{"id":302,"date":"2013-08-20T03:03:27","date_gmt":"2013-08-20T03:03:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/blessingsabound\/?p=302"},"modified":"2013-08-20T03:03:27","modified_gmt":"2013-08-20T03:03:27","slug":"being-sunny","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/blessingsabound\/2013\/08\/being-sunny.html","title":{"rendered":"Being Sunny"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><!--[if gte mso 9]&gt;--><\/p>\n<p>  Normal<br \/>\n  0<\/p>\n<p>  false<br \/>\n  false<br \/>\n  false<\/p>\n<p>  MicrosoftInternetExplorer4<\/p>\n<p><!--[if gte mso 9]&gt;--><\/p>\n<p><!--[if gte mso 10]&gt;--><\/p>\n<p> \/* Style Definitions *\/<br \/>\n table.MsoNormalTable<br \/>\n\t{mso-style-name:&#8221;Table Normal&#8221;;<br \/>\n\tmso-tstyle-rowband-size:0;<br \/>\n\tmso-tstyle-colband-size:0;<br \/>\n\tmso-style-noshow:yes;<br \/>\n\tmso-style-parent:&#8221;&#8221;;<br \/>\n\tmso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt;<br \/>\n\tmso-para-margin:0in;<br \/>\n\tmso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt;<br \/>\n\tmso-pagination:widow-orphan;<br \/>\n\tfont-size:10.0pt;<br \/>\n\tfont-family:&#8221;Times New Roman&#8221;;<br \/>\n\tmso-ansi-language:#0400;<br \/>\n\tmso-fareast-language:#0400;<br \/>\n\tmso-bidi-language:#0400;}<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">I am a person who loves color.<span>\u00a0 <\/span>I love brightly colored clothes, I love beautiful flowers, I love painting with bright colors.<span>\u00a0 <\/span>But as a transplant to the desert, I have learned to be content with a more subtle palette.<span>\u00a0 <\/span>There are grasses here and bushes, but they are not the vibrant green of the East.<span>\u00a0 <\/span>The same goes for the trees.<span>\u00a0 <\/span>And there are flowers, but they, too, are often subtle.<span>\u00a0 <\/span>Except for the yellow ones.<span>\u00a0 <\/span>I love the yellow flowers!<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">Right now there are several plants blooming bright yellow flowers.<span>\u00a0 <\/span>It\u2019s so wonderful to gaze out over the gray green, blue green, tan, and wheat-colored plants and grasses and then to suddenly see a burst of yellow.<span>\u00a0 <\/span>There are beautiful chamisa or rabbitbrush plants with hundreds of little yellow blossoms.<span>\u00a0 <\/span>And then there are the perky sunflowers.<span>\u00a0 <\/span>These are not the huge sunflowers with the seeds in their great brown center.<span>\u00a0 <\/span>No, these are the plucky little perennials that grow along the roadside all over the southwest.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">I am so grateful for these tiny sunny faces bringing color into an oftentimes parched and dusty landscape.<span>\u00a0 <\/span>They are such a blessing.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">And I realized that sometimes people are like sunflowers.<span>\u00a0 <\/span>The world can occasionally seem a bit drab, a bit lackluster, maybe even grumpy and cynical and sad, but once in a while, thank goodness, there is someone who enters the scene and\u2026 she shines.<span>\u00a0 <\/span>She brings a ray of light into a sometimes colorless world.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">I hope that we can all learn to be like the sunflower.<span>\u00a0 <\/span>Let\u2019s bring a little color and light into the world.<span>\u00a0 <\/span>Let\u2019s radiate some love out there.<span>\u00a0 <\/span>Let\u2019s blossom!<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Normal 0 false false false MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 \/* Style Definitions *\/ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:&#8221;Table Normal&#8221;; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:&#8221;&#8221;; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:&#8221;Times New Roman&#8221;; mso-ansi-language:#0400; mso-fareast-language:#0400; mso-bidi-language:#0400;} I am a person who loves color.\u00a0 I love brightly colored clothes, I love beautiful flowers, I love painting with bright colors.\u00a0 But as&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":553,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[277,274,279,275,276,278],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-302","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-chamisa","category-color","category-desert","category-flowers","category-sunflowers","category-sunny"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Being Sunny - Blessings Abound<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"noindex, nofollow\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Being Sunny - Blessings Abound\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Normal 0 false false false MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 \/* Style Definitions *\/ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:&#8221;Table Normal&#8221;; 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