admin, Author at Adulting: Second- Half

Soul (Super) Sunday

“If the world were merely seductive, that would be easy. If it were merely challenging, that would be no problem. But I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve (or save) the world and a desire to enjoy (or savor) the world. This makes it hard to plan the day.” – E.B. White

As my regular readers know, Sundays are devoted to poetry here at Adulting – Second Half. On Sundays, I either write a poem or I share a poem written by another poet, which has moved me, deeply. Keep in mind, we are all poets. I would love to see some of your poems in my Comments section. Do not be shy. This is not a critique zone. This is a loving, release zone. Poetry is made of words that are asking to be released, with all of the feeling that gives these very words meaning and momentum.

Today is Super Bowl Sunday. I know that sometimes, some of us self-professed high-minded, serious, spiritual, literary, intellectual types, think that we are “above” such earthly frivolity and carnage. Ha! The Super Bowl is awesome. Even if you are not a football fan, the creativity that goes into the commercials and the half-time show always blows me away! I am so grateful to live in a time period, where I can easily rewind and watch a hilarious commercial, again and again. I never thought that I would live to see the day, that the former sentence that I just wrote, would hold real meaning for me. (grateful to watch commercials again and again, huh?!?) Also, don’t get me started on the singing of the National Anthem. (tissue box is full, and at the ready) And let’s also not get carried away here, discussing Super Bowl food fare. No one sets down a plate of bean sprouts for the Super Bowl. Bean dip, yes! Bean sprouts, no. Eat more chips!!! Eat more wings!! I think that E.B. White (author of the above quote) would choose to make Super Bowl Sunday, a “savor the world” day, no question about it. Savor the world, today, friends, and let’s go Buccaneers!!!!

Today’s poem is someone else’s poem. I love it! Here it is:

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

Read and Write.

I’ve been looking for new inspiration for my writing, which is not a particularly easy feat during these pandemic times of social distancing. I feel kind of “redundant” lately, which I suppose is bound to happen when you write a daily blog, every single day of the week, going on three years. I read this quote, this past week:

“Inspiration is everywhere and so is distraction.” – The Naked Poet

I think that if I were still in high school, I would put that quote underneath my picture.

Here’s another good one:

“Writing is free therapy. Reading is free education.” – Wise Connector

I used to answer a lot of questions on Quora, but I stopped doing that for over a year now. It was just too time consuming. Yesterday, I got a random upvote on a relatively obscure answer that I had written back in early 2019. I like what I wrote. It was probably cathartic for me to answer that particular question for myself back when I wrote it. And it was a good educational reminder to me, yesterday, of my own thoughts and philosophies, which are reflections of the true compass of my heart, which ultimately guides my life,and keeps me walking the line.

In short, friends, what this quote is saying is: read and write. Read and write. Read and write. Never stop doing these things, if you really want to understand what makes you tick. Read and write. It really can be that simple.

Finally, I woke up this morning with pink-eye. It is my only symptom of a virus. But of course, nowadays our minds always go to THE virus, am I right?! I am going to try to put those worries out of my mind and I am going to heed Buddha’s good advice:

“Most problems, if you give them enough time and space, will eventually wear themselves out.”

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

Feeling Friday

Hello my dear friends and readers!! We made it!! We made it to Friday. In my life, a lot of “my people” have gone through some challenges this week such as crazy, busy workloads and deadlines, huge snow storms, and scary health challenges. Somehow, though, here we are at Friday, and everything feels like its going to be okay. I am happy to report that two of my dear friends got the vaccine this week. They had no reaction to the shot, other than big smiles on their faces. That makes my heart, happy and hopeful. My regular readers know that I love Fridays and I typically list three favorite products or songs or movies or food stuff that make life a little more fun and eventful. I strongly encourage you to put your favorites in my Comments section. Share the love, friends!! Here are my favorites for today:

Hunt for the Wilderpeople – This movie was written by Taika Waititi, the same man who created JoJo Rabbit and The Mandalorian. The movie features a young man who is a foster child in New Zealand, and his adventure with his “uncle.” What I love most about Taika Waititi’s creations is that he shows his stories through the innocent, hopeful, resilient eyes of a child. He makes it okay to laugh through extremely difficult experiences. I always fall in love with the characters (even the supporting cast) in his movies, and I always feel a little expansion in my heart and in my smile, after watching. I highly recommend this delightful film.

