Saturday, March 12, 2011
Friday, February 4, 2011
Even a gray day can be a great day!
As far as the weather is concerned, I have to say that my least favorite kind of day is a cold, gray, rainy day like today. I think most people just feel really down on days like that. I know I do. Unless I choose not to. Today I chose not to. But not until later in the day. Does that make sense? LOL!
Last night I got woke up from a deep sleep by the sound of something trying to scratch it's way into my apartment through the heater vent. When the sound first woke me up, my first thought was that my cat was getting into trouble again. But she was curled up on the couch sound asleep. So I walked around the apartment trying to find where the sound came from. As soon as I got to the heater vent in my bedroom, the sound stopped. I had finally found the culprit. I really didn't know what to do but I knew what I wanted to do. I wanted to go back to sleep. So I did!
But when I woke back up this morning, after having my night's sleep interrupted I was, to put it lightly, a little grumpy! :) I got up and put on my dog walking clothes and took Bossy outside. It was cold, gray and raining. And I have a little bit of a cold so I felt a little puny. The day wasn't looking good at all! I just wanted to call the day off and crawl back in bed. But duty called and I knew I had to get myself out the door.
The first stop I had to make was the Walmart pharmacy to pick up the antibiotic my doctor had prescribed. I tried to pick it up yesterday but it was $77 and I didn't have that much money. I asked them if they could find a lower priced drug that would be the same and they said they'd try. I knew I was going to make some more money in the afternoon yesterday so I told them I'd come back. So my grumpy self drove over there in the pouring rain and went inside to see what they found. Much to my surprise, when the cashier rung up my new prescription, she said it was $4!!!! I was shocked and confused. I asked her if she was sure that was right. After talking to two different pharmacists, I was assured that the $4 prescription was indeed from the same family as the $77 one and would probably be just as effective. Woo hoo!!!! Maybe it wasn't such a bad day after all!!! On my way across the parking lot, I heard the familiar screech of seagulls and looked up to see them perched on the street lamp. It made me feel like I was at the beach. That made me smile. Things were looking up!
Next stop was lunch! Today was junk food day for me so I stopped at McDonalds and got my usual. While sitting in my car eating lunch, I kept seeing a little bluebird flitting around in the tree in front of my car. Then there were several more. Bluebirds are my favorite birds, I think. I had never even seen one in person until I lived on the farm. I've loved them ever since. So it made me feel happy to watch them playing in the trees in front of me. Soon there were also cardinals and robins. And then there were little finches with yellow on their backs. One of the little finches hopped so close to my car I could see his little eyes blinking. It seemed like today the birds were deliberately entertaining me! How wonderful!
After lunch, I went and cleaned one of the houses I had on my schedule for today. But I rescheduled the other one for Monday and came home because I wasn't feeling well. But, even though I was feeling sick and it was a rainy crappy day, I still had a light, happy feeling in my heart. As I travelled through my day, I admit I tended to slip back into my grumpy state of mind I started out in. But I was aware that I could choose to be grumpy about the weather or I could chose to be happy about the beautiful birds I saw and the money I saved on the meds. It's always a choice to find something good. I'm gonna keep looking for good stuff!!!!
PS There was another good thing that happened today. I discovered that my tomato seeds I planted last weekend have started to sprout! Yipeee! I love to see things grow and I love to eat homegrown tomatoes! :)
Last night I got woke up from a deep sleep by the sound of something trying to scratch it's way into my apartment through the heater vent. When the sound first woke me up, my first thought was that my cat was getting into trouble again. But she was curled up on the couch sound asleep. So I walked around the apartment trying to find where the sound came from. As soon as I got to the heater vent in my bedroom, the sound stopped. I had finally found the culprit. I really didn't know what to do but I knew what I wanted to do. I wanted to go back to sleep. So I did!
But when I woke back up this morning, after having my night's sleep interrupted I was, to put it lightly, a little grumpy! :) I got up and put on my dog walking clothes and took Bossy outside. It was cold, gray and raining. And I have a little bit of a cold so I felt a little puny. The day wasn't looking good at all! I just wanted to call the day off and crawl back in bed. But duty called and I knew I had to get myself out the door.
