Category Archives: gratitude

11.26.20
by

No place for anything but gratitude on Thanksgiving…

Thanksgiving this year was just one of those events in my life where I said, Yep…can’t do anything about it…just get through it. Poof…seems as soon as I released my attachment to what it should be, what it’s always been, and stopped ruminating…I began to find some peace, joy and gratitude!

Except for the young hen turkey instead of a Tom….and too much sage in the dressing and not really understanding how much less milk is needed for Yukon yellow mashed potatoes rather than russets, the food was excellent and the 5 ingredient corn casserole was the best one ever and I did not miss the green bean casserole AT ALL (possibly the first holiday in 64 years without it).

I went with a tongue in cheek comment from our youngest daughter that we could just zoom while we all ate our meals in our 3 little units….so we set the IPAD up on the table and everyone zoomed in for our meal…our family time clocks are all different but this way we get to enjoy each other 3 times in the day. he and I have saved dessert for the next daughter’s meal and then we will get dessert the second time for the second daughter’s meal. We did this recipe except put it in a graham cracker crust.

Easy peasy. And our two year old Rhoads rolls in the freezer didn’t rise appropriately for the occasion, I did find that the drawer under the oven was a great place for them to do their best. It gave me the idea that in the future this will be a perfect place to keep food warm as I prepare a meal.

So with gratitude, my friends, we hold you all in love and light as we hold each other up!

Namaste

11.23.20
by

Hag…..the female curmudgeon!

I went down the dictionary rabbit hole this morning while I was trying to attach a label to a behavior I don’t particularly appreciate in myself. Curmudgeon was the word in my head and defined as…bad tempered and old…and what’s more, the female version is HAG! I don’t really think the shoe fits but..whatever!

I lived nearly all of my adult life in a rural area…on a gravel road in the country among the trees and the deer and rabbits. I grew up a city girl in a neighborhood with all of the utility and community advantages but with only a modicum of privacy. It took me a long while to appreciate the peace and silence living the timber life. Which morphed back to I can’t live another moment in this loneliness and inconvenience once the last daughter left home and I neared retirement.

So…the day we retired…we moved 4 hours away to a small town in another state to a neighborhood…to living amongst people…..and with this came a huge inconvenience.

I thought I was going to lose my mind in the last few months from raps on the door from political candidates, tree trimmers, roofers and now Medicare supplement insurance agents. After a particularly profane cerebral meltdown after two solicitors within 30 minutes, I bought “the sign”.

It’s not lost on me that many of these folks are just hoofing it for business…just trying to make a living…doing what it takes to survive…but it’s also a waste of their time to knock on my door because the answer will always be the same. NO! You don’t need to find me, I will find you….

Until next time….

11.10.20
by

It wasn’t wrong it just was

Yesterday I did this! I went for a walk around the pond and just kept following my feet down the path for about 1/2 a mile. It was warm when the sun would peek through, a fall breeze blowing fall leaves…I embraced the smells, the beauty, and wind blowing through my hair. The best part was I stopped several times…there was no destination, there was no goal. It just felt like a walk with my dad as I chatted with him and asked a lot of questions.

So many gifts he handed down to me. For a short time I found myself teary….why didn’t I get out of the house all summer and fall, why didn’t I ask my dad more questions, why didn’t I this and that!

Until I realized I just didn’t. The past is the past and I did exactly what felt right to me in the past. This is now and I’m doing exactly what I’m supposed to be doing right now. Each time I embrace the right now and let go of the shoulda, I find peace. This is also one of the shouldas that followed…why don’t I do “this” all the time? Because its just not what is right for me in that “all the time narrative” that I like to have preprinted for my life. Right now is right now.

I came back and jotted this haiku that had formed somewhere in my soul!