Mineral Fusion Lipstick – One of my favorite things in life, is to find an “old favorite” which I have forgotten about. I was cleaning out my little cross-body, dog walking purse, and underneath the poop bags (unused, of course), the dog whistle, the hand sanitizer, and a few random dog treats, was my metallic orange tube of Mineral Fusion Lipstick (shade – Intensity). I forgot how much I like this lipstick for its brightness and staying power. The older I get, the more faded out I seem to look, and a nice, bright lipstick always does the trick, to perk me up a little bit. Lately, one of my friends (a somewhat conservative English teacher), has taken to wearing red lipstick every day and she looks so gorgeous on our Marco Polo videos that we share we each other, in our friend group. Lipstick is our friend, ladies! (Peony is another shade that I like from this line.)

I was reminded of one of my favorite biblical verses today, from Tim Scott’s (senator from South Carolina) Twitter. Tim was raised by a single mother who worked sixty hour weeks as a nurse’s aide to support her family. Tim Scott has said that his mother always saw what he was capable of becoming, well before he did and he quoted this verse, as he wished her a happy birthday today. Those of you, who also believe in mystical numbers, can appreciate that this verse is number 11:1. Keep the faith, friends and have a wonderful weekend! (Go Buccaneers!!!)

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

Candyland People

Think Smarter (Twitter) nailed it again. I agree completely with the above statement. I have been called bubbly and vivacious and lively and perky. I am those things. I feel everything really deeply. So, luckily, I think that I get a really nice, deep helping of joy and excitement, when I am feeling those emotions. That being said, I also feel my negative emotions pretty deeply, as well. What I do know, is that all of my feelings, are just that – feelings, and they pass. I have reminded my children, and I have written it here on the blog, many, many times that our true consciousness of being, is just like the vast, blue sky. Our peaceful awareness remains a constant. Clouds come, but they always, always pass on by. And we can help the clouds to pass on by, when we monitor our thoughts, because more often than not, our thoughts create our feelings. And our thoughts are often faulty. I have a friend who often says, “Let’s ‘fact check’ that statement,” when any one us in our friend group, gets a little dramatic with our complaints and our woes. Often, we end up laughing at ourselves and our thoughts, because the feelings attached to these thoughts, can really start a ridiculous thought train, going way, way out to La La Land. I read recently, in order for us to not get too attached to our thoughts, we need to detach from them, and visualize them like other information that constantly comes at us and we easily let pass on by without too much pondering, for instance the billboards which we pass as we are driving on a highway, or individual leaves being carried down a stream, or computer pop-ups that we quickly press the “X” button on, to stop them from distracting us. In the end, I think that being a positive person just means that you trust yourself to be able to handle anything that comes your way, and that you are good at finding the silver linings of any situation.

Image result for good quotes about being positive

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

Your Average Zombie

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

I’ve mentioned on this blog, that I like to play phone games. I do not like to pay for anything on these phone games, So inevitably, when I reach a certain level in any one game, it becomes almost impossible to “beat” that particular level without some monetary insertion from Google Pay. So, that is when I say to said game, “Bye for now!” and I download another game that looks interesting, and makes me feel smart again, because I am zipping through the easy entry levels, like a pro.

I’ve noticed that if I leave a game alone, without logging in for a few weeks, and then I show up again after a long break, all decked out in my pretty little login emoji, miraculously there are boosters and extra lives and thousands of “coins” being thrown at me, as if I were the prodigal son returning to the screen, after so long and arduous, a time apart. The previously impossible level to beat, without buying the super-duper, discounted $6.99 value pack of boosters, is now a breeze to get through, as if I were starting on Level 1. And the next three “extremely hard/expert” levels, I am able to “win”, with the aid of one thumb and keeping my eyes closed.

