Anticipating workers being here all day to work on our pool cage while attempting to calm and corral our three boisterous dogs, means that I will need some big laughs today. Luckily, I found them. I can’t stop watching and laughing at the video below. “Sag-Who-Tarrius! That’s MY sign! YESSS! Look at me! I’m Fire! Sagittarius #1!”
Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.
Good morning. One of the favorite parts of this time of year for me, has nothing really to do with twinkly lights, and sweets, and celebrations (although all of these things are great), but more so, it is a time of deep reflection for me. It’s the end of a year. My birthday falls in this month. Last night I spent some time going over my journals of the last two years. This really helps me to pinpoint things that I want to keep investing in, and also, circumstances and habits that I want to change in the new year. It helps me to get clear on my goals and my visions for the new year. This time of year is the perfect time for reflection, gratitude, and renewal. I hope that you can find some quiet space in your calendar this month, to do the same. The winter solstice is on the 21st, which in the northern hemisphere is the darkest day of the year, but after that day, the light just keeps increasing and increasing and increasing throughout the beginning of the year. The winter solstice might just be the perfect day to decide where you want to pour your light and energy on this year, and what you are ready to lay to rest in the shadows of what is now in the past.
Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.
I have a lot going on today so my mind is like a whirligig (this is a weird, fancy word for a pinwheel). When I come to the blog on a day like this, I go to my photos and I find inspirations which I have found on other days, that have struck me as funny or poignant. Today, I am leaning on the funny side.
I really do have an expressive face. My face does not know how to do “the poker.”
Ugh, the holidays really brings out the crowds, don’t they? Kevin Kelly’s book, which I wrote about on Thursday, says this, too: “Cultivate 12 people who love you because they are worth more than 12 million who like you.” On the 12 days of Christmas (December 25th through January 5th), write one person’s name who loves you on each day, and think about how much that you love them, as well (this can include people who have passed on – these people deeply live on, in our hearts because of the love that we have shared with them). I believe one or more of these 12 can be our pets, as well. Dogs do the act of love better than almost any of us, in my mind. You are welcome to include me on one of those days if you like, because I do love you. Coming to read my blog is an act of love which I very deeply appreciate. As I also wrote about earlier this week, being “seen” is perhaps the biggest act of love that we can give to anyone. And when you read my blog, you make me feel seen. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Another big hint for this “12 Days of Christmas/12 People Who Love Me” activity: Add yourself to one of those days. If you don’t love yourself, ask yourself, why? How could you not love yourself??? No one has lived it all with you, and stuck by your side more than yourself, ever. Why are you not every bit as lovable, and deserving love, than anybody else on your list? This is a really good time of year to ponder, how can you better show love to yourself, and to those 11 others in the upcoming year. Could we pick each of the 12 months to devoting one month of the year to sending daily loving thoughts and prayers and immense feelings of gratitude, especially to one of our 12 people, in each of the 12 months of 2024? Wouldn’t that feel good? Get your calendars out and write a name next to each month. Fill your year with gratitude and love.
Enjoy the rest of your day, friends. See you tomorrow!
Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.
For as much as I like to shop, I never go out shopping on Black Friday. I hate crowds. However, this is not to say that I won’t veer into window shopping on the internet today. Happy Friday!! Happy Favorite Things Friday!! My favorite things for today are my Merrell hiking boots. We got a pair of Merrell hiking boots for each of our family members, five years ago, before we were embarking on a trip out to California that we knew would entail a lot of hiking. Since then I have clocked hundreds of miles on my same pair of Merrells in all kinds of terrain, in the United States and abroad. They have never let me down (nor let me fall down), and my Merrell hiking boots are in good enough shape to wear, for quite a few more rocky trails, for sure. I look at Merrell hiking boots as an investment, and a good one.
Black Friday is a good day to get yourself a pair. Merrell is even putting their best sellers on sale for 30 percent off. If you have made having more outdoor adventures for yourself, a solid resolution for the new year, you NEED a nice pair of Merrell hiking boots. Show the Universe that you mean business.
www.merrell.com
Hope you are enjoying a wonderful, relaxing Thanksgiving weekend with your loved ones!
Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.