The first stop I had to make was the Walmart pharmacy to pick up the antibiotic my doctor had prescribed. I tried to pick it up yesterday but it was $77 and I didn't have that much money. I asked them if they could find a lower priced drug that would be the same and they said they'd try. I knew I was going to make some more money in the afternoon yesterday so I told them I'd come back. So my grumpy self drove over there in the pouring rain and went inside to see what they found. Much to my surprise, when the cashier rung up my new prescription, she said it was $4!!!! I was shocked and confused. I asked her if she was sure that was right. After talking to two different pharmacists, I was assured that the $4 prescription was indeed from the same family as the $77 one and would probably be just as effective. Woo hoo!!!! Maybe it wasn't such a bad day after all!!! On my way across the parking lot, I heard the familiar screech of seagulls and looked up to see them perched on the street lamp. It made me feel like I was at the beach. That made me smile. Things were looking up!
Next stop was lunch! Today was junk food day for me so I stopped at McDonalds and got my usual. While sitting in my car eating lunch, I kept seeing a little bluebird flitting around in the tree in front of my car. Then there were several more. Bluebirds are my favorite birds, I think. I had never even seen one in person until I lived on the farm. I've loved them ever since. So it made me feel happy to watch them playing in the trees in front of me. Soon there were also cardinals and robins. And then there were little finches with yellow on their backs. One of the little finches hopped so close to my car I could see his little eyes blinking. It seemed like today the birds were deliberately entertaining me! How wonderful!
After lunch, I went and cleaned one of the houses I had on my schedule for today. But I rescheduled the other one for Monday and came home because I wasn't feeling well. But, even though I was feeling sick and it was a rainy crappy day, I still had a light, happy feeling in my heart. As I travelled through my day, I admit I tended to slip back into my grumpy state of mind I started out in. But I was aware that I could choose to be grumpy about the weather or I could chose to be happy about the beautiful birds I saw and the money I saved on the meds. It's always a choice to find something good. I'm gonna keep looking for good stuff!!!!
PS There was another good thing that happened today. I discovered that my tomato seeds I planted last weekend have started to sprout! Yipeee! I love to see things grow and I love to eat homegrown tomatoes! :)
Tuesday, January 25, 2011
The Good In Shutting My Big Mouth!
Since the mid 80s, I have been keeping a personal journal where I write about what's going on in my life or what I've got on my mind at the time. One of the greatest benefits of journaling is that I can read back and see patterns. Recently, I have been having a lot of fun putting together a little book of my blog posts and poems. I also have spent some time reading my old journals. Seeing the contrast between my journals from the past and my "Look For The Good" blog posts of today has really helped me to see how far I've come over the years. Things are so different for me now, just in the last year or so. And I think I know why. Here's what I think I've learned.
When I looked back at my journals, I was struck by the repetitiveness of what I wrote. Year after year after year I wrote about the same things over and over and over. The same PROBLEMS! I even made the comment frequently that I always seem to have the same problems. I recognized this pattern and it makes perfect sense to me now why my life was so miserable like it was.
*The more I talked or thought about my problems, the bigger they seemed.
*The bigger they seemed, the more I worried about them.
*The more I worried about them, the more mentally tense I got.
*When I was mentally tense, my body responded by tensing up.
*The more tense my body was, the tighter my muscles got.
*Tight muscles are prone to injury.
*The tighter my muscles got, the more pain I felt in my body.
*That added ANOTHER problem! Body pain.
*The more I talked about the body pain, the worse it got.
And the cycle started again!!!! And I stayed on that cycle, sadly, for about two decades of my life. For two decades, I lived in misery both physically and mentally all because I wouldn't stop running my big stupid mouth about my perceived problems. All because I wasn't looking for the good. Now that I look for the good and try to talk about good stuff and think about good stuff and I try to laugh and giggle and be silly, guess what???? Very little body pain! Very few problems. Life is good because I shut my trap! And a good life is a good thing! I'm gonna keep looking for the good!
