A Beautiful Story Of Changing the World

While visiting a young couple that has a ten year old son I asked about his work and what the father was doing to pursue his dream of getting back into the animation field, his first love of work. He said he had no time for his personal pursuit as he was raising his son now and providing income for the house and the upkeep of it with employment. Once he worked his salaried job 12-14 hours seven days a week sometimes what little time he had left was spent with teaching and playing with his son and being with his wife. He actually takes breaks during his shift to come home and have lunch with his wife and his son. They both work but tag team parent to be with their child always. No day care for their precious child. They understand they get ONE chance to raise this child, no do overs.

I told him I noticed he and his wife always scheduled work time around their son.  He said, "Yes, our son's care by us is the priority."

He told me this story, and said, "Stop me if you have heard it."

There was a father who was reading a newspaper and his son came to him and asked him to play but he was busy.  His father saw a world map in the newspaper and cut it out. Then he tore the map into individual pieces and gave it to his son. He told his son, "Go glue this map of the world back together and get no help from your mother. When you have finished bring the completed map to me, and we will play." The father thought this task would keep his son busy for an hour or more.

His son went to work immediately and brought the map back in a few minutes. His father said,"What is this? You did this map that fast? I told you not to get help from your mother, how did you do this?"

His son said,"Turn the map over Dad."

On the back of the map was a human face and it was easy to put the world map together with a human face on the back of it.

The moral of the story is, "How do you put the world back together?"
Answer, "One person at a time."

Spend time with your children today, answer their questions, play with them at home, and save the world of tomorrow. Work around their schedule of interests not your interest only. The children will be grown and gone from your house sooner than you know. Their interest while they are growing up is time with you, the parents. They need a father and a mother. They need you.

Happy New Year! 

Eleven Lovely Things for Thanksgiving

1)  Seeing the first snowflake in October in upstate New York knowing skiing, snowmobiling, and ice skating is on the way.

2) Watching squirrels twirl and dance as they circle upward on trees to store nuts for the winter.

3) Enjoy the sighting of a lone white birch tree in the midst of the silhouette of dark pine trees against the winter sky.

4) Hearing the sound of a distant train across the river at night and being amazed that we can hear the sound of the whistle so clearly far away.

5) Calculating the position of the sunrise and sunset as each season comes and goes.

6) Listening to the comforting, soft, low, owl's call, "hoo, hoo, hoo" in the spring at night.

7) Determining each type of bird call from the treetops as they communicate with one another in the spring.

8)  Hearing the first insect peepers and katydids change their tune depending on warm or cold temperatures letting us know the weather.

9) Becoming excited when darkest falls midday while in the West we see a wall of black clouds form to let us know a storm is coming.

10)  Sitting by an open door or window after the cat runs for safety, hiding in the basement, being in awe of the lightening and cracks of thunder as we wait for the next roar and crash.

11) I love having a Sweetheart of a husband that makes this list for me this year and supports my writing a book without fear of what I may write, that's a true friend.

Happy Thanksgiving, what eleven unusual things are you grateful for this year?

With Age YOU Get Wiser Because You Learn Patience with Boundaries

When I was a child everyone was in a hurry. Hurry up and get dressed, hurry up and get in the car we have to go somewhere, let me dress you, I'm in a hurry, you're taking too long, get out of my way let me do that, you are too slow, hurry up and go outside get out from under my feet, I have work to do and so I learned as a child I was not fast enough, I was in the way.  Being sent outside often with no choice, I became fascinated watching insects, snakes, squirrels and birds. I watched these creatures live as they built their homes and gathered their food with no stress it seemed.  Nature was so comforting to observe to this stressed little girl. I fell in love with life outside the house, it was peaceful there.

Years go by and I did not learn how to do much of anything by myself because I had no patient teacher.  I became a co-dependent because I was conditioned through lack of patient 'hands on' teachers to give me time to learn by doing it myself. Of course it would be slowly at first to learn, because I was a baby.  Fast meant I could not do anything for myself.  A child needs time to learn a thing the first time. I learned nothing in childhood that would serve me in the adult world except strict self denial of joy and I became very afraid of the world.

