Enjoying the View

No words ... just sitting here enjoying the view 

No rabbits in sight. Lots of evidence they have been around though. That is enough...

A Beautiful Day

I love waking up to a Saturday. A day of no plans, no expectations and the ability to simply go with the flow.

The sense of exhaustion I woke up with was soon replaced with pure, unadulterated relief that I had no where to go and nothing that absolutely needed to be done. I could have spent the day snuggled up on the couch with a good book, a cozy blanket, intermittent TV and it would have been enough.

Instead, I received the perfect gift. A coffee date on the phone. No need to dress, no need to warm up the car or leave the house. Perfection.

Eventually I did voluntarily leave our home when I went on a choose-your-own-Christmas-gift adventure. The outing was a success in every sense of the word.

I could have and should have done so much more. But I didn't. I forgive myself. Today was a gift I gave myself. Tomorrow is another day.

This tends to be the season of high expectations and stress levels. Give yourself the gift of forgiveness. Do your best, allow yourself an opportunity to call what you do "enough" and let yourself off the hook.

Let the joy come from within and it will be enough. I hope you had a most excellent day too.

Life Lines

Sometimes the solution to that which plagues us is to state what we need.

How many times do we carry around our worries, think our quiet little thoughts, feel the weight of our world resting on our shoulders and simply carry the burden?

Sometimes we wish others intuitively knew what we needed so help would be offered before we asked. Don't you just love when that happens? I do.

But sometimes? We need to tell others what we need. We don't have to ask, beg or demand. Just state a fact. "This" is how I'm feeling ... leave it open ended. Just say the words. Leave them hanging.

My daycare days taught me a valuable lesson. When I said nothing, it was translated into permission for things to continue the way they had been. I could not expect others to read my mind so I began putting a voice to that which was weighing me down.

For every challenging time in my life, I have garnered my strength to find my way through by finding my "tribe" ... those who simply walk beside me when the going gets tough. They don't have to carry me. I can carry my own weight. But there are times when I simply need to know I can lean in a little.

I have created a vacuum within my life. I often say I garner my energy by having enough solitude to hear myself think. I don't believe I ever say I'm busy but I DO say I have a committed life. I have erected some walls around me which are hard to penetrate.

While inner strength can be found in the solitude, the ability to carry on often comes by knowing you are not in this alone.

The lifelines from the television show "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?" come to mind.

50:50 - take away two wrong answers, leaving you with a 50/50 chance of choosing the right one
Audience poll - survey the masses to get the popular opinion
Phone-a-friend - possibly my first choice but when the going gets tough, it gets tougher to make that call

Ask for what you need ... you may not get what you ask for but you may feel empowered by knowing you said the words aloud.

Taking my own advise - starting simple and hoping for the best!

P.S. Even our friendly neighborhood rabbits know how to "ask" for what they want. This morning the rabbit food dish I have placed under the fir tree in our front yard was flipped upside down. I do believe that is rabbit speak for "More please?"

So Few Thoughts

My morning writing has become three pages of writing about nothing. 

I could write my grocery list this morning but that is about it, so I will post this picture instead.

The life of a cat ...

... doesn't it make you wish you could sit and watch for rabbits all day?

I'm Sorry

I apologize for writing of the inane, inconsequential, trivial and little things that fill my mind. Life is hard. When life feels hard, I look inward and try to focus on that which I can control.

I look around me and I see so many lives consumed with loss. Loss of health, loss of life, loss of stability, loss of independence, loss of memory, loss of income, loss of peace of mind, loss of a future life one was anticipating, loss of youth, loss of a parent/child/sibling/partner ... and the list goes on and on.

When the world feels dark and out of control, I hunker down, look inward and do what I can to regain the feeling of "I'm doing the best I can". I look outside for signs of life. Signs of presence of that which I have not seen with my own eyes.

Yes, this comes out in the trivial matters of my posts of late. When life feels like a sad and scary place, it feels good to regain my footing by doing what I can to make sense of the little things gone awry.

The courage to change what I can ...

This may come in the form of learning how to make my bed properly or lodging a complaint over dysfunctional pens. But it also comes in the form of doing my best, doing what is within my control and trying to be who I need to be, to the people who pass through my days.

When the going gets tough, it's hard. I know. But those rabbit tracks I see in the snow in our front yard has proven there is a presence all around me, even when I'm not looking.

Look for your "rabbit tracks". Just do what you can do. It is enough. Just keep swimming ...

Life is Too Short to Write With Crappy Pens!

Ranting about "things that really don't matter" seems to be at the tip of my fingertips these days. Please forgive me while I carry on one (hopefully) last time.

Please note: Complaining for the sole purpose of complaining, without looking for solutions is NOT my goal. Any griping on my part must be counteracted with action. 

Spoiler alert: Today's rant comes with a potentially happy ending.

On with the show ...

Tell me, am I the only one on earth who is bothered by pens that don't write? Brand new pens, even with their "tip seals" (a small ball of wax on the tip of the pen) to ensure the pen's freshness, that stop writing intermittently, unexpectedly and frequently.

