Soul Food

I have had an awesome weekend! Tomorrow is my birthday and so the love of my life as well as another loved one got together to throw me my very first  birthday party. It was themed on one of my favorite time periods, the 80's ! There was candy from that era, movie quotes pasted to the walls on decorative foam pieces, music video's from the 80's playing on the big screen and even the decorations looked like something out of Pretty In Pink. The homemade foods and cake were delicious! The most amazing thing about it all though were the guests. Usually we are all getting together because I am throwing a party for someone or something else, so it was so touching to see everyone there to help me celebrate my own birthday. There are no words to express how much that meant to me. I loved watching the kids dance along with me to the songs I grew up dancing too and even seeing the adults get their silliness on dressing and dancing like they would have during that time in their lives. Even those who were never around in the 80's were dressed up! It was awesome to see little mini "crybabies" and pop queens:) From skater rolled jeans, to flashy gold pants, to the gothic look and good old fashion punk, the diversity of the outfits and the effort put into them was outstanding! I felt so loved and I could not have thought of a better way to celebrate than with those I love. It was magical:) There are no words that are adequate enough to thank everyone. It was definitely a soul nourishing experience. I am so very blessed.

Unsettled

I had a horrible dream as I lay down to take a nap this morning. I don't think I need to go into exactly what the dream was about but just let me say that it has left me feeling very unsettled. I just want to cry, even now, hours after I have cleared the cobwebs from my eyes because the content was just so disturbing to me. The emotions of the dream are still very much haunting me. I am trying to let it go, let it wash itself away from my mind because I am a firm believer that what we think of most will become our realities, and I certainly do not want that dream to become mine. That reality would leave me broken inside and I do not even want to contemplate how life would be. It does have me thinking though about whether or not my loved ones know how much I love them. Do they know, at all times, that my love for them can sometimes be painful to me? That the thought of not having one of them in my life for whatever reason means that there would always be this chasm in my heart that could never be repaired? I have had to grieve the loss of my loved ones who have passed and I hope that I am honoring their memory with the choices I make. I think of them and sometimes I cry, sometimes I laugh or smile. But when I look to the people who are still here with me everyday and I think about my time with them being taken from me...the anguish I feel inside is enough to break me into a million pieces. Now, as I sit here typing with the ghost of that horrible dream surrounding me like a fog, I wonder if I do enough, say enough, show enough, appreciate enough and love enough. I ponder whether or not they think I have made a positive impact on their lives and if I have somehow fed their souls and helped to nurture them, even in some small way. I also begin to think of ways that I can improve those connections and relationships so that I know I have given of myself and done the very best I could to make sure those I love never have to wonder whether or not I loved them. I suppose this is my silver lining as I try and make some sort of sense out of my dream.
Namaste....I love you

Light - Bulb

Today is hubby's birthday. Happy Birthday Iheage! I wanted to do something special for him, have a party to celebrate but he asked me not to because he wants to do something for me this year. I can accept that, I suppose. I am not especially happy about it, but it is, after all, HIS birthday and so I guess I should respect his wishes in this as I expect people to respect mine. I will let it slide this year but I truly hope he does not expect this to become the rule instead of the exception to it. I love to plan and host parties. I love to share my home and the food I have struggled to perfect with friends and family. I love to socialize when I am on my turf and just have everyone around me enjoying themselves. Maybe I should become a party planner/caterer. I have thought about it many times before. I am just not sure that I would enjoy it as much for strangers. Maybe the party planning aspect would be ok but cooking for strangers, especially with food allergies to consider, could prove to be a disaster. It is the reason I never went to culinary school after all. There are lots of things I am good at, lots of things I have considered making a career out of but there are many reasons I have not. I am really creative, but don't have the time I would need to be able to really get into something profitable. Everything I do, I do in my spare time, and there is not a lot of that. Another issue lies in boredom. Not many things can hold my attention for very long. I go through creative stages it seems. Sometimes I want to write, sometimes I want to sit at my piano, sometimes I want to sew or do a craft project, sometimes I want to cook or plan a party and sometimes I just want to exist. I also don't think most of the things I do are good enough to be paid to do them. Sure, I enjoy them, the people I do it for enjoy it...but would complete strangers want to actually PAY for them? I just don't know. I have a hard time putting a fair price on what my time is worth. I suppose I will ponder these things as I am always doing, trying to figure it all out. I keep waiting for that ever elusive light bulb to go off in my head and praying that when it does, I will be able to notice it and do something with it. I know I am a talented person. I know that I have much to offer of myself and my talents and hobbies. It's just finding the right thing at the right time to be financially successful at it. Not knowing what that is has become the bane of my existence at the moment it seems. For right now though, I am content to devote myself to my family while I continue to explore my options and find new ideas to play with. It will come to me.
Namaste...

