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New Start Friday

Credit: Refinery29

Hi, friends and readers!!! I’m back. I’ve missed you, and writing the Adulting-Second Half blog, so, so much. But I just came back from a wonderful trip to London and other parts of England. (My husband and I just had to check up on our daughter who is studying there this summer. We knew that she missed us. Ha!) I had never been to England before, and I was so utterly pleased with what I experienced. I am not a city dweller. I love nature. I like to call myself “Snow White.” But if I had to live in a city, London is the most liveable city that I have ever travelled to, and I have been fortunate enough to have visited many cities in our own country, and abroad.

But before I bore you to death with my trip details, I do realize that this is Friday and it is a good one!! It’s the New Moon. We are officially, fresh-starting the second half of the year. What do you want for the rest of this year? It’s a perfect time to reflect, get your thoughts down in writing, and start taking steps towards what you want. My first half of the year has been amazing – chock full of adventures, travel, visits with family and friends, weddings, the birthday clump of our family members, holidays etc. etc. Honestly, it’s been delightful, but it’s also been a lot. I like the second half of the year because things don’t get too drummed up for our family, until the holidays at the end of the year. Things in my life never seem as frenzied during the second half of the year. I like spontaneity and the second half of the year seems to allow for more of it. But, I digress. . . . today is Favorite Things Friday on the blog!! Today my favorite is packing cubes. I had never used these before in my travels, but my daughter insisted that they make a huge difference in utilizing space in your luggage. I purchased a soft set of about seven packing cubes for this trip, and while I’ve never been good about rolling up my stuff like little sushi rolls (my husband, being a long-time military brat, is a master at this), I loved how organized these cubes kept my stuff. My tops were with my tops. My bottoms were with my bottoms. My hair stuff was all together and easily found. My suitcase was no longer the jack-in-the-box jumble that it usually is, when I am travelling. If you have never tried packing cubes, I highly recommend giving them a try.

Okay, for those of you who want my reflections on London and other parts of England, here they are, in no particular order:

+ England has excellent food. It is a mistaken thought that the only thing good to eat in England is fish and chips. (although, I had fish and chips and it was yummy) I had incredible food including delicious steak ale pies, delectable sandwiches, fantastic Indian food, superfresh and colorful greens and fruits and desserts from Borough Market . . . now you may think, “Well yes, you were in a major city in the world. There is competition and variety,” but I will tell you that the best food that I had on my trip was in a tiny pub, out in the country, near Salisbury, England. We had “Sunday Roast” there which was like a fabulous Thanksgiving meal. You could choose beef or chicken or steak pie, and then on top of each of these was a huge Yorkshire Pudding. Yorkshire Pudding was maybe my favorite item that I ate the whole time I was in England. Yorkshire Pudding is a delightful, doughy cloud that you dip in gravy. I adore it!

+ I kept describing London as the most “wholesome” city I have ever been to, and we went all over London. My husband and I averaged walking about 20,000 steps a day. (my kids were never a fan of our style of vacationing. “Some people like to relax on vacation,” was something which we often heard muttered by one, or by all four of our children, on our various vacations) London has wide streets, lower buildings, less traffic (the London Underground is safe, easy to navigate, quiet, and reliable – we took it everywhere), and lots of green spaces. The people are reserved, but kind and polite and eager to help you. It’s a wonderful place for “eye candy”: beautiful historic cathedrals and buildings, colorful flowers outside of every pub, gorgeous, multicultural people with smart, dressed-up, intriguing style. In short, London is everything it’s cracked up to be.

+ My husband and I saw King Charles being driven out of Buckingham Palace, quite by chance. We noticed that the gates to the palace had been opened, and a crowd was gathering around the road by the gates. My husband and I were curious, but having it be our first day in London, we instead decided to meander over to the fountain in front of the palace to see it more closely. The next thing we knew, a police officer stopped traffic on the road, just a few feet away from us, and a luxurious black car drove by with the white-haired king sitting in the back, his fingers in front of his body, held in a position, much like when you were a kid and you were playing, “Here is the church, Here is the steeple”. His fingers were in “steeple position.”

