Author: admin

Insert Hand Over Mouth

“Before you say it,  Is it true?  Is it kind?  Is it necessary?” – Bernard Meltzer

I used to espouse the above quotation to my children so much that my youngest son took it and ran with it.  He said it so much and so loudly in school, that his second grade teacher made a giant poster board of those three questions and credited it to my son.   For the record, my son is not Bernard Meltzer.

In all fairness, this was more of a “do as I say, not as I do” teaching.  It is something to strive for every day, but I admittedly fall short.  I have a tendency to be blunt.  I also have a tendency to blame my bluntness on the fact that I’m a Sagittarius.  (As if a pseudoscience based on the alignment of planets excuses me for being an ass, but hell, taking accountability is a work in progress, too.)

We’ve all heard the saying that we have two ears and one mouth for a reason, but in a loud world filled with so much information, it sometimes feels like we need to shout to be heard.  And quickly.  The trick is to stop and to think and to ponder before shouting, I guess.  There is a Latin saying that when translated goes something like this, “Truth speaks for itself, if we let it speak.”

I have learned from experts that there are 5 simple rules for good communication. The first rule is to be in a place of empathy and compassion.  The second rule is to stay calm and try not to speak from an angry place.  The third rule is to use “I” statements instead of “you” statements to avoid blaming and shaming.  The 4th rule is to ask questions instead of lecturing.  “How do you think this situation makes me feel?” is a good question to ask another person for getting them to see things from your perspective. And the 5th rule is to make an agreement about things going forward and to forgive the past.  Of course, these rules work best if you are superhuman, or the emotionless Mr. Spock or the incredibly kind Dalai Lama, but nevertheless, they are something to strive for in our every day relationships.

There is a neat tee shirt company called Om + Ah London.  One of their best selling tees says this:  Be the reason someone believes in the goodness of people.  I imagine that being a thoughtful communicator would go a long way in achieving this goal.  The quote is certainly a worthwhile goal to strive for and possibly might be worth putting on a giant poster board right beside my desk.

Dream Come True

Okay, time for a dramatic moment.  I consider this a victory for all of us Second Halfers!  I’m officially a published writer today.  The wonderful digital magazine The Fine Line published one of my previous blogposts today.  You can find the link here:

https://thefinelinemag.com/

This is big for me.  It is a dream that I think I always had, to be a published writer, but I let it go latent. This moment is a huge reminder to myself to not listen to that ugly, negative, snarling, fearful voice in my head telling me that I’m not good enough, nobody cares about my ideas, and to just sit back and shut up and keep doing the dishes.  We all have that ugly voice raging at us and we need to silence him or her.  Now.  When our “ugly voice” is silenced we can hear the still, quiet, calm, peaceful, knowing voice that is inside all of us.  That is the voice which is beckoning us to share our true selves with the world.  When we do that, we are helping creation become what it is truly meant to be.  And that is a gift to ourselves and to the world.

“One of the greatest feelings in life is the conviction that you have lived the life you wanted to live – with the rough and the smooth, the good and the bad – but yours, shaped by your own choices, and not someone else’s.” – Michael Ignatieff

Second Halfers, our time has come.  We are ripened, wisened and brave.  We know who we are now and it is time that we love and accept who we are and share our total creation of ourselves, fully and honestly, with life.  We have championed our families, our careers, our mentors and our mentees, but it’s time to realize that it is good and right to champion ourselves as well.  I am so grateful to you all for your support and feedback on this blog.  Thank you for inspiring me to open up some latent dreams, and rallying me along the way.

” . . .sometimes, the fiercest thing you can do is to be unapologetic about who you are and what you want.” – Anonymous

 

Short and Sweet

A while back, I wrote a blog about an article that I had read.  The article claimed that studies had found that exhausted people are “socially repulsive.”  Well, guys, I was at the Monday Night Football game with my family last night and so this morning, I am feeling rather “socially repulsive.”  I don’t want to end up writing something regretful or incoherent, so I’ll just pass along this cool piece of advice.  A man on Quora named Takudzwa Razemba said that this is the best advice that he had ever received from his grandfather:

“If you’re persistent, you’ll get it.   If you’re consistent, you’ll keep it.  And if you’re grateful, you’ll attract more of it.”