It appears that these video games for my phone, were created by people who are quite familiar with toxic psychology. They are made with the “cycle of abuse” in mind. They work off of the casino model. Intermittent rewards is what keeps you coming back. A game which rewards me all of the time is ho-hum boring, and that game is quick to get deleted off my application list. A game that never rewards me at all, is easy to say “sayonara, don’t let the door hitcha on the way out”. It does not feel good, at all, to always lose. But man oh man, you let me have a fabulous winning streak for a few weeks at a time, and I will always check in, eventually. You, my sporadically exciting and enthralling phone game, will always have some space on my phone. And you know it.

I was explaining this phenomenon to my husband and he said that I was spot on. My husband and my sons are huge Joe Rogan podcast fans, and my husband said that he had listened to a podcast recently, discussing how computer/video games are made. The creators of video games, study all sorts of fascinating psychology in order to make the consumer stay on these games longer. Apparently, we game players will stick to a game, for at least ten minutes longer, if we think that we are saving a “person” versus some other mission. (I guess that is hope for humanity) Also, we like games that involve a lot of “water.”

I was a marketing major in college. I understand the manipulative side of business advertising, sales and consumerism. Therefore I pose this question, “If you know that you are being manipulated, and you are choosing to be part of the manipulative game, are you still being manipulated???” I think that this is a very interesting topic to ponder. I think that this topic can apply to a lot of things besides video games and product advertisements. As we have experienced a lot of, particularly in the last few years, this question about manipulation can easily apply to government, news media outlets, sports, religious cults, and personal relationships, to name a few. We can even manipulate our own selves, by implementing denial and rationalization.

“If you know that you are being manipulated, and you are choosing to be part of a manipulative game, are you still being manipulated?” Does it even matter? Do we even care? I would love to hear your thoughts on this topic. My thoughts aren’t fully formed. As someone who prides herself on always trying to seek “the authentic Truth”, this question is one that is worth spending some time on, since I am taking a break from my phone games this week (with the reasonable expectation of some booster/points “goodies”, next week).

“One of the methods of manipulation is to inoculate individuals with the bourgeois appetite for personal success.” – Paulo Freire

Top 62 Quotes & Sayings About Control And Manipulation

8 Manipulation Quotes and Sayings ideas | manipulation quotes, manipulation, sayings

Karen

So there is an ongoing social media meme joke about middle-aged women demanding to see the manager, about various complaints which they have in stores, or in restaurants, or in government offices, or in a myriad of other venues. These women have all been given the generic name of “Karen.” I admittedly have laughed at said memes. We all have come across many “Karens” in our lifetime, and it is not at all fun, being at the other end of a Karen’s righteous, ravenous rage. The idea behind the Karen meme seems to be, that all of the disgruntled rage, which Karen has stored up, throughout her lifetime of putting up with various indignities with a plastered smile on her face, comes spewing out of her “completely-over-it-all”, middle-aged self, at the slightest offense. “Karen” has found her power (basically no longer giving a sh$t what anyone thinks). And everyone seems to think that this phenomenon is a big joke.

I had a very annoying customer service experience yesterday. Of course I did. We all know that “annoying” and “customer service”, go together like “salt and pepper”, or “peanut butter and jelly.” I honestly don’t consider myself to be a typical “Karen.” I don’t think that complaining has a lot of upsides, so it usually takes something pretty outrageous to bring my relatively long fuse to an explosion point. But yesterday was a Monday – a cold, windy Monday after a bad night of sleep, and my inner Karen was seeing red, and seething. I think what really brought my vicious Karen side out of the closet, was the seeming assumption, by the various “customer service (ha)” personnel, that by the very fact that I was a middle-aged woman with a complaint, (and an extremely legitimate complaint, I might add), I was already to be dismissed as a hormonal, out-of-control, cartoonish, crazed Karen-meme-in-real-life. It’s as if the “customer service” personnel immediately shut down and said, “Oh, we’ve got another “Karen” on board. Don’t give her anything, keep smirking, and let’s try to get another hilarious “Karen meme” out of this experience.”

At the end of the exhausting, time consuming, blood pressure raising experience, my situation got satisfactorily resolved in a very strange, roundabout, “things that make you go huh?” manner, but that’s for another blog. However, I have decided to have more compassion for the future “Karens” whom I may come across in my daily life. Often, the traits that we don’t particularly like in other people, are just some of our own traits, that we have unconsciously “disowned” in ourselves.

