On the last day of my trip when I was feeling blue about having to return home, a ladybug landed on my arm. I held it in my hands for a bit, remembering all of the times that my kids and I had held critters and talked about them (we would sit for hours in the garden and experience whatever came our way, but ladybugs were always an especially fun find, part of why I’ve sometimes called Catgirl ‘ladybug’). A few times we even bought ladybugs and released them into our garden to eat the aphids on our roses.

Perhaps what I was thinking of most as that little critter crawled up and down my arm, was simply how random and beautiful life is. So many twists and turns have brought me to where I am now–some the result of long-sown seeds of intention and some the result of complete serendipity. But it seems that the most important thing is to continue to marvel at what life brings and to slow down a bit on those days that ladybugs (and butterflies and new friends) find me…Yes, it’s a bit cliche to say it that way, but sometimes when life gives you a cliche, you’ve got to embrace that, too  🙂

(Sort of like this clip from “Under the Tuscan Sun”….):