Have a great day!  I’ll be back in better form tomorrow.

Just Say Thank You

 

Why is it so hard for us to accept compliments?  My friends and I got into a discussion about this the other day.  The topic came up because an electrician was at my home doing some work for us and he complimented a few things in our home.  Every time that he paid me a compliment, I rolled my eyes, made up some stupid quip about the item that he was complimenting, or I laughed.  Now, I know my etiquette.  I know that the proper thing is to just say “thank you,” but I didn’t do that and I didn’t even realize that I didn’t do it until he would respond to me like this, “Oh, so you don’t really like it?”  That response jolted me into some self-awareness of just how lousy I am at accepting compliments sometimes.

My friend said that when we don’t accept compliments we are actually insulting the person who paid the compliment.  When we put down what someone else says is nice, we are dissing their tastes.  We think that we are being kind or humble by not accepting compliments, but in reality we are rejecting their gift of kindness.  Another knee-jerk response to a compliment is to compliment the other person back.  But those “gotcha back” compliments seem kind of hollow, as a true compliment comes spontaneously from the heart, not as a “payback.”

Compliments are great. We should bask in them.  Mark Twain said, “I can live for two months on a good compliment.” Robert Orben said, “A compliment is verbal sunshine.”  Why not give the person who compliments a little “verbal sunshine” back with a big, bright smile and a, “Thank you. You just made my day!”  What is a better way to make both of you feel good???

We are unfortunately quick to accept criticism.  Even if we think we haven’t accepted the criticism, we ruminate on it all day long.  We stew in anger at the audacity of whomever criticized us or we sulk in shame as if making one mistake dooms us to the depths of hell.  If we are willing to put ourselves through all of that for criticism, constructive or not, why would we not allow ourselves to soak in the light of a kind compliment?  I think the cartoon character Happy Bunny says it best:

“Please put all criticisms in the form of a compliment.”

 

It is Fall

“Autumn is a second spring when every leaf is a flower.” – Albert Camus

“No spring nor summer beauty hath such grace as I have seen in one autumnal face.” – John Donne

Today is the first full day of fall.  I love this season.  I know so many people who say that autumn is their favorite season.  I live in Florida, but I grew up in Pennsylvania and I went to college in Virginia.  Both of those states admittedly have much prettier fall leaves than what we get in Florida.  Still, even Florida has its change of seasons.  My house has a lake behind it and behind that is a nature preserve.  In the fall, the light of the sun is finally able to poke through the preserve’s thick wall of trees and brush, hinting at the light that lives inside all of existence.  The Japanese people call this beautiful sight of “sunshine filtering through leaves”, komorebi.  I’m surprised that we English speakers don’t have just one word for that phenomenon because it is so lovely to behold.

“I love autumn, the season of the year that God seemed to have just put there for the beauty of it.” – Lee Maynard

When my son was on a travel soccer team trip a few years ago, we headed up north for a soccer tournament and one of the mothers, a native Floridian asked me timidly if I thought that it would be okay for her to bring back some colored leaves.  I said, “Honey, they will give you as many Hefty bags as you want.”  I remember the hours spent raking up the beautiful leaves in all of their splendor.  I remember all of the different school assignments and crafts involving the lovely leaves.  For some reason, those chores and assignments never seemed as agonizing as picking up fallen apples covered in bees in the summer or shoveling snow in the winter.  There is just something so comforting in all things relating to fall.  The gorgeous colored leaves, pumpkins, pumpkin spice, Halloween and Thanksgiving, swirling light winds, back to school, the start of football season, light sweaters and throws, etc. are all things of autumn and things that are almost universally appreciated.

“Autumn is the mellow season and what we lose in flowers, we more than gain in fruits.” – Samuel Butler

Second Halfers, we are autumn.  We have gone through the spring of our childhoods and the summer of becoming an adult.  We are in our full-color prime, bearing the fruits of who we really are and showing the world the beauty of the banquet of what we have to give.  We are calmer than in our previous seasons.  Our colors don’t necessarily burst, but our colors are vivid and show all that we have lived through and experienced, making our season’s colors the most beautiful of all – the colors that all of the world celebrates.  How blessed we are to be in this lovely season of our lives!

