Tag: funny

“Fresh Eyes”

credit: Outlookindia

There is so much heat in the air, that even sitting in the air conditioning feels like being in a tanning bed. I feel like a slug. I don’t want to move. It feels like it takes the gallant effort and mental fortitude of a Navy Seal to psych myself up to go outside, just to get my mail. There’s summer in Florida and then there is “summer in Florida, amirite?!?” We are definitely in “amirite” territory this week. (in case you haven’t heard enough complaining about this unprecedented summer heat wave, I just indulged you.)

I’ve gotten a few dozen new subscribers in the last week or so. Thank you, welcome. I’m so honored. I love to write and I would do it in a void, but it feels truly validating to be read. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I wrote a blog post once about my writing process, and about how what you get in your email, is usually the first draft. I can almost guarantee that you will find at least one typo or grammatical error. That’s why I have my editor (aka my wonderful husband) read my blog post every single morning. My sweet husband then texts me, how much he liked my post and what he got from it, and then right after that text is “And here are all of your mistakes:”. And I always think to myself (almost every single day), “How did I not catch that mistake?!? How did I miss that?? I’ve read over my post 3-6 times before publishing! How does that happen? And how does my husband spot the mistakes every single day, right away?!?”

Now my husband is not critical. He is the most supportive person in my life. My husband just happens to be far more detail oriented than I am. (All you’d have to do is look at our respective packed suitcases, desk tops or individual grocery carts to see how differently our minds work.) While in a hotel room my husband might hone in on the small knick by a light switch, while I, at the same time, am determining what the overall ambiance of the room, the hotel, or even the whole town itself, intuitively feels like to me. My husband is detail oriented and I’m big picture, and this is why we work well together.

And now is the moment that I finally get to my point: “Fresh Eyes” on any situation in your life is so important. An open mind to what these “Fresh Eyes” see, is also equally as important. Make sure that you have at least a couple of people in your life, who you admire, trust, and believe that they have your best interests at heart (friends, family, minister, therapist, mentor). When you have a situation in your life that you want some feedback on, go to your trusted “Fresh Eyes” people. Be open to what “Fresh Eyes” see. Don’t beat yourself up for not seeing what “Fresh Eyes” puts a spotlight on. Your “Fresh Eyes” people are coming into the situation, having never seen it before. When I write my blog posts, my mind already knows what it is trying to say. Often I can’t type the words fast enough. I often miss my mistakes, because my mind already sees what it wants to see. It already has a fixed idea or a prejudice as to what the blog post is saying. “Fresh Eyes” usually don’t come into any situation with a predetermined agenda.

If you prefer “finished product” with few or no typos, just go read my blog on my website in the afternoon. Rarely do I change the ideas or sentences in my posts, but sometimes I get the inspiration to do so. Therefore, what you get in your email every morning, is usually not the final “turn into the teacher” paper. I rely on my favorite “Fresh Eyes” to give me different perspectives, and to help me to clean things up a little bit here and there. Having two extra sets of eyes or more, is never a bad thing with any situation in life. Ask a beautiful monarch butterfly. It has 12,000 eyes (is it a wonder that butterflies are not easy to catch?)!!!

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

Smile, It’s Friday

Happy Friday!!! I am not going to spend a lot of time with my favorites today because I am enjoying my time with some of my longtime favorite people. My favorite for today is my mouth guard which I resisted for years and thus paid to repair many a cracked tooth. My biggest fear, that as a claustrophobic person, I was concerned about anything that felt to big and clunky and “choke-y” in my mouth. And I certainly didn’t want to pay hundreds of dollars for it. And so my practical, kind, hygienist suggested this inexpensive, no frills, no-need-to-boil, dainty nightly mouthguard. It works. I love it. I no longer wake up with sore teeth or a sore jaw. I’m grateful to have finally broken down, and to have tried it, and at a $20 pricepoint, there is no reason not to try it. You can get this at any local drugstore or Walgreens: SleepRight Select-Comfort Dental Guard

Have a wonderful weekend!! See you tomorrow.

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

Journal Prompts

I have quite a few errands to do in the next couple of days, so my writing is likely to be sparse. Maybe I will just throw out various thoughts that I have pondered this week, and you may use them as your own journal prompts, if you are so inclined.

“How you start your day is how you live your day. How you live your day is how you live your life.” – Louise Hay (This is why I start my every day, communing with you all, writing on the blog. It’s good for me and it is good for my life. Thank you for enhancing my life. Ty. Ty. Ty.)

“The changes we dread most may contain our salvation.”– Barbara Kingsolver I have witnessed this fact in my own life, and in so many other people’s lives, too. Where are you feeling a constant agitation or resistance in your own life? Are there changes that need to be made? Are you in the way of your own salvation?

