Maybe She's Mental

FINALLY I remembered to bring my camera to work when I could take pictures in the dark of the angel statue in my favorite garden across the street from my building at work..... He's in a garden of a Catholic church right near my employer.  The garden in the summer is GORGEOUS and I sit in the shade of her trees and company of her flowers and even a bunny rabbit or two to eat my lunch. To the right of this angel is a bench.  I had a few talks with my therapist Lizz (with 2 Zs)  who helped me through some turbulent times in my life.  This angel has heard a lot!  :) As he is set in stone, he just stays where he's put and cradles that little darling baby in his arms.  That never made me emotional until now (everything has its time right?).  I am reading a book recommended by a friend of mine who does workshops on angels written by an Irish mystic - a woman who has - as long as she can remember - always seen angels and spirits of people who have passed....

Today is my late Grandmother's birthday.  I say IS because it always will be.  She always took the chance to mention that she was born on The Dirty First. :)  I ALMOST had my third child on The Dirty First, but alas, she came one day later... BUT I do believe she has a lot of qualities that are in line with her Great Grandmother whom she never met.  I like to tell stories about her though because she was such a colorful person.... unpredictable, youthful, eccentric, hard-working, independent, and strong.  Most of the time I combine all that into 'crazy', but in the most respectful way. :) One of my favorite memories of my Grandmother, who INSISTED on being 'Nana', was her swimming attire and activities.  She always wore a one-piece swim suit with a skirt of some kind, a swim cap, and a nose plug.  Then she'd dive off the diving board with hands separated and try to swim underwater all the way to the other end, but she would inevitably make a hard lef...

I just found out about this wonderful Celtic celebration called Imbolc that happens on Feb. 1st (my little firecracker's birthday).  It's a celebration of renewal and preparation.  It's half way between the Winter Solstice and the Spring Equinox. More can be read about it here: Celtic Junction Newsletter Article on Imbolc. Here are some snippets that I found particularly interesting: **The human being is a package deal, and avoiding one's whole self does not serve us. Brighid, the goddess of poetry, smithcraft and healing, can be a help and guide to the full embrace. It is her Feast Day, actually the Christianized Saint Brighid’s Feast Day, February 1, which is known as Imbolc – celebrating spring, lambing and lactation. ** **So settle into a warm, cozy chair with a cup of tea. Open reflective books such as Celtic Devotional by Caitlin Matthews. Explore creativity and spirituality. Consider the many ancient Imbolc prayers-to-the-elements found in the Celti...

In an attempt to get some quiet time at night after the kids go to bed, I instituted a new program for my almost 4 year old yesterday - 'The Three Strikes and YOU'RE OUT' program.  It never fails to amaze me how a technique can work wonderfully for one child, maybe even the second child, but the third comes along and blows it all out of the water!  I never even had to get to this level with #1 and #2, the counting up to 5 usually did the trick! Last night I told her about the program and she got ALL THREE STRIKES in about 5 minutes!  Now what?  Now I have her removing the strikes she got... by being a good listener.  She will likely be back to full strike status in no time this evening when it comes time to go to bed again... I do love her non-conformity.... and she's so darn cute I really can't get mad at her... my little firecracker.

I am constantly being reminded of this idea as explained in this quote from Penache Desai - 'Everything is in your favor.  Embrace it.  BREATHE into it.' I was feeling a bit under the weather last night, enough that I was on the couch for a good portion of the evening and even let the kids watch TV for a bit so I could just relax.  (Thankfully I now have a couch thanks to my 103 year old Grandpa's being delivered by my parents over the weekend).  Because I didn't have the energy to get out of my bed around bed time for the kids to put them all to bed (believe me it takes a LOT of energy - especially the three year old), I ended up sleeping with my two daughters.  My son decided the comforts of his own bed were superior to sleeping with all the women in his life... :)  My three year old took up half the bed and my eight year old and I shared the other half... doesn't seem proportional, but that's how it ended up.  I managed to sleep well anyway since ...

