There was only one word all the way to work this morning.

A.M.A.Z.I.N.G.

When I hit the exit on to the divided highway and saw the moon setting, I couldn't move my eyes from it.
Until I looked behind me.
And then it was that single word all the way to work.

Ummmm....no, that's not true.  It was that single word with a few dozen "You're GOODs." tossed in -- like He didn't know what I meant.

A.M.A.Z.I.N.G.......  He's really, really good.
I'm thinkin' He might wanna keep that day job.  Pun intended!!  ;-)

Daily Reading

Everything in life that we really accept undergoes a change. So suffering must become love. That is the mystery.

—Katherine Mansfield

Acceptance of those conditions that at times plague us changes not only the conditions but, in the process, ourselves. Perhaps this latter change is the more crucial. As each changes, as we all change into more accepting people, life's struggles ease. When we accept all the circumstances that we can't control, we are more peaceful. Smiles more easily fill us up.

It's almost as though life's eternal lesson is acceptance, and with it comes life's eternal blessings.

Every day offers me many opportunities to grow in acceptance and thus blessings. I can accept any condition today and understand it as an opportunity to take another step toward serenity, eternal and whole.

To Infinity

*grumbling*

Oh geeze.....TRY not to spend too much time fretting about next week and someone wants to be helpful, suggesting I check out the weather forecast.  l did.  :-/

High in the mid sixties, lows in the forties.  Pack a sweatshirt or two, no winter parka......and no snow is forecasted.  Sheeeeshhh!!  And I have to think about what to pack?
What's to think about?

Seriously, I've not been in a pair of Levis for years.  Oh, I tried, but it didn't last.  It was an uncomfortable and, later, painful experience.  I've lived in skirts for better than 2 years, even on the non-work days.  So yes---I'll be trouncing around in skirts while I'm chasing (or being chased by) by buffalos.

And no, I won't be taking 3.5 mile hikes to see all the cool places.  And nope, 185 "narrow" steps down to the caverns with cool stuff, won't happen either.  I'll work on accepting those facts.

I'll have my adventures on the beaten path.
I'll be a tourist.
I'll be the tourist in  the skirt trying not to whine......

Right....who am I kidding?

I'll be whining.
But I'll have my sweatshirt, dangit.  At least I won't be cold?

*sigh*
Himself says it doesn't matter.  It does and he's being gracious.
But---I'll try to limit the whining.
Maybe 8 times a day.
6?

WPIML told me LONG ago--"The rule" is I can whine three times and then I have to shut up, surrender and move on.

Fine!!
Three times....but BOY are they gonna be good ones!  :-/

Message from the Fairies

It is confusing to be in relationships and not know where we stand - whether this is on the job, in a friendship, with family members, or in a love relationship. We have a right to be direct about how we define the relationship - what we want it to be. But relationships equal two people who have equal rights. The other person needs to be able to define the relationship too. We have a right to know, and ask. So do they.

Honesty is the best policy.

We can set boundaries. If someone wants a more intense relationship than we do, we can be clear and honest about what we want, about our intended level of participation. We can tell the person what to reasonably expect from us, because that is what we want to give. How the person deals with that is his or her issue. Whether or not we tell the person is ours.

We can set boundaries and define friendships when those cause confusion.

We can even define relationships with children, if those relationships have gotten sticky and exceeded our parameters. We need to define love relationships and what that means to each person. We have a right to ask and receive clear answers. We have a right to make our own definitions and have our own expectations. So does the other person.

Honesty and directness is the only policy. Sometimes we don't know what we want in a relationship. Sometimes the other person doesn't know. But the sooner we can define a relationship, with the other person's help, the sooner we can decide on an appropriate course of conduct for ourselves.

The clearer we can become on defining relationships, the more we can take care of ourselves in that relationship. We have a right to our boundaries, wants, and needs. So does the other person. We cannot force someone to be in a relationship or to participate at a level we desire if he or she does not want to. All of us have a right not to be forced.

Information is a powerful tool, and having the information about what a particular relationship is - the boundaries and definitions of it - will empower us to take care of ourselves in it.

Relationships take a while to form, but at some point we can reasonably expect a clear definition of what that relationship is and what the boundaries of it are. If the definitions clash, we are free to make a new decision based on appropriate information about what we need to do to take care of ourselves.

Dam lock

Reading for the Day

Grief

Grief can do one of two things to you: it can make you or break you.

You can win your battle with loneliness and depression, and take up the business of living once more, a stronger and finer person because of your experience. Or you can surrender to loss, sadness, loneliness, and isolation. This surrender invites a tragic deterioration of character, in which you will react to everyone and everything with bitterness and self-pity, withdrawing more and more into yourself. It will not bring you peace; indeed, your last state will be worse than your first.

For your own sake, sooner or later you must fight. What better time to start than right now?

The last vestiges

Daily Reading

We defeat ourselves with labels. We hem ourselves in; we shorten our vision; we cut off opportunities in the making. We influence how others think of us, too.

Someone wise said that we teach others how to treat us.

Are we teaching people to expect nothing great from us because we are always afraid?

Do we shatter their vision of our potential by never thinking we can handle what may come?

We become the persons we have programmed ourselves to be.

We can revamp the program, anytime.

And right now is a good time to begin.

Mrs. Hummer

Just when ya wanna

Just when ya wanna wallow....he-who-loves-me puts some wildflowers in a blue mason jar and sets 'em on the bedroom dresser.