“Life is made of two dots and a dash. Make the most of the dash.” – Anonymous

Dash away, dash away, dash away all!!!! See you tomorrow. Please leave your answers to the journal prompts in my Comments, if you are so inclined.

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

Monday – Funday

I love our dogs. I mean, I adore our dogs. But Josie, our collie causes more fur-formed tumbleweeds than a major storm in the Mojave Desert. And our dogs can’t look out our glass sliders (which form most of the back of our house) without making absolutely sure to having their sloppy wet noses touch the glass. (And of course, our dogs are all three different heights: small, medium, and large) The bottom half of our sliders are translucent to opaque, on a regular basis.

My youngest son questions everything in life. (I wonder where he gets that from. Hmmm.) He once said, “I love our dogs as much as any of us do, but don’t you think it is kind of weird that humankind has evolved to have animals living with us, in our houses? I mean, does it seem a little strange?” (Despite agreeing with him, we all kissed the dogs and ignored our son the rest of the day. 😉 )

Bottom line is, I love my dogs and I love Oreos. They are worth the never-ending cycle of cleaning up after them. Have a great week!

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

Hangin’ Around Friday

Happy Friday!!! Happy Favorite Things Friday!!! Before I get to my favorite for today (hint: see above), I wanted to share two interesting things. One, I just read that the reason why Redwood trees are the tallest living thing on Earth is because they intertwine their roots and they share their water. Isn’t that beautiful? What’s your “water”? (i.e. special gift or talent that was meant to be shared to make our world a more beautiful place) Share your water today, and stand taller for doing it.

And two, I had a really interesting, kind of hilarious conversation yesterday. I was doing quite a few returns at a local department store. I was being waited on by quite the colorful lady. She and I both agreed that we especially enjoy the thrill of getting quality items, at discounted prices. The lady, a quirky, jumpy, constantly smiling, slim, elfin type of a person told me, “My talents aren’t limited to bargain hunting. I’m just the kind of person who knows people. I get what a want.”

“What are you, a mobster?” her coworker quipped and we all three nervously giggled.

“No,” the confident lady replied. “For example, I get reservations where no one can get reservations. I get to the best seats at games, and I get backstage passes when I want them.”

My curiosity overcame me. “Okay, so how do you do that? What’s your trick?” I said, half-believing her.

“I just call ’em up, or I show up and I say I’m with Senator So and So’s party and then I march right to wherever I want to go.”

“Do you ever get called out?” I asked.

“Only one or two times, but then they still let me go on through, and I think it’s because they admired my pluck. The key is to have total confidence. Know that you belong in the place where you want to be, and act on it. Never show doubt.” And then she smiled like a self-pleased Cheshire cat, who was already dreaming about her next stunt to pull off.

Okay, back to the moment that you have been waiting for: today’s favorite. (See above) Another Studio’s plant animals are like jewelry for your plant babies. They are adorable and light and rest easily on even the lightest of leaves. They come in many different varieties (I personally purchased the bee and the gecko). They run around $7-$8 a piece. I got mine at a local store but you can go to their website and purchase them from there. For those plain plants of yours who don’t naturally flower, why not give them a cute little bling of their own with an A-S plant animal?

Have a great weekend, friends. Find the small things/experiences that bring a smile to your face, and buy them, and relish them and act on them (and share your water). See you tomorrow!

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

Stratagem

Do you remember when you were in high school or in college, and you looked around, and you found yourself super stressed by all the people around you who seemed to have their whole lives already mapped out with carefully crafted, detailed precision? Do you remember those times when it felt like everyone around you was walking around with their vital mission plans in their backpacks and they were just chomping at the bits to get to graduation, and to get on with it? And you were thinking to yourself, “Oh my gosh, do I even have a backpack?” Maybe you were one of those people who came out of the womb holding your solid lifetime plan in your hand, but I was not. I was an achiever, yes. I did well in school. When I fell in love with my husband, I knew that I wanted to share my life with him. I knew that I wanted a big family, but all of the rest of it, seemed more like a hazy outline. (and honestly, sometimes it still does) When I was young, I was caught up in “the shoulds” and people pleasing and towing the line and “achieving”. I followed the script.

I bring this up because lately I feel like I am back in that scene with the backpacks, except now it’s all a bunch of middle-aged empty nesters, carrying weathered, higher quality backpacks, and it appears as if they all have been given their next ironclad missions. They can’t get their For Sale signs out fast enough. The moving trucks pull up, right after the graduation parties. And here I am, back to, “Oh my gosh, do I even have a backpack?” I had a text conversation with my sister-in-law the other day that looked something like this (and for context, our youngest child graduated from high school last year, her youngest child graduated last week):

Me (thinking she would need comfort and reassurance): Congratulations!! Don’t worry, empty nest is really nice and simple and peaceful. You do less dishes and less laundry.