I had quite a few inspirational moments this morning.... the morning sun, a retiring co-worker giving her farewell speech, congratulatory notes from fellow dance friends after our performance yesterday in which one revealed a family member's sickness and recovery, many great thoughts arising from the celebration of Martin Luther King Jr Day, and routing some of my daily thought emails to individuals as we had JUST talked about something similar only yesterday.... oh the lovely orchestration of life! And here's one that I couldn't let go by without grabbing and holding onto (by posting on this blog. :)) .... “We travel because we need to, because distance and difference are the secret tonic of creativity. When we get home, home is still the same. But something in our mind has been changed, and that changes everything.” –Jonah Lehrer, “ Why We Travel ,” Panorama Magazine (Deccember 2009)  I just LOVE that! 

Nicely done Miss Cole: Life in "EWOP" Mode   |   by Dr. Marcy Cole, Ph.D At my sister’s 60 birthday party, she gave out bracelets that said “EWOP.” It stands for “EVERYTHING’S WORKING OUT PERFECTLY.” Most of us know what it feels like to have both high and low moments in life and in any given day. Sometimes we feel stuck, and then we break thru. Sometimes we are in flow and then can feel as if we are moving in slow motion; sometimes all seems to come together with grace and ease while other times it can feel like an upward climb. We plan perfectly (so we think) and then are invariably surprised by the unexpected. We can breeze through a situation and then find ourselves challenged by it. We can feel total clarity one minute and then utter confusion the next. Staying in the “EWOP” mode means that through it all...we choose to believe, remember and have faith that nothing is for naught. As my friend Kristine Carlson says, ”Som...

Sometimes I overflow on the photos (like I did in the last 2 posts today), but now I have to use my words - that's what you tell a toddler who's having trouble communicating AKA having a fit... 'Use your words'. Some might say that there are MANY meanings for little occurrences in your life.  And some might say that none of it has any meaning, but I am one who believes in finding meaning in little things.  I don't think I try to read into every little interaction in my life, but sometimes there are certain things, no matter how small they seem, that I just KNOW mean something.  One of those meaningful things is a brush I had today with a blue jay.  In the Indian chakra energy system, blue is the color of the throat chakra (spinning energy centers of the body - there are 7).  The throat chakra is also your expression; your truth.  Breathe.  When you breathe in Vinyasa yoga, you constrict the back of the throat to make it sound like ocean waves and t...

Try viewing this in the slide show mode... :)  I think if you double click on one image you'll get this option.  For the record, I was only wearing those thin little gloves out there today.... and it's Jan 19th! I could have stayed here for hours! Light is amazing! Get SWEPT away! God lives in this scene. The horizon is smiling.. :) These pines are the softest pines in the land! :) This is the difference between a 1/2 inch or so from left side pic to right side pic. This is the tree that talks (the fattest tree trunk of the lot)... I so LOVE this tree!

I was inspired recently from a local jeweler's ad series in the local magazine.  They're advertising getting your diamond ring engraved with I LOVE YOU and each ad is a wonderful picture of some form of inscription of I LOVE YOU somewhere.  The two I found going through old magazines in my office were 'I (image of heart) U' drawn on a frosty window and (image of heart) carved into a tree with 'I LOVE U' below it in the birch bark. I ripped these out of the magazine and cut all of the words pertaining to the jewelry store and hung them on my office door on the inside.  They are BIG and I will certainly see them every time I slide my door open to go out.  They are a message to myself and to anyone who leaves my office (not many people actually come in on a regular basis anyway). So.. now I think I'm going to make a unique one for each of my three darlings.... on a square canvas.  We'll see what I do, but it'll be fun and I hope they can understand ...

Sometimes I have no idea where emails I get in my 'use-this-email-for-all-newsletters' inbox come from, but I really don't care!  This one was awesome today!  13 quotes that can change your life - part 1.... ooo I LOVE quotes! Quotes from RUMI!  I've seen some of his quotes before, but not all so this will be good!  I. “Be grateful for whoever comes, because each has been sent as a guide from beyond.” II. “If you are irritated by every rub, how will your mirror be polished?” III. “Don’t be satisfied with stories, how things have gone with others. Unfold your own myth.” IV. “Let yourself be drawn by the stronger pull of that which you truly love.” V. “Forget safety. Live where you fear to live. Destroy your reputation. Be notorious.”   I think number 5 parallels my financial realizations yesterday... HA!  Maybe not the 'destroy your reputation' part, but the 'forget safety'!  Notorious... all I can think when ...

