Many Thanks

to Mitzi Miles-Kubota for her post http://mitzimileskubota.blogspot.com/2009/08/grams-lessons-lead-to-this-video.html. It is my inspiration for my blog today. This is the next to the last weekend I will be here in Flagstaff, and I want to really "use it up". I want to hike and bike and go outdoors and enjoy this cooler weather before I head back to the valley. My time here has been wonderful, enchanting, positive, productive, friendly, lively, happy, lonely, full, quiet, loud, and full of lessons-one being frugality but not stinginess.
The difference between the two is this; frugality means to use what you have wisely- namely time, talent, money, love, and when the need to replenish arises, you are willing to add more and use that without hesitation. Being stingy comes from a place of lack, being afraid to use what you have because you think no more is coming.
Everything you do, everything you give is given back to you many times over. What you send out is what is returned, be it positive or negative. You attract what you give, and if something is unsavory, it mirrors something in your own heart which you don't like or need to work on. If you are stingy with your gifts, the lack is reflected back at you and the emptiness remains that way.
On the other hand, that which is freely given always comes back! It might return to you in a different form, but the spirit of the gift remains the same.
Please, practice frugality if you must, but give freely and without reservation. And, give some things to that most important person, yourself.