The Perfectly Planned Surprise

I don't usually write at night. Most of the time I am getting ready to send myself to bed to read and unwind after a long day. Tonight though, I am writing as I wait for the clock to strike 10 and my overnight shift with my adorable grandson to begin. I enjoy the time I get to spend with him one on one. While the rest of the house is off to dreamland, I am making sure he is well fed and changed, cuddled against my chest while I tell him stories or sing him some not-so-traditional lullaby's. Most grandmother's don't really get to experience what I do because not all are lucky enough to have their grandchildren residing under the same roof as them. I have to admit, if someone would have told me a year ago that I would be spending tonight tending to my grandson I would have told them they were on drugs. This was never the way I saw things unfolding. I didn't expect to have a grandson before I even turned 35 and I surely never expected to have my daughter and her new family living under the same roof with me when it did finally happen. Life is funny that way I suppose. We spend a lot of time planning our lives and our futures only to have the unexpected happen all the time to change the direction we thought we were heading in. Sometimes these changes in our course are positive like when each of my girls were born, sometimes not so much, but all changes can lead to new opportunities and blessings which perhaps we never knew we wanted but are so grateful we have received. At least this is the way I feel when I am starring down into my grandson's perfect little face, wondering if he can see me yet, knowing without a doubt that he can feel the love in my heart for him. I remember those quiet times with each of my daughters...seeing those same looks of recognition, feeling the exchange of energy as the bond is created and knowing that we are connected together for all time. It was amazing and life changing then and it still is. The power of unconditional love.

To Be What It Needs To Be

I don't really know what I am doing here. Now, this is not some massive metaphysical quandary I am speaking of, but this blog. I had thought to delete every entry in here today and start again in the hopes of making it, for once and for all, what I want it to be. But there are two issues with that. The first being that I don't really know what I want to do with this little corner of cyberspace that I have declared as my own. I had thought the quotes a fantastic idea, and I still believe that I was able to really delve deep in some cases, taking from a few simple words a wealth of meaning. My hope was also to help  give inspiration to others who may have been struggling, who needed a little bit of encouragement or another way to look at something and I can only pray that in some way I was successful. However, this effort also left me feeling like I was somehow getting the short end of the stick sometimes. Instead of freely writing about what was naturally flowing within me, I was always busy trying to find words spoken by other people to try and make sense of my own tangled thoughts. The problem with doing this is that I am bypassing my own reflections to some degree because they are NOT my words that I am breaking apart to find meaning but the thoughts, feelings and opinions of another mind. Yes, I can relate to those inspirations and I can pull strength from them when my mind is grasping for something to hold on to but ultimately, to truly be able to call this space mine, these have to be my thoughts, my words, my feelings and opinions.  The second reason I have decided not to delete all posting up to this point is because it just seems like an awful waste of time, energy and thought. I may have started the entries with quotes contributed to other people but that was not what the entire blog posting was about. They were all how I  tried to interpreted these quotes into my own life and circumstances.  And so, no matter which direction this blog takes, I will leave those writings for they are a part of where I was at that particular moment in time. There is no reason that the topics and styles of the blog can't change and evolve with me, because the purpose is and always has been ME. These are my thoughts, my insights and admissions no matter if I am showing them by the quote I chose one day to break apart and interpret or the manner of letting my mind wander as I am now, letting the writing become fluid and letting it be what it needs to be. I am a work in progress, and so too shall this space be.

Namaste

The Importance of Trying

Happy Friday everyone! I can't believe that this is the last Friday of January already..it has flown by so quickly! There has been much to keep me preoccupied these last few weeks and I think I have chosen well in today's quote as a reflection of where my thought patterns are coming from today.

Today's Quote: "It is not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbled, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena; whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly, who errs and comes short again and again; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, and spends himself in a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows in the end the triumph of high achievement; and who at the worst, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat." - Theodore (Teddy) Roosevelt

