My Backyard Recipe for Creating an Abundant Life

There's a party going on in my backyard. Just beyond the goldfish pond you can hear the low hum coming from the bee ensemble. If you step closer, you can see them dancing on the tops of purple coneflowers dusting themselves in bright orange pollen. They seem intoxicated by the abundance of fragrant flowers. A vast treasure trove, I imagine, to a bee.

The butterflies gracefully pirouette onto lily tongues taking sips of nectar juice before moving on. Soon, sun-baked fields will yield native corn; varieties with names like Sweet Symphony,Silver Queen and Morning Star. Big, red, globe tomatoes kissed with summer's sweetness will also be ready for picking and eating.

This is abundance, right here, in my backyard. My contribution was to set the "table" with everything that would attract "the guests" that I wanted to invite. This took planning and preparation. I needed to know what to feed the flowers and other plants so they would be healthy and yield a bountiful supply of bee, butterfly and bird food. I also had to learn the language of winged things. I sought coaching from experts that specialize in the areas of plants, birds, bees, butterflies and their preferred habitats.

Since there are hundreds of varieties of plants,I knew that I could not have them all. I was selective and chose what I wanted in my garden based on my preferences for color, fragrance,touch and taste. I also had to clarify my intention for my garden. Did I want to attract bees, hummingbirds and butterflies and/or feed my family?

Of course, I would be remiss if I didn't prepare for what also shows up in a beautiful garden; the uninvited beetle or pest that creeps and clings on the edges of foliage and blossoms devouring everything including my joy!

In these instances, it is helpful to be prepared with a few strategies to take care of any unwanted party crashers.

Once again, with careful planning and preparation, clear intention, clarifying my personal preferences and getting coached by experts, I was able to transcend obstacles to achieve a better outcome than I could have ever imagined.

There's a party in my backyard. And now, you have my simple recipe for creating a party in your own backyard.

Nancy Bishop is a Mid-Life Coach and inspirational writer. She collaborates with women at midlife to create recipes for living life to the fullest. For more information and to subscribe to her newsletter visit http://www.yourlifeyourway.com

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table border=0 width= valign=top cellpadding=2 cellspacing=7trtd valign=top class=jfont style=font-size:85%;font-family:arial,sans-serifbrdiv style=padding-top:0.8em;img alt= height=1 width=1/divdiv class=lha href=http://www.citywebshopper.net/articles/includes/redirect.php?url=http://www.dunnvillechronicle.com/ArticleDisplay.aspx%3Fe%3D1241476cid=0ei=zTLxSPX4KIyQ6wPdhaXCBwusg=AFQjCNHNxcsL1lTc9JMNYtXlS1f0HrzD5AMusic, movement and bmotivation/b/abrfont size=-1font color=#6f6f6fHaldimand Review,nbsp;Canadanbsp;-/font nobrOct 10, 2008/nobr/fontbrfont size=-1The student body was introduced to the term when St. Thomas, Ont. performer Saidat Vandenberg brought her high energy bmotivational/b program to the Robinson b.../b/font/div/font/td/tr/table
table border=0 width= valign=top cellpadding=2 cellspacing=7trtd width=80 align=center valign=topfont style=font-size:85%;font-family:arial,sans-serifa href=http://www.citywebshopper.net/articles/includes/redirect.php?url=http://www.goal.com/en/Articolo.aspx%3FContenutoId%3D903217cid=0ei=zTLxSPX4KIyQ6wPdhaXCBwusg=AFQjCNEST9Pup76J6H-ejtTyJT8_BkSNBwimg src=http://news.google.com/news?imgefp=C7CDWHQtmQwJimgurl=i.media.goal.com/g/31334_news.jpg width=57 height=80 alt= border=1brfont size=-2Goal.com/font/a/font/tdtd valign=top class=jfont style=font-size:85%;font-family:arial,sans-serifbrdiv style=padding-top:0.8em;img alt= height=1 width=1/divdiv class=lha href=http://www.citywebshopper.net/articles/includes/redirect.php?url=http://www.goal.com/en/Articolo.aspx%3FContenutoId%3D903217cid=0ei=zTLxSPX4KIyQ6wPdhaXCBwusg=AFQjCNEST9Pup76J6H-ejtTyJT8_BkSNBwArango: Facing Brazil Is A Great bMotivation/b/abrfont size=-1font color=#6f6f6fGoal.com,nbsp;Switzerlandnbsp;-/font nobrOct 8, 2008/nobr/fontbrfont size=-1Juan Arango, the captain of the Venezuelan national team, affirmed to the press that the quality of his team#39;s collective work against Brazil will be b.../b/font/div/font/td/tr/table
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