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

Monday Fun-Day

I see tips like this, and I wonder, why wasn’t I aware of that idea when I was raising my kids? Living in Florida, we have motorcyclists who weave in and out of traffic, and many of them do not wear helmets. I hope that this tip will be particularly helpful for those of you who still have young children or grandchildren at home to teach, or perhaps pass this information on to teachers. Spread the word and save some lives.

Have a fabulous week, friends!!!

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, friends. Sundays are devoted to poetry here at Adulting – Second Half. Today, I ask you to take the time to notice the stuff that you don’t typically notice. Notice the unusual color of eyes of the person who waits on you at Walgreens. Notice how perfectly synchronized all of the colors and lengths of hair on your dog’s face, or your cat’s face, come together into perfection and poetry, creating their beautiful expressions of being. When we really notice life, we starting living a beautifully poetic life. Here is my poem for today:

Falling in Love, Again

I love how you still surprise me.

I love that you showed me my favorite peanut butter pie,

even though I could be skinnier.

I love that I was rolling my eyes and watching the clock,

impatient for your movie choice,

And yet, when we watched it, it turned out to be a new favorite of mine.

And you knew that it would be, mate.

I love that you find it vitally important to find new favorites, for me.

It makes me feel vitally important.

I love how you know me so well.

You remind me of everything that I love.

You are my greatest gift.

You make me fall in love with you,

Again and again and again . . . .

Because you make me fall in love with life,

Again and again and again . . . . .

You’re Better Than That

“7.5 billion people in this world And you let the opinion of one stop your good energy? You’re better than that.” – Eric Thomas

Years ago, I had an eBay store. I’ve mentioned before on the blog, that I am an excellent treasure hunter/picker. I say this not to brag. There are a plethora of things which I completely stink at, but I am pretty good at honing in on “diamonds in the rough”, which others tend to easily dismiss. So, my eBay store (Baubles and Bling, it was called) was filled with one-of-a-kind treasures that I would find in garage sales, or flea markets or second hand shops. I had a lot of fun with the whole process. I enjoyed the treasure hunting, and I was thrilled with some of the prices I obtained for things that had been discarded, and were now highly valued by someone else. I felt like I had connected the desired thing, to the person who had been yearning for it. It was like being a match maker of sorts, and it was quite satisfying, most of the time. In particular, I was intensely proud and protective of my 100 percent customer satisfaction rating. I kept the “perfect” rating for several months after starting up my store (maybe even over a year), until one day, I got a disappointed customer. I couldn’t believe it! I did everything that I could to rectify the situation, even giving a full refund, even though I didn’t think that the refund action was particularly fair or justified. Still, I was obsessed with keeping my 100 percent rating. The person refused to change their negative feedback and my approval rating dropped all the way down . . . to 99.9% satisfied. I was utterly sick about this fact. I groaned and moaned for days to anyone who would listen. I would try to avert my eyes from my less than 100 percent perfect customer satisfaction rating. I became incredibly nervous and worried and overly affected about everything that I sent out to customers, living in fear of more negative ratings. What had been a fun hobby of mine, started turning into nerve wracking, gut wrenching experience.

Then one day my exasperated husband said to me, “You have hundreds of satisfied customers. Over ninety-nine percent of your customers, are grateful to you, and they are happy with their purchases. Many of them are repeat customers. Maybe you should focus on what the majority thinks. Not everyone is going to like you, but obviously a whole lot more people like you, than don’t like you. You are giving a whole lot of power to something/someone you don’t have any control over.” (I like to think that I am the wise one in my relationship, but when I retell these stories, it becomes clear to me that I am the one who married a sage.)

