you well,’ she writes.

I treasure these ‘forgetting fragile facets of love, facade of fading memories, echoes of dwindling love, is all I have now, yet love echoes refuse to subside’ believing that love echoes are soul-launched signals, ready to hug our pretenses to forge a divine assimilation because the struggle has always been with the self that we excommunicate to build up a wall, which obscures the travails plaguing the core. And finding a path to the core is the cure since there’s no villainy in the soul.

As Balroop proclaims ‘love is such a strange emotion, it gives less, it claims more…the facade of love is so delusive,’ I concur how our infirmities require urgent banishment, more pressing now than ever. And once I’ve made peace with the self, ‘the dark corridors are like meadows, they glow with my presence.’ Yes, without an iota of my own falsehoods plaguing me.
   ~ Mahesh Nair

A peek inside Timeless Echoes:

Moments That Echo

     Each moment is precious
We try to cage it within our heart
Where it perches in perfect rampart
     Embalmed by memories!

     Moments of love croon around us
Offering eternal passion that blinds
Drowning in the deluge of delusion
     Validating ephemeral enchantment!

     Moments of joy glisten on the sand of time
Fleeting away faster than dappling light
Peeping through the corridors of life
     At the mercy of others’ delight!

     Woeful moments smile through strife
Each one stretching far and wide
Into every nerve and sinew
     Sneering at our impertinent divide!

     Each moment an experience in itself
We grow in its glow to wend and win
Divesting the ignorance of our thoughts
     Solace echoing within!

AND you may visit Balroop at her Social Links:

Her bloghttp://balroop2013.wordpress.com

Connecting links:
https://twitter.com/BalroopShado

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Emotional-Shadows/151387075057971

https://plus.google.com/u/0/+BalroopSinghsrao/posts

https://www.pinterest.com/balroops/

https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/7340810.Balroop_Singh

https://www.amazon.com/Balroop-Singh/e/B00N5QLW8U/ref=ntt_dp_epwbk_0

THANK YOU FOR STOPPING BY!
~ Lauren❤

 

 

The 3-Day Quote Challenge #3

Welcome to the 3rd and final day of my 3-Day Quote Challenge, which I was happy to have been nominated by Annika at annikaperry.com. Thanks again, Annika! This has been fun, but it’s also lead me to some great new quotes. Please visit Annika’s blog if you haven’t already. She’s a fabulous writer of fiction – an amazing story teller!

To the challenge…The rules are as follows:

Thank the person who nominated you.
Post a quote on 3 consecutive days.
Share why this quote appeals so much to you.
Nominate 3 different bloggers for each day.

I found my quote online, which ties into this very special day, my son’s 23rd birthday…

birthday quote

Our son came into our world on 5/9/95, at 3:38 pm. We had our little girl so were elated to have a son. Before our children were born, though, we chose not to learn the gender. We loved the element of surprise and would simply be thrilled with healthy babies. With these thoughts going in, I experienced the same “high” I felt after giving birth to my daughter – a wonderful feeling unlike no other.

As to my son’s purpose, he’ll be graduating from college next month and is still working on his path in life. Many have been blessed to have realized their purpose, and for others, the search continues. This is perfectly okay because there is no time limit, although remember to enjoy the journey, also! 

Regarding birthdays, some choose to skip theirs for fear of aging. This is one aspect of life out of our control, so as I conveyed in my prior post, let’s live life to its fullest and celebrate our special days. Each birthday is another year of life, and getting to blow out candles on a festive birthday cake is not a guarantee. It’s a privilege that many people don’t experience because their lives end sooner than expected.

So, I wish my son a very Happy 23rd Birthday and am so proud of the young man he’s become. I love him and my daughter to the moon and back! And his family is beyond excited to see where his path leads him post graduation.

michael in tokyo 2017
(Photo taken in Tokyo 2017)

I hope you are inspired now to celebrate your special days, to not worry about aging, but instead, to enjoy the possibilities and gifts that each day brings…and if you haven’t figured out your purpose, yet, then keep searching…You may learn something wonderful about yourself along the way…

I’ll leave it up to anyone who would like to take on this quote challenge, instead of nominating individuals. Hope you enjoyed! Lauren ❤

 

 

 

 

 

The 3-Day Quote Challenge #2

group photos 3
Welcome to the 2nd day of my 3-Day Quote Challenge, which I’m happy to be nominated by Annika at annikaperry.com. Thanks so much, Annika! 

