DECEMBER 3RD ~ SISTERS
To everyone with siblings, I wish for you the same love and laughter that I have with mine. The middle of three, raised by one parent, a little house full of women – OMG! But what strong memories are stashed away in the bricks of my being and oh the love and laughter we share with each other – every time we are in touch.
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DECEMBER 2ND ~ British Humor
Is it mainly the British whose funny bones are tickled by anything even remotely to do with certain bodily parts and functions? It’s certainly true of my family. I mean, there are times when little words like bigjob (childhood reference), fart and wiener put me (and my sisters) on the floor?
See, you’re smiling too aren’t you?
If you’re not, I apologize, but just remember, laughter is extremely good for the health, and I most certainly wish you all good health.
You can do it too – click this image on the sidebar and find out how.
I’ve been hovering these past many months and now I am heeding the call of Anastasia because I do want in, I do want to share some thoughts, write a few words, acknowledge the many awesome things in my life, wish good things for others.
Thinking things through as I do most mornings in my personal sanctuary/time capsule (the bathtub), I’ve convinced myself that it’s OK if this is all a little self-centered, because that’s exactly the thing – the wishes I’d like to give come from my inner core, the center of myself.
Here goes.
DECEMBER 1ST ~ Genes of my Mother
Wish you were here Mum.
Thank you to my mother for giving me strength, patience, compassion, humor – genetically and by example. Dearest, these are the things of you I feel in me every day. You are always who I turn to for light in my dark moments. You are not here, but yet you are.
I wish everyone could have a Mum like you.
You can do it too – click this image on the sidebar and find out how.
For all life’s challenges, I am feeling blessed on many fronts, between fuzzy orange kittens on our couch…
and large fuzzy fruit, bowing down the branches of our solo peach tree.
Before and After
On the peaches: I guess it’s still trial and error until I learn the optimum moment to harvest (this being just our second year), and I fear without pesticide it’ll be the second year of ignoring the bugs who literally wormed their way in first.
Any suggestions on both subjects much appreciated.
In the meantime, may you truly enjoy the fruits of your harvest!
Yesterday afternoon, as I stood in my naked kitchen looking thru my brand new windows I saw something I’d never seen before. A small flock of Cedar Waxwings feasting in the curbside tree. What a glorious piece of art they each are ~ somebody’s creative juices were really flowing that day. Take a look… in flight the bright yellow stripe across the end of the tail is striking, as is the little flash of red on the wing.
Cedar Waxwing
My kitchen remodeling project has progressed, expanded and begun to bloom. The kitchen, dining room and living room have been rewired, scraped and now cleared of furniture (mainly into the two bedrooms and my office – challenging to say the least!). On Friday the kitchen sink went, drywall was installed, carpet and old flooring removed and today, ceilings and walls primed. It’s going to be awesome.
So life here changes externally as it has internally. Looking at the same view thru different windows is quite something.
Hi Everyone – hope you all are good and happy. I am.
I’m also busy, but then that’s my usual mode of being. The difference now is that I’m busy and very happy most of the time, instead of busy and mostly happy some of the time. You are going to hear the “H” word a lot from me, so at some point it’s gonna evoke rolling of the eyes and silent mutterings of “there she goes again,” but I know you’re happy for me too.
Santa gave me a book this Christmas past called “The Little Zen Companion” by David Schiller.
I intended to use it immediately and regularly to keep my Thoughts from Outside the Oasis fresh (upper right sidebar). Since then, of course, I’ve been a little busy and it’s already almost March… yikes!
Today I recovered the book from under a pile of papers (oops) and saw that I had already tagged a couple of goodies, so here goes the first of many…better late than never, right?!
“How refreshing, the whinny of a packhorse unloaded of everything!”
Those who know me well will be able to hear me whinnying now.
And you all might take a look at one of my favorite films – “Young Frankenstein” – there’s some full-on neighing going on there…
Be well and refreshed and get your whinny on,
I haven’t blogged in ages but today I had such a great reunion with some good friends, not just friends but empowered women colleagues – my peers in fact, and it made me feel good enough to write again. I’ve actually been rapidly heading in that direction, but today, right now, I’m motivated to take action. Listening to their stories and hearing their journeys, the ups and downs, the lessons learned, I felt completely at home, engaged in their company and…happy! I’m pretty sure we all felt that way to one degree or another and I just think it’s awesome.