Where do you put your energy?  When you earn dollars, where do they go?  I had a meeting with my financial adviser yesterday (why do I always want to spell it advisor? ).   I had a lot of my pay check going to retirement accounts pre-tax.  I thought to myself... that's a very secure way of 'spending' your energy.  It's a sleepy way of managing your energy... put it away for 65+.  We all know that we are not promised tomorrow and yet almost 20% of my pay check was going to sleepiness.  I want to put my energy to LIFE and LIVING!  So I promptly went into my contribution amounts and kicked it down 2%... HA!  Yeah I know.. such a big change!  :) This budget thing is becoming a reality!  I have lots of trips to go on this year!!! (in my head anyway) ;)

So recently I have come into contact with a man who owns about 15 mules and loves their kind of equine to pieces!  That's possibly why he owns a bunch of them.  Anyway, the first conversation we had about them he said that they come from a horse Mom and a donkey Dad and are sterile.  Noted. This weekend I was talking to a friend Jean who owns a mule named Marshmallow (of COURSE I remembered that name - I think she was impressed, but come on!  What a great name!).  I remembered the name, but I didn't remember that she was a mule.  'She' will become important here.  Jean was talking about Marshmallow using 'she' and 'her' and I was confused.  So I asked her 'How do you know she's a she?'  Blank stare... Jean was trying to be nice, but she was also confused.  "Because she has girl parts.'  And I just BURST OUT LAUGHING!  All along I thought all mules had NO genitalia because they were sterile.  We both nearly split our fa...

I got a wonderful compliment last night as I came off the dance floor at a dance-a-thon to get some water almost right after my honest-to-the-core-three year old told me I was 'all sweaty and red in the face'... :)  Anyway, another Mom who was sitting out in the audience talking to another Mom said to me - 'We have decided that you are the best Mom dancing out there.'  (hehehe... there was MAYBE one other Mom out dancing)  But anyway, I thought it was nice of her to say.  I had come from my own dance practice so I was in my over-sized I <3 Dance sweat pants so I was in-costume and already had that sweaty film so I thought I'd just go for it. :)  I really CAN'T pass up an opportunity to dance - AND it's quite entertaining to dance hip hop style with young ballerinas!  :)  They go with an upright dance posture and I'm more in flux- it's the ballerina breed.... :)  They'd totally give me a schooling in my pointe shoes though!!!!  Maybe toni...

I think it's been a couple years since I put up a flip chart paper on the wall of the 'penthouse'  (the handicapped stall) in the women's bathroom on my floor at work.  I used some tropical colored markers and titled it 'Inspiration for the captive audience'  or something along those lines.  Then I would use post-it notes in various colors to decorate the paper with quotes or cut out little snippets from magazines about health and happiness and living fully... etc... Other people would contribute their quotes as well, but I was kind of the 'keeper' of the chart. It was getting faded and even I was getting weary ( I tend to have more energy for such things than most ) of putting up new quotes so I took it down this week and made another.  This one has no title, but it has a border of color - from the paint color cards I had lining my office door.  It has only one quote on a HOT pink post-it note from Joseph Campbell - “The privilege of a lifetime is bei...

I subscribe to this and that email/newsletter/lists and have reduced my volumes by only keeping those that I truly enjoy daily.  Today I got a gem from entheos: http://www.entheos.com/ideas/alan-seale/1487/breaking-up-your-root-ball?c=3673 And here's the link - Root Ball Analogy Here's the text below if you don't care to leave.... Breaking Up Your Root Ball Posted: September 4, 2012 @ 1:20 PM | By: Alan Seale   Recently I was planting some rose bushes and was reminded how much gardening has to teach us about life. When you transfer a plant from a pot into the ground, you first have to break up the root ball so that the roots can breathe and receive nourishment from their new environment as well as stretch out into new territory and keep growing. While breaking up the root balls of the roses, I was reminded of how growth and change work in our lives. By nature, our “roots” conform to the containers we...