To the challenge…The rules are as follows:

Thank the person who nominated you.
Post a quote on 3 consecutive days.
Share why this quote appeals so much to you.
Nominate 3 different bloggers for each day.

Following the events at our house this past Saturday provided inspiration for my second quote:

“Life isn’t meant to be lived perfectly…but merely to be LIVED. Boldly, wildly, beautifully, uncertainly, imperfectly, magically LIVED.” ~ Mandy Hale, The Single Woman: Life, Love, and a Dash of Sass

This quote is relevant because it ties into our celebration of my father-in-law’s 95th Birthday this past weekend. He is truly a man who has LIVED his life and still does!  He’s found love twice in a lifetime, outliving two wives (30-year marriage first then 25-year marriage), has been healthy and active in league bowling and bocce ball. He’s found great satisfaction from delivering meals on wheels, has been a member of SIRS for 30 years, has been an avid walker, and has enjoyed traveling. Not to mention, he’s been active in his church since 1967. He’s also been passionate about classical music and light opera. He loves to socialize and everyone loves him! We finally managed a group photo (above), but only after many guests had already left. 

cake time (1)

So, it’s quite apparent he’s lived life magically, and may we all do the same!

Instead of nominating individuals, I’ll leave it up to anyone who would like to take on this challenge. 🙂

 

 

Smorgasbord of Fun

blogger-recognition-award-logo-453942717-1521086477961-1

Two lovely friends recently nominated me for awards and a quote challenge. Even though I haven’t
participated in awards for years, I feel compelled to graciously accept them both. However, instead of nominating individuals, I’m leaving it up to anyone who wants to follow through. It’s too hard to choose, anyway, because you’re all deserving!

Part 1 – I was nominated by Sarah at secretartexpedition.wordpress.com for the Blogger Recognition Award. Thank you so much, Sarah, for thinking of me and for the beautiful words you wrote about my blog, too. In accepting this award, we need to write a brief story of how our blog was started. So, here goes…

“When I turned fifty and since I love to write poetry, my son suggested that I start a poetry blog. I had never blogged before and really only heard about the world of blogging after watching the movie, “Julie and Julia” about a woman (superbly played by Amy Adams) who sets a deadline of one year to prepare all 524 recipes in Julia Child’s book, “Mastering the Art of French Cooking.” Meryl Streep played the role of Julia exquisitely. As Julie cooked throughout that year, she also blogged about her experiences, some good, some stressful. Not only was it a great movie, but I was intrigued. 

Soon after, I took my son’s suggestion, and that was in 2011! Throughout the years, it’s been an enlightening journey of making amazing friends, as well as, a growing experience in writing.”

In accepting this award, we’re also supposed to give advice to new bloggers, so here is mine:
“Think of something you’re truly passionate about, then embed that passion into your blog posts. Don’t worry about stats – just have fun, then see what follows.”

Here are the Rules for the Blogger Recognition nominees:

  1. Thank the blogger who nominated you and provide links to their blog.
  2. Write a post to show your award.
  3. Attach the award to your post.
  4. Write a brief story of how your blog started.
  5. Give a piece of advice to new bloggers.
  6. Select the other 15 blogs you want to give the award to.
  7. Comment on each blog and let them know you have nominated them.
  8. Be inspired to live your best life every day.

 

 

growingselfbloggerawardimg_7849-e1495735162603Sarah also nominated me for the Growing Self Blogger Award. 

This award has been created by Roda from over at Growing Self and you can read in her own words what it is about:

“The Growing Self Blogger Award has been created to acknowledge and celebrate amazing individuals, in the blogging community, who are persevering through life’s challenges not only to GROW as individuals, but to reach out and help others GROW as well.”

Thanks again, Sarah! I’m honored on both counts!

