Author: admin

Say Cheese

“A second grader drew a picture of me today. I think it was me. It may have been a potato.” – Andi @smiles_and_nods, Twitter

This tweet brought a smile to my face. When our children were little, their preschool did a cruel activity every year where they would tell the children to draw portraits of their parents. We parents would then have to come into the classroom and find our own portraits, which were pasted all over the walls, for all to see. It was an excruciatingly difficult exercise. Most of the pictures appeared to be Picasso style. Our redheaded friend had a leg up. He would always just look for the only orange-haired, Ronald McDonald looking picture of a figure in guy clothes, and I think that he got it right, on the first try, 98 percent of the time.

I honestly hate having any kind of picture taken of me. I avoid pictures as much as I can. I’ve never felt like a natural in front of a camera. I am envious of today’s young ladies’ seemingly innate abilities to strike perfect poses, at the drop of a hat. I think this might be because they are so used to having their pictures taken. Since they were little, their parents have been pointing their phone cameras at them, a million times a day. Having their picture taken is as natural to them as blinking their eyes.

I know that they say that a picture paints a thousand words, but I’ve always been a word girl. If there is a video, I’m always looking for the transcript to the video. I read fast. I like to get to the point of things. I love words. I have always been able to express myself most easily in written form. I wish I felt that way about being photographed and videoed.

I read an article recently that said to get the best pictures of yourself, think of the people you most deeply love while having your picture taken. The article said that grandparents always look best in pictures where they are snuggling their grandchildren. Maybe when you are engulfed in feelings of love, you feel the least critical and judgmental about yourself and others, and that natural state of resting in love, gleams through the camera.

Having Your Picture Taken Quotes & Sayings | Having Your Picture Taken Picture Quotes

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Say Yes

I don’t have much to write this morning. It’s one of those mornings after a holiday weekend in which I am scattered in all directions and I feel like I am losing my mind. I am trying to get too much done, all at the same time, and in my frenzy, I am creating more “messes” to clean up. You never save time by rushing around.

I did want to mention/archive a quote that I saw in a book over the weekend:

“When they told me “NO” I thought “for you maybe, but not for me.” – Cyndi Lauper

This should definitely be a year of “yesses” in our lives. We’ve been living with so many “nos” for so long now. The saying goes that you mostly regret the things that you didn’t do versus the things that you did do. I think the saying is true. Even the situations, that in retrospect, didn’t go exactly the way I had planned and hoped for, the lessons that I gleaned from these experiences were priceless. I have always thought that having my curiosity satisfied is easily in my top five favorite feelings of all time.

Leigh-Chantelle - Friday's Final Say - Yes is More Quote

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Monday Fun-Day

23 Best Betty White Quotes & Funny Memes In Celebration Of Her Life | YourTango

(Because of Betty White’s love and advocacy for animals, a lot of her fans are giving to their favorite animal charity of choice today, in her honor. What a great plan!)

Happy 100th birthday to Betty White in Heaven! I can imagine that it is quite the celebration going on.

I am a long time subscriber to “Spirituality and Health” magazine. My favorite column is an advice column written by Rabbi Rami Shapiro. A reader recently wrote to Rami, asking for ideas for “standards by which to live.” Rami answered that it is written in The Talmud, which is an anthology of ancient wisdom from/for rabbis, that we will all have to answer these four questions when we die:

Did you take time to pursue wisdom?

Did you cultivate love and friendship?

Did you treat people honestly?

Did you yield to hope more often than you gave into despair?

In short, he told his reader, live your life devoted to these four tenets: wisdom, love, honesty and hope.

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Soul Sunday

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Good morning. Welcome to the poetry day on the blog. I’m pretty direct when I speak my opinions. What you see is what you get, with me. So, writing a poem is sometimes hard for me. Poetry leans towards more mystery, intuition, and what the readers, themselves, bring to the poem. Poetry is like a painting. What it means to one person, can be interpreted entirely different by another person. It’s brave to write poetry. Poetry requires dropping some masks. Drop a mask today. Write a poem. You won’t regret it. Here’s my poem for the day:

The Starting Block

The starting gate is a little jammed, my friend.

But you’ll get through it in the end.

You want to run through with a clear mind and strong heart,

So that may mean mulling and resting before you start.

The solid, broad finish line will always be there,

but is the ending, really where you should put all of your care?