Just when ya wanna wallow....you get set down with an atlas and get to hear the excitement over seeing Devil's Tower and getting to take 'off the beaten path adventures cuz  youknowho is apparently a lousy map reader.  :-/

Just when ya wanna wallow....you get asked to do a new project at work that you have no idea how to do and no deadline to do it within.

Just when ya wanna wallow...someone you barely know tells you how someone else raves about how 'fun'you are.

Just when ya wanna wallow....you get a card in the mail thanking you for making a difference in the senders life.

Just when ya wanna wallow.....the phone vibrates and you discover a picture of the Bug with the fish she caught with her dad.

Just when ya wanna wallow.....someone resurfaces after a week long drunken blackout and says they might want help.

Just when ya wanna wallow, some brilliant person strings a paper web across your work station and plasters paper spiders all over the joint.

Okay...If the point is to make it difficult to wallow.....it's working!!

No worries, if there's one thing I'm damn good at, it's PERSEVERING.

:-/

Fairy Reading

Practice an act of gratitude

None of our success comes without the help of others. Time after time, it seems that there is someone standing at the crossroads waiting for us, pointing the way down the path with heart.

They may be friends, family members, ministers, or mentors, or even police officers or judges. I think they might be angels sent to help us through those tough spots and point us back to the path with heart.

They're in the right place at the right time with the exact words and help we need.

Have you thanked them yet?

Practice an act of gratitude. Find one of your guiding lights or guardian angels and tell that person what he or she meant to you in your life. Your guides may not even be aware of the impact that they had on you. And who knows whether your kind words may be just the light that they need today to push them gently down their path with heart.

Then, take it one step further. Take the kind, loving thing they did to or for you and pass it along to someone else.

Working in the web

This is is the tangled web I worked under/in today.  That purple guy in the right hand corner  isn't to blame.

Oh noooo....my MOUTH is to blame.

:-/

Never, EVER whine to the IT fella about lacking creative genius, tossing away perfectly good packing STUFF that could be used to make REALLY cool things!! Like what?!  Pffttt....like spider webs, or pumpkins or ghosties or ooky spooky waving things hanging from doorways or paper machete skulls or ANYTHING HALLOWEEN!!

6a.m., with no one around, I'm laughing my *** off and loving it!!

And I managed to work in the web all day.

Well, I'm not so sure it was on the top ten of "my most productive days".  Bit preoccupied with folks sticking their head under the awesome web to ask who pulled that one on me.

I don't have a name for the new spider yet.  But I'm thinkin' Einstein would work.  Leonardo?

Pablo!

Or maybe the Einstein who pulled it off oughta have the honours...

Laughing with the Fairy

Today I am able to joke with God and about God. I am able to laugh at me swinging incense at a candlestick - and then swinging the incense at the Bishop!

I smile at the determined seriousness of acolytes who receive communion while at the same time sticking chewing gum under the arm rail. I chuckle at the embarrassment of the baptism family when the baby pulls the plug out of the font and the holy water drains away.

Today I am able to laugh at God and the Church - it joyously reflects human imperfection, but at the same time reminds me of God's glory.

Creative genius

21 months

This time last year I was stapled back together, shoved into a heavy duty brace and returned to my home in a wheelchair.
It seems further away most days.  Sometimes it seems like it was just a few months back.

It's been a year.
A year.
That's crazy.  I was December of 2012 when I broke the darn thing.  That's now 21 months ago....

I traded.
I got a custom made plate of very expensive metal....and a very lengthy, very costly surgery with an equally lengthy, equally spendy stay in the recovery room.
And while it didn't directly cost me a dime, it indirectly cost me a vast amount.

My whole LIFE is changed courtesy of that stupid, little piece of ice and the subsequent broken leg that wouldn't heal on its own.

I'd like to say all the changes have been "good", "pleasant", and easily/readily accepted.  I'm not into lying today.  Do I trust that this bundle of.....change will ultimately BE for the good?  Once again, I'm not somuch into lying at this moment.  I HOPE.  But it's not "felt" trust"worthy".  On occasion I rest in the hope.

But more times than not, I look at that lengthy scar, shake my head and say REALLY rude things in my head.

Old game, new wall art

Daily Reflection

Overcoming Rigidity

People who have strong likes and dislikes find life very difficult; they are as rigid as if they had only one bone. Such people cannot bend, and if they are compelled to bend, they can only break.

We can all learn to develop resilience. We can make ourselves like that Japanese doll called the daruma doll, which has a rounded base and is weighted in such a way that when you push it over it springs back up. Yu can hold it down as long as you like, but as soon as you take your hand away, it jumps back up again.

This is the kind of resilience that we can all cultivate. Whenever life tries to knock down people who have developed this precious quality of resilience, they are able to spring back; they have lost every trace of rigidity.

Crossing bridges

TFTD

Hurting someone thoughtlessly just to lift our own guilt is not a proper amends. Amends are for rebuilding the burned bridges in our lives. But if amends will hurt someone, we must decide if it's in that person's best interest to be told now. Oftentimes it's best left unsaid, but never denied to ourselves or to God.

Changing our behavior intentionally is one part of making amends, particularly to family members who may have heard us say "I'm sorry" far too many times. Repaying money, repairing damages, and making charitable contributions on behalf of the person we have harmed are all honest attempts to right our wrong. The point in every amends attempt is to take responsibility for what we did and express our regrets. Couple this with changed behavior, and our relationships will improve immediately.