Growing Up

I think that part of growing up is reassessing how we feel about things ever so often. But I have to admit that I don't want to do that! I worked hard forming the opinions I have and I don't want to have to work that hard again. Besides, what if I realized that I feel differently now? Would that mean I was wrong to feel the way I felt before or to hold the opinions I held before? Who wants to be wrong? Not me. So I have tended to be lazy and just keep going through life with the same old preconceived notions I've had for decades. Just don't want to upset the old apple cart.

The problem with that is that you miss out on a lot of good! One example I can think of right now, because of a very wonderful experience I had today, is my comfort level with small children. I have for decades said that I am allergic to kids! Sometimes people laugh. Sometimes people look at me like I'm some sort of demon. I've even had people want to argue with me about it. I've been asked how I could possibly hate children. I never said I hated them. I just said I'm not comfortable around them. We all have preferences. Some people aren't comfortable around dogs but I love them. I don't accuse them of being dog haters. It's just what you're comfortable with.

But in thinking about the whole issue of being uncomfortable with something, like small children or dogs or whatever example you want to plug in here, I find that I'm actually now able to find joy and find good in things that I used to want no part of. But that came with a change of perspective and I guess with just becoming more comfortable in my skin and more at ease with the world around me.

Finding that new perspective wasn't nearly as hard a job as finding the old one was. The old perspectives were labor intensive. I had to do a lot of thinking and stewing and analyzing to get to them. I find that my perspectives on life and on the world around me are changing drastically and in very wonderful positive ways because I am letting go and I am accepting. I am letting go of old anger and negative thoughts about things. And I'm accepting a new normal. That was then and this is now and I'm no longer willing to let yesterday screw up my today. And no more stewing and analyzing. Too much work! I'm going to focus on the good stuff and let the rest go, just in case it IS true that what you focus your attention on is what expands in your life. I want the good stuff to expand and the "bad" stuff to shrink. Girls just wanna have fun, ya know??? Life should be fun! Look for the fun!

Finding Good in Winter Weather

OK, here's another area where I have, for years, been very much a grouch! I've hated snow!!!! It messes up traffic, keeps me from getting to work, keeps me from getting outside or to the store when I need to. Such a nuisance! Whenever I would wake up and see snow outside, I would just groan and go back to bed, then lay around depressed until it was gone! Just like I did with the holidays, I threw away precious days of my life because I couldn't see any good. Now that I'm trying a new perspective, I'm looking for good in snow. And today I definitely have the opportunity to do that! :)

The snow we have right now is beautiful fluffy snow. It's the kind that makes everything look like a Christmas card. It's actually really breathtaking. This morning I took Bossy outside to do his business and everything that I see every day has an entirely different look and feel! It's like a whole different, magical kind of world just right outside my door right where the noisy traffic usually is. If I can't find anything else good about snow, that's enough right by itself! The traffic goes away for a while! LOL!

Using my new digital camera, I took some pictures of the view of my yard as it looks now. It's interesting, it's the very same yard, and yet it's so different. I think life is like that. It's the very same life, it just looks different sometimes. I think life is always changing and we can either bitch about the changes or we can look for good in them and enjoy the hell out of 'em. I think I'll choose the latter.  So right now, I'm going to bundle up and take my new camera up to the river and take some more pics. Here's what I've taken of my yard so far! More to come!

Note: I've added some more pics to the slideshow. I had an awesome time walking up to the river and taking pictures of the beauty I saw along the way. Hope you enjoy them!

Looking for good through the eyes of a camera

I recently was given a digital camera and have been having a blast taking pictures with it. The wonderful person who gave me the camera told me she had read my blog and we talked about it some. Then I thought about maybe it would be cool to use my new camera to look for good. And today I figured out that I can post pictures in my blog! I didn't know that! LOL! It takes me a while to figure things out sometimes.

I've attached with this post a slideshow of photos I took with my old film camera last summer. It was a handmade puppet parade. It was awesome and taking the pics that day peaked my interest in photography. I really think little things like this parade are the things that put life in your life. Without them, we just exist. And the great thing was that the parade was free!!! Even I can afford that. See there, something else good!