By the age of 12 I had an arsenal of failures to think about because I was constantly scolded for not doing anything fast and what I did was never right and had to be redone. The message I was taught "I was not good enough." I could not pass the test of impatient adults.  I was stressed, I began to have stomachaches, bite my nails into the quick until they bled, have migraines from early childhood.  The pain of this stress made me jump ship by age fourteen and I almost drowned in the ocean of self -doubt and while floundering to tread water in a world I was NOT prepared to live, but I discovered 'I was enough!'

The greatest surprise? I loved being in world where I could make mistakes and fix these myself. There was no one out here scolding me, telling me I could not make right decisions. The world was not as scary as I had been taught.  Swimming around in this ocean was great freedom and I fell in love with the peace of living free of negative self-talk.

Now I would need to reinvent me, decide for the first time what I wanted to become and how to get there.  I was free. Now there is no one to blame and no reason  to be stressed as long as I knew i had my back and I did.  No one was coming to rescue me, I learned that at 10 years old.  That's ok, I'm happy and I can figure this life out. I slowed down. I enjoyed nature. I sat in the sunshine and thought of nothing but the warm feeling on my skin.  I did not know it at the time but I was learning how to meditate and be patient with me.

It would be years before the migraines subsided, it would be years before I learned to make good decisions one after another but I learned.  It would take me years to uncover the real me, what I liked and did not like, and then set healthy boundaries to not get caught in another web of lies. Lies that were told me about me, I could change my life by changing my self talk. No one would influence my mind with negative self-talk about me, not even me.

To do this I had to SLOW DOWN. Get off the phone, turn off the TV, stop needing to be an rush to exercise, eat, go without sleep to keep moving fast and do the next scheduled event.  When the mental fast pace of stress was relieved I was able to accomplish more in less time and take care of me.  My advice to you now, take care of you, slow down, focus on self care, eat without an iphone on to entertain you, sleep without a TV on, exercise with time to enjoy the scenery, do not listen to sports reports while running for exercise, let your mind spend time doing daily tasks without thinking about anything but the present moment. Let your precious mind rest from the pressures of the world.

You and I are not here long on earth, let's enjoy what we have for a little while or we will miss it. The pure child like joy of being here. I will give you my code word to use next time you are getting anxious, say, "Adagios" and slow down. All is well and all will be well. Take a deep breath, say thank you for your life.  If you live to be old, you will learn this because you have to slow down to find your reading glasses again and again to read directions and not become angry for growing older. If you can learn this now while you are young, you will live a much happier life while you are young. Adagios.

Are You Comfortable with Yourself Enough to say, "I don't know?"

If we live a thousand times a thousand years and studied a million times a million subjects we can never know it all.  However many of us will fight to the death in a relationship to be "RIGHT" in an argument without facts.  Facts change everything from a personal fight to an uninformed opinion not worth fighting over, but we have to have the last word. I was guilty of this until I learned I did not have to appear perfect anymore. I know my boundaries but I'm open to learn of your boundaries.  Then we can make valid decisions that work for us both.

It was a brand new day and a weight lifted off my shoulders when I knew "I was enough" and  decided I don't have to prove myself everyday to everyone by seeming to know something about every subject.  Even if I know a lot, I can always learn more no matter how much I think I know.  Truth be known there is much I cannot comment on and I find it relaxing to admit, I don't know."

Who is an expert on any subject?  Who do I trust to speak authoritatively on the subject? Now that is different. What have you studied for more than twenty years?  Do you need degrees or life experience to be respected by me? I look for results in your life, degrees alone, don't make anyone successful in living a kind and compassionate life.  Living is the greatest teacher.

When I thought about this I realized I have been studying anger, how it originates and how to get rid of it since I was fourteen years old.  I was so consumed by my own anger I wanted to be free of it. No one in my immediate circle of family and friends were interested in the study of anger so I became a pioneer of this study for me.

My other interest has been what makes men and women tick to have a smooth relationship and what causes division between the two?  Both worthy endeavors have made my life easier. Today I may have a few insights into both but one thing I know I am no longer interested in being closely associated with angry self centered people that know it all. My future circle of friends will always include open heart people that engage in open conversations that welcome new ideas with positive attitudes to support others, not destroy people for being or thinking differently.


