Blog - Page 193 of 234 - Adulting: Second- Half

Never Lose Hope

In light of all of the painful world’s events that have occurred in just this short time, I think that this wisdom from the Dalai Lama is so correct:

“There is a saying in Tibetan, ‘Tragedy should be utilized as a source of strength.’
No matter what sort of difficulties, how painful experience is, if we lose our hope, that’s our real disaster.”
― Dalai Lama XIV

I hope that you have a reflective, restful day off (if you are fortunate enough to have this Labor Day off) and enter into another fall season, refreshed and hopeful. Over the weekend, a dear friend of mine’s son, tragically lost one of his dearest friends. I wrote to him that every friendship that I have ever had, whether long or short, has affected my life and in essence, has become a part of, and helped to form, who I am, at my very core. So, in essence, those friendships will be with me forever. In that same sense, every tragedy and every triumph that we experience in our lifetimes, also becomes a part of who we are and helps to form us, and to grow us, individually and collectively. Thus, nothing is for naught.

The Good News

What stinks about hurricanes (besides just about everything) is that they force me to look at the news much more frequently than I ever do, on a daily basis. So, on top of all of the anxiety, prepping for all possible ramifications of Dorian, depressing feelings set in, from reading about yet another tragic shooting and all sorts of other negative news, swirling around on the TV and the internet. However, there was one news story, from a day or so ago, that truly touched my heart and reminded me that people are mostly kind and caring to one another. The world is a mostly good place.

A couple was flying with their young autistic son, who ordinarily loves to fly. Typically, flights have a calming effect on this young man, so his parents were completely mystified when their son got hysterical during take-off during the flight and could not be calmed. The flight attendants warned the parents that the flight could not take off until he was in his seat, but the child was inconsolable. When the flight attendants realized the parents lack of ability to change the situation, they patiently worked with them, sitting with them and allowing the child to sit on his mother’s lap, for take off. Soon, it became evident that the child felt more comfortable lying on the floor of the plane, due to the vibration. So after take off, the people in the first class section, spread a blanket down, so the child could lie on the floor comfortably. A stranger wrote a lovely handwritten note to the mother on a ripped out page of the airline magazine. Here is part of it:

“I commend you for your strength. Do not EVER let anyone make you feel as though you are an inconvenience or a burden. He is a blessing . . . Continue to be superwoman and know you and your family are loved and supported.”

The best part of this story, is that when I chose to write about it today and I did an internet search for it, I found that it was just one of many, many similar stories. One mother put her high-functioning autistic son on an airplane to visit his father with a note to be given to the child’s seat mate, letting him know about his condition, asking the person to be patient and even enclosed 10 dollars for the inconvenience. The kind man sitting next to her 7-year-old son, sent a picture and note back to his mom, saying this:

“(Landon) did ask if we were there yet several times but he was a great travel buddy. We had a good time and played a few rounds of rock-paper-scissors,” Pedraza wrote. “He’s a great kid and you’re a lucky mom.”Pedraza said the $10 “wasn’t necessary” and that he donated it to The Autism Society in honor of Landon.

Both mothers put their stories on social media, and thankfully, these WONDERFUL news stories went viral. Perhaps instead of avoiding the news, like I do these days, I should just be choosier about what I read. There are pages and pages of GOOD news to be read, if you put your mind (and heart) in the right direction.

Makes So Much Sense

“This is one of the marks of a truly safe person: they are confrontable.” – Dr. Henry Cloud

Dr. Cloud has written many good books mostly focused on the subject of boundaries. There seems to be a whole lot of attention on narcissism and toxic people, these days. Back when I first learned the term “narcissism” there wasn’t much of anything about it at all on the then sparse internet. There were very few books on the subject, but it was such a relief to finally have a term and some understanding about why some of the toxic people in my life, at that time, behaved the way that they did. Now there is a plethora of information out there about these topics, some good, some not so good, but Henry Cloud knows what he’s talking about. We only have control of our own thoughts, behaviors, decisions, actions and reactions, and we are responsible for the consequences of all of these things. Healthy boundaries that we create are an important part of our overall health. There are all sorts of articles out there, talking about how to spot an unhealthy person. I think the above quote is as about as solid and telling as it gets. No one likes to confront and no one likes to be confronted, but healthy people, even if nervous and upset, can handle confrontation and work through it to a mutually agreeable solution. Trying to confront an unhealthy person, is like walking into a hurricane or a room with a ticking time bomb. The energy swirling around is scary, unpredictable and has the healthy people “walking on eggshells.” I like when someone “states the obvious”, yet what is said is so refreshingly clear that it feels like something that we have known all along, deep inside, suddenly comes to the surface and makes all of the sense in the world.