And here are the rules to this award:

1. Put the award logo/image on your blog.
2. List the rules.
3. Thank the individual who nominated you and provide a link to their blog.
4. Describe the award and mention the creator: Roda _ Growingself.blog.
5. Nominate up to 5 blogs. Remember, the purpose of this award is to specifically    celebrate those individuals who have made a difference in your life or the lives of others.
6. Give at least 1 reason why you nominated each individual.
7. Notify your nominees of the award.

I want to finish this part by saying that if you haven’t visited Sarah’s blog yet, please do so. She is the most amazing painter, and each time I pop on over, I am in awe of her talent. Below is her recent painting of Franklin – watercolor on paper, April 2018. Isn’t he absolutely adorable? And Franklin is just one example of Sarah’s ability to beautifully portray nature with the means of a skilled artist.

duckling

Part 2 –  I was nominated by Annika at annikaperry.com to participate in The 3 Day Quote Challenge. I’ve always loved quotes and their ability to personally resonate for some reason or another.

For the next three days, I will be posting a quote and explaining why it’s made an impression on me, though life probably won’t allow me to do posts three consecutive days in a row. So, rules are meant to be broken! 🙂

To the challenge…The rules are as follows:

  • Thank the person who nominated you.
  • Post a quote on 3 consecutive days.
  • Share why this quote appeals so much to you.
  • Nominate 3 different bloggers for each day.

Thanks so much to Annika for this nomination! She is an amazing fiction writer, who can tell stories that evoke every little emotion inside of you. Her debut book, “The Storyteller Speaks” read more like a #1 on the bestseller list. It was a page-turner and definitely a book that can’t be put down. Please pay Annika a visit and while you’re there, you can purchase a copy of her book simply by clicking on the book image on her sidebar. It’s as easy as that! 
TSS_Kindl_72dpi

Now for my quote. Funny thing is I heard “Have it All” by Jason Mraz today for the first time and absolutely loved it. What first came to mind after listening to both words and music was simply happiness! Happy, Happy, Happy! After watching the video, you can’t help but feel good. So, instead of sharing a quote, I’m going to share the first part of this song, which is more like a wish for you…

“May you have auspiciousness and causes of success
May you have the confidence to always do your best
May it take no effort in you being generous
Sharing what you can, nothing more, nothing less
May you know the meaning of the word happiness
May you always lead from the beating in your chest
May you be treated like an esteemed guest
May you get to rest, may you catch your breath

And may the best of your todays be the worst of your tomorrows
And may the road less paved be the road that you follow

I want you to have it all (have it all)

And now you have reached the end, but not without the video link so you can get yourself some happiness, too:  https://youtu.be/BFkTu8Y1KLs.

Please note: I was able to link the video, but for some unknown reason, I was unable to link Sarah and Annika’s blogs, but you can copy and paste. They’re in red font so not to miss them.

I hope you enjoyed this post, in spite of its lengthiness, and found some little tidbit that brightens your day….because “I want you to have it all!”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Celebrating 5 years with WordPress! :)

HAPPY ANNIVERSARY!

wordpress anniversary

 

 

You registered on WordPress.com 5 years ago!
Thanks for flying with us. Keep up the good blogging!

Another year zoomed by since I last celebrated with WordPress and

I’ll repeat my story from last year…I opened this blog in 2010,
became active in 2011, 
so I’m always one year behind. 🙂

celebrate

In addition to my “blogiversary”, I’d like to  celebrate the making of new friends, the joy of learning, the amazing following, the expansion of communicationand most of all, the fun! Cheers to taking life less seriously and having more fun! 


Writing for our blogs is a great hobby; it gives us the opportunity to meet new people along the way. What could be better?

friendshipSo thank you, EVERYONE, for your continued support! I began this journey before I turned the big 50 and now it’s been five years? Sigh…oh well, let the fun continue…


and now please join me in celebrating by singing, dancing,

hot party

 

 

 


 

and toasting to another awesome blogging year!

toasting glasses

 

 

 

 

Sending lots of love, Lauren ♥ ♫ xo