Guided by the light

I’m back on the road again

Embracing the light

Namaste

10.31.20
by

Scrolling to energized

It’s a daily habit….I don’t see it as a good habit…but one I don’t anticipate giving up in the near future…Facebook scrolling. One time I seriously analyzed why “I” am addicted to this particular social media more than the others. Oh, I have accounts with several of the others but they seem to be an “if I think about it” or “if I’m particularly bored” place I go. But Facebook…Facebook is my connection to out there. My friends are my beloveds right after my family and my cats (who are literally IN MY FACE) most of the time. I cherish my beloved friends….and for the most part, if we could be and are not (no longer) friends on Facebook there is a reason.

Usually I observe, love, smile or frown, and swipe but every now and then a Facebook meme will get me….yesterday it was this one…I cannot remember one that filled me with so much energy…so much YA! At first I felt it as an OMG what next in 2020…then I felt it as POWER….Here we come and everything is going to be ok!

How we feel about and see anything is our choice. We either follow the herd or wander away. We either get taken in with the noise or we find our peace in the quiet. We either love or we fear. It’s all completely our choice!

namaste

10.23.20
by

Passing on the stairway

If you know me or have read my blogs before, you know that I was left with boxes and totes full of “stuff” when my parents passed. I’ve experienced many moments of angst wondering why they would hold onto this junk. But I’ve also had many moments of thanksgiving that they held into all of these treasures.

Last month, I spent a week entertaining my quarantined self going through totes and boxes looking at each picture and reading letter after letter from parents and aunts and uncles and grandparents of my parents. It was an incredible journey as I was able to glimpse my parents as young adults and better understand their lives and the lives of all of those relatives who went before me paving the path for me.

I found these two small bottles in one of the totes and placed them on a shelf in my office. I kept them out, mainly because they were old/cute/tiny. Although I have no frame of reference and I cannot read the small print other than Spice…I was thrilled that one of them still holds perfume from the past. This morning I took the cap off of the empty bottle and the scent IS STILL THERE! I realized (with a weird sense of connection) that I was savoring the scent of a feminine ancestors passing me on a stairway in a different place and time.

I am grateful for the blessings in my life!

10.16.20
by

The endless days

I had one yesterday…My work schedule begins very early in the morning and I am blessed that I am able to work from my office/craft room in the basement…so grateful … so very grateful that I don’t have to be “out there”. But with this convenience AND inconvenience of the virus around the world comes restlessness. While eating lunch yesterday, I heard myself “shoulding”!

From my permanent self assigned seat in the living room, I watched the gentle movement of the leafless tree branches in the breeze. I knew the light breeze, the blue sky and the comforting temperature would lift my soul if I would only take that first step…off the couch and stepping out the door.

But I didn’t!

It seems to be where I am right now. Thoughts of my least favorite season’s rapid approach is freezing the joy right out of me. The politics of the US, my dedication to social distancing because of the virus and all of the other depressing stories I am telling myself are what is keeping me down. AND I KNOW THESE ARE ONLY ILLUSIONS BASED UPON THE PAST and not my life in this present moment. I know that I need to take that first step to pull myself out of my perception of what is ahead …. the winter doldrums.

So this morning I am envisioning my dear friends and family locking arms, moving forward in the street, the wind blowing our hair away from our faces as we throw our heads back and laugh at the pure joy in our hearts and the love we have for each other. We are enough…it is enough. We are all in this together…It feels better to feel the love and joy than the feeling of the dead of winter in my soul!

Namaste

10.05.20
by

Still a lot of “now” available

I was out on the deck this morning repotting hens and chicks when I heard him walking through the yard from the trail. 60 degrees…nice breeze….lots of sunshine. Exactly the kind of fall day I would have celebrated from a deck chair last year. It just didn’t happen this year. I regrettably spent nearly an entire summer puttering in the house. At first, I started down the long and winding trail of thought and irritation with myself….why did I do that…what was wrong with me?

But this time, I did not accept the invitation to the pity party. I accepted the fact that I spent most of the summer in the house puttering .. obviously, exactly what I chose to do….and I did not should myself.

But today, I decided that I wanted to spend some time outside. I walked around the pond…I felt the breeze in my hair, got a little warm wearing my sweatshirt….and I realized with a lot of joy there is still a lot of “now” available to me somewhere out there appreciating the beauty of one of my favorite months.