“Fall has always been my favorite season.  The time when everything bursts with its last beauty, as if nature has been saving all year for the grand finale.” – Lauren Destefano

Coin Flip

A great tip I learned a while ago is that when you are struggling with a really big decision, a really mammoth decision that just has you all tied up in knots and you don’t know what to do, you should just flip a coin.  Really, just flip a coin.

Now if that sounds ridiculous, let me explain.  You don’t make the decision based on how the coin lands.  You base your decision on what you are secretly hoping the result will be while the coin is still up in the air.  That moment will tell you the most about your strongest inner longings about the decision.  That very moment of hope gets you out of the analytical, calculating thinking mind and really to the very heart of things for you.

Try it.  It works a lot of the time.  And if it ends up being a bad decision, you can always just blame the coin.  Heads or tails?

Keep Calm and Friday On

Welcome to the best day of the week!  We made it!  Woop!  Woop!  New readers, every Friday I talk about some of my favorite things, products, services, etc. that have made a difference in my day-to-day life.  (please check out my previous Favorite Things Friday posts for other ideas of what to treat yourself with on this lovely Friday)  That being said, I have a confession to make.  In my first half of adulting, people in my life may have accused me of being a tad “impulsive”.  I’m working on getting better at that in my second half of adulting.  I feel like I need to add a disclaimer (kind of like the pharmacological advertisements) for fellow impulsive people like me before we get started today.  Here are a few things that impulsive people should be wary of:   

Amazon 1-Click;  maybe Amazon in general;  maybe-online shopping in general;  competitive bidding on eBay;  promo codes;  anything on sale;  cute shoes;  gifts with purchase;  long waits at the check-out counter;  potato chips and the like;  plates of cookies;  fad diets;  full pots of coffee;  anything with “miracle anti-aging” in its description;  buffets;  bookstores;  BOGO happy hours;  day trading;  sports betting;  casinos;  gym membership tours;  vacation clubs;  grab bags;  TJ Maxx;  animal shelters and/or pet stores or just anything furry with a cute face;  botox and fillers;  another lipstick/lipgloss;  and my single friends said that I should add, “right swiping”

Consider yourself warned, here we go:

Sunglasses w/Gradient Lenses:  This is more of just a great “favorite tip.”  Sunglasses are a personal thing.  What looks good on me may not look good on you.  It has a lot to do with face shape.  There are a lot of great sunglasses brands out there and for the record, I have read that most sunglasses, no matter what the brand, are manufactured by the same company. (true or not, I do not know)  I live in the Sunshine State, so I have about 75 pairs of sunglasses.  Seriously, I’m impulsive.  I think sunglasses are the ultimate accessory, right up there with shoes and handbags.  However, I started noticing when I poured over fashion mags and celebrity rags, that a particular type of sunglasses were especially attractive, alluring, sexy and magnetic.  What they all had in common were strongly gradient lenses.  These are the lenses that are dark on the top and get to almost clear at the bottom.  Celebrities like Brad Pitt and Jennifer Lopez almost always wear these types of sunglasses.  J-Lo is known to wear the Dita brand of sunglasses.  (now these are pricey, but almost all of their lenses are these gorgeous gradient types)  I picked out a great pair of Ray-Bans for my husband with these gradient lenses and while I have always been in love with him, every time that he wears these sunglasses, I fall “in lust” with him all over again.  If you want to feel like a rock star/movie star, I promise that these types of sunglasses will do the trick.

Moroccan Oil Beach Wave Mousse – I’m a sucker for anything that smells great.  This stuff smells so great, I could eat it.  And it works great, too.  It’s pricey, but a little bit goes a long way.  There are times that I have gotten a little too heavy handed with it and I have ended up back in the 80s with the “wet look.”  I have a head full of thin hair and this really helps pump up the volume and keeps things in place.  I love it!

Listerine Breath Strips – I love these!  I keep these little packets of “high impact” dissoluble strips in a cute leather pouch in my purse.  They are quick and discreet and perfect for using after eating meals like Philly Cheesesteaks.  Unlike mints, they have no sugar, no calories, and most kids don’t like them, so you don’t have to share.  They are strong, so if you have sinus problems, they might help in that area, as well?!?