When I looked back at my journals, I was struck by the repetitiveness of what I wrote. Year after year after year I wrote about the same things over and over and over. The same PROBLEMS! I even made the comment frequently that I always seem to have the same problems. I recognized this pattern and it makes perfect sense to me now why my life was so miserable like it was.
*The more I talked or thought about my problems, the bigger they seemed.
*The bigger they seemed, the more I worried about them.
*The more I worried about them, the more mentally tense I got.
*When I was mentally tense, my body responded by tensing up.
*The more tense my body was, the tighter my muscles got.
*Tight muscles are prone to injury.
*The tighter my muscles got, the more pain I felt in my body.
*That added ANOTHER problem! Body pain.
*The more I talked about the body pain, the worse it got.
And the cycle started again!!!! And I stayed on that cycle, sadly, for about two decades of my life. For two decades, I lived in misery both physically and mentally all because I wouldn't stop running my big stupid mouth about my perceived problems. All because I wasn't looking for the good. Now that I look for the good and try to talk about good stuff and think about good stuff and I try to laugh and giggle and be silly, guess what???? Very little body pain! Very few problems. Life is good because I shut my trap! And a good life is a good thing! I'm gonna keep looking for the good!
Monday, January 24, 2011
Finding Good in Imperfection
When I was living on the farm, I spent many hours sitting on the side porch gazing out over the beautiful landscape that surrounded me. And there was this one tree way across the yard that was "perfectly" shaped except for one branch that sprawled out awkwardly from the rest of the tree. When I first moved out there, that tree bugged the crap out of me. Whenever I would see it, I would fantasize about taking a chainsaw to it and cutting off that wayward branch. But as time went by, I relaxed and began to see things from a very different perspective. I noticed that, in nature, things aren't perfectly symmetrical or lined up just so. Nature is free and spontaneous! Sometimes plants grow sideways or one side gets bigger than the other. Sometimes flowers bloom pink when all the rest of them were white! Sometimes the deer munch on the apple tree and there are no low branches left.
Life is not perfect. People are not perfect. Who decides what's perfect anyway? What's perfect for one person is totally wrong for someone else. There is no such thing as perfection. That's one of the things that makes this Universe so interesting. Imperfection. After livng on that farm for a while, I came to really treasure the beauty of imperfection. It was very freeing to realize I didn't have to color within the lines, that I was beautiful just the way I was and that "imperfection" is another word for unique. How grateful I am that everything is not perfect. Because that would mean that everything would be the same. We live in a world of never ending posibilities, which could also be called imperfection. Imperfection is very very good! :)
Life is not perfect. People are not perfect. Who decides what's perfect anyway? What's perfect for one person is totally wrong for someone else. There is no such thing as perfection. That's one of the things that makes this Universe so interesting. Imperfection. After livng on that farm for a while, I came to really treasure the beauty of imperfection. It was very freeing to realize I didn't have to color within the lines, that I was beautiful just the way I was and that "imperfection" is another word for unique. How grateful I am that everything is not perfect. Because that would mean that everything would be the same. We live in a world of never ending posibilities, which could also be called imperfection. Imperfection is very very good! :)
Wednesday, January 19, 2011
The good in doing nothing!
I was born and raised in the city. Lived in the city all my life until I got to live on the farm for a couple years. I remember when I was little and our family would take a trip out of town, we'd drive down a lot of country roads and we'd see people sitting on their front porch doing absolutely nothing, just watching cars go by. I can remember hearing my parents talking about those lazy country people. Later in life, I married a man who always had to be busy. He had to be making "productive use" of his time. You'd never catch him just sitting around doing nothing. He thought of that as a good thing and so did I, I guess. I certainly didn't want to be lazy!
Well, when I moved out to the country in 2007, I would see people sitting on their porch and I would think to myself that I didn't want to be like them. There was too much that needed to be done to be just sitting around. I just didn't "get" why they did that.