The journey is made of many new races,

Full of new things, and faces and places.

You’re eager to start a fresh, new race to the finish,

Having run many races, your fears are diminished.

But remember that each race that you run has its own unique gift.

Take your time. Take your pause. Don’t let yourself go adrift.

The starting gate is starting to break free to open itself wide.

To go beyond it, let your deepest innateness be your guide.

The One You Need to Forgive

“My love, if the mistakes you made in the past no longer represent who you are now, it’s safe to forgive yourself.” – Valencia, Twitter

If you have learned from your mistakes, and you have changed your ways, then you have used these gifts and lessons from the Divine to turn this world into a better place. You have inspired others to do the same by your beautiful example. What could be more sacred than that? The people who have taught me the most about changing bad habits, or changing unhelpful thought/relational patterns, are people who have walked hard, narrow roads before me, climbing the rocks of integrity and candor, with their brutal self honesty. Their brave actions, which support their clear, honest words, are more inspiring to me, than any lecture I have ever received from a gilded, coddled, protected cocoon.

Forgive yourself. You are the only one left who needs to do this. Everyone else (every One) who matters, has already forgiven you. Have you ever thought about the fact that by overcoming your own transgressions and by inspiring others to do the same, you might be an important part of the Divine plan to lift this world to a higher plane? You are a beautiful example of evolution and elevation. Take off the cloak of shame, now. Forgive yourself.

Forgive yourself for the bad decisions you made, for the times you lacked understanding, for the choices t… | Choices quotes, Forgive yourself quotes, Wisdom quotes
42 Forgive Yourself Quotes | Self Forgiveness Quotes images – tiny Positive

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Friday’s Trinkets

39 Funny Friday Quotes To Activate Your Weekend Mode

Hi friends! Happy Friday!! Many of us will be enjoying a wonderful three-day weekend! Isn’t that grand?! I have a busy morning so I am going to have to cut my usually Favorite Things Friday blog post, a little short. Today I will be only sharing one favorite of mine, but it is a good one! One of my mentees is really into stickers. She likes more of the anime sort of sticker, but in looking for a fun sticker book for her, I came across a sophisticated sticker book for my middle-aged (but still a kid at heart) self. I just had to buy it! Here is today’s favorite (New readers, please check out my previous Favorite Things Friday posts for more cool things to try and to buy!):

John Derian Sticker Book (hardcover) – John Derian is a curator of images and prints from 18th and 19th century natural history books. He has made this amazing book, full of beautiful, elegant images. What is even more special, is that many of these images are real stickers. I’ve already had fun with some of these stickers when writing out my Christmas thank you notes, and then adorning them with these quirky, beautiful stickers. I remember the days of a childhood, collecting stickers with my sister. Smelly stickers were all the rage then! These aren’t smelly stickers, but they are special and unique. Here is a quote from this delightful book which I totally relate to: “Sorry to appear insistant (sic), but I must have my trinkets. This is the last chance.”

You must have your trinkets this weekend, friends!! Enjoy your trinkets!! Be insistent about it. See you tomorrow.

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Uniforms

The other night, when we were watching a football game, the color/honor guard came out and the announcer proudly introduced some members of our armed forces, representing our “Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, Coast Guard and Space Force.” I am aware of Space Force. This is not the first time that I had heard about it, but to hear it grouped into our armed forces, in such a natural, matter-of-fact way, kind of gave me a breathless pause. I thought to myself, what used to be only parts of science fiction and fantasy, has now become reality for all of the little ones coming up in this world. For the little ones, there is nothing strange and other worldly and awe-striking about Space Force, or electric cars, or your phone being able to turn on your dishwasher.

I have reached that age in life where a lot of what I took for granted as a little one, is now becoming (or has become) obsolete. It is such a strange mix of feelings to process this fact. Some people fight so hard to hang on to the things and ways of their time of being little ones. Some people desperately try to keep themselves uber-modernized, perhaps with the hopes of remaining “a little one” forever. I think that I am a little bit of a muddled-mix. I find myself liking to shock the younger ones (like my elders did) with stories of just how “crazy” the old days were, such as long summer days of riding bicycles, without wearing helmets, miles and miles away from home. My daughter was aghast to hear that I went door-to-door, in my bright green Girl Scout uniform, with my cute little matching beanie, selling cookies, when I was a little one. “Did anyone try to lure you into the basement?” she asked, when I admitted to going inside houses, while people took the time to handwrite their orders. But, at the same time, I also find myself admonishing myself to remember to not become a boring, old, stodgy, stubborn relic, “stuck in her ways”. There is a lot of progress in change. One of my mentees, the high schooler, who mostly leads a sheltered life at home, mentioned that she went on a trip over the holidays, and she was happy to see so many rainbow flags in stores, supporting gay people. I told her, “I’m happy about that, too. When I was a little one, many people hid the fact that they were gay, and there was so much hurt and brokenness created from people not being able to feel free to be themselves.”