Men and women together, living in harmony, can be if we learn to listen to one another with open minds and open hearts and stop trying to control everything and everyone around us. To learn to control ourselves is the first step, anyone that can control self to respond with patient understanding to listen instead of reacting with judgemental controlling fear will bring peace sooner.

To say, "I don't know" is such a relaxing phrase and gives life permission to teach me what I don't know.  Thankful to be a student of life for the rest of mine. Perfectly content with imperfect me.
 

Eleanor's Way

Anyone that knows me well knows  I have read many books written about Eleanor Roosevelt and my favorite is authored by her eldest son, Elliot Roosevelt titled Mother R.  After all the books I have read, this one brought me full circle of her life and her thoughts about the life she lived now that she was old and many of the family were dead.

She knew her life was important and she had work to do for others.  Her acute awareness of the position she had as first lady with personal wealth, motivated her to do as much with her life as possible. People took advantage of her, family betrayed her, still she soldiered on with an olive branch in her hand. 

Her home in Hyde Park, NY., named 'Val-Kill' I have visited many times. The parking lot outside her cottage is a quiet place to have lunch, afterwards I would walk the 3 mile trail up to 'Top Cottage,' a place FDR had built to have alone time.

Walking in her footsteps thinking of her life and what she might think as she walked there, family problems, relationship problems, and later in life money problems, yet she sojourned on, with the knowledge she could manage any curve balls life threw at her and she did manage right up to the end.  I have silent reverence for her because of her ability to look at the mistakes she made with her own life and children and think if she had things to do over...  Still we can't go back but we can have regrets without judgments, facts not judgments.

We can learn from her mistakes, this is why I state over and over to parents to stay with you children, teach them to have fun being little before thy take on the problems of an adult world, those adult worries will be there forever after they are placed on those little shoulders.  Best to play as long as possible before those adult problems are your childish burdens.

Our son knew I liked nature trails and years ago made a nature trail in the back of our house into the woods for exercise and enjoyment.  Now that I am older, I walk that trail often and think of Eleanor and our son, both have huge hearts to give to others, and I 'm thankful.

I'm thinking of naming the trail "Eleanor's Way."

Back to writing my book, I plan to have it to the publishers this month, we'll see.  So if I don't write the blog as often as I'd like you know why. This book ain't going to write itself... back to editing... Thank you Eleanor and Steve. I love you.

If Your Situation is Tough, You are Surrounded with Pessimism, Get OUT!

Some people like the light talk, the light touch, easy comfort, me too but when it comes to pessimistic opinions about me and you, we have to face the facts.  If your life is full of dire circumstances of negativity, unbelief, criticism, poverty, fear of the future, dependency on others, you are in a pessimistic environment and this can make you angry and sad. Life is too short to carry this attitude every day. Turn off the TV, get new friends, and learn to enjoy your life. How?

If you are in this understand this, "IF" this is your life, take responsibility for your life because if you don't no one is coming to rescue you, no one cares about you and your negative situation in life.  Take charge of your life, do what you need to do to get out and make your own roads in life. Choose positivity, choose the higher road, and speak up for yourself, speak well of yourself even if your mother or father does not. Get out on your own.

Believe in yourself even if your family does not. You can make it on your own. You may not be living in luxury but you will be happier and free. When you are living in someone else's house for food and shelter you are spoiled and dependent. If you want your own life, go live it, go find it and make it a wildly successful life.

Later your family will respect you for it whether they tell you or not.  Realize this, if your life is a bad situation, you can change that, but can you change your thoughts about you? If you can't change your environment yet, you can change your thoughts about you while you are living there and preparing to leave.

Surround yourself with powerful positivity 24/7. Currently I'm making a compilation of videos that speak to me with several  powerful positive short 5 minute videos/audios to put on my phone to listen to often. I'm stepping up my game of mind set to abundance in everything.

My life is 100% my responsibility.  I love this! Let's win this game of life! Don't settle, you get what you settle for. 

You Don't Have the Right

People love to rescue people with answers to their personal problems.  Every speaker every book has an answer that works. And of course their heart is in the right place they are trying to help other people. That's good right? We all should help others, that's the goal right? If we can't help others we should give money to causes that help others. Right?