SIL: Yay!! We are putting our house up in the spring, moving across the country to our dream town in our favorite state, we’re going to rent first and then we are going to buy. We’ve been dreaming about this very moment for years, and . . . . . . (on and on and on with precision detail and excitement). And then she asked, What are your plans for empty nest?

Me: Well, um, we don’t have our plans quite sewn down just yet. We’re still figuring it out, but we are having fun doing the figuring out part.

SIL: As long as you are having fun, you are doing it right.

My sister-in-law is correct. Having fun with the process is important, but I still feel envious of my fellow empty nesters, purposefully walking around (sometimes running around) with their seemingly long thought-out, highly anticipated master plans. The one thing that I know for sure, during this next stage of my life, is that I won’t be stuck on “the shoulds” nor “the script.” When I reflect back on my life, the decisions that I made when I followed my heart and my intuition, have brought me to my favorite people, and my most memorable places, and my most treasured activities (such as starting this blog). Perhaps, my own master plans are never meant to be in step-by-step form, held in a handy backpack. Perhaps the compass in my heart is really all that I have ever needed, and it will take me everywhere that I need to go. I just need to trust this fact, let go of my comparison anxiety, and let the needle steady and point me in the direction which always seems to lead to my most authentic, deepest self and my most profound experiences, often in the most spontaneous of ways.

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

Tuesday’s Tidbits

+ Today’s beautiful Google Search Doodle is the 2023 winner of the annual Google Doodle contest. When my daughter was younger, she always submitted her artwork to Google every year (and when she didn’t win, our whole family always agreed with her – Google got it terribly wrong 😉 ). This is the wonderful thing about these types of contests. They encourage and they spur on and they award children’s creativity. This year’s prompt was “I’m grateful for . . .” The winner, Rebecca, drew a picture of she and her two sisters, and she said that her Google Doodle represents all of their happiest memories together. What are your happiest memories? What if you drew a depiction (even just a doodle) of your happiest memories? I wonder what that would like . . . . don’t you? Let’s try it.

+ I read that there is a sign at a local nursery that says this: “The best time to plant a tree is twenty years ago. The next best time is now.” What have you been putting off/meaning to get to/regretting not doing? The next best time is now.

+ If you can keep an open mind, and suspend all your own personal spiritual and religious beliefs (or non-beliefs) for just a moment (and if you can’t do that, then just skip this tidbit), I think that you will get a lot out of a series of tweets I recently read, by Valencia (@SayItValencia). I know that I did:

“My love, Your peace doesn’t have to be protected and no one can drain your energy, we’ve been rehearsing those thoughts for too long. Once you find bliss, you understand it’s a gift and perspective that you give to you at every moment. You end up gifting it to others by default. Does it mean you can’t think your energy can be drained? No. The mind is vast, you can perceive anything you want and then experience it. When ready, if you find that thinking your energy can be drained no longer serves, you can let go of that perspective and find infinite bliss. . . . You awaken multiple times, not just once. Every time, you will have a clearer understanding of what is the ego, what are false fears and what you truly are. . . .The ego is the self we go to, every time we forget we’re part of Source. It’s the self we know in the visible realm. It’s the self that makes us believe we are separated from each other. Love that self! Love what you created so far! But don’t make mistake it as all that you are. . . . Spiritually, the ego is no longer an enemy when you realize that it’s the self you created. There’s nothing to dislike about it, it’s a byproduct of being human and your environment. Which means that you can change the ego, ad infinitum. You are the awareness behind the change.For a long time, I’d think the ego as something separated to myself, until it clicked that “No! The ego IS Valencia! It’s the personality I created based on my experiences, it’s when I believe I’m “me” instead of awareness.” I no longer try to fix the ego, there’s nothing to fix. . . .Instead, I stay in awareness, in Spirit’s presence as much as I can. I guide my ego from there. Without harsh judgment on me. Just discernment, love and patience. . . . Seek your intuition, seek your inner-guidance, seek Spirit with all you got. There’s a kingdom pre installed in your mind, find it. It’s underneath all the false thoughts this world taught us. Underneath the conditioning. It’s your job to seek it, everything else follows.. . . .Intuition never wants anything to be difficult for you. It wants to guide you in the best and easiest way possible. It doesn’t test you nor try to teach you anything that way. Why would it, when it knows the way? The ego on the other hand…I said it yesterday, your ego only knows this world and the rules of the visible realm. It has been taught to measure its understanding of things through tests. It can’t help but believe the universe does the same to you. . . . Ego tests intuition all the time! Intuition or Spirit doesn’t need to test anything, it just wants to guide you effortlessly and fulfill its function. Ego stops testing things when it accepts that inner-guidance leads to longevity and peace, and it wants that for itself as well.“

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

Argle-Bargle (AKA Tuesday’s Tidbits)

+ My Word-of-the-Day daily email taught me “argle-bargle”, today. This is what the meaning is of argle-bargle: “Copious but meaningless talk or writing; nonsense.” It’s a great word. I’ve honestly never seen the word, “argle-bargle”, nor heard the word, “argle-bargle” other than today (honestly, sometimes the Word-of-the-Day tends to get a little “out there” and obscure when it comes to their word choices, in my opinion, but I’m hooked. I read the words daily and I even sometimes try to incorporate some of these words into my own argle-bargle, as I am doing so today.) Admit it. Argle-bargle is a fun word. Try saying it three times fast: Argle-bargle. Argle-bargle. Argle-bargle.