+ The picture above is not a great picture because I’m not a great photographer. But you get the gist. That’s our neighbors’ Christmas tree. (That’s a really big truck below it, to give you perspective of its magnanimous size) That’s our neighbors’ mini Rockefeller Center Christmas tree. It’s really beautiful and they always manage to get it all decorated right before Thanksgiving. All of the rest of the decorations on our street have really just become accents to it. I mean should the rest of us even bother now??? Seriously though, the neighborhood’s “absolute opposite of Charlie Brown’s Christmas tree” is huge and beautiful, and I love it. And yes I’m jealous, but the tree is fabulous and I love it.
+ Siri’s nice now!! For those of you who use iPhones, and if you did the latest update, you’ll notice that Siri now says, “You’re welcome!” in her best Chick-Fil-A employee voice when you thank her for the information that she gave to you. (Yes, I have always thanked Siri. Manners, babe.) She also doesn’t seem quite as bothered and smirky when you ask her for information. AI is evolving and in a good way, this go around, in my opinion.
+ Today is the 60th anniversary of President John F. Kennedy’s assassination in Dallas. Over a decade ago, I took all four of our children on a road trip through several states and even more cities (yes, it was crazy – one child was still in diapers, but that is what you do when you are young, energetic and idealistic. Also, there was no GPS at the time. My kids always laugh about my books of Mapquest printed sheets, which I used back then, to get us all around). We stopped at Dealey Plaza, where Kennedy was shot, and we were approached by a “tour guide” who turned out to be a homeless man with a lot of conspiracy theories. He was a colorful character who started all of his sentences with a dramatic, thickly Southern accented “Looky here! Looky here!” When I think back to that trip, I don’t remember a lot of it, but I do remember “Looky here!” In fact it has become part of our family’s vernacular. We gave the “tour guide” a handsome tip and I’m grateful for that because he gave us a memory which has lasted nearly two decades and still brings a smile to my face.
+ Before the holidays are upon us, remember that you are making memories, and these memories can be happy, funny, silly, “Looky here!” memories or they can become horrible, searing, imprinted memories that everyone tries to forget, but can’t. The holidays tend to bring out the best and the worst in all of us. If you are seeing someone who doesn’t visit often, but is coming to be with you now this Thanksgiving, relish that fact. Don’t use that time to make them feel guilty for not visiting more. Do you think that guilty feelings will make them want to come back for more helpings of ghastly guilt, down the line? Loving, enjoyable, easygoing energy is much more likely to pull them back for a few more visits, because everyone likes to feel good and loved and appreciated for what they do, and accepted for who they really are, in this world. Looky here, steer the conversations towards beautiful decorations everyone has seen, and funny “piles of Mapquest pages” stories that everyone can laugh about, and happily reminisce with each other. Stuff the turkey. Don’t stuff your opinions about volatile topics down everyone’s throats. There is a time and a place for those conversations, and a happy holiday gathering isn’t that time nor that place. If there was ever a time to concentrate on my blog’s tagline, it is during a holiday celebration. Print it out and put in your pocket. Imprint it on your mind. You won’t regret it. A surefire way to have a wonderful holiday season is to focus on all of the good. Be the star on your family’s celebrations this season. And by being the star, I don’t mean constantly stealing the spotlight for laughs and attention on you. When I say “Be the Star”, I mean be that beacon of light and love and kindness that puts the spotlight on others’ acts of love and light and kindness. Be that star which guides everyone towards hope and love and light. Here is my tagline:
Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.
Happy Friday!! I’ll get right to my Friday Favorite for today because Ralphie and Trip are modeling them for me. (Josie, our rough collie, has too much mane to don an original Daisy’s Dog Collar) Our boys are looking fancy with their new seashell collars that we recently purchased for them at a local beach fair. These cowrie shell, patent-pending woven collars are unique, attractive, waterproof, guaranteed for life and such a fun conversation starter with other dog lovers and enthusiasts. The owners of Daisy’s Dog Collars are recent empty nesters from New Jersey, who sold everything and now sell their collars at various venues all over the United States. They also give a portion of their profits to animal rescues all over the States, as well. Good product. Good cause. Good people. Good looks. Good dogs!
You can get your favorite canine a Daisy’s dog collar at their website:
https://daisysdogcollars.com/
Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.
There is nothing quite like waking up to a broken refrigerator. There is something special about buying from the local guys, though. Our local appliance shop were the only sellers who can get us a new one delivered tomorrow. I like to “Buy Local” when I can. We will truly miss our brick and mortars when they are no longer an option.
