This is good information to have in our back pockets. (ha ha)
I am coming off of a couple of weeks of one exciting, interesting, unique, fun event after another. And it’s all been really great, especially being with my loved ones. However, I am exhausted. I am “spent.” Energy is energy, and wherever you are spending your every load of energy, whether it be on good times or on bad times, it all needs to eventually be replenished, in order to get on with things, in a healthy way. I hope to replenish my coffers this week with some sleep, with some solitude, and with some unscheduled moments to just be.
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:
+ We just dropped our eldest son and his girlfriend at the airport after a lovely visit with them. That’s something you never quite get used to with your children, from the moment they leave your womb . . . . the letting go and the saying good-bye. But the reunions are always so wonderful. Like so many things in life, it’s two sides of the same coin.
+ We have our first grand-dog!! Our middle son and his girlfriend adopted a “furry Frenchie” from a rescue. He is beyond adorable! Frenchies do the “zoomies” like no other dog can do. Until I get an actual grandchild, I plan to be as obnoxious as I was last night, passing on videos of our “grand-dog” to anyone who will watch them. (or at least politely pretend to)
+ I learned a new wonderful word the other day. It is a German word. The word is “Nachkussen”. It means to do the kind of kissing which compensates for the lack of passionate kissing that has been needing to happen between two lovers for a while. Purposely schedule some “Nachkussen” with your baby tonight and then thank me in my Comments section tomorrow. (I want to see a lot of gratitude . . . .)
+ The author, columnist and poet Rob Brezsny said that one of the best compliments that he ever received was from one of his readers who said to him, “I want you to know how often your process of being yourself has helped me in the process of being me.” By being fully and truly your entire authentic self, you give others permission to do the same. How beautiful and inspiring! This is how we become “wayshowers.”
“Wayshowing means showing others the way by simply awakening to and living your truth. By being it rather than preaching it. Leave room for people to notice the incredible shifts you are experiencing and they’ll naturally want to have what you’re having.” – Embodying Wild
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:
2982. Were you ever a member of a celebrity fan club?
“It happens all the time. Superstars get overlooked. The passersby rush past the musical genius playing on the sidewalk. The future bestseller sits at the bottom of a slush pile. Groundbreaking work is met with skepticism or ignored. It all presents an opportunity for the intuitive and aware. Be on the look-out for the good stuff. Be the one who sees it, senses it, lives it.” – Holiday Mathis
Whenever I’m in a quandary about what to write about on the blog, I go to Holiday Mathis’ daily horoscopes. She typically writes something profound (such as above) before she even gets to the individual astrological signs. Some of the best music that I have ever heard, some of the best artwork which I have ever seen, and some of the best words I have ever read, have come from obscure places such as street corners, graffiti walls and out-of-print books that I picked up at a garage sale.
When we were away last week, sitting in a swanky hotel, two extremely stylish women decked out in pricy, designer gear from head to toe, were gushing to me about a ring that I was wearing on my right hand. I had two rings on, one expensive, beautiful 14K gold ring bedazzled with diamonds and the other one, a hammered brass ring, holding a broken shell, that I had purchased from an artsy street fair in a local town a couple of years ago. I asked the regal looking women which ring they were inquiring about, and it was the street fair ring. They wanted to know the maker, and unfortunately, I had no idea. The artist had not put a maker’s mark on it. I do love the ring though. It is truly one-of-a-kind. It is special.
I love to support the underdog, especially in the arts. If someone’s creative work touches me, I do everything that I can to support it, whether that means a purchase, a compliment, a nice tip, a referral/promo, etc. It takes courage to put one’s creations out into the public. To do this opens a creator up to criticism, to ridicule, to rejection and creating takes a lot of time to do, without the likelihood of great reward in return for their time and effort. This is why I believe that we miss out on so much of what the world and all of its individual creators could offer to us. We often respect and worship all of the wrong people/places/stuff. We get a lot of copycats and a lot of same old/same old. And thus, we don’t get inspired to be more creative and imaginative, ourselves.
Go to Etsy and look up something you like, say perhaps, “turtles.” You won’t believe the offerings that you will find, in every kind of art form, at truly reasonable prices. Go to local hole-in-the-wall restaurants that aren’t chains. You might taste flavors like you have never experienced before in any kind of restaurant. Pause and listen to that saxophonist on the corner. Many famous stars today, including Justin Bieber, were originally street performers. And if you find a creator that really impresses you, support them, any way that you can. It means so much to them. And honestly, it means so much to the world.
Even if you don’t like astrology, go to Holiday Mathis’ website and just read her opening paragraph every day. In my opinion, she’s a writer and a thinker and a wise woman who deserves a whole lot more attention. She’s a star among those who write about the stars. And also, allow yourself to put your own creations “out there”. If nothing else, this will help you to appreciate, even more so, the bravery, the vulnerability, and the imaginative effort and sacrificial time, the creators whom you admire, have in spades, by the offerings which they give to all of us. Creators give us an intimate piece of themselves.
(It is my belief that WE are the vehicles of creations for our Creator. Do not withhold your gifts, and also, bring attention to other creators’ gifts. The world will be a much better place for it.)