+ We toured St. Paul’s Cathedral, The British Museum, Southwark Cathedral, The Tower of London and Westminster Abbey. All were interesting. I particularly liked the smaller Southwark Cathedral where Shakespeare is said to have spent a lot of time and I delighted in having the proper English afternoon tea experience (with a three stack tower of treats) at The British Museum while my husband satiated himself in Egyptian history. While all of the buildings and their historical significance were incredible, it struck me that Westminster Abbey was essentially an extremely enormous fancy mausoleum. And having spent most of our time in The British Museum staring at mummies and sarcophaguses from Egyptian tombs, it struck me that it is kind of sad and egotistical that many of the wealthy humans of our past were so fixated on the afterlife, and of being remembered by future people. (other than major historical figures and writers buried in Westminster Abbey, I knew very few of the names nor the significance of the people buried there) I honestly found the experience to be an excellent reminder that life on earth is NOW. And as happens on all of my travels, I was sincerely amazed how many millions of different people I was witnessing every day, all over just one city, on our great big Earth. (and as happens on all of my travels, there were plenty of Americans afoot. You just can’t escape us. There is a line from a song, whose band and name escapes me now, where the singer dejectedly and flatly states, “Oh, you’re all still here.” That line played in my mind a few times on this trip.) Anyway, what I felt deeply reminded of, when I reflected on all of the carefully planned, and elaborately and expensively made “death artifacts” is that our life’s experience is really mostly just consequential to ourselves, and to the few people in our inner circle. This realization is freeing. Stop focusing on making an impression on other people. Just be yourself, and be kind, and live each precious moment of your life fully and consciously. Don’t fear death. Focus on living your life.

+ My favorite part of the trip was being with family whom we don’t get to see often at all. (it’s hard, living across the pond, and all) They live by the sea in England, and we took a train out to see them, and even though we hadn’t seen each other in years, the love flowed fervently. We even met children that we had never met before and by the end of the night, we were all hugging and professing our love for each other. We “saw” each other. There is something so special and uncanny about “the family bond.” We even all went to Stonehenge together and I had honestly expected that to be the most spiritual experience of my trip. But it wasn’t. The most spiritual part of the trip wasn’t the cathedrals, nor the choirs singing in chapels, nor the mysterious giant rocks of Stonehenge. The most spiritual part of my trip was a reminder of just how beautiful and strong the elastic bonds of love, hold us all together. Great, loving arms enfold us all. This I know.

It’s great to be back. I love you. I missed you. See you tomorrow!!

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

Here is the question of the day from 3000 Questions About Me:

1488. Do you prefer sporty or academic members of the opposite sex? (Lucky for me, my husband is both.)

Monday – Funday

“Almost everything will work again if you unplug it for a few minutes, including you.”  – Anne Lamott

So, I’m not going to be writing the blog for the next week or so. I have some summer adventures planned and I want to put my full attention there.

I love to write. I love to write daily. But sometimes, you even need to take a break from what you love. It gives you fresh exaltation when you get back to it. When you find yourself missing what you love, you get really clear about who and what and where means the most to you. I hope that you will miss reading the blog as much as I will miss writing it, and that we’ll all be back together here in early July.

In the meantime, I hope you’ll take some time to read some stuff in my archives. I’ve written almost daily blog posts since 2018. There are some hidden gems in there.

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

Here is the question of the day from 3000 Questions About Me:

979. What would be the best exotic pet?

Soul Sunday

Today, my web host did not want to cooperate with me. It’s usual reliability was thrown out the window. Trying to navigate the Login to get on to my blog, was so aggravating and wonky, I found my irritability meter going towards its threshold. And then Ed of Ed’s (our lawn guy) called with a bunch of excuses of why he hadn’t been able to come out this week to mow our lawn. (we don’t own a lawn mower because we employ Ed of Ed’s) Our lawn currently looks like the beginning spawn of a remake of the Amazon jungle. As my ire was simmering underneath my skin, I was reminded of just how typically reliable both my web host, and Ed of Ed’s, are in my life, and I typically have no feelings other than peace and ease and comfort, about their dependability and stability. It’s only on the rare occasion that things aren’t going as planned that my Inner Hothead pops in for a visit, full of indignant bluster. Rumi’s poem (below) is the perfect choice for poetry day on the blog:

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

Here is the question of the day from 3000 Questions About Me:

1039. What brand or product do you buy because you feel it’s trustworthy?

Days

Is there anything more precious than your happiest memories? Don’t take the bad memories out. Leave them in the dusty corners of your mind. Open the treasure box that exists in your mind (and always will, no matter what) and think of your favorite memories. Imagine the scene. What was the weather like? Who was there? What were the sights, smells, tastes? Most importantly, what were you feeling? Feel those feels now as you run your happy memories through the reels, again and again. What does it take to make new happy memories? Your treasure box in your mind will always expand to hold these lovely memories. Make the memories. Let them happen. As I always tell my kids, Let Life love you. Go with the flow.

