“Almost everything will work again if you unplug it for a few minutes, including you.” – Anne Lamott
So, I’m not going to be writing the blog for the next week or so. I have some summer adventures planned and I want to put my full attention there.
I love to write. I love to write daily. But sometimes, you even need to take a break from what you love. It gives you fresh exaltation when you get back to it. When you find yourself missing what you love, you get really clear about who and what and where means the most to you. I hope that you will miss reading the blog as much as I will miss writing it, and that we’ll all be back together here in early July.
In the meantime, I hope you’ll take some time to read some stuff in my archives. I’ve written almost daily blog posts since 2018. There are some hidden gems in there.
Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.
Here is the question of the day from 3000 Questions About Me:
Today, my web host did not want to cooperate with me. It’s usual reliability was thrown out the window. Trying to navigate the Login to get on to my blog, was so aggravating and wonky, I found my irritability meter going towards its threshold. And then Ed of Ed’s (our lawn guy) called with a bunch of excuses of why he hadn’t been able to come out this week to mow our lawn. (we don’t own a lawn mower because we employ Ed of Ed’s) Our lawn currently looks like the beginning spawn of a remake of the Amazon jungle. As my ire was simmering underneath my skin, I was reminded of just how typically reliable both my web host, and Ed of Ed’s, are in my life, and I typically have no feelings other than peace and ease and comfort, about their dependability and stability. It’s only on the rare occasion that things aren’t going as planned that my Inner Hothead pops in for a visit, full of indignant bluster. Rumi’s poem (below) is the perfect choice for poetry day on the blog:
Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.
Here is the question of the day from 3000 Questions About Me:
1039. What brand or product do you buy because you feel it’s trustworthy?
Is there anything more precious than your happiest memories? Don’t take the bad memories out. Leave them in the dusty corners of your mind. Open the treasure box that exists in your mind (and always will, no matter what) and think of your favorite memories. Imagine the scene. What was the weather like? Who was there? What were the sights, smells, tastes? Most importantly, what were you feeling? Feel those feels now as you run your happy memories through the reels, again and again. What does it take to make new happy memories? Your treasure box in your mind will always expand to hold these lovely memories. Make the memories. Let them happen. As I always tell my kids, Let Life love you. Go with the flow.
“Memory is the diary we all carry with us.” – Oscar Wilde
Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.
Here is the question of the day from 3000 Questions About Me:
Happy Friday!!Happy Favorite Things Friday!!! On Fridays on the blog, I’m all about the stuff in life – the literal “stuff” that makes life more interesting to live. Please see previous Friday posts for more of my favorite stuff, and please feel free to add any of your own goodies to my Comments section.
This past spring when we were in Belgium, we stopped in a store that I would say was a great deal like our Five Below chain of stores. It had rows and rows of cheap, everyday stuff, and even a whole section of party products. (It also had this truly obscene section, right out in the open, for all eyes of all ages to see, that let’s just say would have been the right place to purchase stuff for a really vulgar bachelor or bachelorette party. I’m always intrigued by the different standards, different societies have about all sorts of things, but I’m sure that we “prudes with machine guns” Americans, raise a lot of foreign eyebrows, too.)
In the store I bought a dish brush that looks like a goth woman. She had a tag on her that said “Funky Lady” and I still smile when “Funky Lady” and I do the dishes. I also purchased today’sfavorite of mine, in that store. It looks like a teeny, flexible plastic rake, for a teeny doll. It is meant to clean hair brushes, and it does a fabulous job of it. I looked on Amazon and you can purchase similar hair brush cleaners there, but I was surprised to see that they are not highly rated in the reviews. Mine is wonderful. It works splendidly! These little rakes are not expensive, so you may want to give one of them a try, especially if your hair brush is looking a tad woolly.
Have an amazing start to your weekend, friends!! See you tomorrow!
Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.
Here is the question of the day from 3000 Questions About Me:
2313. What makes a physically attractive person less attractive?
+ I’ve written about this before, but it bears repeating. Don’t question if something is normal. Instead ask the question, “Is this healthy?” Normal means “typical, standard, usual, expected,” according to the dictionary. Think about a lot of awful things that were once considered “normal.” Slavery. Smoking in airplanes. Women needing men to co-sign for loans. Lawn darts. . . . . The list goes on and on. Familiarity often breeds acceptance. When making decisions, plans, actions, always ask yourself, “Is this a healthy choice for me? Am I supporting something that is healthy?” Let “healthy” be your arbiter. “Normal” changes all of the time.