Little surprises were peeking through confirming it’s not over until it’s over!

Namaste

08.29.20
by

Gratitude day even for old boyfriends

I’ve finally pulled out of my two day funk! It’s been dark and lonely. A Zoom “Friday night thing” with two friends last night was what I needed to finish the extraction of my toes completely from the quicksand. We are relatively new friends…relative as far as our age and life experience but we are doing this really cool thing. We are communicating face to face on zoom. Communicating our words and facial expressions and laughter! No distractions other than where we lead each other with our thoughts. Another Corona-bonus (thank you Michael Beckwith for the reference). I’m not sure without these Zoom meetups we would have gotten to know each other quite as well.

In no particular order, I’m feeling gratitude today.

My grandchildren who have taught me what love feels like. My beautiful, strong daughters who have taught me….the list is too long. My husband who taught me how to live with someone for 41 years …. growing, forgiving, loving. My old friends who love me unconditionally and have taught me that I’m worthy of the love I didn’t receive growing up. The new friends I’ve made since we’ve moved from the only life we knew to this one…they took over the daily work from the old friends. I am thankful for my parents….even my mother as she made me grow up faster than probably healthy but I learned how to take care of other people and how to think like a grown up…..and I’m thankful for the heart break and affection of past male relationships in my life who were a little more than friends…You were my test drives for that one lifelong relationships to come.

Oh….and I’m thankful for Andrea Bocelli!

namaste

08.20.20
by

We didn’t buy a pickup

Tuesday was a very pleasant day for us…especially since we have not been out much in the past 5 month quarantine. We have had many conversations about “if we could only go camping” which would require us to purchase a camper…and a pickup to get the camper from point A to point B. For entertainment we have been dream searching for a truck on line which in the back of our minds we had no intention to buy solely because I could not see myself spending hours and hours with other irritable people at the DMV during a pandemic. I could end the story here by saying we went “out there” to search and there is nothing out there…most dealerships we visited had shockingly bare lots. It would have been easier to find a heads up penny in the parking lot than an affordable used truck….or an affordable new truck unless we had enough money laying around to buy a small house.

But this is really a story about attachments. As we sat in the socially distanced show room with a salesman, I told Phil that this is the very first time I didn’t have an attachment to the outcome. Normally I have had my sites set on the vehicle I wanted…firmly set on the outcome that I would buy a vehicle before I left the dealership. Through the crazy discussions … especially those crazy discussions in my head always waiting for the conversation to play out as if I were directing it. Always knowing I could walk out but that really wasn’t a real option because through tunnel vision there was no real option other than signing on the line.

I could also feel neutral energy from him. I knew we were not operating from a place of fear or scarcity. I felt I could think clearly while acknowledging that my happiness and continued blessings and gratitude were not tied up in whether I would/could get my way on someone else’s playground.

Bottom line, we spent an enjoyable afternoon together doing what we have always liked to do together, drive through car lots and dream…envisioning ourselves driving around enjoying the new car smells…in our vision….that will come in the right time.

Namaste

08.17.20
by

Yesterday I was totally aqua

My friend Terri was in my head this morning when she posted a picture on FB of a cup of espresso – She captioned the picture “a few extra shots of espresso and new pens….it’s going to be a great Monday”. Oh Terri…I totally get it!

I have a brand new package of 12 multi-color gel pens laying on my desk…I have a partially opened (to grab the purple) package of multi colored gel “glitter” pens in the top desk drawer and I also have an orange zippered canvas pencil holder with my very favorite colored gel pens that I’ve picked up individually just because I can’t resist the color.

I love smooth writing pens…love them…I write a lot…I write haikus, I write notes for haikus – I jot a lot. I take very brief notes at work and often use different color pens to separate notes for different callers. I jot myself don’t forget notes… while on the phone I make stars and color them in, I make faces, I jot down and play with my favorite letters or favorite words. Yesterday I filled out doctors office paperwork with aqua…I hesitated but completed the task in bold, beautiful aqua because that is who I was yesterday!

It’s Monday…be brave…be a beautiful color!