A Good Cup of Tea....

Have you ever been at a crossroads in your life, easing onto the new path to check out the flora and fauna down this way, seeing new wildlife and following leaves down a stream for so long that at some point you look up and find yourself looking back and wondering how you got here?  This is where I find myself today - looking up and realizing that while I have enjoyed meandering for awhile, I see sunlight ahead and I want to move forward towards a place where I can meet up with my friends, stretch out, and see more of the world.  This is the place to do that. In July I attended Tony Robbins' Unleash the Power Within, and spent 4 amazing days with 6000 other people overcoming our fears and transforming our lives.  You may have read about this event in San Jose, or seen it on the news.  It was said that 21 people were hospitalized with severe burns.  They were not - and this was later retracted.  Out of 6000 people, 21 people were treated for minor burns - ...

Oh my, it's been such a long while since I've sat here on Saturday morning, reading posts, and reaching inside to find out what I have to say that needs sharing.  For some reason this week's topic, Do-Over, struck a chord and today, I want to talk about worms.  Hahaha... I am sensing a lot of double-takes and re-reads will happen with that.  Let me explain.  I live in a town that is fairly serious about recycle, reduce, reuse.  We have a town ordinance against Styrofoam which ever biodegrades.  Please think about that the next time you stop at a coffee place and receive a Styrofoam cup, or take away food in leftovers in one of those containers.  It is much more inexpensive to bring your own reusable container, as well as less damaging to your environment. My friend, Tanya, embarked on a school project in October with her children to help their school recycle more.  What started as a wish to make sure each class had a recycling bin in it, bec...

Monday night while trick or treating my 8-year-old has asked me not to hold his hand.  There were a lot of kids from school around and, unconsciously, as we walked down the street I had automatically reached out to keep him close. He said he wasn’t a little kid, and I didn’t need to hold onto him.  I think all you parents will understand when I tell you that it broke my heart a little. This is not the first or last time that will happen while watching him grow, it has been a series of steps and leaps and bounds he has made since last June - some so huge that friends and family who haven’t seen him in more than a week or two remark to me how different he is, how he’s grown and changed.   As a parent, you celebrate your children’s successes, and this independence is a huge accomplishment for him because when he was in kindergarten, my son suffered trauma at a daycare center.  For about 6 weeks, two older boys hurt him on a daily basis.   It has ...

When I saw this week's topic, I had two different thoughts about the prompt which I thought were separate, and as it turned out were very similar. I have been participating in Oprah's Lifeclass on OWN.  (Talk about branding yourself!)  The first class talked about ego, and how it got in the way of our true selves. It resonated with me because I am a firm believer that you must own yourself.  You must take ownership of your thoughts, your actions, your choices.  You must live your life learning who you are, and what lessons are brought to you.  If you find something repeating in your life, you can be sure it will continue to repeat until you learn the lesson.  At the end of the day, we only truly have ourselves.  No matter our relationships, our families, our friends and supporters.  We only have ourselves.  I also truly believe that we cannot own another living being.  Not our husbands, wives, partners, girlfriends, boyfriends, frien...

*** My thanks go out to Brenda, Joyce and Beth because in reading their posts on this topic, they invited this one!! When I was a little girl, I lived in a closet for months and no one seemed to mind.  I was the 5th of 6 children, so space of my own was hard to come by.  I shared a room with my sister, Nancy, on the 3rd floor of our house that had a large closet built into the eaves.  It was large enough to hold my twin bed and I could sleep looking out. I’m not sure if I wanted to live in there because it it was my own place, or if it is my nature to seek time alone. I was born in June, a Cancer - sign of the crab.  The crab retreats inside itself when threatened, and will only come out when it is ready. I embody this trait.  Being alone though, I never feel lonely as I can entertain myself quite well with books, music, and my own imagination.  I have created a safe haven inside myself, which I believe we all need to do to get through our days...

Five weeks ago my world turned upside down with the news that the man I love needs some fairly serious surgery.  Since then my mind has been rushing about, running down avenues I would rather not visit, or creating checklists of things I need to do or say or think about.  Even in sleep I don't think my head gets any rest.  Each new specialist and test paints a more frightening scenario, a larger sense of urgency, and decisions must be made soon.  I remind myself to not live in fear of what tomorrow can bring but instead to take in these moments and appreciate each one for what it is.  I have been truly blessed in my journey through this world and he is part of each day's gratitude.  These hurdles are both difficult and challenging but there is no choice but keep moving through each of them. I must confess that sometimes, inside me, there is the little girl curled into a ball with her hands over her ears, eyes closed, screaming that she is n...

I have been out of the loop for weeks now as life has been in fast forward.  Edging my way back in this week with something I wrote years ago about my daughter.  There have only been one or two other things that I have ever written that flowed out of me the way this did - with deep emotion.  On another night when I couldn't sleep years ago, I wrote about my grief and loss and pain with no expectation that the feeling would ever go away. It has now, but that night it was alive and thundering through me. Grief ebbs and flows at its own pace, with its own will.  It taught me to not give up hope. For Bridget - I am grieving, i am grieving.. for the sunlight on your hair and sweet butterfly kisses that you sprinkled on my face another time, another place... as you skipped and danced and sang your little girl songs of happiness and unicorns. and oh, i had you then, your hand in mine, smiles and rainbows, and dreams of little ponies you would ride. but tim...

It's coming on midnight and here I am again, unable to sleep, wishing all the words filling my mind could be emptied here on the page leaving me void so rest would come and dreams could close in to fill the space.  Then again, my dreams of late have been connected to my missing cat, Esme, and during most of them I am sending her pictures of our house and urging her with all my love and energy to return to us.  In some of them, I hold her and pat her and tell her she is loved and missed so desperately.  I see that she is healthy and happy and fending well for herself.  She rubs against me and twines around my legs, thrilled to be near me.  I worry for her safety out there against predators that are more knowledgeable, faster, hungrier, with bigger weapons for attacking. One night last week my dreams showed her with our cat, Lefty, who we put down a month ago.  She was rubbing against him, and he looked right at me.  Did that mean she was with him?...

Menopause sucks! It's kind of like the first 3 months of pregnancy.  Not the happy glow of 'oooh I'm bringing a new life into the world', but the nausea, sleeplessness, too warm, hormones raging' part.  Hot flashes are not over in a flash.  Night sweats that make you change your clothing or discard it all together.  I have never been so unhappy in my world, in my life, in myself as I have been these past few months.  I see the amazing blessings in my life and they fill me up, and yet, my mood swings are terrible and I have been difficult to live with.  I think the worst part of this is that my memory is gone.  I can't remember where I put my cell phone, keys, who I wrote that check to, whether or not I fed the cats, that I need to do laundry, pick up a fly bonnet for the horse, or just where I put that list of things to remember to do.  This frustrates me daily.  Taking something for it is really not an option.  I strive daily to find so...

Almost 7 years ago, my sister entrusted me with the care of her family's cat.  She was moving and wanted to make sure that all the noise and packing and confusion didn't upset him, so she left him with me.  In the ensuing days as she moved and tried to unpack and settle into her new house, an amazing thing happened - Lefty became a part of our family.  He slept as close to the boy as I would allow.  He tried desperately to make friends with our other cat.  He adored all the attention.  After a few weeks, we agreed that he could continue living with us since there was no love lost between him and their dog and other cat.   Lefty became a fixture in our household, always a gentleman.  A true gentleman.  A well-behaved and well-groomed cat, his name "Lefty" came from the fact that he was left behind when my sister's neighbor's moved out.  It has always seemed less than fitting for him. My mother can never remember his name and always...