“Memory is the diary we all carry with us.” – Oscar Wilde

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

Here is the question of the day from 3000 Questions About Me:

1312. Do you keep a journal? Does it help you?

Funky Friday

credit: Sandy Costa, Pinterest

Happy Friday!! Happy Favorite Things Friday!!! On Fridays on the blog, I’m all about the stuff in life – the literal “stuff” that makes life more interesting to live. Please see previous Friday posts for more of my favorite stuff, and please feel free to add any of your own goodies to my Comments section.

This past spring when we were in Belgium, we stopped in a store that I would say was a great deal like our Five Below chain of stores. It had rows and rows of cheap, everyday stuff, and even a whole section of party products. (It also had this truly obscene section, right out in the open, for all eyes of all ages to see, that let’s just say would have been the right place to purchase stuff for a really vulgar bachelor or bachelorette party. I’m always intrigued by the different standards, different societies have about all sorts of things, but I’m sure that we “prudes with machine guns” Americans, raise a lot of foreign eyebrows, too.)

In the store I bought a dish brush that looks like a goth woman. She had a tag on her that said “Funky Lady” and I still smile when “Funky Lady” and I do the dishes. I also purchased today’s favorite of mine, in that store. It looks like a teeny, flexible plastic rake, for a teeny doll. It is meant to clean hair brushes, and it does a fabulous job of it. I looked on Amazon and you can purchase similar hair brush cleaners there, but I was surprised to see that they are not highly rated in the reviews. Mine is wonderful. It works splendidly! These little rakes are not expensive, so you may want to give one of them a try, especially if your hair brush is looking a tad woolly.

Have an amazing start to your weekend, friends!! See you tomorrow!

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

Here is the question of the day from 3000 Questions About Me:

2313. What makes a physically attractive person less attractive?

Thoughts for Thursday

+ I’ve written about this before, but it bears repeating. Don’t question if something is normal. Instead ask the question, “Is this healthy?” Normal means “typical, standard, usual, expected,” according to the dictionary. Think about a lot of awful things that were once considered “normal.” Slavery. Smoking in airplanes. Women needing men to co-sign for loans. Lawn darts. . . . . The list goes on and on. Familiarity often breeds acceptance. When making decisions, plans, actions, always ask yourself, “Is this a healthy choice for me? Am I supporting something that is healthy?” Let “healthy” be your arbiter. “Normal” changes all of the time.

+ Joan Didion once said, “A writer is always selling somebody out.” I think this is the biggest struggle in writing. Even if you’re a novelist, you are still getting your ideas from observations and experiences from your real life. And your perception of things is your reality, even if others have a completely different perception. I never want to “sell anybody out.” Writing is my peace, not my weapon. It’s a fine line we writers walk. And now that there are so many forms of social media, I think that Joan Didion’s statement also applies. Kids can’t give their permission to air funny, embarrassing videos and antics. It’s a conundrum, for sure.

+ This is from a sign that I saw recently (it’s a good reminder. My grandmother used to always say “tend to your own knitting”): “Better worry about your own sins, ’cause God ain’t going to ask you about mine.”

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

Here is the question of the day from 3000 Questions About Me:

1714. Would you ever live in a treehouse?

Boundaries 101

Boundaries got brought up in a recent discussion with friends. “Boundaries” is a hot word/hot topic these days, but there is often a lot of confusion around what boundaries are, what they mean, and also how to enforce them, and also how to respect others’ boundaries. I didn’t get completely clear on my own boundaries, around a lot of things, until I was middle-aged. I think this is the case for a lot of people, particularly women. We are conditioned to be the “pleasers”, the soothers, the facilitators, the mediators, the givers. So, with all of that conditioning, creating boundaries seems “mean” to us, and impossible to erect.

