{"id":1020,"date":"2013-06-16T20:08:11","date_gmt":"2013-06-17T00:08:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderjourneys\/?p=1020"},"modified":"2013-06-16T20:42:39","modified_gmt":"2013-06-17T00:42:39","slug":"sunday-songs-bluebird-of-happiness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderjourneys\/?p=1020","title":{"rendered":"Sunday Songs &#8211; Bluebird of Happiness"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>My birthday was Friday, and I received an amazing gift from my friend Lauri Ann.<\/p>\n<p>I woke up with a vestibular migraine, which I&#8217;d had more than a week.  I was feeling rather down.  Lauri Ann&#8217;s gift was the only thing I had to open.  (No offense to my family &#8212; I am always late with their presents, too.  And this time, I didn&#8217;t get my new address out to people.)<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderjourneys\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/06\/Bluebird-Locket.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderjourneys\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/06\/Bluebird-Locket.jpg\" alt=\"\" title=\"Bluebird Locket\" width=\"400\" height=\"300\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-1022\" srcset=\"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderjourneys\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/06\/Bluebird-Locket.jpg 400w, https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderjourneys\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/06\/Bluebird-Locket-300x225.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 400px) 100vw, 400px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>It is an antique locket, owned by singer Jo Stafford.  It was given to her by Gordon MacRae when they recorded the song &#8220;Bluebird of Happiness.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"420\" height=\"315\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/Jg0oRp7Dqa0\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Lauri Ann included the words.  What a nice reminder that I have so many things in my life to be happy about now!<br \/>\n&#8220;Remember this:  Life is no abyss.  Somewhere there&#8217;s a bluebird of happiness.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>In fact, I remembered that I&#8217;ve been enjoying seeing lots of birds from my balcony.  I thought it would be nice if soon I&#8217;d see a bluebird.<\/p>\n<p>But I didn&#8217;t end up reading on my balcony Friday, like I&#8217;d planned.  People  (not me!  Yay!) were doing noisy yard work.  So &#8212; I went to Great Falls National Park.  And had a wonderful hike along the River Trail.  And my migraine left before I got there.<\/p>\n<p>And you know what?  I saw many, many great blue herons.  Now that I know what they look like, because of the one that lives on my lake, they were easy to spot.  One was right below me when I looked down from the overlook.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderjourneys\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/06\/Great-Blue.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderjourneys\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/06\/Great-Blue.jpg\" alt=\"\" title=\"Great Blue\" width=\"400\" height=\"300\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-1029\" srcset=\"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderjourneys\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/06\/Great-Blue.jpg 400w, https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderjourneys\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/06\/Great-Blue-300x225.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 400px) 100vw, 400px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>So you know what I decided?  I&#8217;ve got not just a bluebird of happiness, but a Great Blue Heron of happiness!  Whenever I see him &#8212; and I spot him almost every day now when I walk by my lake &#8212; I get a reminder of how much I have to be thankful for.  And the locket is a lovely reminder as well.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Hold your head up high,<br \/>\nTill you find the bluebird of happiness.<br \/>\nYou will find greater peace of mind<br \/>\nKnowing there&#8217;s a bluebird of happiness.<br \/>\nAnd when he sings to you,<br \/>\nThough you&#8217;re deep in blue,<br \/>\nYou will see a ray of light creep through,<br \/>\nAnd so remember this, life is no abyss,<br \/>\nSomewhere there&#8217;s a bluebird of happiness.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/twitter.com\/share\" class=\"twitter-share-button\" data-count=\"none\" data-via=\"Sonderbooks\">Tweet<\/a><script type=\"text\/javascript\" src=\"http:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>My birthday was Friday, and I received an amazing gift from my friend Lauri Ann. I woke up with a vestibular migraine, which I&#8217;d had more than a week. I was feeling rather down. Lauri Ann&#8217;s gift was the only thing I had to open. (No offense to my family &#8212; I am always late [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17,19,41],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1020","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-great-falls","category-nature","category-sunday-songs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderjourneys\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1020","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderjourneys\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderjourneys\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderjourneys\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderjourneys\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1020"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderjourneys\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1020\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderjourneys\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1020"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderjourneys\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1020"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderjourneys\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1020"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}