So I wanted to say thank you to all my friends: thank you for being protective and scared for me; thank you for supporting the decisions I make when I make them, no matter what; thank you for your sage advice, for sharing your experiences, for your humor, and for your love. You rock!
That great and silly Vulture song from the Jungle Book popped into my head and stayed there. I was going to post the whole thing for your viewing/listening pleasure, but then decided that was a teensy bit of overkill. However, if’n you’re a fan and want to, here’s a cute link from YouTube:
And stay tuned 🙂
So I’ve been quiet because I’ve been really busy helping a friend and at the same time dealing with something else I felt was heading towards an untenable situation for me.
Photo: Clare Barekat
Lo and behold, my worst fears were realized and my life is abruptly, frighteningly in violent upheaval. The stress is huge, the anxiety gnaws and gnaws. Yes, yes, don’t give it power, love myself blah blah blah.
Stress likes to manifest on my upper lip and I have a doozy right now. It’s ugly and it hurts…much like the situation that caused it.
I tried a little retail therapy today and guess what, it wasn’t happening, not even when I told myself forget the Xmas shopping just buy something for me. Nope, didn’t happen. Apparently retail therapy only works on certain levels. Now I know.
But what I can tell you really, really does the trick is some controlled demolition, and a little demolition goes a long way. Yeah baby!
Just wanted to share because it’s been way too long since we last spoke.
Gotta get back to what’s left of that kitchen cabinet now… more soon.
I’d like this post to be a gentle nudge to all you multi-taskers out there to try and switch back to solo focus when it comes to writing your emails.
I am continuously struck by the time I have to take when composing and sending relatively short emails. But here’s why I’m Ok with it. If it’s important to you, it’s worth the extra attention to get it said right the first time. More and more these days, when I’m proofing and editing emails, I find I’m deleting not adding text. Less really is more – more clarity, less chance for misinterpretation.
It’s not just that you may send (or think you’ve sent) to someone you didn’t mean to (just a tiny nudge of the trackball away), but more: without the facial expressions of the other side of the conversation, it’s so, so easy to be misunderstood and cause unintended grief. Whether real or imagined, grief is grief and it can seriously derail things.
And these days you can’t just go running after the cyber mailman and beg him to retrieve your note – although occasionally, if you’re really lucky, you can recall an email before it’s clicked on – no, usually you hit the button and it’s gone, around the world twice before you can blink.
The biggest bummer is that mostly you won’t know you’ve said something squirly until you hear it interpreted in a way you so, so weren’t thinking of. I have to believe that this happens far more among women than men, for the same reason it happens in face to face conversation between men and women all the time.
And why? Because we come from different planets right? Thank you John Gray (who by the way is a truly entertaining public speaker – well worth seeing even if you don’t give a ding dang about his books, which I think you should) for opening this doorway for us.
Personally, as a woman, I believe I know how much is written between the lines, but sometimes I wonder what life must be like without all that extra reading?
P.S. Do men wonder the reverse? Probably not…
This morning on the drive in, I stopped to help some folks whose car needed a jump. It took about 2 minutes. They were happy, I was happy, and my whole day immediately changed to a flavor better than ice cream. Yummmm!
I already tweeted a version of the opening paragraph because I thought it was a fun thought to share, but it also ties in with the fun time this weekend at the Redbull Soapbox Derby that I was already planning to tell you about.
The Derby took place in several blocks of downtown Los Angeles on September 26. There were a lot of people in a small amount space which meant we didn’t get to see much of the actual runs, but there were also large screens so we waited at the finish line area and watched the precarious journeys down Hill Street, through the straw bale chicane, over the jumps (lots of air, often too much) and down to the finish at 5th and Olive.
These were some fun vehicles and crazy drivers and it was hot (92). Could have done with some of that ice cream, but water was good. We stood and watched and sweated rivers and laughed some more. When the jumbotron went out, we just watched the people and admired the buildings and chatted.
Anyway, thought I’d share with you a peek at the good people of L.A. last Saturday.
P.S. Note to self: need to get out more, there’s still a world of fun out there!
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