What is a boundary? A boundary is a rule that you make for yourself about what you will and will not accept in your life. People often get confused that boundaries are about making strict rules for other people to follow, for their own comfort. For example, “You will not yell at me.” “You will eat all of your vegetables.” “You will not call me after 8 pm.”, etc. Those rules are fine, but people are people. People don’t always follow rules. It’s hard enough to control our own selves, let alone trying to control others. Instead of stating your boundaries as rules for other people to follow, you restate your boundaries as what you will and will not accept, in your own life’s experience. So, the above statements, stated not as rules, but as boundaries become: “I will not allow myself to be yelled at by anyone. I will physically leave any situation where I am being yelled at . . . ” “If you are my child, I expect you to eat all of your vegetables, and if you don’t, here are the consequences . . . .” “I will not accept calls after 8 pm and I will mute my phone.” (Notice the difference. Boundaries start with “I” statements. Rules start with “You”.)

Boundaries aren’t just with other people. You can have boundaries around food. “I don’t eat meat.” “I don’t eat dairy.” “I only eat desserts on special occasions.” You can have boundaries around everything that you do: what and how much you drink, how much TV/social media you consume, how and how much you exercise, what kinds of movies you will watch, how late you work, what time you go to bed regularly, etc. etc. Again, boundaries are rules that you that you make for yourself about what you will accept in your own life and what you will not accept in your own life.

On top of making your rules for yourself, you also get to decide to change these rules if you like. And you also get to decide how rigid or permeable your boundaries are in every facet of your life. All of this is in your control. It is your right (and one might argue, your necessity) as a living, breathing human being, to create and to enforce your boundaries. Sounds simple, right? Then why is it seemingly so hard for people to create and to enforce boundaries?

Simply put, we have a need to be liked and accepted. We have a need to be understood. We have been conditioned to be “polite and congenial.” We fear being perceived as “mean” or “selfish.” We fear losing people and relationships if we erect boundaries. We dread conflict. And thus, people who do not respect boundaries, will run roughshod all over our boundaries. We give our power away to people who don’t want us to have boundaries. These people will test us and manipulate us to change our boundaries, and unless we enforce them, our boundaries are decidedly pointless. We all dread this process, but it’s a good process. Once you get good at protecting and enforcing your own boundaries, you earn self-respect. You learn to trust yourself. You become your own best friend. Your need to be liked and agreed with, becomes a lot less important than your desire to be respected. If you lose someone because you protected your own boundaries, is this a person that is healthy to have in your life, anyway?

A big mistake a lot of us do when stating our boundaries is that we JADE. JADE is an acronym for justify, argue, defend and explain. Our boundaries are what is right for us. When we start JADE-ing, we weaken our boundaries. We are needing others to agree with our boundaries, in order to enforce them. No one on this Earth is going to like and agree with all of the boundaries that we make for ourselves. Let’s be honest, you don’t like or understand a lot of other people’s boundaries, and that’s okay. You don’t have to like other people’s boundaries, but you do have to respect them, because if a person is good at protecting their own boundaries, you will suffer consequences for crossing their boundaries. “This is what is right for me.” “This is what works for me.” “This is what I have to ability to offer at this time.” This is all the JADE-ing anyone of us ever has to state about our own boundaries. You came up with your boundaries for a good reason for yourself. (You already did a lot of JADE-ing with yourself, in order to decide your boundary in the first place. Trust that fact. No one knows what it is you need, and what is best for you, more than you. No one.) When you JADE, you start showing weakness in the belief of your own needs and protecting your own needs, and the people who don’t like your boundaries, will try to chip away at them, by arguing with you and employing tactics like guilt-trips and persuasion. Don’t open the door to this with JADE-ing in the first place.

The best thing you will ever do for yourself and your boundaries is to lose the need to be liked. If you respect and honor and protect your own boundaries, you will like yourself a lot. You will attract healthy people into your life, who respect your boundaries and respect their own boundaries. (People who have healthy boundaries, are trustworthy, direct and upfront, and are usually good about respecting other people’s boundaries.) You will trust yourself with your own boundaries, and thus you won’t feel as fearful or untrusting of others, because ultimately you know that you can trust yourself to take care of yourself, in a predictable, reliable, nurturing, protective manner. If you are consistent with your boundaries, you may not be liked by some (who would rather you didn’t have any boundaries, for their own sakes), but instead, you will be admired by many. By practicing the protection of your own boundaries, you will become stronger and calmer than you ever knew was possible. There is no better feeling than being able to love and trust yourself. When you get to this level of self-respect, you get really picky about who gets access to you anyway. The need to be “liked” by everybody falls way down the ladder, naturally.

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

Here is the question of the day from 3000 Questions About Me:

2426. Have you ever bought anything after an infomercial? If so, what?

Forgetfulness

I saw this poem the other day and I had the idea to keep it until Sunday (poetry day on the blog), but I feel like writing about this today. So I will. As I have entered into my fifties, I am more cognizant of everything that I forget. I’m actually pretty good with birthdays and anniversaries and taking out the trash days, mostly because I am obsessive about writing things down. I scare myself with the things that I do forget though. I instantly forget names of movies and books and the characters in them. I stumble with the words that I want to use when I am relaying a story in conversation, I forget the names of towns I have visited, I couldn’t tell you what cars my friends drive, and I often mix-up our kids’ and our dogs’ names when I am talking to them. But honestly, I think that I have always been that way. I really don’t believe that I am headed towards early dementia.

The things that I do recall clearly, are like they happened yesterday. I’ll recall a story someone had relayed to me years ago, and their mouths drop open. “I can’t believe you remembered that,” they’ll say. I remember the oddest things. I remember a lot of random moments, I guess because for some reason that moment struck me as emotional, or unusual, or important in some nuanced way. Most of us writers are curious. We are always looking to understand, to see the deeper meaning in things and experiences. Most of us writers are observers and “sensers” (not censors). We are always looking for the right words to describe the way things feel. We are a little possessed with the question, “Why?”

I wish that I could remember names and numbers and historical facts better than I do. But I’m grateful that I can remember how a moment felt, what was really being said behind what was being said, tiny trinkets and plants and artwork that marked both sets of my grandparents’ homes, and trivial stories told to me by strangers that turned out to have a lot more meaning to them, when I was willing to explore the plot twists.

My memory is fickle, but it is deeply entrenched in what is really important to me- the heartfelt connection we have with each other and with the Life Experience in general. My heart remembers better than my aging computer of a brain ever did, or ever will. And honestly, that’s all that really matters to me.

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

Here is the question of the day from 3000 Questions About Me:

1394. What sound relaxes you?

Monday – Funday

Credit – @woofknight, X

Years ago (probably even a decade ago), my husband made the horrible, dastardly mistake of eating the rest of an orange cream cupcake which our daughter had left in the refrigerator. The outcome of that act wasn’t pretty. (hysterical, hormonal preteen women are almost as lethal as hysterical, hormonal menopausal women – and I’m allowed to say this because I have been both) I don’t think that my daughter has ever completely forgiven my husband for that act. This whole ordeal was recently rehashed (yet, once again) because our local grocery store, Publix, had released a limited edition orange cream pop bar cake and yes, my husband and I devoured it within two days and bragged to the kids about it. I told my husband that I hope he had really enjoyed this delicacy because for our health’s sake, I can never purchase another one again. And then, over the weekend, I got an email from Club Publix celebrating my “half birthday” and offering up a free bar cake to commemorate this “big” event. Well, as the comedian Jim Gaffigan would say, “I don’t want to lose money on this deal.” I hope they haven’t run out of those orange cream cakes. My mouth is watering already.

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

Here is the question of the day from 3000 Questions About Me:

686. Do you like scary movies? (Me, NO. Absolutely NO.)

Soul Sunday

Happy Father’s Day!! Sundays are devoted to poetry on the blog. Write your dad or your husband a poem today. They’ll get a charge out of it. You’ll get a charge out of it, too.

“Dads are most ordinary men turned by love into heroes, adventurers, story-tellers, and singers of song.” – Pam Brown

“Superman”

When she called you “Superman”, she saw what I already knew

Not just to the broad shoulders and the handsome face, she was drew,

She saw the big heart beneath it all, the part that really makes you, you!

When it comes to devotion, rock solid reliability, and to your word being true,

Not many can even dare to compare, I imagine that there are very few.

You are my greatest love. My love for you will forever ensue.

For all the gifts you’ve given me, I am most grateful for our “crew.”

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I love you.

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

Here is the question of the day from 3000 Questions About Me:

174. If you could be a bird, which would you be?