Interestingly, while picking out our new fridge, my husband and I both agreed, the simpler the better. The less doo-dads and the less gizmos the better. Our kids all wanted to know if we planned on getting the tricked out-model with a TV on the door, and with the ability to text with it throughout the day. No thank you. If the 1970s model came in a stainless steel instead of avocado paint coating, that is the one that I would purchase. Truly.
Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.
Here’s a good reminder from Dwayne Johnson (“The Rock”) to start the week out:
“When you focus on you, you grow. When you focus on sh*t, sh*t grows.”
Let that sh*t go! I was at a little arts and crafts festival over the weekend, and I purchased this little rock from one of the vendors:
I thought that it was a rock crystal carved into the shape of a little cone-shaped shell. I told the woman selling it that I didn’t know why, but this little piece seemed to be calling to me (in retrospect, I am sure that she got a giggle out of my statement). Upon closer inspection when I got home, I saw this:
My “shell” has a face. I didn’t buy a shell. I purchased a rock crystal poop emoji. I still love it though. I think that I am going to use this little guy as a visual reminder to “Let that sh*t go!!” Rocks know what they are talking about. They’ve been around a long time.
Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.
I’m back!! As promised, Mommy always comes back. I missed you all. I definitely missed writing my blog, but I learned something important by not writing at all, on this particular trip. For a true “getaway”, you must escape all of your everyday life – even the good stuff. By really experiencing life completely out of your element, it makes it really easy to sort out what is important to you. The people/places/stuff that you miss the most about home, are what’s really important to you. These are your priorities. These are the vital things that make your life hum to your own unique inner rhythms. You also get clear about the other stuff in your routines, that aren’t so important, and you realize things that might need to be changed or finessed, in order to live a life which is more authentic and contenting to you.
It is also surprisingly shocking to me, every. single. time. after vacation, just how much needs to be done when you get home. I have piles of mail to sort, piles of laundry to do, piles of souvenirs to find places for, piles of groceries to buy, piles of emails to go through and unusual surprises to deal with, like the fact that my web server for this blog, must have had an entire major update while I was gone, and I had to watch a tutorial and go through security measures more stringent than the ones on my bank accounts, in order to load this precious space back up on my computer. Welcome back. Ugh.
I saw a shortened version of this beautiful thought, on a pillow in a shop in the beautiful town that we visited. Here is the full version of “I Want to Age Like Sea Glass” by Bernadette Noll:
“I want to age like sea glass. Smoothed by tides, not broken. I want the currents of life to toss me around, shake me up and leave me feeling washed clean. I want my hard edges to soften as the years pass—made not weak but supple. I want to ride the waves, go with the flow, feel the impact of the surging tides rolling in and out.
When I am thrown against the shore and caught between the rocks and a hard place, I want to rest there until I can find the strength to do what is next. Not stuck—just waiting, pondering, feeling what it feels like to pause. And when I am ready, I will catch a wave and let it carry me along to the next place that I am supposed to be.
I want to be picked up on occasion by an unsuspected soul and carried along—just for the connection, just for the sake of appreciation and wonder. And with each encounter, new possibilities of collaboration are presented, and new ideas are born.
I want to age like sea glass so that when people see the old woman I’ll become, they’ll embrace all that I am. They’ll marvel at my exquisite nature, hold me gently in their hands and be awed by my well-earned patina. Neither flashy nor dull, just a perfect luster. And they’ll wonder, if just for a second, what it is exactly I am made of and how I got to this very here and now. And we’ll both feel lucky to be in that perfectly right place at that profoundly right time.
I want to age like sea glass. I want to enjoy the journey and let my preciousness be, not in spite of the impacts of life, but because of them.“
Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.
****See previous Octobers for all of the other parts of Wicked . . . .
Hilda: Zelda, what in bat’s hell is going on with you? Did I accidentally turn you into a frog or are you on Ozempic?
Zelda: Oh, Hilda! You kill me! Say, who’s the new guy?
Hilda: His name is Merlin. Seems like an airhead to me. He’s got nothing between the ears.
Zelda: Oh Hilda, you just don’t get it. Try, try, try to understand, he’s a magic man.
Zelda: Hey, hey, hey Merlin, do you have a ghoulfriend? Do you want to hear a wizard joke?? Who did the wizard call from the witch hotel?
Hilda: Ugh!! Zelda, how corny can you be?
Zelda: He called Broom Service!!! (cackle cackle cackle) One more! One more! What was the Wizard’s favorite Beach Boys Song?
Zelda: Help Me Wand-A!
Hilda: Help me . . . anybody.
Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.