The older that I get, the more I have come to the acceptance of the fact that there is so much in life that I have very little control over. What I can control is my reaction and my response to life as it is, and to life as it unfolds. I am trying to do this gracefully. I admit that I stumble a lot. But I always get back up again. At one time, early in my journey, I was a little girl in a little green beanie, and now I am way further up the road, watching people on my smart TV, in their smart Space Force uniforms. The beauty of aging is the breathtaking appreciation of how purely awesome it is to witness, with every sense in my body, Creation boldly unfold itself into the endless future.

Famous Quotes On Aging Gracefully. QuotesGram

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Are You Conscious?

I’m delayed in writing this morning. Usually, I get right to my writing space and my mind space, and I go right at it, but today I got distracted by some interesting texts with friends concerning interpersonal relationships and expectations. And then I got wrapped up in an thought-provoking conversation with my husband about how much the manner in which he works on a daily basis has changed in these last two years since the pandemic. My husband, a banker, now works remotely from home for at least half of the week, and this has never, ever been the case in the previous 29 years of his working in his industry before the pandemic occurred. Neither of these exchanges had much in common except for one thing: conditioned living versus conscious living.

There has been a whole thrust of information and interest about “living consciously”, which mostly means paying attention to what we are doing, and why we are doing it. It means becoming really honest with ourselves about our choices, and what is important to us, and the reasons why we feel what we feel, and do what we do. It means becoming brave enough to live our own choices and our own beliefs, without being concerned about what others think about these choices. Living consciously, means living in awareness, and being true to ourselves. We independent, freedom-loving Americans love to believe that we are renegades who are fully in control of our own lives and destinies, but truthfully, until the pandemic happened, a much smaller percentage of corporations and workers believed that remote work could happen and could happen productively and successfully. We didn’t consciously make this major change in our society. The pandemic forced it on us. If you are interested in this major swing towards remote working, this article is filled with interesting statistics:

Statistics On Remote Workers That Will Surprise You

If I am honest with myself, the times that I best lived most consciously, and most aware and true to myself, happened after major crises in my life. To center myself, and to navigate out of these crises, I had to get really real with myself, about the parts that I could control, and the parts that I couldn’t. I had to get humble enough to seek and to accept help when needed. Nothing will get you out of a “zombie” state faster than a crisis. Even good changes, such as a money windfall, or kids growing up and starting their own lives, or a new grandchild, bring about meaningful transformations that force us to consider our whole state of living – what we do, how we do it and why we do it.

I honestly believe, as awful as the pandemic has been, if each of us use this experience to get really conscious and wide awake about our own individual precious lives, and how we spend our time, and how we live our own individual, unique values (without trying to control others – our lives are our business, their lives are theirs), like all tragedies, the losses which we have suffered in this pandemic, will not be in vain. The beginning of the year is a wise time to get conscious/introspective/honest about everything in our lives: our relationships, our health, our daily habits, our jobs, our finances, where we live, our spiritual beliefs, what we buy, what we eat, what we watch, where we spend our time, etc. In each of these areas, are we living authentically? What changes would we like to bring about? What can we change, and what is out of our control? Are we true to ourselves or desperately trying to impress/control others?

Pondering deeply is never a waste of time. Give yourself the gift of pondering before you consciously move on with the precious gift of another year of your own one life. Be brave. Be curious about yourself. Help yourself to fall in love with your life that you are consciously co-creating with the Divine.