Let’s end with a love letter to Friday, as seen on an internet post:

“Dear Friday, I’m so glad that we are back together.  I’m sorry that you had to see me with Monday-Thursday, but I swear I was thinking of you the whole time.”

Have a great weekend!  Thank you for reading my blog!

You So Funny

My daughter loves the TV show America’s Got Talent.  Thankfully she has much more wholesome and uplifting tastes in TV shows than her parents who stayed up past their bedtime to finish The Sinner last night and recently binge-watched the entire second season of Ozark in two days.  Occasionally, I would sit down with my daughter and watch AGT when there wasn’t anything dark and disturbing to watch instead.  This season I was utterly rooting for the comedian Vicki Barbolak to win.  I think that she is hilarious.  Vicki is warm, self-deprecating and has great natural timing.  She didn’t win, but she got far enough to guarantee a bright future in all sorts of comedic opportunities, in my opinion.  When I looked up Vicki on the internet, it turns out that she took her first comedy class when she was 38 years old.  What an inspiration for us Second Halfers!!

During AGT, one of the judges, Mel B who is a former Spice Girl band member, dressed as a unicorn and read from a joke book.  That brought me back to the days when my kids still had book fairs at school.   I gave my kids money for their book fairs with the insistence that they only buy books with that money.  They had better not come home with stuffed animals, 4-foot pencils or whoopie cushions . . . only books.  Invariably, at least one of them would come home with a joke book. (Retrospectively, I should have put joke books on the “DO NOT spend my money on this at the book fair” list.)  Now, I don’t know if the teachers still do this, or if kids can just read to Alexa or Siri now, but back then, their teachers required their students to read to a parent for at least 30 minutes every night.  So usually one of my kids would start reading their joke book to me.  That is when I would don my noise cancelling earplugs.  Okay, not really, but after 18 knock-knock jokes in a row, when I was ready to knock-knock my head into the wall, I would decide that this particular child was an excellent reader and really didn’t need anymore practice reading.  Looking back, I am wondering if the whole “read the joke book to Mom” was a well-thought-out scam to get out of reading.  My kids are clever like that.

Jokes are a funny thing. (no pun intended, seriously, I just reread that line and I had to laugh that I even wrote it.)  We have a love/hate relationship to jokes.  And humor is a very personal thing.  What I think is hysterical could easily fall flat to you.  Spontaneous humor is great, but it often never fails that in social circles, a joke telling session starts up and my palms start getting sweaty.  Everyone should have a few good jokes in their pockets for times like these.  I have a couple jokes that I have worn out so much that anyone who has ever met me, stood behind me in line or glanced at me funny, probably has heard me tell it.  I don’t like long jokes, because I always get so nervous telling them that my mind freezes and the punch line disappears into the thin air.  My friend once taught me a really short, corny easy joke that is so short that it’s impossible to forget the punchline and even though it’s a groaner, you get your joke-telling turn over fast.  I’m going to share it with you, because I love you guys and I want to give you something.  It goes like this:  “Two men walk into a bar.  Don’t worry, they have bumps on their heads, but they’re okay.”

Thank you, guys!  You’ve been great!  Give it up for Adulting – Second Half!! Woo-hoo!!!  See you tomorrow for what you’ve been waiting for all week, Favorite Things Friday!!!

Oh Just to Be With You . . . Thank You

When I was little girl there was a kids’ show that I watched called Romper Room.  The teacher, who was sort of the show’s director would hold up a magnifying glass and peer through it.  She would say directly to the TV screen, “I see Billy.  I see Susie.  I see Rachel and I see you!  I see you!”  When I was very little, I bought it: hook, line and sinker.  Then I started getting “in the know” and my cynical self thought, “Oh really?  How the hell can she see me?”  Well, maybe I didn’t swear, but I was a little annoyed at myself for getting duped.

Earlier this year when I attended the Taylor Swift concert, Taylor talked more than a couple of times about having a very personal relationship with her fans and audience.  I felt a little skeptical when she said it, but she did seem so emotionally sincere.  I had just recently started blogging and everything was so new that I didn’t quite understand this connection.  But now I do.

