{This Moment}: See Beautiful

For See Beautiful Friday, I want to show you the confidence that Shyla has gained over this past year. Her growing confidence is so beautiful to me.

Even for head-strong dogs, learning to do the teeter-totter in agility can be scary. This summer, Shyla grew to love doing the teeter-totter by learning it a tiny bit at a time with my encouragement. Now, when she has her front paws on it, I have trouble preventing her from trotting straight up it because she loves it.

After I give her the okay, she trots up to the fulcrum.

She knows what's going to happen next but she doesn't hesitate. She continues over the fulcrum and the the teeter starts to swing.

Shyla has the confidence to ride it down while continuing to move forward.

To me, this is the essence of beautiful. This is the product of building a bond of trust between Shyla and me. When I started teaching her agility this summer, I didn't expect that she'd learn to walk across at teeter-totter so soon. I thought that it would take a couple of years. However, I thought that the process of learning it would help build Shyla's confidence - so we embarked on the journey, and it took much less time than expected!

Together, day-by-day, we built that confidence one tiny iota at a time, and it's beautiful!

On other fronts, this has been a month of learning to accept that change is inevitable and learning to make the best of it. We had horrific floods, and I doubt that our world will return to "normal" in a year or even two. Yet, people are adapting and making the best of it.

Events like those of the last month truly show me that I want to seize each day - because I have no idea what will happen tomorrow.

As a relatively trivial example, look at this photo in a golden aspen grove that I took yesterday.

Yesterday, I felt like I was "wasting" too much time in that grove. Then, last night, high winds swept through our area with gusts up to 75 mph. This morning, I took Shyla's photo in the same grove.

Yes, a big change happened overnight. I'm so glad that I saw the beauty yesterday, and I took the time to soak it up. I most certainly was not "wasting" time.

Some of our more protected aspen groves still have leaves. This photo is also from this morning. We adapted to the overnight change and visited a different spot. It was beautiful.

And other spots of beauty still glowed if my eyes were open to see them. These are brilliant rose leaves. Notice the one thorn on the stem - a stark contrast to the leaves.

And, today, R's beautiful heart shined through as he stood by some remaining aspen leaves.

Like other things in my life are teaching me (all over again), time marches forward whether we want it to or not. Soon, all the groves will lose their leaves but I'll find a way to See Beautiful even in the starkness of the winter landscape.

I think that our happiness is mostly in our own hands. Seeing Beautiful is a state of mind that helps us to make it through tough changes with a sparkle of happiness still glowing in our eyes.