Enough winter already ... bring on the sun!!
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
Find Me a Sunbeam
Andre, our cat has been lapping up the rays of sunshine where ever he can find them lately. I feel the same way.
Enough winter already ... bring on the sun!!
Enough winter already ... bring on the sun!!
Monday, March 9, 2009
Moving On
I've been losing a little bit of ground with the way I've been dealing with my life. It has a lot to do with not keeping myself busy and motivated. I have allowed a small amount of doubt and loneliness into my days this past little while.
I recognize it, I know that it is within my power to change it. But I have allowed myself to feel these human qualities before I charge into the next phase that I must live and grow through. This past weekend, I simply felt vulnerable.
Several cups of coffee and a conversation with a 'friend from the past' opened up doors that I chose not to walk through yesterday. They were just words. But words that had the potential to open up freshly healed wounds and put old feelings back on the table.
As we ventured down this old, familiar path I wasn't swept into the vortex of old emotions. My feet are very firmly placed in today and I know that this is where I need to be.
We touched on the whys and hows of the breakdown of the relationship. We were walking down a road that I didn't want to follow. A person can talk in circles and go no where, when trying to analyse the reasons that started the process of the tumbling of that delicate house of cards, that is a relationship. There are always two sides to the story. It can be the smallest of incidents that set the wheels in motion. Or it can be a very subtle feeling that festers and grows.
I was craving human contact yesterday. If there wasn't a living, breathing person with feelings that could be hurt on the other side ... it would have been tempting to just fall into a familiar and comfortable set of arms.
I had just put a voice to my feelings the day before:
"For the first time in a very long while, I'm a little bit lonely. I'm missing 'being part of a couple'. I've been content in my single status for almost 2 years. But I don't want this to last forever ... and I'm afraid that it could."
It was shortly after I wrote those words that I consciously thought that I wouldn't even want to meet someone right now. I wouldn't want for someone to fall for the me that I am, when I feel like this.
This is the place that I have been in, when I've rekindled old romances in the past. You can't form a healthy relationship when you are not feeling your best self. I can see now, that those relationships were doomed from the moment they began.
I turned down a well intended invitation by this person yesterday. I quite literally told him that I was not going to say yes, just because he is a living, breathing soul.
I said 'no' to repeating the mistakes of my past. I believe that this is the turning point that I have been waiting for.
A little bit lonely is okay. It's better than a whole lot miserable.
Quote from 'The Secret':
"When you don't feel good about You, you are on a frequency that is attracting more people, situations, and circumstances that will continue to make you feel bad about You."
I recognize it, I know that it is within my power to change it. But I have allowed myself to feel these human qualities before I charge into the next phase that I must live and grow through. This past weekend, I simply felt vulnerable.
Several cups of coffee and a conversation with a 'friend from the past' opened up doors that I chose not to walk through yesterday. They were just words. But words that had the potential to open up freshly healed wounds and put old feelings back on the table.
As we ventured down this old, familiar path I wasn't swept into the vortex of old emotions. My feet are very firmly placed in today and I know that this is where I need to be.
We touched on the whys and hows of the breakdown of the relationship. We were walking down a road that I didn't want to follow. A person can talk in circles and go no where, when trying to analyse the reasons that started the process of the tumbling of that delicate house of cards, that is a relationship. There are always two sides to the story. It can be the smallest of incidents that set the wheels in motion. Or it can be a very subtle feeling that festers and grows.
I was craving human contact yesterday. If there wasn't a living, breathing person with feelings that could be hurt on the other side ... it would have been tempting to just fall into a familiar and comfortable set of arms.
I had just put a voice to my feelings the day before:
"For the first time in a very long while, I'm a little bit lonely. I'm missing 'being part of a couple'. I've been content in my single status for almost 2 years. But I don't want this to last forever ... and I'm afraid that it could."
It was shortly after I wrote those words that I consciously thought that I wouldn't even want to meet someone right now. I wouldn't want for someone to fall for the me that I am, when I feel like this.
This is the place that I have been in, when I've rekindled old romances in the past. You can't form a healthy relationship when you are not feeling your best self. I can see now, that those relationships were doomed from the moment they began.
I turned down a well intended invitation by this person yesterday. I quite literally told him that I was not going to say yes, just because he is a living, breathing soul.
I said 'no' to repeating the mistakes of my past. I believe that this is the turning point that I have been waiting for.
A little bit lonely is okay. It's better than a whole lot miserable.
Quote from 'The Secret':
"When you don't feel good about You, you are on a frequency that is attracting more people, situations, and circumstances that will continue to make you feel bad about You."
Sunday, March 8, 2009
Am I Leading a Virtual Life?