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:
I just read the unfortunate news that we lose an hour of sleep this weekend. This is always the time of year in which I could use an extra hour of sleep, not an hour less. Why do we still play these stupid games with the clocks???
I saw this yesterday in a store. The absolute truth:
Just for today, find the magic. It’s everywhere. Open your eyes and see it.
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:
Good morning. Welcome to poetry day on the blog. I love Sundays. Sunday is the “breathe out deeply” day of the week. Whatever happened during the week, take in the good stuff and let go of the rest. Settle yourself with ease and prepare yourself for the fresh new start of a beautiful new week. Write a poem today. Poetry helps with the process of letting go. Poetry helps with the process of going within. Poetry helps to reach deeper meaning and understanding. You are worth a poem today. You are worth a poem everyday. Here is my own poem for today:
The most beautiful souls in the world
Are experts at giving away
What they once so desperately needed.
They figured out how to harvest
What was deeply implanted inside
And they grew it, and as it flowered with fruit,
With the help of other kindred souls,
They pried open the doors,
and they let it all flow out,
To help cleanse the world of its pain.
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:
RIP – Iris Apfel (We lost a good one yesterday. What a strong inspiration to live your life fully, up until it is the time to pass on, at the ripe old age of 102 . . . . ) A fashion designer once said this about Iris Apfel’s trademark look: “It appeals to a certain kind of joy in everybody.” Thank you, Iris, for your bravery, your audacity and your authenticity. Thank you for your joy. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Here are some of Iris Apfel’s best quotes:
“When you don’t dress like everybody else, you don’t have to think like everybody else.”
“More is more and less is a bore.”
“Remember not to be bossy… be the boss!!”
“Get comfortable outside of your comfort zone.”
“Get old, but don’t get boring!”
“If your hair is done properly and you are wearing good shoes, you can get away with anything.”
“You don’t have to be an artist to be a creator, because creativity comes in a lot of forms, like cooking or keeping a house or dressing well. What you need is imagination, to make things up for yourself.”
“The worst fashion faux pas is looking in the mirror and seeing somebody else.”
“When you try too hard to have style, you look uncomfortable, like you’re wearing a costume, like the clothes are entering the room before you do. If you’re uptight, you won’t be able to carry off even a seemingly perfect outfit. If that’s happening, I say abandon the whole thing. It’s better to be happy than well dressed.”
“You can’t go home again. If an experience was wonderful, don’t try to re-create it. It will never be as beautiful as it was the first time.”
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:
592. What is your favorite decorative piece or artwork that you own?
“Good morning. Tonight kicks off the Global Day of Unplugging, an annual event that encourages people to put down their screens and take part in real-life gatherings or a “meaningful conversation.”Yeah…here’s how that might go: Hours 1–3: Chill 4–7: Getting shaky 8–12: Asking strangers for updates on Kate Middleton 13–15: Talking to yourself in a mirror and pretending it’s a Zoom meeting 16–19: Shouting tweets from your fire escape 20–22: Pressing buttons on your microwave to fill the silence 23: Acceptance Good luck!”—Matty Merritt, Molly Liebergall, Cassandra Cassidy, Adam Epstein, Neal Freyman
Happy Friday!! Happy Favorite Things Friday!! The above selection is from my favorite for today, the “Morning Brew.” My friend told me about it and “Morning Brew” has become my new favorite source to get my news, by a long shot. (I still like “1440” and “Daily Skimm”, as well, which I have mentioned in my Favorite Things Friday posts previously) Another favorite for political news is “Tangle” which goes out of its way to be unbiased. At the very least, “Tangle” gives both sides of the story, by offering up what liberal leaning sources are saying about a political happening and than also, what conservative leaning sources are saying about the same happening. I like a news source that respects my ability to think for myself, and to make up my own mind about the state of affairs in our country and around the world.
The Global Day of Unplugging is probably a worthy challenge, right? It is scary how dependent we have become on our phones and our other technology. The other day, I was just driving over to my local Walgreens, which is about five minutes away from my home, to pick up a prescription. I realized that I had forgotten to bring my iPhone and I almost had a panic attack. (and I wish that this were an exaggeration) Then, I had to sit in a line at the drive-through, and I got so incredibly antsy because I had no form of entertainment. It was one of those nasty self-realization moments that I might be teetering a little bit, on phone addiction.
Even if you keep your phone in hand, this weekend, find a way to unplug. I’ve been noticing that in my own life lately, I go from feast to famine, and then back to feast, when it comes to the “busy-ness” in my life. I “go-go-go”, get exhausted and finally crash, and then I head right back into a “go-go-go” period. This is not what I had envisioned for my empty nest. I have to find a way to stay more “even keel”. I have to be more planful and practical. Unplug time should not be only for when you are so tired, that you just want to crash. Unplug time should be about keeping the balance, versus “the yo-yo of go-go.”
Have a great weekend! Stay in the center of the see-saw! 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:
Hi. Happy last day of February! Even with the special bonus day, February seemed to cruise along a lot faster than January did, right?? We are one sixth of the way through 2024. How is it going for you?