+ Joan Didion once said, “A writer is always selling somebody out.” I think this is the biggest struggle in writing. Even if you’re a novelist, you are still getting your ideas from observations and experiences from your real life. And your perception of things is your reality, even if others have a completely different perception. I never want to “sell anybody out.” Writing is my peace, not my weapon. It’s a fine line we writers walk. And now that there are so many forms of social media, I think that Joan Didion’s statement also applies. Kids can’t give their permission to air funny, embarrassing videos and antics. It’s a conundrum, for sure.
+ This is from a sign that I saw recently (it’s a good reminder. My grandmother used to always say “tend to your own knitting”): “Better worry about your own sins, ’cause God ain’t going to ask you about mine.”
Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.
Here is the question of the day from 3000 Questions About Me:
Boundaries got brought up in a recent discussion with friends. “Boundaries” is a hot word/hot topic these days, but there is often a lot of confusion around what boundaries are, what they mean, and also how to enforce them, and also how to respect others’ boundaries. I didn’t get completely clear on my own boundaries, around a lot of things, until I was middle-aged. I think this is the case for a lot of people, particularly women. We are conditioned to be the “pleasers”, the soothers, the facilitators, the mediators, the givers. So, with all of that conditioning, creating boundaries seems “mean” to us, and impossible to erect.
What is a boundary? A boundary is a rule that you make for yourself about what you will and will not accept in your life. People often get confused that boundaries are about making strict rules for other people to follow, for their own comfort. For example, “You will not yell at me.” “You will eat all of your vegetables.” “You will not call me after 8 pm.”, etc. Those rules are fine, but people are people. People don’t always follow rules. It’s hard enough to control our own selves, let alone trying to control others. Instead of stating your boundaries as rules for other people to follow, you restate your boundaries as what you will and will not accept, in your own life’s experience. So, the above statements, stated not as rules, but as boundaries become: “I will not allow myself to be yelled at by anyone. I will physically leave any situation where I am being yelled at . . . ” “If you are my child, I expect you to eat all of your vegetables, and if you don’t, here are the consequences . . . .” “I will not accept calls after 8 pm and I will mute my phone.” (Notice the difference. Boundaries start with “I” statements. Rules start with “You”.)
Boundaries aren’t just with other people. You can have boundaries around food. “I don’t eat meat.” “I don’t eat dairy.” “I only eat desserts on special occasions.” You can have boundaries around everything that you do: what and how much you drink, how much TV/social media you consume, how and how much you exercise, what kinds of movies you will watch, how late you work, what time you go to bed regularly, etc. etc. Again, boundaries are rules that you that you make for yourself about what you will accept in your own life and what you will not accept in your own life.
On top of making your rules for yourself, you also get to decide to change these rules if you like. And you also get to decide how rigid or permeable your boundaries are in every facet of your life. All of this is in your control. It is your right (and one might argue, your necessity) as a living, breathing human being, to create and to enforce your boundaries. Sounds simple, right? Then why is it seemingly so hard for people to create and to enforce boundaries?
Simply put, we have a need to be liked and accepted. We have a need to be understood. We have been conditioned to be “polite and congenial.” We fear being perceived as “mean” or “selfish.” We fear losing people and relationships if we erect boundaries. We dread conflict. And thus, people who do not respect boundaries, will run roughshod all over our boundaries. We give our power away to people who don’t want us to have boundaries. These people will test us and manipulate us to change our boundaries, and unless we enforce them, our boundaries are decidedly pointless. We all dread this process, but it’s a good process. Once you get good at protecting and enforcing your own boundaries, you earn self-respect. You learn to trust yourself. You become your own best friend. Your need to be liked and agreed with, becomes a lot less important than your desire to be respected. If you lose someone because you protected your own boundaries, is this a person that is healthy to have in your life, anyway?
