Use your words.

When our children were smaller and would get frustrated or were overly tired they would sometimes get whiny. I would always say "use your words". I said this nicely to let them know that I wanted to help them but I needed them to tell me what was wrong. I remember once my neighbor fell in her driveway and about that same time I had stepped outside and all I heard were a continuous stream of curse words. That was not the norm so I ran over to see what was going on. She kept swearing like her life depended on it and I was unable to know if she needed my assistance or not. Finally she was able to put together a few sentences that I could understand and luckily all that she bruised was her backside and her pride. We all handle stress and pain differently suppose.

Mr Ladybug and I say use your words to each other all the time if we lose our train of thought mid sentence or a word just escapes us. Are you ever just chatting away and then totally forget what a word is? The other day I was trying to tell one of the kids that an item they were looking for was on the kitchen island. I could not remember island to for nothing. I was like you know that thing in the kitchen with a top and drawers. I am describing it like my life depended on it and finally said it had wheels on it and they knew what I meant. I was about to start cursing.

Our words have more impact that we think and the older I get the more I am learning that I want my words to mean something. I want them to build others up and not tear them down. I want them to connect me to others not separate.

These ladies never stop amazing me.

The bible verse in the pic above is one of my favorites and even more so that I am a beekeeper. I watch my girls fly in and out all day long. I know what it takes for them to make that honey that I love in my tea every morning. When you look at a frame of honey its just tiny little hexagon shaped thing with the tiniest bit of honey in each cell. But as you start to extract it flows out pretty fast. One box of honey can easily hold 20-30 pounds. A box of honey would be one of the top boxes in the picture below. When we get honey from the hive we never ever ever touch the three boxes on the bottom. We check them to make sure the queen is laying eggs and as it starts to get cooler we make sure they have plenty of honey like over 50 pounds to get them through winter but we only take the smaller boxes off to get honey.

This is the tallest hive we have ever had. Mr Ladybug has to use a ladder to get to the top.

So if you are looking down on your neighborhood and each house represents a little cell you may think that you dont make much of an impact. But if each cell in that neighborhood was filled with kind words for all they meet that would make quite a but of honey when added all together. I am not going to lie, thinking of each little neighborhood in my city as individual bee hives makes me super happy. I really love those bees!

So lets use our words and make them kind. There are lots of souls out that need them.

I had wonderful evening last night hanging out with my friend. For my hostess gift I made her a fun little tea towel with lots of summer bugs on it. Can you spot the bees and ladybugs? I just took the piece of material and hemmed it up  I gave her some of my dried rose petal tea from my very own rose bushes and some honey sticks. I bought some honey sticks from our local bee supply store. They are great for when traveling and you want a cup of tea. You will see this in practice soon while Mr Ladybug and I go on our vacation adventure.