I’m exhausted, and yet exhilarated and rejuvenated, all at the same time. That’s typically my experience with travel. There are very few experiences that deplete you and energize you, all at the same time. Giving birth and perhaps running a marathon (although I wouldn’t know anything about long distance running. I won’t run to my mailbox) are the only other experiences that I can think of, off the top of my head, that could fall into this same category. I suppose winning an Olympic medal would be the extreme example of instantaneous exhilaration and exhaustion, but again, that is way out of my level of expertise.
When you add new experiences to your life, you add new layers to yourself. And some of your other layers get sort of reorganized with perspective changes, as new information gets assimilated into your being. Travel changes you. Travel expands you. I rode in a helicopter for the first time in my life this past week. My late uncle and my sister-in-law were military helicopter pilots and they always spoke so fondly of the specialness of flying in helicopters. I totally get it now. It was incredibly thrilling. It was an experience that I won’t soon forget.
Give yourself new experiences every day. You don’t have to travel far to try a new coffee flavor, drive a new way to work or to school, talk to someone whom you have never met, read a book that isn’t your usual genre choice . . . . The expansion of yourself from your experiences is really the point of “it all”, isn’t it? At the very least, expanding yourself is deliciously exhausting and invigorating, all at the same time.
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:
I’m sitting here in a hotel room, in a hotel that was born in the same year as my eldest son. So this is a 28-year-old hotel room. Its current “look” seems to be a whimsical, boutique-y look, with prominent colors and unusual off-centered placements of mismatching artwork. I’m sure that this square room has had many variations over the years. The rule of thumb is that the average hotel changes and updates its decorations about every seven years. So this hotel is probably on the end of its fourth cycle of “changing it up”. I wonder if people are generally on the same 7- year cycle of updating our appearance, our homesites, our mindsets? Some hotels appear like they have never had a change-up. Some people are the same. When I was a college textbook sales representative back in the early 1990s, my main point of contact were the departments’ administrative assistants. There was one administrative assistant whose office remained stubbornly and firmly in the 1960s. She had a beehive hairdo, wore brightly colored cats-eye glasses, she smoked in her office (even though you weren’t supposed to), and all of the furnishings in the office were mid-century (before mid-century became cool again). It was like entering into a time warp. I found her office oddly fascinating and sometimes even reassuring. That woman was not about to let trends, nor time, take her away from surroundings that made her feel the most at home.
My husband read a story recently about one of our country’s earliest magnates. In an enormous romantic gesture, he traded their New York City home for a pearl necklace that his wife desperately wanted. (At the time, pearls were exceedingly rare because no one had yet figured out how to harvest pearls in an industrial sense.) Ironically, the necklace recently sold in auction for $165,000 and the New York City home that he traded it for is worth almost $300 million dollars.
Everything changes. What is valuable to you, or to anyone else, changes. What looks good to you at one time often loses its appeal overtime (to the point of laughing hysterically at you and your friends’ 1980’s glue-sprayed big bangs). Noticing what changes, makes it easier to pivot to thinking about what is endlessly timeless. Feelings are timeless. We all experience the different variations of feelings and sensations that our ancestors have felt for thousands of years. And the many generations ahead of us, no matter what their surroundings look like, will experience the same myriad of feelings and sensations that we do. The timeless stuff is all inside of us. Timelessness lies within.
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:
1506. Do you think you could beat a lie detector test? (Me – no way, no how. I’m a terrible liar.)
If you want to make people exceedingly intrigued by you, and perhaps even envious of you (although this is not advised – when people are at their most envious, they are often at their worst) you don’t need millions of dollars, a perfect body, a beautiful face, a loving relationship, amazing kids, and a fancy car. You just need to be “happy.” Choose to be happy every single day. You will absolutely glow. Unfortunately, happiness is something that is available to all of us, but we make it so hard. There are people I have known who had all of the things listed above, and they were some of the most miserable people I have ever known. Happiness truly is an inside job. A happy optimist isn’t in denial. The happy optimists recognize that there is a lot that needs to be different in the world. So they choose to work at changing these things, or they choose to accept these things. And then the happy, optimist goes on to savor the myriad of things that are completely wonderful in this world. Don’t make happiness elusive. Don’t make happiness contingent on what you have or what you don’t have. Don’t compare others’ happiness to your own. Like love, happiness just is . . . . And happiness really is available to all of us. Happiness is a peaceful contentedness that is still there in the background, when sad feelings arise. It is the peaceful contentedness that is still there, even when fear is at its height. Happiness is living life in gratitude and appreciating the stories about the experiences of the moments. Why have we chosen to make happiness such a rarity? Is it smarter to sound sad, angry and bitter? Does it really matter how “smart” anyone is? Be happy. Today, choose happy at all costs. You’ll be amazed that you had the power to be happy within you, all along. And you’ll also be amazed at how magnetizing a power that true happiness can be.
“Whoever is happy, will make others happy.” – Anne Frank
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:
1629. How are you still similar to your younger self?
