I thought it would be fun to share with you the reason behind the name of my blog. I am an Irish girl at heart, my maiden name is Murphy,and yes we have tempers and are well known for our stubborness...I mean persistence. Needless to say I have always been in love with the Irish culture. One of my bucket list items is to visit Ireland, currently saving for that trip.
Anyway....When I was younger I spent a lot of time at My Grandma and Grandpa Murphy's house usually with a load of cousins and siblings. That place and those people hold some of my most cherished memories of my childhood, it was a place I was loved without condition.Summer days were spent picking(and eating) warm raspberries from the garden to add to the homemade vanilla icecream, The boys hunting for tomato bugs to earn a quarter from Grandpa, swimming and endless sunshine with my best friends (who happend to be my cousins)
On one particular day I remember my Grandma (who was probably ready to pull her hair out)sending us all outside to search for a four leaf clover...clever Grandma <3. We walked out the front door onto the patio and looked out over Grandma's endless yard, with possibly more clover than grass. Now there were quite a few of us there...and we were all very close in age and young. But we were also very competitive. So the hunt began and lo and behold all we could find for hours and hours (or so it seemed) were three leaf clovers. Eventually the younger kids gave up and went to pick warm raspberries in the first two rows of grandmas garden and swing. Of course us older kids refused to admit defeat in front of one another...so the hunt continued and just when discouragement began to creep into the laughter and games (like the amazing woman she was ,and possibly due to the fact we had been out of her hair for awhile) Grandma came out to join us.
I didn't see them at first but noticed that she was carrying something in her hands, it reflected the bright sun and blocked our knowledge of her possession until she was down in the grass and clover with us. She hid it behind her back while she told us how special four leaf clovers were...they were lucky. She then pulled the mysterious object from behind her back and said, sometimes you must make your own luck. She picked up a three leaf clover and cut one petal into two with her kitchen shears. There she said "a four leaf clover." Now at first our little competitive minds all ran full speed at the word CHEAT. It was a little bit of cheating. But as she continued one of her unforgettable lessons we, well I think we did (if not then I do now) understood that life would take a lot of hard work and creativity. That when something seemed impossible we should not wait for an easy answer or for someone else to tell us where to find it ,we were responsible for our own luck in life ...."Sometimes you must make your own luck"
* as we later tried to use this example against her for a possible unfair advantage the older kids allegedly might have taken in a game of throw the tennis ball over the garage roof...we were scolded that making your own luck did not give you the right to cheat someone else out of theirs.
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