I started to type today on the importance of trying, even if we don't succeed right away and I came up with a plethora of examples from politics, to science and medicine to the basic things we have come to depend on in our daily lives. These things include but are not limited to; homes that can withstand the elements, indoor plumbing and central heating, our televisions, computers and even that silicone pot holder you used to take your chocolate chip cookies out of the oven.  If we were to really take apart even the simplest things we have, know, see or experience in our lives today, other than things that we can find naturally occurring around us, everything else was the result of an idea; a simple thought that was acted upon. Now, we all have ideas but the key is that these ideas were then put into action to become what we know them to be today. The process of putting thought into action means that there was most likely  some failures, some errors made along the way that required the original idea to be tweaked until it went from thought to actually being. How tragic our lives would have been if all the amazing minds that have contributed to what we know of existence today, had given up the first time they failed. Now, some might say that these contributions to our lives were the work of exceptional minds and I would not disagree with that statement at all, however, what made them so exceptional? Was it the fact that they had the courage and determination to act on their ideas or was it a level of intelligence that gave them the idea in the first place? I tend to believe that it was the former and not the latter. ANY person can think. Any person can dream up fantastic images of things that they wish existed or a way of life they wish they could experience. That is the power of imagination and we all have one. What we do with those ideas is totally dependent on us. Not every idea is a good one and not every idea will change the world dramatically but that does not mean that we don't all have good ideas that COULD change our lives. The majority of the population, however, will not take that risk. Perhaps they think their ideas are silly, maybe they fear they are bad ideas and are so worried about it failing that they play it safe and keep the idea to themselves. Some people I am sure just feel they don't have the resources to make it a reality. Whatever the cause, it is but a small few who will continuously work to take what is in their heads and no matter how many times they may stumble, keep pushing onward until their idea has become integrated into our way of life. The same can be said for other aspects of our lives as well. This sense of determination is not limited to those who are trying to invent something, or change world policy etc. Perhaps what we are talking about here  is the idea that we can achieve a certain personal goal for ourselves and not something as dramatic as changing the way the entire world experiences their lives. This is no less important of a message for those seeking to advance their own existences, to expand their own personal knowledge and horizons and improve upon themselves. In fact, I would say that this message is even more important to those who are struggling to find a good reason to get up in the morning, to continue barreling on regardless of what life may throw in their pathways. Those in this scenario are no less intelligent or important than anyone else on the planet. My advice to you all, no matter where you are at in your lives, is to never give up, never give in and ALWAYS keep trying your best and reaching for your stars. You never know when you might discover something amazing!

Namaste

In Sickness And In Health: A Marriage To Oneself

Good morning all. I am going to cut to the chase because I have a lot to say regarding today's choice of wisdom.

Today's Quote:  "This is the true joy in life--the being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one; the being a force of nature instead of a feverish, selfish little clod of ailments and grievances, complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy." - George Bernard Shaw

There are a couple different reasons why I chose this quote today. The first is because I agree with it completely. The second, however, is that lately I have been feeling more like the latter part of this message than the former and I needed to give myself a good hard shake to wake myself up. Having said that though, I do not think the world should devote itself to making me happy. No one and nothing can MAKE me anything. That is a choice I make for myself. However, I have been feeling somewhat like a clod of ailments and grievances. I can admit that I have not been feeling at my best. I have had my physical challenges reminding me in their ever persistent and painful ways that I do, in fact, have limitations. I seem to have sponged up some sort of virus that has been going through my house and friends like a wild fire, there have been the stresses of life in general and there is also my birthday coming up and my realization that I have had to disappoint some people because of my own shortcomings.  I am also feeling a bit disappointed with myself for letting these things blind me from seeing and following my goals in life. The result is that I have been feeling somewhat limited, overwhelmed and stressed out these past few days. It never ceases to amaze me how, if we are looking for them, the answers are always there for us. Such was the case for me this morning. Before I found today's choice quote and decided to start writing, I was sitting and drinking my morning cup of tea when I had one of those moments of sheer "well duh!". Some would call them epiphanies I suppose, but I like to think of them more as the moment when our minds decide to turn their lights on for a moment, enabling us a better glimpse of it's working parts. My personal glimpse this morning told me that I was being a very sad and lazy person lately. I had allowed my physical challenges, like health and pain, to overwhelm my greatest strength...my mind. I had allowed the physical cues to convince me that I was not able to deal with the other challenges I wanted to face, the goals I had made for myself, the victories I could all but taste on my tongue. I was allowing my own tainted perceptions to add to my overall health. Do I feel well today? On a physical level, no not really if I am being completely honest but here is an even bigger question...am I going to allow it to control me? No. I am not. I have endometriosis and with it comes physical limitations. That is just a fact. So instead of letting the pain levels drag me into a state of depression I will respect those limitations, but I will no longer succumb to them. I have a virus wracking my body but that doesn't mean it needs to take hold of my entire outlook. It just means that I will have to modify my schedule for the next couple days to allow myself to heal. I have allowed the issues of life to stress me out to the point of overwhelming my ability  to problem solve lately but that too is going to be changed. I am more than capable of handling any challenge that life throws at me because I am an intelligent woman with so many resources at my disposal if I would just utilize them more. These are all purposes I consider to be mighty and worthy of my time and energy. These are things that will improve my life, my outlook, my health and my growth as a person. This is how I can once again become a force of nature. I bid you all a glorious day and a moment of clarity to enhance your lives for the better. May you all be blessed.

Namaste