As I have committed to writing three pages by longhand each and every morning, finding a pen that will stand by this commitment is pivotal to this ongoing habit's success. I purchased a tried and true brand that had never let me down before to ensure my journalling success. The first pen worked so well, I gifted the remaining two pens in the package to my fellow journallers. An offer akin to swapping blood to become blood brothers, I offered pens to instil an ink-sister kinship.

Giving away that which brings me joy is one of my favorite things to do. I love to spread my joy. Whether it is my most favorite tea towels, socks, a miracle pillow or simply my favorite hassle free pen. If I love it and think you would love it, nothing makes me happier than sharing some of my tried and true favorite things (I feel like Oprah and Ellen, who have turned their "favorite things" into an audience favorite). 

Anyway ... short story, long ...

I went to replace my most favorite pens and the next package didn't write reliably. I was writing on the same kind of notepaper. Nothing had changed. Just a new package of pens. I was soooooo frustrated. I persevered until each pen in the package officially ran out of ink and I shopped for a replacement brand of pen. No luck. I am two pens into another package of four (I should have purchased one pen at a time until I knew for sure. My mistake).

As I fought with the second new pen and it was worse than the one before, I silently screamed in my head, "Life is too short to write with crappy pens!!!"

Before I tossed the whole lot of them, I decided to check the packaging. Maybe there was a "best before" date and I simply bought pens where the ink was drying out. No luck. 

But I did find a phone number my first package of pens. "If you are not completely satisfied with your product, please contact us at ...."

So I called. I had the chance to voice my complaint and in return, the company has the opportunity to make it right. They will be sending me replacement pens and I should receive them within two weeks. 

There is truly no reason to complain if you don't give the other party a chance to make amends. My second brand of pens came with no such guarantee but I may try to return the to the store where I made the purchase. The worst they can say is "no".

Ranting and raving and feeling angry steals our joy. Finding solutions (see yesterday's post, where all I had to do was flip my top sheet upside down to fix the problem), alternatives or going to the source and putting a voice to the concern is empowering.

Life IS too short to write with crappy pens. I WILL live to write another day. In the meantime, there is another brand of pen that has served me well. If at first you don't succeed, just keep trying. Or as Dory (from Finding Nemo) would say, "Just keep swimming..."

Which Way is Up?

You know life is getting too complicated when you find something as simple as sheets should come with an instruction manual.

I wore out my bottom sheet a while ago so I invested in some new sheets. I'm more into the economical side of sheet-buying rather than thread count. I found a set of sheets for $39.97 and came home and "installed" them.

The fitted sheet doesn't fit as snugly as my previous one did. Fail. The top sheet was much larger as well, so I arranged the excessive sheet on the side of the bed by the wall. The pillowcases were a pleasant surprise, as they actually accommodate a queen sized pillow with ease.

It took longer than it should have, to make my bed the first time. The reward would come when I climbed into bed and nestled into my crisp new sheets for the first time. Another fail.

My feet snagged on the top sheet. So the next night before I went to bed, I sanded down my foot callouses and lotioned my feet until they were silky smooth before I went to bed. It was better but not perfect. The next night(s) after that, I tried sanding down the areas of my feet that were still snagging the sheets. Better. Still not perfect.

I was glad when it came time to launder my sheets so I could pull another set of reject-sheets from the closet and enjoy some snag-free sleep.

My old sheets are the kind where you get one corner of the fitted sheet in place and it pops out the moment you try to fit the second corner. It took much manoeuvring to wrangle all four corners into place at one time. I knew there was a reason these sheets got shelved. The pillowcases barely fit over the pillows. But the sheets were soft. Oh, so soft to sleep in. Heavenly!

I checked the labels. My old, ill fitting sheets are Egyptian cotton. Good to know. My new ones are microfibre. Duly noted.

When the time came to change my sheets again, I decided to give my new ones another try. It was a good excuse to tend to my calloused feet.

I crawled into bed that night and was conscious enough to realize my feet were only snagging the top sheet. The bottom sheet was just fine. The sheets have a shiny side and a cottony-smooth side. Hmmm ... did I install my top sheet wrong?

Last night, I remade my bed and flipped the top sheet "upside down". Embroidery face down, hems showing, shiny side up, to match the way the fitted sheet was made to fit the bed. I crawled into bed, ran my feet across the sheets. Perfection! No foot-snagging. It was awesome.

I grazed my feet across the perfectly smooth sheet surfaces every time I rolled over last night. Ahhh!!! So smooth! Heavenly!

Not only did I figure out why I most likely wore out my previous sheets (from all the friction created as I ran my feet over my sheets as I slept), but I felt a small bit peeved as I thought to myself, "Life is far too complicated if I cannot even install sheets without a set of instructions indicating which way is up!"

The moral of my little story is that thread count (in my estimation) does not matter as much as knowing which way is up when you buy new sheets.