Looking For the Good in the Holidays

I'm the first one to admit that I have, for many years now, been kind of a scrooge. The holiday season was just a nuisance to me. My schedule for my cleaning business became insane because everybody wanted their house cleaned right before Christmas. Traffic was insane. You couldn't even go to the store for anything because it was so crowded with Christmas shoppers. I hated having to deal with my family. I hated having to spend money I didn't have to buy presents for people I didn't see all year. It all was just overwhelming and I decided after my mother died that I wasn't going to participate in any of it any more. So every year when Christmas came around, I just tuned it out and waited for it to be over with and I was grouchy for the whole month of December. I said that January 2 was my favorite day of the year because then the holiday crap was over with for another year. I threw away all those holiday seasons because I couldn't make myself feel what you're "supposed" to feel.

But this year, I've started a new tradition. I decided that I was going to choose which parts of the holidays I do enjoy and participate in those and skip the others. I love the lights and the decorations. So I put up my tree and decorated it. And for the first time in decades, I actually felt a little creative and I ended up doing the tree in all blue and silver. It's beautiful, if I do say so myself, and I'm really enjoying it. I dressed my car up like a reindeer. It's gotten me a lot of laughs. I have given some intangible gifts to people that I hope will stay with them much longer than anything I could have wrapped up in a box. And I guess, in a way, this blog is my gift to whoever is out there reading it.

There is the saying that Jesus is the reason for the season, and I have thought about Jesus a lot this year, though probably not in the traditional sense. Keeping with my theme of looking for the good, I've thought about all the principles that Jesus taught that, if we'll just believe them and apply them in our lives, will bring lots and lots of good into our lives. He taught that what we ask for in prayer, which I interpret to mean what we focus our thoughts on, we will receive...if we believe we will receive it. In other words, we get what we expect to get.

So this year I have actually enjoyed the Christmas season because I haven't put any attention on the parts of it that are stressful for me. I haven't tried to force Christmas to be anything in particular. I haven't tried to force myself to feel anything in particular. I haven't let myself feel sad because of what I "don't" have. I haven't tried to re-create any feelings or re-live any experiences that I've had in the past. I've stayed in the now moment and I've only put my attention on the parts of Christmas that bring me joy and pleasure now. And as I've looked for good in the holidays, the most amazing thing has happened! I found it!!! Wow! I might be on to something here!!!

Happy Holidays to everyone! A little late I guess. Sorry!!! :D btw, that really is my Christmas tree! Blue balls and all! LOL!

A Story Someone Shared With Me

I haven't written in this blog for several months, partly because I had my internet service cut off because I was too addicted to it but also partly because, quite honestly, I haven't been looking for the good. I got lazy and didn't feel like doing the work of looking for something good. But I found some good anyway, even when I wasn't looking. When I was down and out, there were people there for me, mostly online people, who helped to find some good FOR me when I was too tired to look for it myself. The following story was just shared with me today by a new online friend and it was really meaningful to me so I decided to copy and paste it here....just in case I still have some readers.


One day a farmer's donkey fell down into a well. The animal cried piteously for hours as the farmer tried to figure out what to do.Finally he decided the animal was old, and the well needed to be covered up anyway, it just wasn't worth it to retrieve the donkey. He invited all his neighbors to come over and help him. They each grabbed a shovel and began to shovel dirt into the well. At first, the donkey realized what was happening and cried horribly. Then, to everyone's amazement, he quieted down. A few shovel loads later, the farmer looked down the well, and was astonished at what he saw. As every shovel of dirt hit his back, the donkey did something amazing. He would shake it off and take a step up.As the farmer's neighbors continued to shovel dirt on top of the animal, he would shake it off and take a step up. Pretty soon, everyone was amazed, as the donkey stepped up over the edge of the well and trotted off.The Moral:Life is going to shovel dirt on you, all kinds of dirt. The trick to getting out of the well is to shake it off and take a step up. Each of our troubles a stepping stone. We can get out of the deepest wells just by not stopping, never giving up! Shake it off and take a step up!