I wake up in the morning and the first thing that I do, is check my emails. From there, I often check my bank balance and my credit card transactions online. I have become hooked on watching 'missed episodes' that the TV networks offer from their websites. If I'm up to date on that, I'll click on the 'Favorites' on my task bar and read some of the blogs that I have discovered. I'll update my blogs ... I download pictures and videos onto the computer and 'make movies' with Windows Movie Maker. I send emails ... I reread emails that I have recently sent or received ... I'll clean out my emails ... run virus scans ... listen to music and play solitaire. I am compiling some family histories, that I am amassing on my computer. I have learned what I need to know from my 'Word' program on the computer, I have a book publishing company listed in my favorites that I check in on, from time to time to answer my questions. I read or hear something that triggers a question and I'll run and 'Google' it. I do crosswords, I check TV and movie listings. I dream about a 'real' vacation and check out destinations, flights and hotels online. When I tire of all of that, I can wander around YouTube and check out the animal or music videos. I do all of this without not only leaving my home ... but never leaving my computer chair!
Yesterday morning I woke up at 8:00 am. I went straight to the computer and I 'played'. All day. It was almost 7:00 pm before I finally pried myself away from the computer desk. Kurt and I tried to go and see a movie but since most of the people in our city had the same idea, we nixed that idea in favor of finding a cheap movie at WalMart. We picked up supper, bought a few snacks and spent 1 1/2 hours watching a movie together. And what was I thinking during the last half hour of the show? "I wonder if I got an email ..." Which I had.
I lead a very home-based life. I take care of children in my home for 10 hours of every week day. I do book-keeping which is delivered and picked up to my door. My hours are quite committed, so I do find a lot of solace in the fact that my work, my relaxation, my enjoyment and my free time is all enjoyed from the comfort of my own home.
But when I think about the lack of face to face contact that I have at times, it is frightening. Thankfully I am not shying away from the idea of that. I've started attending a group dance class to push me out of my comfort zone and put myself out in the real world with real people. I seem to always have some type of gathering on a back burner and I invite small groups of people into my home on a semi regular basis. I jumped at the chance to join my family on Friday night to support and appreciate a family member's creative talents. I'm not afraid to leave the confines of my oasis here at home and at my computer. But do I enjoy it ... too much??
As I was reading the ''Chicken Soup for the Soul'' book that I got for Christmas, every time an author would strike a chord with me I would Google their name and read a little bit about them. I stumbled across one author's blog and I now check it on a daily basis. The talent, knowledge, imagination and process of writing a fiction novel intrigues me. I love to write, but I don't have the imagination required to put together a piece of fiction. I write what I feel and what I know. I am spellbound by the words that this author puts out into cyberspace and she inspires me. I have found a one sided 'virtual' friend that doesn't know I exist.
Yesterday, as I spent the entirety of my day at the computer I found a link on this authors blog that I followed and found a 'Mom and More' blog. The very first entry that she wrote struck a familiar chord with me (eavesdropping on children's conversations). I felt compelled to make a comment on what she had written because her words spoke to me. In my experience with kids, my daycare and the blog that I set up for my daycare parents I make it part of my job to continually eavesdrop. So before I went to sleep last night, I went back to her blog and found that she had replied to my comment. Her words meant a lot.
I woke up this morning with some of yesterdays words and thoughts ringing in my mind. I wrote of my 'virtual world' as I signed off of an email. I thought of the blogs that I read that inspire me - unbeknownst to the authors. I thought of the comment and reply that I did make to this one author and how the words of a virtual stranger touched a chord in me. I thought of the blogs that I author and wondered about my 'audience' (if there is one). Do my words make a difference? Or is my existence only in my mind ...
Virtual
1. Having the power of acting or of invisible efficacy without the agency of the material or sensible part; potential; energizing.
2. Being in essence or effect, not in fact; as, the virtual presence of a man in his agent or substitute.
A thing has a virtual existence when it has all the conditions necessary to its actual existence. --Fleming.
As I continue to allow my computer and Internet connections broaden my vision and horizons, I must force myself to spend time among living, breathing souls. Maybe it is in the over abundance of children and all that their reality brings to 44.64% of my waking hours that has me retreating to the quiet, virtual existence of my computer.
But where am I this morning? In front of the computer. Again ...
Yesterday morning I woke up at 8:00 am. I went straight to the computer and I 'played'. All day. It was almost 7:00 pm before I finally pried myself away from the computer desk. Kurt and I tried to go and see a movie but since most of the people in our city had the same idea, we nixed that idea in favor of finding a cheap movie at WalMart. We picked up supper, bought a few snacks and spent 1 1/2 hours watching a movie together. And what was I thinking during the last half hour of the show? "I wonder if I got an email ..." Which I had.