+ The best quote I have read this week (and you know that I love me some great quotes) is this one: “The future has an ancient heart.” – Carlo Levi (Incidentally one of my most kind and loyal, longtime readers, Gail, recommended a book in my Comments recently, and I immediately downloaded it. It is an excellent book and this is where I read the quote. The book is called Tiny Beautiful Things by Cheryl Strayed, who also wrote Wild, which was made into a movie starring Reese Witherspoon) Anyway, “The future has an ancient heart” speaks to me. It is so true and so comforting. It suggests that whatever we are meant to do, and to learn, and to become, is already imprinted in our most primal, wisest DNA. It will find its way out, through many channels, in our lifetimes, individually and collectively. If you ever need to just “let go”, use this quote as your mantra. It’s now going to become one of my own regular mantras. Thank you, Gail, for your most excellent recommendation. This line from the book, alone, is life-changing.

+ I had an experience over the weekend that I’m sure could have probably made a viral Tik-Tok (although I’m honestly not a Tik-Tok fan, so I don’t really know. I’ve always preferred words over video.) We were visiting our son in a major city in our country, and while he was doing his schoolwork, my husband and I visited a swanky section of town for some lunch and some shopping. I found a delightful boutique full of unusual artsy stuff (my favorite kind of shopping) and I decided to purchase a bracelet in the shop. My husband was doing his own thing outside (small artsy boutiques are not his favorite kind of shopping. I’m not sure that my husband actually has a favorite kind of shopping.) The cashier was perhaps a few years older than me (probably in her late 50s) and she mentioned that this boutique was not actually her store, but it was her daughter’s store, and she was just trying to help her daughter out for the afternoon. What ensued next became two technologically challenged middle-aged women trying to figure out how to pay for my item, with the daughter on a Facetime call, trying to guide us through the whole process (“I think that we press this button” . . . “No! No! No! Don’t press that button!” . . . .”The green one!! Green!!”) and then for the cherry on top, add-in the shop-owner’s father, also a technologically challenged middle-ager, who did not have his readers on, and thus promptly pressed a “7” instead of a “1” which almost made me pay seven times what I was supposed to pay, if we hadn’t been saved by hearing his daughter screaming through the phone: “Abort! Cancel the transaction! RED button! RED!!” In the end we got “the system” to work correctly, and I paid the fair price for my lovely bracelet. And the whole time I was thinking, if my kids had been in the shop and had gotten this on video, I might be Tik-Tok famous right now.

+Congratulations, you made it to the end of today’s argle-bargle.

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

Monday – Funday

Credit: @thewitchbrmclst, Twitter

There is a funny thread trending on Twitter this morning. It starts with “#InThe80sNoOneSaid” and here are some chuckle-worthy, relatable answers:

“In the ’80s you never called someone on the phone and then asked “where are you”

“I’m going to sleep in on Saturdays and watch my cartoons on streaming later. You woke up for those Saturday morning cartoons or you didn’t see them!”

“Is this too much hairspray?”

“Put on a helmet.”

“How safe are those jarts/lawn darts for kids really?“

“Damn, left my phone on the roof…“

“I’ll have a Venti Iced Pumpkin Spice Latte, please.”

“what’s the WiFi password?”

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

Monday – Funday

Credit: @woofknight, Twitter

My adult kids and their friends were talking and laughing about their latest experiences with job recruiters the other day, so I thought that this meme was a good one to share for a Monday chortle.

I am having the same experience that I had many, many years ago, when my youngest child first went to kindergarten and I got used to a full school year of the house all to myself during the day . . . . and then summer arrived. My youngest two children are here, for this month, after many, many months of it being just my husband and I here at home. It goes without saying, that we adore our children and there are a lot of good things about having them back home with us again. But then there are sayings like “What I don’t know, can’t hurt me,” that ring true when your adult children come back to live with you.

Since starting our family, summer has always been the season of adjustment. Summer is the pausal season before autumn comes up and cranks up the regular routine once again. Some day, when all of our children are done with their secondary schooling and fully into their own adult lives, perhaps summer won’t be such a noticeable change in our lives. Despite getting a glimpse of that possibility, it turns out that my husband and I just aren’t quite ‘there’ yet. So we will soldier on . . .

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