Too much crunch for comfort I had a bit of a fender cruncher about a month ago that left my cruiser unable to be driven and needing 18 days in the shop to be fixed and back to original form (and it still smells like a new paint job - so this is a FRESH refurbishment for Eileen (that's her name)). After I picked up my all fixed up Eileen, I took her on a drive north to meet up with a dear friend and her husband and his entire family at a cabin on a lake (without running water and in the winter :)).  My friend and I decided to go into town one of the days and get some coffee... and I wanted to get post cards (LOVE POST CARDS).    The COLD seat This is the way they fish up north. - collapsible fish house and 4 wheelers On the way in, I was driving on the windy roads around the lakes in the area and came upon a curve with what looked like an immobile seal in the other lane.  I slowed to a stop and realized it was a dog just chillin' in the other ...

Have you ever had a dream that ends with a three-legged tarantula hissing as it's standing on your head right above your left eye?  I don't know if they actually hiss, but I think it was my imagination's sound effect for fangs coming out...  Why would someone walk toward you holding this thing and expressing that it only had 3 legs and that creature somehow ended up on your head?  HA!  All I could think when I woke up after the hiss was... remain still and tell the tri-tarantula that you mean no harm.. in your thoughts. Looking up spiders in dreams I found quite an array of meanings... if you're bitten in your dream it means you're trying to escape an overbearing female/mother figure in your life... another interpretation is that you're being manipulated or are manipulating... another that you are stuck (as a fly would be in the web).  Alas they had no exact meaning for a 3 legged tarantula spider that somehow got thrown onto your head and hissed, but never bi...

This morning on my way into work the world was gorgeous!  Jack Frost had coated the trees and the pines ESPECIALLY look amazing when he's in action.  Couple that with some fog, which in the winter is not common in the northern states, and a beautiful sunrise (Fozzy Bear had a great line in the song 'Moving Right Along' from the Muppet Movie that I always remember when I remember which way is East or West - it goes 'Hey I've never seen the sun come up in the WEST! :) ) I didn't have a camera handy to capture this so I'm drawing my own interpretation of the scene... hopefully it captures it for you...granted it's in black and white so it might be difficult to capture the diffused color....  :) hehehe... :D

Today when I got into work, my friend Roz (and therapist actually, but thankfully not mine... :)) had written to me about forming a group to keep up the discussions we had started during our Resilience class during the summer.  We had studied topics such as gratitude, mindfulness, forgiveness, acceptance... and many more concepts, but you get the idea.  I CERTAINLY DO want to be a part of that group which she told me was comprised of (so far) Jim, the chaplain (pastor-like hospital person),  herself (the Jewish therapist), and her friend Loretta whom I have not met and know nothing about her except she must be saweet if she wants to further her efforts in these areas. Her note was entitled 'DO NOT POSTPONE JOY'.  Now that's an eye catcher!  That meant that she wanted to meet sooner rather than later so it looks like rather than going to my 11 am yoga class on Friday, I will be catching the 6 am version instead - never been done before for this sleepyhead. ...

I'm going to keep this in my back pocket for a couple years down the road, but tonight I figured out how to impress some of the 'older' girls at dance... just show them how you can do the splits and teach them a few things about stretching and you can just see in their eyes that they are hooked!  They will 'play' stretching with you for at LEAST 15 minutes.  :)  They showed me each leg of their splits as well as the straddles and even though one of them was NEARLY down to the floor in the straddles, she thought she was not close.  I reassured her she was super close.... and it was so darn cute when her expression changed as she realized she nearly had it! I think I have to teach some dance... hmmmm what flavor?... :)  SO many options! I think also just talking to them will do it... about dance in general.  I get questions like - "If I have better balance will that help me with my spins?"  "Why yes it will!"  They always hang around showing me...