I lead a very home-based life. I take care of children in my home for 10 hours of every week day. I do book-keeping which is delivered and picked up to my door. My hours are quite committed, so I do find a lot of solace in the fact that my work, my relaxation, my enjoyment and my free time is all enjoyed from the comfort of my own home.
But when I think about the lack of face to face contact that I have at times, it is frightening. Thankfully I am not shying away from the idea of that. I've started attending a group dance class to push me out of my comfort zone and put myself out in the real world with real people. I seem to always have some type of gathering on a back burner and I invite small groups of people into my home on a semi regular basis. I jumped at the chance to join my family on Friday night to support and appreciate a family member's creative talents. I'm not afraid to leave the confines of my oasis here at home and at my computer. But do I enjoy it ... too much??
As I was reading the ''Chicken Soup for the Soul'' book that I got for Christmas, every time an author would strike a chord with me I would Google their name and read a little bit about them. I stumbled across one author's blog and I now check it on a daily basis. The talent, knowledge, imagination and process of writing a fiction novel intrigues me. I love to write, but I don't have the imagination required to put together a piece of fiction. I write what I feel and what I know. I am spellbound by the words that this author puts out into cyberspace and she inspires me. I have found a one sided 'virtual' friend that doesn't know I exist.
Yesterday, as I spent the entirety of my day at the computer I found a link on this authors blog that I followed and found a 'Mom and More' blog. The very first entry that she wrote struck a familiar chord with me (eavesdropping on children's conversations). I felt compelled to make a comment on what she had written because her words spoke to me. In my experience with kids, my daycare and the blog that I set up for my daycare parents I make it part of my job to continually eavesdrop. So before I went to sleep last night, I went back to her blog and found that she had replied to my comment. Her words meant a lot.
I woke up this morning with some of yesterdays words and thoughts ringing in my mind. I wrote of my 'virtual world' as I signed off of an email. I thought of the blogs that I read that inspire me - unbeknownst to the authors. I thought of the comment and reply that I did make to this one author and how the words of a virtual stranger touched a chord in me. I thought of the blogs that I author and wondered about my 'audience' (if there is one). Do my words make a difference? Or is my existence only in my mind ...
Virtual
1. Having the power of acting or of invisible efficacy without the agency of the material or sensible part; potential; energizing.
2. Being in essence or effect, not in fact; as, the virtual presence of a man in his agent or substitute.
A thing has a virtual existence when it has all the conditions necessary to its actual existence. --Fleming.
As I continue to allow my computer and Internet connections broaden my vision and horizons, I must force myself to spend time among living, breathing souls. Maybe it is in the over abundance of children and all that their reality brings to 44.64% of my waking hours that has me retreating to the quiet, virtual existence of my computer.
But where am I this morning? In front of the computer. Again ...
Saturday, March 7, 2009
Needing Inspiration
I have been going through the paces of living this past little while. Unmotivated and uninspired, I have just been waking up in the morning and going through the paces of my days. By yesterday I was digging myself into a small pit. I was starting to wonder how to start digging my way out.
Then ... one phone call transformed my thought waves.
I was invited to join my cousin's family and friends as they were gathering in a nearby restaurant to watch their son perform.
The last real memory that I have of this 'first cousin, once removed', was from a family gathering almost 16 years ago. He and 3 other family members formed a band and they performed a few songs for the event we were celebrating that day. He was 14 years old and was the drummer for the band.
Now, at age 30 ... he is a drummer for an up and coming singer. The music that they make together is amazing. But what really struck home for me, was the fact that this now 30 year old followed the passion of his 14 year old self. What a feat that is ... to continue to follow a path that leads to destinations unknown.
I have a few unsung hero's of the 30 year old genre.
The second one is my nephew, who is an aspiring comedian who has set lofty goals and is striving to achieve them. He is creating a name for himself, doing something that he loves to do. He is following his dream and making it become his reality.
My third hero that was born in the year 1978, is my own son.
He is living a less public dream. He grew up in a home which had a lot of upheaval. We endured a lot of conflict as we weathered his teen years together. He left home under less than ideal circumstances. And he survived.
He created his present day life on his own. He surrounded himself with friends that got him through. He worked loyally, at a low paying job that was going no where ... because it paid the bills. He met someone special and has been with her for over 9 years. He opened himself to new ideas. He was determined to find a way to support himself in a fashion that he believed that he deserved. He researched careers, the job market, the wages and the education he would require to achieve his goal.
He put himself through school. Last spring, he graduated. His education is bought and paid for - he did it by himself. He has been working at his new career for close to a year and is enjoying a standard of life and living that he worked hard for.
All three of my hero's followed their own path. Each of them took risks to get them to where they are today. Each of them believed in themselves.
Success isn't defined by anyone else. It is something within. It comes from following your heart. It comes from following the path that feels right. But it doesn't end there. Once you climb the mountain, you can only enjoy the view for so long before you need to descend back down to earth and envision climbing the next one.