A big mistake a lot of us do when stating our boundaries is that we JADE. JADE is an acronym for justify, argue, defend and explain. Our boundaries are what is right for us. When we start JADE-ing, we weaken our boundaries. We are needing others to agree with our boundaries, in order to enforce them. No one on this Earth is going to like and agree with all of the boundaries that we make for ourselves. Let’s be honest, you don’t like or understand a lot of other people’s boundaries, and that’s okay. You don’t have to like other people’s boundaries, but you do have to respect them, because if a person is good at protecting their own boundaries, you will suffer consequences for crossing their boundaries. “This is what is right for me.” “This is what works for me.” “This is what I have to ability to offer at this time.” This is all the JADE-ing anyone of us ever has to state about our own boundaries. You came up with your boundaries for a good reason for yourself. (You already did a lot of JADE-ing with yourself, in order to decide your boundary in the first place. Trust that fact. No one knows what it is you need, and what is best for you, more than you. No one.) When you JADE, you start showing weakness in the belief of your own needs and protecting your own needs, and the people who don’t like your boundaries, will try to chip away at them, by arguing with you and employing tactics like guilt-trips and persuasion. Don’t open the door to this with JADE-ing in the first place.
The best thing you will ever do for yourself and your boundaries is to lose the need to be liked. If you respect and honor and protect your own boundaries, you will like yourself a lot. You will attract healthy people into your life, who respect your boundaries and respect their own boundaries. (People who have healthy boundaries, are trustworthy, direct and upfront, and are usually good about respecting other people’s boundaries.) You will trust yourself with your own boundaries, and thus you won’t feel as fearful or untrusting of others, because ultimately you know that you can trust yourself to take care of yourself, in a predictable, reliable, nurturing, protective manner. If you are consistent with your boundaries, you may not be liked by some (who would rather you didn’t have any boundaries, for their own sakes), but instead, you will be admired by many. By practicing the protection of your own boundaries, you will become stronger and calmer than you ever knew was possible. There is no better feeling than being able to love and trust yourself. When you get to this level of self-respect, you get really picky about who gets access to you anyway. The need to be “liked” by everybody falls way down the ladder, naturally.
Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.
Here is the question of the day from 3000 Questions About Me:
2426. Have you ever bought anything after an infomercial? If so, what?
I saw this poem the other day and I had the idea to keep it until Sunday (poetry day on the blog), but I feel like writing about this today. So I will. As I have entered into my fifties, I am more cognizant of everything that I forget. I’m actually pretty good with birthdays and anniversaries and taking out the trash days, mostly because I am obsessive about writing things down. I scare myself with the things that I do forget though. I instantly forget names of movies and books and the characters in them. I stumble with the words that I want to use when I am relaying a story in conversation, I forget the names of towns I have visited, I couldn’t tell you what cars my friends drive, and I often mix-up our kids’ and our dogs’ names when I am talking to them. But honestly, I think that I have always been that way. I really don’t believe that I am headed towards early dementia.
The things that I do recall clearly, are like they happened yesterday. I’ll recall a story someone had relayed to me years ago, and their mouths drop open. “I can’t believe you remembered that,” they’ll say. I remember the oddest things. I remember a lot of random moments, I guess because for some reason that moment struck me as emotional, or unusual, or important in some nuanced way. Most of us writers are curious. We are always looking to understand, to see the deeper meaning in things and experiences. Most of us writers are observers and “sensers” (not censors). We are always looking for the right words to describe the way things feel. We are a little possessed with the question, “Why?”
I wish that I could remember names and numbers and historical facts better than I do. But I’m grateful that I can remember how a moment felt, what was really being said behind what was being said, tiny trinkets and plants and artwork that marked both sets of my grandparents’ homes, and trivial stories told to me by strangers that turned out to have a lot more meaning to them, when I was willing to explore the plot twists.
My memory is fickle, but it is deeply entrenched in what is really important to me- the heartfelt connection we have with each other and with the Life Experience in general. My heart remembers better than my aging computer of a brain ever did, or ever will. And honestly, that’s all that really matters to me.
Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.