The side of the farmhouse I lived in had a long porch that stretched the entire length of the house and on that porch, my landlord left a rocking chair and a little wooden table. When I first moved out there, I'd go sit in the rocking chair and read or work on whatever project I had going on. I'd sit there and rock and rock and it was nice. But a little at a time, I started rocking slower. Then, after a while, I didn't rock at all. And eventually, I didn't take anything out onto the porch to read or work on.
Finally, I got it! It took me a while but eventually I realized that sometimes the most productive thing you can do with your time is.....nothing! I learned the fine art of doing nothing and I learned the value of being still and quiet. It's in that still, quiet state that I found healing and peace. I cried a lot of tears out there on that old porch and let go of a lot of anger and fear. And I didn't do it by "doing". I did it by "being"! I heard once that we are human beings not human doings. Finally that made sense.
So now I have no problem whatsoever sitting and being still and quiet and giving my mind and body time to rest and rejuvinate. And I find that when I regularly take time to just "be", then I'm more productive when it's time for me to "do". And that's a good thing! Keep looking for the good.
Here's the farmhouse and the porch where I got back in touch with myself. I just sat there and my self just showed up! Cool, huh?
Well, when I moved out to the country in 2007, I would see people sitting on their porch and I would think to myself that I didn't want to be like them. There was too much that needed to be done to be just sitting around. I just didn't "get" why they did that.
The side of the farmhouse I lived in had a long porch that stretched the entire length of the house and on that porch, my landlord left a rocking chair and a little wooden table. When I first moved out there, I'd go sit in the rocking chair and read or work on whatever project I had going on. I'd sit there and rock and rock and it was nice. But a little at a time, I started rocking slower. Then, after a while, I didn't rock at all. And eventually, I didn't take anything out onto the porch to read or work on.
Finally, I got it! It took me a while but eventually I realized that sometimes the most productive thing you can do with your time is.....nothing! I learned the fine art of doing nothing and I learned the value of being still and quiet. It's in that still, quiet state that I found healing and peace. I cried a lot of tears out there on that old porch and let go of a lot of anger and fear. And I didn't do it by "doing". I did it by "being"! I heard once that we are human beings not human doings. Finally that made sense.
So now I have no problem whatsoever sitting and being still and quiet and giving my mind and body time to rest and rejuvinate. And I find that when I regularly take time to just "be", then I'm more productive when it's time for me to "do". And that's a good thing! Keep looking for the good.
Here's the farmhouse and the porch where I got back in touch with myself. I just sat there and my self just showed up! Cool, huh?
Wednesday, January 12, 2011
Finding Good When We're Looking for A Different Good
Since I rearranged my bedroom, I've had a little problem. I no longer had a lamp right next to the bed so I can turn it off when I lay down at night. I had to turn the lamp off from across the room and then get into bed in the dark. But I feel more comfortable being able to turn the light on and off from bed...for whatever reason. So I decided I'd get myself one of those extension cord thingys they make with the switch on it. You plug the lamp into the cord and the cord into the wall. Then the other end of the cord has a dimmer switch where you turn the lamp off and on from across the room. I stopped by the hardware store but they didn't have one. Next stop was going to be Lowes but I just hadn't made it over there yet.
Well, a couple days ago I was rooting around in my utility room looking for something and I saw a cord with a strange end. I pulled the cord out of the bag and lo and behold!!! It was one of those dimmer switch thingys!!! I remembered later that I had bought it for another lamp I used to have in the farmhouse. I had forgotten all about having it. I went straight inside with it and fixed up my lamp so I can now turn it off and on from bed. Woo hoo! I'm happy!
But being the philosopher that I am, I couldn't just leave it at that. When I thought about how I found that cord among some other things that I already had, my mind expanded the idea to life. It seems to me that I've always had everything I needed. Sometimes I didn't know where it was or where it would come from. But it always came. I think it was there all the time and all I had to do was look for it. And sometimes we find what we need when we're looking for something else. But if we pay good attention, we might find what we're looking for and something else good too!!! How cool is that???
Life can be kind of like a great treasure hunt if we let it be. There's so much great stuff out there in the Universe just waiting for us to grab it and enjoy it. I think life's all about joy. And about fun. And about love. And about good. Keep looking for the good.