Making Peace With The City

June makes a year since I moved back into the city. It's only been recently that I changed my drivers license to this address. I was so sure I wasn't going to stay here. I was sure my nerves just couldn't take living in the city. I lived in the city my whole life and my whole life I was a nervous wreck. Then I moved out to the country and got still and quiet and my nerves calmed down and I wasn't a wreck any more. But then not long after I moved here, I WAS a wreck AGAIN! I'm not the brightest bulb in the lamp but even I could figure out what that meant. It meant that communing with nature and being still and quiet is what calmed my soul. So until just a couple months ago, I was just biding my time until the lease ran out here so I could move back out to the country. But in the meantime, I decided, I would try to get out somewhere quiet and still as often as possible. So I bought an inexpensive tent and acquired some hand me down camping and backpacking gear. And me and Bossy started spending some time in the woods. And wouldn't ya know it??? My nerves have calmed down. Turns out I don't need to live in the country to keep my sanity. I just need to unplug from the city as often as possible.
The problem was that I was resisting. I hated the city and I was bucking against it instead of looking for the good in it. There I go with that looking for the good thing again. But it's true! I was focusing on the traffic, the noise, the unfriendly people, the pace is too fast, it's too crowded, too congested, did I mention the TRAFFIC???? And those were the things that expanded in my mind and in my life. Everywhere I looked was a car wreck or a traffic jam. Everyplace I went, nobody was smiling and no one would speak if I spoke to them. I came home at the end of the day exhausted and drained. I felt overstimulated and agitated. And I became very depressed and felt overwhelmed by it all.
But when I began to make the effort to look elsewhere, my experience changed. It started out just as a survival thing. I was just going to do camping and hiking until I could get moved back out to the country. But I soon realized that it was all I needed to rejuvenate myself and lift my spirits. And the great thing is that one of the campgrounds and hiking places is less than ten miles from my house! I don't need to have a 40 mile commute into town every day. Just commuting ten miles out to the campground will accomplish the same thing if I do it often enough. And then I have the best of both worlds! I have all the advantages of living in the city and can get away from it whenever I need or want to.
I think one thing I've learned from it is that sometimes it just takes a small step to make an improvement. Then one thing leads to another and then another and it keeps expanding until eventually we have a new life, a life we have imagined into being, one little step at a time. And that's good! Look for the good! :)

Wherever you are, be there

This weekend me and Bossy went camping for a couple days. My Friday customer cancelled so we got to the lake Thursday night. Nobody else was there. We had the whole campground all to ourselves. It was so quiet. Very relaxing and healing. Thursday night was pretty much about unwinding and getting centered. I slept really well and woke up feeling great Friday morning. I love sleeping in my tent.

We did a little exploring Friday and I felt really connected to the environment. We did a little hiking and I saw a guinea fowl. I've never seen one of those in person before. I saw beautiful butterflies, a monarch and a swallowtail. I saw a swarm of dragonflies circling above. And there were these beautiful bugs that kept hanging around the fire ring. They were jade blue with white dots outlining their wings. I could see them from several feet away because of their color. I was fascinated with them. Friday night I saw a lone lightening bug. I kept seeing the flash of light and at first I thought it was headlights from the park ranger's truck on the other side of the trees. But the light kept moving around and getting closer to me until I realized it was a lightening bug. I haven't seen one of those in a long time.

The campgrounds is, apparently, in the flight pattern for planes landing at the airport. So a lot of planes flew over and at first it really detracted from the experience of being out in nature. I let it irritate me for a while because I came to the campground to get away from the noise of the city and here I was still having to hear planes. I kind of got an attitude about it there for a while. But then I became so intrigued with the beauty I was seeing in the woods that I pretty much tuned out the planes.

That night, sitting by my campfire, I thought about all that I had observed and felt during the day and I realized that I had made a choice. I chose to focus on the beauty and ignore the airplanes. They were gone quickly and then the things that were bringing me pleasure were still there. I chose to truly be focused in the now moment and to truly be there. Sometimes we miss a lot because we're not really fully present in the experience we're having. I'm very guilty of that. But for this weekend's camping trip, I was truly there, and it was wonderful. I couldn't help but think of the old song "It's A Wonderful World". There IS a lot of good in the world. Look for the good!