I believe that I've been sitting at the bottom of that mountain for too long. I'm tired and I know that my energy will come from ascending my next new height.
Sitting in the audience last night, I was basking in the glow from someone who was climbing their own mountain. I was inspired.
Then ... one phone call transformed my thought waves.
I was invited to join my cousin's family and friends as they were gathering in a nearby restaurant to watch their son perform.
The last real memory that I have of this 'first cousin, once removed', was from a family gathering almost 16 years ago. He and 3 other family members formed a band and they performed a few songs for the event we were celebrating that day. He was 14 years old and was the drummer for the band.
Now, at age 30 ... he is a drummer for an up and coming singer. The music that they make together is amazing. But what really struck home for me, was the fact that this now 30 year old followed the passion of his 14 year old self. What a feat that is ... to continue to follow a path that leads to destinations unknown.
I have a few unsung hero's of the 30 year old genre.
The second one is my nephew, who is an aspiring comedian who has set lofty goals and is striving to achieve them. He is creating a name for himself, doing something that he loves to do. He is following his dream and making it become his reality.
My third hero that was born in the year 1978, is my own son.
He is living a less public dream. He grew up in a home which had a lot of upheaval. We endured a lot of conflict as we weathered his teen years together. He left home under less than ideal circumstances. And he survived.
He created his present day life on his own. He surrounded himself with friends that got him through. He worked loyally, at a low paying job that was going no where ... because it paid the bills. He met someone special and has been with her for over 9 years. He opened himself to new ideas. He was determined to find a way to support himself in a fashion that he believed that he deserved. He researched careers, the job market, the wages and the education he would require to achieve his goal.
He put himself through school. Last spring, he graduated. His education is bought and paid for - he did it by himself. He has been working at his new career for close to a year and is enjoying a standard of life and living that he worked hard for.
All three of my hero's followed their own path. Each of them took risks to get them to where they are today. Each of them believed in themselves.
Success isn't defined by anyone else. It is something within. It comes from following your heart. It comes from following the path that feels right. But it doesn't end there. Once you climb the mountain, you can only enjoy the view for so long before you need to descend back down to earth and envision climbing the next one.
I believe that I've been sitting at the bottom of that mountain for too long. I'm tired and I know that my energy will come from ascending my next new height.
Sitting in the audience last night, I was basking in the glow from someone who was climbing their own mountain. I was inspired.
Friday, March 6, 2009
All That We Are ...
"All that we are is a result of what we have thought" - Buddha
And boy, is that a sad truth for me today! I have been thinking grumpy thoughts all morning. And that ... in a word, is what I was! This morning.
It is now afternoon. I shall think happy thoughts and become a happier person.
And boy, is that a sad truth for me today! I have been thinking grumpy thoughts all morning. And that ... in a word, is what I was! This morning.
It is now afternoon. I shall think happy thoughts and become a happier person.
Bird Songs
As I was outside shovelling (what I keep hoping) is one of the few snowfalls left of the winter season, I couldn't help but feel for the bird that was singing a lonely tune this morning. I think he was saying "When is spring coming?"
It was only a short while ago that I woke up to hear the cheery trills of the morning birds outside my window, singing songs of joy "Spring is coming! Spring is coming!"
As we face another bout of winter weather, I can't help but long for warm spring days. In the mean time, I found this 'Morning Bird Song' video on YouTube. These are the sounds of summer that I can't wait to hear:
Tuesday, March 3, 2009
Thoughtless
I am without thoughts the past several days ...
I have went from immersing myself in a day of memories ... to indulging myself in a full day of doing whatever my heart desired ... and then I have been immersed in work, obligations and errands for the past few days.
The day spent looking back on my life 37 1/2 years ago was fun - pure enjoyment! The day indulging myself in my whims was thoroughly relaxing. I wish I could say that it was energizing - but after 2 days of not accomplishing a thing, I could have easily gotten on a roll of being lazy.
The past few days of 'real life' have been necessary. A person simply wouldn't appreciate the down-time in life, if you didn't have the busy days to compare it to.
And that is about as deep as my thoughts are going tonight. I've run out of words.
I have went from immersing myself in a day of memories ... to indulging myself in a full day of doing whatever my heart desired ... and then I have been immersed in work, obligations and errands for the past few days.
The day spent looking back on my life 37 1/2 years ago was fun - pure enjoyment! The day indulging myself in my whims was thoroughly relaxing. I wish I could say that it was energizing - but after 2 days of not accomplishing a thing, I could have easily gotten on a roll of being lazy.
The past few days of 'real life' have been necessary. A person simply wouldn't appreciate the down-time in life, if you didn't have the busy days to compare it to.
And that is about as deep as my thoughts are going tonight. I've run out of words.
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