“Find out who you are and do it on purpose.”– Dolly Parton

“Our time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life.”– Steve Jobs

 “And how can we truly know ourselves unless we get still enough to listen to just ourselves? Unless we give ourselves the time and space to tune in.”― Shayne Traviss

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Lucky Pennies

A person on Twitter asked the question wondering if people pick up pennies and other random change they find on the ground. I was excited to see that there are a lot of people out there, just like me, who are thrilled to find lucky pennies. My husband and I have a lucky rabbit bank in our bedroom, full of change which we have found over the years.

Many people who answered her question subscribed to the belief that these are “pennies from Heaven” intentionally sent from loved ones who have passed on. Some people stuck by strict rules. They said you could only pick the penny up, if it was heads up, for good luck. Tails meant bad luck if you picked it up. Some people said that they purposely flipped the coin to heads, for the next person to pick it up. Other people said that they intentionally dropped pennies on the ground, knowing that it would make others feel happy and lucky to find them.

Some Canadians scoffed that we Americans still have pennies. Apparently Canada stopped minting pennies a few years ago, because it actually costs more than a penny to mint a penny. I’ve decided that this means if I find a Canadian penny (the pennies with the ever-present Maple leaf), these pennies are now extra lucky, because they are more rare, eh?

Some people answered that they picked up pennies and other change off of the ground, not for the luck factor, but because they respect the value of money. Some people intentionally kept tallies of the money they had found over the years and some of these figures were in the hundreds, and even a couple people claimed having found thousands of dollars, over the years. These responses reminded me of a time when I was trying to use up a bunch of heavy change, that I had in my purse, to pay for something. I was embarrassed by all of the change counting and I kept apologizing to the clerk. I don’t remember what I purchased, but I’ll never forget the man saying to me, “Never apologize for paying for something with your hard-earned money, no matter what form it comes in.”

Only a couple of people scoffed at picking up change off of the ground. I secretly felt sorry for them. These people are denying themselves some kind of intrinsic good feeling whether it be good luck, or reassurance, or nostalgic love, or security, or pride. They are essentially denying themselves whatever a unit of money could represent to them. Because as we all know, money itself is just some paper and some metal coins. Money itself is just a representation of a transfer of energy. Like so many things in life, money is just what you make it to be.

Quotes - Grant Cardone | Grant cardone quotes, Money quotes, Grant cardone

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Monday-Funday

Zickspace - This has been the longest week ever and it's only Monday! | Facebook

RIP – Sidney Poitier, Bob Saget

Usually, when celebrities/public figures pass on, my husband and I feel that little pang of sadness for the loss of another person who has affected one of the eras of our own lives. It’s like a little piece of our own history is again chipped off of the wall, to reveal what is coming next in the fresh future. Since, thankfully, most of these people live to a ripe old age, our kids usually have to ask us, “Who died? Who was that?” But when the news that Bob Saget died came across the wire, my daughter was noticeably glum. As a huge fan of “Full House”, she observably felt that same feeling that my husband and I seem to feel more and more often these days as we get older, and the inevitable losses of life accumulate. One of my daughter’s chips fell off of her own mostly freshly painted wall last night, and I know that she sits with that sad, strange feeling that is relatively new to her. If nothing else, life is poignant.

Speaking of life, I read something interesting yesterday. The idea was that everything that we love in our lives right now, has in some way been gifted to us, by a prior version of ourselves. Our loving relationships, our warm homes, our health and our feelings of security, have all come about, in part, by actions which we have taken earlier in our lives. (Important: Don’t start to use your human nature right now, to start pinpointing all of the areas that you need to improve, and start feeling blameful and angry at your former self. This is supposed to be a positive exercise in gratitude.) Think about everything that you love about your current life, and thank yourself for gifting yourself these wonderful people, places, things, feelings and experiences. Now, in this light, think about what you could do in this next year, for which your future self would deeply thank you for, say, five years down the line. We often talk about what kind of world we would like to leave for our children and grandchildren. But remember, you are still very much alive and vital. What kind of world do you want to create for your own future self? What would you like to be thanking yourself for, in the next five years? I am incredibly grateful to myself for creating this blog, over three years ago, at a time period, when my deepest self knew that the era of raising my children was soon to be coming to a close. I created Adulting – Second Half as a way to open new doors to myself, and I have never, ever regretted that decision. What decisions and actions do we need to make for this new year, that our future selves will thank us for, forevermore? (I fully understand that this is a lot to ponder on a Monday. You may save this assignment for tomorrow, if you like. 😉 Most importantly, have a great week!)

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.