As others are hitting the gym and scaling down their eating for the beginning of the year, I had two lunches today! :)  One... my prepared super greens salad from home and Two... a Cuban sandwich from the local bakery in the subway with coleslaw...   One might argue that my first lunch was just an appetizer or warm-up, but I usually just go with that and am fine... And now I'm listening to Andrea Bocelli - who am I sure is a solid eater (but not as proficient as Pavarotti).  :)  MAN his breath control is amazing!  I wonder if he practices yoga... :) Not too long and I'll be eating some chili and corn bread with the doodles! :)

I just did it again so I had to write about it... I make sounds when I do things... like tabbing on a keyboard... I tabbed from the username field on my login form to the password field and made this noise 'fwit'.  When I put my keys in my pocket earlier today, I made this noise 'shoop'.  When I shave my arm pits in the shower, I make this noise 'chshhhhhh' as I do each swipe... When I was throwing clothes into the dryer earlier, I made some other noise 'fwoup'... it makes me laugh every time! The End

Since I have mentioned my Cowboy Caviar and then found a really good secondary use for it, I thought I'd post the recipe and alert you to the possibilities outside of the original scope of salsa-like chip dip. Recipe from 2000 Better Homes and Garden 'New' Cookbook (Limited Edition so I'm SURE you don't have it.. :) HA) Cowboy Caviar pinto beans, orange pepper, and shallots replacement ingredients Prep time 15 min.   Chill (no YOU chill. :)) 12 hours 1- 15 oz can black eyed peas 1/4 cup thinly sliced green onions/scallions 1/4 cup finely chopped red pepper 2 cloves garlic minced 2 TB olive oil 2 TB cider vinegar 1 to 2 fresh jalapeno peppers - seeded and chopped 1/4 tsp pepper dash salt Combine all in a bowl.  Cover and chill overnight. Note:  I used pinto beans, shallots, orange pepper and white balsamic vinegar and it tasted yum too... Recipes are always a guide, but I don't always have exactly what they call for so I improvise. :) ...

Having leisurely mornings is something that I am enjoying immensely as of late.  Today was no different.  I woke up did some correspondence and headed up to my painting project to dot some i's and cross some t's.     Of course I got a bit carried away because I couldn't let good paint go to waste and went into the Little One's closet to add some more to her mural... when I returned to my iPod dock, it said it was past the time to get out of the house for Sunday morning yoga!  DOH!  Plus it's January and it's really full in January.. full of people with great intentions... I'll just leave it at that.  :) I thought, this is the FIRST time I was able to go to this class on a Sunday (with my favorite teacher) and I am going to jet out of here and make it!  And I did... BUT I forgot my badge to get in - thankfully you get one 'forget' time and I know the people at the desk so they know I'm legit.  WHEW! I made it... I'm on the mat.  It'...

If you can do portion control - try this... get the peanut butter jar ( I use creamy salted trader joe's) and a tub of chocolate ice cream and a spoon.  Scoop out some pb.  Scoop out some ice cream on the same spoon. Eat!  Repeat! :) This is where you need to be able to retain portion control.  Hopefully you can because it's DELISH!  I won't have to worry tonight because I only have a small amount of ice cream left in my tub. :) Back to it! :)

So I mentioned in my first post that I would explain the title of this blog later and I guess it's time... Packers and Vikings are playing in the background and I would rather write.. although I did partake in some 'cowboy caviar' which is a salsa of sorts as part of my football party food put together for a football gathering that I decided not to attend... So "Maybe She's Mental" is a little something that came to me in the woods (of course) because of a certain happening in my life that caused unnamed people to think I needed psychiatric help.  If you change your behavior from what everyone expects of you, you probably need therapy and subsequent medication for a 'condition' that was brought on from stress or other traumatic event.  Can you get out of a psychiatrist's office WITHOUT medication?  I don't know and I don't intend to find out. I also tend to have random thoughts that could seem strange to others so I could see them think...

Ok I have my photos uploaded from my 'hike' today.  It's quite amazing how much BETTER these scenes look in the now.  I actually thought of that whilst I was taking the pictures, but I had to take them anyway to see if they turned out.  I must note at this time that the BEST photos I got were when I stopped on the side of the road when I saw an amazing view of the sun.  I used to just note and drive by usually because it was not convenient to stop, but not this time... and I was rewarded... hopefully you will be too! So.. the theme music for this trip is:  'Out of the Woods' by Nickle Creek   Hear it Here!   Open it in another tab and listen as you read.  It's quite nice.... good harmonies... LOVE harmony! Run round in my head for sure!  I did have plenty of thoughts running through my monkey brain, but that's why you go into the woods... to quiet those... and it ALWAYS works (at least for me).  I also had decided that I would not be...