First of all, I need to say thank you.  I started this blog on an emotional whim.  My eldest child had just left the nest and I had so many words, emotions, questions, doubts, fears, etc. swirling around in my head.  Writing has always been the best outlet for me to really organize the swirl in my head and try to make sense of it all.  I felt like a blog would be a great personal tool for me to heal and grow.  It has definitely been that for me, but also so much more.

I thought writing a blog would better help me to connect with myself and it does help me with that, but I had no idea how connected it would make me feel with others.  I have good IRL (in real life) family and friends who support my blog and read it regularly.  I can’t thank you enough for all of your love, and support, and the kindness you have given to me throughout my life.  I treasure you all.  But readers out there, who I have never met in person, I thank you, as well.  I treasure you.  I never knew I needed you, but I did.  You make me feel like I have a voice worth listening to; you make me feel heard and understood.  I appreciate you more than you know.

I feel a personal connection to this blog, of course, but also to everyone who reads it.  Your time is precious.  You choose what is a worthwhile way to spend your time and when you read my blog you are giving me a gift of your precious time. Thank you.  Thank you.  Thank you.  I sincerely honor that and respect that offering.  What used to be looked at as just a personal release (my blog), has now become a responsibility to those who entrust their time to it.  I don’t take that lightly.  I get up every morning excited to write, excited to release, but mostly excited to connect to you all, my readers.  As an entity, my readers, you have become another part of my life whom I love, treasure and feel responsible to be accountable and there for you.  I want our daily connection to be that “comfortable old pair of slippers” that will always be there for both of us.  I promise you to be as reliable and as honest and as “real” as I can be.  I see you all as my friends and I am grateful for you.  I see you. Thank you.

Green-Eyed Monster

I once read that if you feel envious of something that someone else has, instead of wallowing in those feelings, you should use the envy as a springboard to either change up things in your own life or to change your thoughts.  Napoleon said that “Envy is a declaration of inferiority,” but I don’t believe that.  I think all of our feelings are part of our natural navigation system, so when our feelings are negative ones, we have to pay attention to what thoughts and circumstances are creating that negativity.  That, in turn, empowers us to make changes.

Many years ago, a friend in my neighborhood who was a few years ahead of me on the parenting chain wheeled happily down our road in her brand new convertible, with the top down and her hair flying.  I was still stuck in the minivan/SUV/station wagon stage of parenting and taxiing my four kids around town in that mode of travel, and admittedly, my envy meter went way up.  I felt sorry for myself for about a week, every time I hauled my brood around in our giant, french-fry garden, multiple mileage miracle, ton-sized Ford SUV.  Ironically, I now look back at that car with such fondness remembering the very many family road trips it reliably got us to and then safely back home, all in one piece.  However, my current ride is a convertible and I adore it!  I decided to turn my envy into future inspiration and it has worked out great in the long run.

Friends of ours are continually busy doing things.  They take trips and adventures and outings as often as the rest of us drink coffee.  Their three kids are younger than ours and I started to feel inferior, lazy and martyr-like compared to them.  I started to feel that ugly little ripple we call envy.  Now reality is that I like down time.  I like alone time and a lot of it.  I like to be spontaneous, calm and peaceful.  So, as exciting as planned outings and trips can be, a little bit of them goes a long way for me.  However, in noticing my ugly feelings, I realized that perhaps our family life had gotten a tad too predictable and banal and so we added a few more weekend outings and we made a better point of planning more interesting family vacations.  I don’t fit into my friends’ frenetic lifestyle but I am grateful for the inspiration it gave to me to spice mine up a little bit and to make changes that were inspiring to me.

Theodore Roosevelt said that “comparison is the the thief of joy.”  I have repeated that quote often to my children when reminding them to be only the best of their own abilities and circumstances.  However, I only believe that Theodore Roosevelt’s statement is true in the long run.  In the short run, if I feel a little prick of the green monster, I ask myself where is that prick coming from and what do I need to do, as an empowered woman, to make that prick go away?  In that sense, a very ugly negative emotion can be turned around to be a beautiful flash of inspiration or a change of focus to strong thoughts of gratitude for all of the amazing good in my own life.  As we all know and have experienced, the grass is greenest where you water it.