Hurricane Hassle

Happy Friday! Happy Favorite Things Friday!! Readers, things are breezy, easy and sometimes even cheesy, here on Fridays at Adulting – Second Half. On Fridays, I list three favorite things, songs, apps, foods, etc. that I just love and I strongly encourage my readers to add their favorites, in the Comments section. New readers, please feel free to check out previous Friday posts for lots of good favorites to enjoy!

Readers, I hope you all have a fabulous long holiday weekend. As you know, I live in Florida. We are not evacuating. I am staying positive that we won’t be affected greatly and I am praying for my fellow citizens that we will all be safe and unharmed. I have only lived in Florida for about eight years, and already I have come to accept hurricanes as the price we pay, to live in otherwise, such a beautiful, warm, ripe and fascinating state. If I am not posting, just figure that we had a power outage and we are prepared for that. That is the beauty of hurricanes – they give you fair warning of their impending arrival. It’s just annoying because the hurricanes never decide who they are going to visit in person, until seemingly, the very end.

On to today’s favorites:

Spray ‘N Wash Laundry Stain Remover Max with Oxi Action – I live in a family of six active and not particularly graceful people, and two boisterous dogs. We get a lot of stains on our clothes. I have never used a better stain remover in my life. It claims to even remove 7-day dried in stains. I haven’t tested that situation but I believe it to be true. This stuff is the bomb!

Balanced Femme Liquid Herbal Formula – I have mentioned that I have been trying out different natural remedies for dealing with the fun of premenopause/menopause hormonal craziness. The verdict’s still out on this one, but I have found it beneficial enough, to order a second bottle. At the very least, I have noticed no negative side effects. You can order it from Amazon.

No Pull Dog Harness from Zydistro (ebay) – We have two large, young, strong, eager dogs. Our Labrador retriever weighs over 80 pounds and our collie is about 65 pounds. These nylon harnesses are the best we have ever used to walk our dogs with and they are unbelievably inexpensive ($6.99). They are washable nylon, have strong straps and clips, come in all sorts of sizes, colors and patterns, are easy to put on and off and the best part is that they have a strong pull handle on the top of the harnesses, which comes in handy in certain circumstances, like pulling Ralphie (our lab) away from someone who doesn’t necessarily want to have their face licked off. I bought ours at the beginning of the summer. We walk our dogs daily, and the harnesses are still in great shape.

Image result for lieutenant dan storm meme

1010!

I’ve mentioned before that I love playing the game 1010! on my phone. It is a grid game, sort of like Tetris, where you are trying to fit the pieces all together, so that when a solid line of ten blocks is formed, it disappears, making more room, for more pieces to be added. The game ends when you cannot fit the various shaped pieces to be played, on to the grid anywhere.

I have come to learn that I am most successful in the game and I tend to get my highest scores, when my focus is on just getting a line to disappear. On the other hand, when I try to make the grid look perfect and set up patterns and I try to make a whole lot of lines disappear at once, is usually, when I set myself up for failure. Invariably, an odd figured shape comes out of nowhere and because I have so many pieces neatly placed on the grid, there is nowhere to put the unexpected shape.

I was a marketing major in college and I have held various sales positions, over the years. “Always be closing!” is something that they preach to you in sales. I repeat that mantra to myself when I am playing 1010!. It reminds me to keep my eye on the goal, racking up points and keeping the grid relatively empty, by making lines disappear, no matter how messily that happens.

It struck me the other day, that life is a lot like this. We get goals in mind, but we get tripped up, thinking exactly how those goals should come about. We want things to be neat, easy and orderly, but that’s not really how a lot of life goes. When we keep our eye on the prize – our goal, we are more open to the different avenues and approaches of how that goal may be attained. We aren’t as easily thrown for a loop, when something unexpected (that dang, hard to place shape) comes our way. When we believe in the goal, we know that there are many possible ways to get to the goal and that forces bigger than us, are helping us along the way. When we keep focused on the desired end result, and we aren’t as worried about how we get to that end, but just hold on to our faith that we will get there, however messy and hard and full of surprises the journey to the goal may end up being, we have a much better likelihood of success. When we hold fast to how we think an objective should be attained, we more easily get stuck and mired in disappointment. We have lost our vision of the goal, because we keep eyeing “the pretty picture” of how we think the goal should come about. When we do that, we have lost our way.