Here is the question of the day from 3000 Questions About Me:
Years ago (probably even a decade ago), my husband made the horrible, dastardly mistake of eating the rest of an orange cream cupcake which our daughter had left in the refrigerator. The outcome of that act wasn’t pretty. (hysterical, hormonal preteen women are almost as lethal as hysterical, hormonal menopausal women – and I’m allowed to say this because I have been both) I don’t think that my daughter has ever completely forgiven my husband for that act. This whole ordeal was recently rehashed (yet, once again) because our local grocery store, Publix, had released a limited edition orange cream pop bar cake and yes, my husband and I devoured it within two days and bragged to the kids about it. I told my husband that I hope he had really enjoyed this delicacy because for our health’s sake, I can never purchase another one again. And then, over the weekend, I got an email from Club Publix celebrating my “half birthday” and offering up a free bar cake to commemorate this “big” event. Well, as the comedian Jim Gaffigan would say, “I don’t want to lose money on this deal.” I hope they haven’t run out of those orange cream cakes. My mouth is watering already.
Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.
Here is the question of the day from 3000 Questions About Me:
686. Do you like scary movies? (Me, NO. Absolutely NO.)
Happy Father’s Day!! Sundays are devoted to poetry on the blog. Write your dad or your husband a poem today. They’ll get a charge out of it. You’ll get a charge out of it, too.
“Dads are most ordinary men turned by love into heroes, adventurers, story-tellers, and singers of song.” – Pam Brown
“Superman”
When she called you “Superman”, she saw what I already knew
Not just to the broad shoulders and the handsome face, she was drew,
She saw the big heart beneath it all, the part that really makes you, you!
When it comes to devotion, rock solid reliability, and to your word being true,
Not many can even dare to compare, I imagine that there are very few.
You are my greatest love. My love for you will forever ensue.
For all the gifts you’ve given me, I am most grateful for our “crew.”
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I love you.
Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.
Here is the question of the day from 3000 Questions About Me:
We saw this beautiful rainbow in our backyard yesterday. It was a welcome sight after a tough afternoon of attending a Celebration of Life, for a 54-year-old woman who had recently died of cancer. Her children and our daughter played on the same tennis team, and so my husband and I wanted to pay our respects, especially since our daughter would not be able to attend, since our daughter is currently studying abroad.
One of my wonderful, loyal, longtime readers (Thank you, Gail!) left the comment on a previous post that I had written about this particular event, that she always leaves funerals/Life Celebrations with a little bit of awe, and a wish that she had known the deceased person better. After listening to friends and family talk so fondly of this woman who had passed, and viewing many lovely pictures of all different times and events in her life, I understood what Gail was saying. I did not know this woman well. I only conversed with her at our children’s tennis matches, but yesterday I got a fuller picture of who she was, and how loved she was, by so many people. There is a winsomeness in not being able to know many people, so intimately. It’s impossible. But there is such beauty in intimate relationships – the emotion felt, the idiosyncrasies that are so fondly noticed and appreciated, the shared memories between people which later become legends and lore . . . . It’s beautiful how we connect to each other in multiple different ways. We each have a few, deep intimate relationships, and then we have many more casual community relationships, but in the end, they all add up to shared life and shared experiences, which give meaning, reference and reverence to our own individual lives.
On a positive note, we actually ran into a couple we hadn’t seen since we moved from North Carolina in 2011, at yesterday’s Celebration of Life. Our sons had played competitive soccer together, and it turns out that they had moved to our area in 2017. We look forward to catching up with them over dinner in the next month or so. After asking myself the squeamish, uncomfortable question, “Oh no, am I starting to reach the age where funerals become reunions?”, I settled into the happier thought that the world is smaller than we think. Our relationships are really just webs which connect us all. We truly are all interconnected, in one way or another.
I am going to end today’s post with a picture of Harmonia, who is the muse of my blog. (You can read more about her on the Homepage of the blog https://kellyfoota.com/ ). No garden is the same every year. Last year, we thought we had ripped out all of the wild flowers from our back garden (which my husband had grown from seeds), but wildflowers are tenacious and strong and willful. A couple of days ago, I took this picture of a slightly muddied and crowded-in Harmonia, who seems to be sniffing one of the flowers. She seems to be reminding us to “take time to smell the roses.” It’s a good reminder. We never know when we will no longer have to opportunity to do so.
Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.
Here is the question of the day from 3000 Questions About Me:
