Tag: funny

Soul Sunday

We are visiting our eldest son this week, and already, we are having so much fun. It’s so much amusement just relaxing and laughing and experiencing new things with our delightful son. He announced yesterday that we should go to a local spa filled with hot springs today. My husband and I were excited about that idea, but we also realized that neither of us had packed a bathing suit. (We live in Florida and we headed up north, in October.) Still we didn’t want to give up on the idea. So, last night, we decided to go shopping for bathing suits, up north, in October. Let’s just say there were very slim pickings. Much to the horror of all of us, I almost ended up with a mismatched teeny bikini on clearance for $8. I started getting very creative in my mind about what could constitute a bathing suit, but then I saw what seemed to be a helpful, busy sales clerk in one store. I told her my desperate situation and out of the depths of a filled rack that held everything but bathing suits (mostly it held fur-lined jackets and sweaters), she pulled out a tasteful, one piece, black bathing suit that was just my size. When I exclaimed, “Miracles exist!”, my husband and son said that this was a tad dramatic, but I could see that we were all sighing a big sigh of relief. My husband fared better. I actually like the swim trunks he found. So today, we go to a hot springs spa!

Sundays are devoted to poetry on the blog. Since we have a lot of adventures planned today and this week, I may have to cut the blog short. Life calls. I don’t have time to write my own poem. But I will share “The Rainbow” by William Wordsworth. I enjoy “playing” with my children, even when we are all adults. It is so important to remain a child at heart. This is considered to be Wordsworth’s greatest short poem.

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

Monday-Funday (Wicked, Part 3)

Hilda: Zelda, I have told you time and time again to stay away from those Boos Cruises. They dish out some potent potions.

Zelda (muffled): Silly Hildy, I’m just playing “hide and ghost seek.” Cackle Cackle Cackle

Hilda:

Zelda (muffled): Hildy, one more, one more, “What do you call a witch who is pretty and friendly??”

Hilda: A failure.

Zelda: How did you know that one?

Hilda: (flatly) A lucky guess. Zelda, I have a confession. I accidentally sat on your pet owl.

Zelda: Oh, Screech will be alright. We just need to puff up his feathers. Hildy, that reminds me of another joke. What you get if you cross an owl with a witch??

Zelda: A bird that doesn’t give a hoot!!! Cackle Cackle Cackle

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

Put a Ring On It Friday

Happy Friday!! Happy Best Day of the Week!! On Fridays, I don’t think deeply (thus, I don’t write about deep or meaningful things). Or if I do, I quickly shut it down. Here on the blog, on Fridays, I discuss my favorites: things, songs, products, websites, books, u-name-its. Please share some of your favorites in my Comments section, so we all can even more fun this Friday.

Before I mention today’s favorite of mine, I want to gift you iPhone users, a bonus favorite. Text “pew pew” to some of your favorite people who also have iPhones. Fun, right? If you hold down the send button when you text someone on your iPhone you will find that you have all kinds of options, to add pizazz to your text messages. (my favorite option is the “Invisible Ink” option) Thank you, my dear friend (you know who you are) for teaching me the “pew pew” skill. Have you come to regret it, yet?? Pew pew. Pew pew.

Today’s favorite is a time saver. Shinery Radiance Wash washes your hands and your jewelry, all at the same time. It adds a gorgeous sparkle to your engagement ring without you having to take off your rings to clean them, and risk losing them. It’s wonderful stuff, and it can be purchased on Amazon. Speaking of lost wedding rings, we are having to replace my husband’s wedding ring for the second time in our almost 28 years of marriage. (Thankfully, he only loses his wedding ring when he is with me.) When we were on our honeymoon, my husband lost his first wedding band when we were snorkeling, because it was too big for his hand and it slipped into the water. A trip to the jewelry store in St. Martin was the first stop of the next day, because as a young bride, it was important to me for my husband to “keep a ring on it.” Last weekend, we were boating with our daughter. During the pandemic lockdown, my husband had his wedding ring made a size larger, because, as you may intimately know, the pandemic and weight gain went hand-in-hand for many of us. My husband has since lost his pandemic weight gain, and the ring was too big. Guess what came off in the water, again? So today’s date excursion, is a trip to the jewelry store. Why? Because as a middle-aged bride, it’s important to me for my husband to “keep a ring on it.”

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

Monday-Funday

Credit: @woofknight, Twitter

Our daughter came home for the weekend, from college. She says that the university keeps her dorm as cold as a meat locker. Her theory is that this reduces mold spores. By the age and the look of the dorms, I think that this is a legitimate theory. So in turn, she told us that she did not sleep well here at home. Now, our home has become way too hot.

I read an article about Kelly Ripa’s new book: Live Wire. Here’s what she says about having an empty nest: “It’s scary, thrilling, liberating, shocking . . . and quiet.” In my early experience, that synopsis is spot on. Another thing that Kelly talks about in the empty nest chapter is this: “I don’t know how to make dinner proportionally.” This quote has been my story for my entire married life. I either underestimated our hunger to the point that we all needed a second dinner, or there were leftovers enough to justify the purchase of a new freezer. And I agree with Kelly Ripa, this cooking for two is insanely weird. I told my husband that we are mostly going to eat frozen vegetables from now on, because our produce is continually going bad. Life seems to be a constant cycle of getting used to “a new way of life.” New normal . . . new normal . . . new normal . . . .

Kelly also spoke about trading youthful confidence for certainty as we age. I like that thought. I think what I am becoming more and more certain about as I get older, is how little I really do know.

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

Monday-Funday

credit: @econ628

Dear friends, please do not be concerned if you don’t get my usual daily blog post every day this week. The price which you pay for living in a land near the beach, with 90 percent sunshine, is an occasional, “I am going to scare the living daylights out of you” storm warning. (It’s not as bad as it seems. The last time we had to take a hurricane this seriously, in our part of Florida, was five years ago.) The truth is, I have been a Floridian long enough now, to be more annoyed than anything, about this hurricane. Don’t worry. We are safe. We have a plan. We would never leave our fur friends behind. I went to the grocery store on Saturday, and I was still miraculously able to snag some water, and some toilet paper, despite the emptying shelves. This too shall pass. (but thank you for the prayers and good juju coming our way – we’ll take ’em!)

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

Gulp

I am having some less than flattering self-awareness moments recently. First, someone was trying to schedule something with me and I started rattling off, “Well, I have a mammogram, and then my husband has a colonoscopy, and then I am going to be having some dental work done (interspersed with the thought, “Oh yikes, did I pick up our prescriptions?) and then my husband has a dermatologist appointment . . . “

And that’s when I realized that I belong on one of those Progressive Dr. Rick commercials. “Help for people who are becoming their parents.”

Second, my poor, sweet husband asked me what I planned on doing yesterday afternoon and he opened a Pandora’s box that he didn’t see coming. I honestly knew that he meant the question innocently. As he calmly (and tentatively) explained at dinner yesterday, he didn’t want to make the lunchtime conversation all about himself, and I knew that this was a fact, even as snakes were popping out of my head, and fire was shooting out of my eyes, when he originally asked the question. There was no judgmental, accusational tone in his question. The judgment was all mine, and I was projecting.

“What are you going to do now? What’s next? What are your plans?”

I’ve been doing this same judgmental projecting a lot lately, when friends, family members, and acquaintances, innocently ask me what my plans are now that I am an empty nester. The question stresses me because I haven’t honed in on the answer yet, and that bothers me. I’m a goal directed person. I am a Sagittarius with a pointed arrow. I am used to my time being so scheduled up by other people’s schedules, that I barely have time to think. Now I have time to think. Now I have a pretty empty slate. And my judgmental, bitchy, pressuring alter-ego, loves to ask myself those same questions, but with an unquestionable judgy, impatient, hypercritical, tsk-tsk tone. Hence, beware the poor person who is just being kind, and curious, and interested in me, when they innocently ask, “Oh, so what are your plans now?”

If I don’t contain myself, my defensive response is an either frosty, or fiery (depending on the day and the importance of keeping the relationship), “I plan to rip your head off and feed it to my flying monkeys.”

The key to any kind of change in life is becoming self aware. This I know. I think that if I become more kind and patient and allowing of myself to take my time strolling on to this new path in my life, I am less likely to take offense of other people’s questions about my life. If I allow myself to become less high strung and stop the need for fast-pacing and marching straight ahead, and instead, allow myself some slow meandering, I will see other people’s interest in me, and concern for me, in a different light. I don’t have all my plans set out for this new path, but one thing is for certain, I don’t want to have to walk my new path alone.

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

Frizzle Sizzle Friday

credit: @WakeUpPeople, Twitter

Friday is wonderful. It is a day so full of relief, yet excitement and anticipation. Friday is full of the world’s most fabulous feelings, even though technically, it is just another day in the work week. Happy Friday! On Friday, to keep those fabulous feelings flowing, I focus on my favorites. (Say that sentence, three times in a row, quickly. I dare you.) Every Friday, I list a favorite thing, or book, or song, or website, etc. that helps to make my life more interesting and fun. Today’s favorite is this:

This is “Curly”, a succulent plant known as Albuca Spiralis, or “Frizzle Sizzle.” I love this plant’s delightful curls! She looks just like curling ribbon. You can purchase the likes of Curly from sellers on Etsy, along with many other rare and unusual plants and succulents. Plants make amazing pets. This baby is the “poodle” of the plant world.

Have a wild and wonderful weekend, friends. See you tomorrow!

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

Monday-Funday

“In Irish when you talk about emotion, you don’t say “I am sad”, you say “sadness is on me.” “Tá brón orm” I love that because there’s an implication of not identifying yourself with the emotion fully. I am not sad, it’s just, sadness is on me ..” ~ Pádraig Ó Tuama

What a healthy way to look at emotion. The statements, “I am angry,” or “I am sad,” or “I am lonely,” take on too much ownership and identity. We are humans. We experience a myriad of different emotions every single day. One emotion may be more dominant than another for a while, kind of like a smothering blanket, thus, “Sadness is on me.” When you say it like this, you have the power to throw the sadness off of you, when the time is right. You can uncover yourself from the emotion that is lying heavy on you. Sadness is an emotion. You are not sadness. You are a beautiful spark of life, and of being, and of creativity who is capable of experiencing all sorts of emotions, and thoughts, and occurrences. It is good to feel your feelings, but you never want to become your feelings. When you do let your emotions take over the whole of you, it becomes too overwhelming, and it also diminishes your overall being, at the same time.

Janey Mack! Get off the stage! This is way too serious a post for a Monday-Funday, correct?! Here is another good one from the Irish, more in line with our usual Monday fun:

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

Monday-Funday

Yesterday, my husband and I decided to do some hiking. We approached a trailhead marked “Black Diamond” which meant steep and difficult. A fit, sprite woman, in adorable hiking regalia, who appeared to be in her sixties came down from the trail.

“Was it strenuous?” I asked her.

“Well, that depends on your age and your joints. You see I’m 90, so I have to take it a little more slowly.”

“WHAT?!? You’re 90?! Wow, I am looking at aging goals right here!” I exclaimed wondrously.

“The key is to keep moving,” she said. “Just keep moving.” She then smiled proudly and jauntily headed down to her car at the foot of the mountain.

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