“Failed plans should not be interpreted as a failed vision. Visions don’t change, they are only refined. Plans rarely stay the same, and are scrapped or adjusted as needed. Be stubborn about the vision, but flexible with your plan.”

John C. Maxwell

Open Arms, Open Heart

Tonight is Open House night at my daughter’s high school. This will probably be about the 20th Open House that I have attended, in the capacity as a parent. I’m not even really sure the actual number, as they all start running into each other, in my mind. Usually my husband and I have had to “tag team” these events, going to different of our children’s classes and coming back together to compare notes. (I have to admit that he has always been more earnest in his note taking than I have been.) Sometimes we haven’t even been at the same school. It will be strange to be able to go to the same classrooms together and greet the teachers, as a team.

My daughter is a sophomore, so her classes are still likely to be pretty full with parents during this Open House. Senior classes tend to be pretty sparse. One year, my eldest son’s senior English class only had one parent attending. It was me. This poor young, earnest, first year teacher had prepared probably the best PowerPoint presentation I had ever seen produced at an Open House event. I half expected fireworks to be let off at the end of it. When he asked if there were any questions at the end of it, I wanted to ask, “Should we cry now?” It was definitely an awkward situation.

I had my eldest child when I was 25. It has been good for my ego over the years to be “the young mom” when I visited with his teachers and friends and coaches. My son is a big man with a full beard who looks older than his age, so one time, when I was donning a baseball cap and big sunglasses, someone once even confused us as husband and wife. It was definitely another awkward moment for me. I think it was a traumatic, nauseating, possibly “in need of therapy”, moment for him.

But now, as I enter the last three years of Open Houses to go, I’m definitely not one of the young moms. I’ve been around the block a few times. I have the worry lines on my forehead to prove it. But with the lines, also comes the sage wisdom that everything is going to be okay. My daughter will find her path, just as her brothers before her have, and her father and I have, before our precious children even came into being. Her earnest, kind, dedicated teachers will do their best to impart their knowledge to broaden her mind’s understanding of this world and to keep her thirsting for more learning. Her tennis coaches will coax the best of her physical prowess out of her, which will give her the best prize of all – confidence in her strength and her abilities to overcome challenges. Her art teachers will encourage her to expand her amazing creativity and her unique expressions of the world’s wonder. Her friends will be her mutual cheerleaders, supporters, experience-sharers, and perhaps, among the best teachers that she will have in many regards, as she morphs into her womanhood. The administrators at her high school will keep her life structured, ordered and hopefully safe, for the next three years. So knowing all of this, I greet tonight’s Open House with open arms and an open heart of gratitude for this warm, connected community that is helping me to launch my final little ship, of the fleet of ships, that makes up our family.

Pants on the Ground

I typically throw on a pair of sweat pants and my glasses, before taking my daughter to school every morning. As much as I love clothes, I would never win any fashion awards for my morning attire. (my morning coif leaves something to be desired, as well) When I got home the other day, I dropped trou, to get into the shower. When I came out of the shower, I noticed that my sweat pants were in a perfect pile on top of my shoes, as if the person wearing them had instantly disintegrated, right where she was standing. I giggled to myself because lately, how my pants looked, is how I feel about my aging skin. It’s like every morning, I have to start at my ankles and pull up my skin, like a pantsuit or a wet suit. Pretty soon, I’ll need to hold things up with a set of bungee cords or extra strong velcro. (could be an interesting fashion statement)

An alternate thought that I had, when I stared at the funny little sweat pant pile (this just gives you a bird’s eye view into where my weird mind goes to . . . and tends to stay, far too long), is that it was like I had melted, like the Wicked Witch of the West. (right now, my family is all saying to themselves, “You said it . . . not us.”)

Image result for wicked witch of the west melting

Love Life

I had a lot of free time this weekend, which is a beautiful thing. I actually got to sit out in the sun, and casually flip through my magazines, which have been piling up, like paper bricks, forming the “Wall of the Unread.” It turns out that In Style magazine is 25 years old this year. It was born, the same year that I got married. One of the features of this month’s issue, was interviews with frequent cover girls of In Style. They interviewed celebrity women like Jennifer Anniston, Demi Moore, Jessica Alba, Michelle Pfeiffer, Halle Berry, Salma Hayek, Kate Hudson and Meg Ryan, among others. They asked each woman to describe in a few words what she was like when she did her first cover for In Style, versus what she was like now, 25 years down the road. Here are some of the words that the women used to describe how they were in their first cover sessions, in their younger years (1994 – early 2000s):

sweet, naive, curious, hopeful, insecure, prickly, fiery, ambitious, overwhelmed, sassy, hardworking, loving, no idea where it was all headed, surprised, excited, immature, optimistic, flat-stomached, fearful