When what my husband said to me, finally sunk in, I felt a new sense of freedom. I no longer had the “perfect” rating, and I started to feel immense relief. These days, I sometimes lose a follower to my blog, or sometimes my blog has a low daily count of visitors, and that old sense of shame and dread and a desperate need to please, sets in. But then I remember my husband’s advice and I just keeping doing “my thing.” Deep connection is a unique and precious and intimate quality. I treasure the connection that I have with my readers who “get me”, and who relate to me, and want to read what I have to say. I treasure our authentic connection and that doesn’t have to happen on a mass scale. When I come here to write, I am so happy and excited. I am thrilled to commune with you. Please don’t ever change who you are, and I promise in return, to always give you “the real me.” And you are always welcome to come and to go, as you please, of course.

“Always remember, your focus determines your reality.” – George Lucas

“Don’t lose yourself trying to be everything to everyone.” Tony Gaskins

(****** On an aside, I know that you are probably wondering, because my friends ask me about this a lot. Why did I close my eBay store? There were a lot of reasons. We were making a big family move to a whole other state at the time, so I was paring my responsibilities down, to focus on the transition, for all of us. Also, I am sort of a contrarian. Being a stubborn contrarian is something that I know kind of bugs and annoys the people who love me. I fully understand and accept that even the people who love me, do not love 100 percent everything about me and that’s okay. I doubt that I even have a 99.9 percent approval rating, but as long as I’m at 65-75 percent approval, I consider that good and interesting for anyone I am in a relationship with, going both ways. Anyway, picking and selling stopped being cool and fun for me, when American Pickers and a bunch of other TV shows like it, started making picking a thing for the masses. Ironically, I lose total interest in almost anything that 99.9 percent of people like. Hidden gems are always my target and obsession.)

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

Friday’s Arrival

Hi friends and readers!!! Friday is here. Love it!! Here at Adulting – Second Half, Fridays are all about the light stuff, the fun stuff, or just plain stuff. On Fridays, I list three favorite things, or songs, or books, or movies, or food items, and I strongly encourage you to add your favorites, to my Comments section, so we all have a lot of fun things to buy, or to try, or to experience, over the weekend. A lot of our best ideas and inspirations come from outside sources. Creation is meant to come from collaboration! Please also check out my previous Friday posts for more favorites.

How did yesterday’s “luckiest day of the year” work out for you? Ours was amazing. Our middle son got accepted into medical school, which has been his dream, since probably middle school. We are beyond thrilled for him, and completely relieved. I had no idea how grueling the process is, to get into medical school, until he began this journey. Medical professionals, I have even more mad, mad respect for you now, than I ever did before. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Here are my favorites for today:

Match 3D – This is my newest phone game addiction. I am surprisingly good at it. Essentially, the premise of the game is that you are given a big pile of stuff to go through, and you can only make the pile go away, by finding the matches. I find it so satisfying to clean up a big messy pile of stuff, in the matter of a few minutes. (if only this could happen in real life) I am not one to pay for anything on my phone games, but I did break down and I paid a couple of dollars to get rid of the advertisements. It was worth it. Otherwise, you lose your concentration when they interrupt you in the middle of your game, to advertise another game which they think that you would probably get addicted to, as well. I think that phone games are a satisfying, inexpensive, harmless way to keep my 50-year-old mind sharp. They help to keep my mind clear of worries and distractions, and keep my fingers and hands out of the cookie jar, so I don’t snack so mindlessly anymore.

Orchidaceous – This my is my favorite word of the week. It is a real word. It means flashy and showy, like an orchid. I always fall for the orchids blooming in the grocery store, and then I buy them, and I bring them home and then they promptly lose their “orchidaceous-ness” and never bloom again. I had given up on some of my orchids as of late, and I ignored them and I probably didn’t water them in weeks, and surprise, they got me. They started blooming again! They are so orchidaceous, that way!

And finally here is my favorite quote of the week, from a great author, Anne Lamott. I washed every stitch of our bedding yesterday and this quote says it all:

“When you crawl between your clean sheets, after a hard day, you are saved. You feel like you are the best sandwich ever.”

Bonus: Although I wouldn’t put either of these movies in “my favorites” column, they are certainly good, worthy of your time, interesting films to watch this weekend. News of the World and The White Tiger are these films. I’ll leave it up to you to research them, to decide whether they should be part of your weekend repertoire of things to do.

Have a great weekend, my lovely, cherished friends and readers!!!

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