Well, a couple days ago I was rooting around in my utility room looking for something and I saw a cord with a strange end. I pulled the cord out of the bag and lo and behold!!! It was one of those dimmer switch thingys!!! I remembered later that I had bought it for another lamp I used to have in the farmhouse. I had forgotten all about having it. I went straight inside with it and fixed up my lamp so I can now turn it off and on from bed. Woo hoo! I'm happy!
But being the philosopher that I am, I couldn't just leave it at that. When I thought about how I found that cord among some other things that I already had, my mind expanded the idea to life. It seems to me that I've always had everything I needed. Sometimes I didn't know where it was or where it would come from. But it always came. I think it was there all the time and all I had to do was look for it. And sometimes we find what we need when we're looking for something else. But if we pay good attention, we might find what we're looking for and something else good too!!! How cool is that???
Life can be kind of like a great treasure hunt if we let it be. There's so much great stuff out there in the Universe just waiting for us to grab it and enjoy it. I think life's all about joy. And about fun. And about love. And about good. Keep looking for the good.
Tuesday, January 11, 2011
Enjoy the good...while it's there
Sometimes when I write in this blog, it's because I've been successful at something or have made an observation I think others might benefit from. Other times, it's because I've screwed up and learned from it. This post is the latter.
One area where I'm really good at screwing up is the area of enjoying what is good in my life while it's still there to enjoy. We live in a Universe that is constantly swirling and shifting and changing. Nothing is permanent in the Universe. Everything will end. Some things are short lived, others are more enduring. But to everything there is a season.
My mother would have been 84 in a few weeks if she was still here. I guess I thought Moma would always be here. She always had been. And everybody in our family lives to their early 80s. Surely Moma would too. It's a tradition, you know? But Moma broke the tradition. She left us at the young age of 74. And boy have I realized what I jerk I was with her. I have regrets. My mother was a very kind and caring person and she wanted nothing more than to love me. But I wasn't capable of receiving or returning that love. I am now but Moma is gone, at least in the physical sense. Moma's love still lives in me and I will always have that. But I hope the next time someone comes into my life who wants to love me, I will be able to handle it better.
I believe that once you really love someone, you always love them even if the relationship ends or one of you leaves the physical world. And we leave a part of ourselves with everyone whose path we cross. I want to leave a good part of myself. So I'm trying to focus on the good so that good is what expands in me and in my life. And I'm practicing enjoying what's good in my life right now while it's here! Don't put off joy! It's here right now, look for it, embrace it...while you can! Keep looking for the good! :)
Here is my favorite photo of my pretty little red headed mother. She was about 60ish there. Wish I was more like her.
One area where I'm really good at screwing up is the area of enjoying what is good in my life while it's still there to enjoy. We live in a Universe that is constantly swirling and shifting and changing. Nothing is permanent in the Universe. Everything will end. Some things are short lived, others are more enduring. But to everything there is a season.
My mother would have been 84 in a few weeks if she was still here. I guess I thought Moma would always be here. She always had been. And everybody in our family lives to their early 80s. Surely Moma would too. It's a tradition, you know? But Moma broke the tradition. She left us at the young age of 74. And boy have I realized what I jerk I was with her. I have regrets. My mother was a very kind and caring person and she wanted nothing more than to love me. But I wasn't capable of receiving or returning that love. I am now but Moma is gone, at least in the physical sense. Moma's love still lives in me and I will always have that. But I hope the next time someone comes into my life who wants to love me, I will be able to handle it better.
I believe that once you really love someone, you always love them even if the relationship ends or one of you leaves the physical world. And we leave a part of ourselves with everyone whose path we cross. I want to leave a good part of myself. So I'm trying to focus on the good so that good is what expands in me and in my life. And I'm practicing enjoying what's good in my life right now while it's here! Don't put off joy! It's here right now, look for it, embrace it...while you can! Keep looking for the good! :)
Here is my favorite photo of my pretty little red headed mother. She was about 60ish there. Wish I was more like her.
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