Here are some of the words these famous women use to describe themselves now:

strong, knowing, excited, dedicated, introspective, quirky, eccentric, happy, smart, independent, thoughtful, generous, more forgiving of myself, less controlling, blessed, centered, focused, content, very strong, always curious, still a nerd, more wise and less sure, very optimistic, humble, grateful, fearless

When I compared the lists, I realized that I have a lot more in common with these celebrity women than I would have ever guessed. All of these years of watching them on the big screen, I guess I always just equated them to the characters that they played, which were often bigger than life superheroes. (literally) It was interesting to see them from a very relate-able, humane view.

As I was reading my magazines, I had put on a cover-up that I haven’t worn in quite some time. The brand of this article of clothing is Gretchen Scott and this is what the company put on all of their tags:

Laugh More, Gripe Less, Ignore Critics, Say Yes, Order Dessert, Love Life

I think what is sweet about being 25 years older (and I believe that the above mentioned celebrity women would probably agree with me, based on their personality trait lists) is that I understand and I apply the wisdom of the Gretchen Scott clothing tag, more than I ever did. Love Life. It’s that simple.

To Market! To Market!

Yesterday we went to one of my “happy places.” This happy place is an absolutely fabulous gourmet Italian market, filled with scrumptious cuisine, lots of kitsch, and a dessert selection worth waiting the half hour, until it is your turn to order. Not everyone is happy here. I overheard one woman talking on her cell phone, “I can’t believe that they brought us to this place. It’s a cluster. It’s insane.”

This market is so fantastic, that it is always filled with people. And the people are such a good microcosm of the entire world. You hear all sorts of languages being spoken. You see every age, every color, every style of fashion that you would see in an international airport or touristy shopping mall. I honestly would come to this precious market for the people watching alone. It takes an army of employees to run the show, including flag waving parking attendants. You definitely have to be in the right mindset before you visit it. At Christmas time, there are so many people in the market, that you kind of have to allow yourself to be pushed around in a mass blob, yelling your orders out to the serious, “no time for nonsense” employees, as you pass the meat section or the pasta section or the gourmet coffee stand, holding your old-fashioned bakery ticker number, high into the air.

Don’t get me started on the sandwiches. Each sandwich runs you around $7 and you will never taste a better combination of fresh bread, insanely fresh vegetables, any kind of protein you can imagine, and sauces that bring it together like no other can, and make the whole mash of it all just sing in harmony. Even though they are huge, I ordered two sandwiches, the hot Italian and the wasabi tuna, because I can never make up my mind which of the two sandwiches is better. I ate half of each for lunch and for dinner. And I went to bed with a smile on my face.

While I was sitting in the center of all of the collective, excited chaos, with our over-filled baskets (yes baskets), waiting for my husband and my daughter to bring us even more goodies and treasures to place into the baskets, I just breathed it all in. There was noisy chatter-y voices, and excited anticipatory expressions on everyone’s faces. Everyone there, no matter their ages, had transformed into their “inner kid in a candy store.” There were spilled drinks, and carts bumping ankles and little kids looking up, wide-eyed, overwhelmingly lost in a sea of legs. There was every scent you could imagine wafting in the air, overwhelmed by the best aromas of rich coffee, mixed with a whiff of fresh baking bread, and warm chocolate chip cookies, rounding it all out. I knew what to expect as we waited in line to just enter the market. I had set my mindset to the right dial of patience and presence, and so there, right in the center of it all, I just basked it all in.

I suppose, in the end, one woman’s insane cluster, is another woman’s cacophonous bundle of joy.

Here’s to My Readers!

“Here’s to a long life, and a merry one; a quick death, and an easy one; a pretty girl, and an honest one; a stiff whiskey, and another one.” – from Outlander

Outlander is my husband and my new TV series addiction. One of the characters gave this toast, the other night, when we were watching it. I thought that it was a good one to have around for when a good toast is needed. The best part is that I easily found it on several sources the next day when I did a quick search on the internet, in both written and video form. Here’s a few other good ones that I found, in case you need a good toast this Saturday night:

“May you live as long as you like,
And have all you like as long as you live.”

“One bottle for four of us,
Thank God there’s no more of us!”

“May neighbors respect you,
Trouble neglect you,
The angels protect you,
And heaven accept you.”

“May you have the hindsight to know where you’ve been,
The foresight to know where you are going,
And the insight to know when you have gone too far.”

“May the saddest day of your future be no worse than the happiest day of your past.”