Men in particular like to tell others what to do, this works in the military but not in personal intimate relationships.  Black and white answers, take it or leave it attitudes do not create an environment of open communication from the two in a personal union.  This kind of authoritative rule of law is needed in a great number of collective people to live in peace as a nation but does not work in a family. The couple will find their own boundaries of what works for them with regards to respect and kindness.

Couple relationships that are equal in power and decisions are always respectful of one another and kind.  

When you become a parent it is your responsibility to train and teach and at times give answers for your child to learn how to solve their problems. There are many self-help books that tell you, now an adult, do this or that and your life will change, but what if your life does not change?  What if we believed in others to make the right decisions for our life and we tried their way but it did not work? 

Soon we see the answer that worked for that author or motivational speaker will not necessarily work for you and me.  And if you are already lost and afraid you may now add guilt and condemnation to your already long list of what seems like another failure to you, because this new book or this new mentor's solutions did not work for you.  More problems are created, unless you are narcissistic.

What if you consider you may have the answer inside but just need to uncover it?  This is the best discovery to know "You are enough, you have the answers inside, and you can unlock your mind of negative thoughts."

If you have a strong ethical and moral constitution no matter what happens in your life you will survive with self respect intact, you can bounce back.

No one is listening inside your head. No one can hear your thoughts about yourself so why not let bad judgmental thoughts go?  These thoughts of shame and guilt are not hurting anyone but you. We are here so few years on earth, why not love our-self, forgive yourself and love your life?  If you seek it, inner peaceful thoughts, you will find a way. 

Writing self help books, teaching online courses, sharing what works for you is good to inspire creative thoughts in others to choose their path but it is the reader's choice, OUR choice to take action to change our lives.  Therefore you should get the praise for your own salvation, not the author or speaker, that inspired you, YOU. You are enough!

You don't have the right, I don't have the right, as an outside speaker or author, counselor, or teacher to rescue others and deprive them of their destiny.  Your life, your choice, your reward, your destiny.

No one has the right to take the praise for the work you did to change your life. Pat YOURSELF on the back, job well done, YOU DID THIS!

You don't have the right to interfere, I don't have the right to interfere with your destiny.  You will arrive at your destiny with or without the rest of us. Mistakes are great, each teaches us what others cannot. We are the best teachers of our own life.

Enjoy your life, we are not here long. I believe in you. 😉

Producer's Commentary of YOU

My son and I were talking and he mentioned my curiosity of many things that lead me to research what's under the covers or behind that curtain. He said of every one he has ever met I am the only person he knows that watches a movie and then immediately watched the producer's commentary.

He says because of this curiosity I have, he believes I know more about a movie than meets the average eye.  "That's why I do it," I told him.  The producer and director know the thought process behind every scene, the lighting, the story, the actors, and it is fascinating. 

There is more that goes into making a movie than meets the eye.  Just amazing and quite detailed.

Having said this, this is why I read non-fiction books, I'm interested in what makes people tick.  What I've discovered,  people are good wherever you go and it is the minority that are malevolent. All of us are just doing our best and being nice to others along our way.

The book I'm almost finished writing this month is about this very thing.  What commentary is behind the scenes of our thoughts and why do we do what we do?  Once we figure that out we are home free.  Who is behind the scenes commenting on your life? We can change the scene if we choose, the actors, the lighting, or we can make subtle changes as needed. It is our life, our movie.

My 'movie' life has been a mystery at times, a romantic love story, an adventure film, a drama, a comedy, a horror film, but mostly a detective story.  The next move is always a welcomed fascination but one thing is for sure, I'm going to have fun.

Thankful for the genuine people in my life, this makes my life wonderful.

Lying in the Driveway

The first time I lie in a driveway at 2 am was in 1979. We lived in a rented cottage on a country road in upstate New York a little town called, Bethlehem.

Then we had children and we took them to lie in the driveway at 4 am in 2001 on silver insulation, we were installing in the house at the time. We were renovating a house we bought.

Then we had our new house in Selkirk and when the forecasts predicted we lie in that driveway at 3 am with pads and sleeping bags and kids in 2010.

Tonight 2019, at 2:45 am things are different, every one is grown and moved away but the hubby and I traipse out to the driveway now much more sophisticated and comfortable in our zero gravity lounge chairs, one for each of us and watch the meteor shower again.  15 tonight in an hour and ten minutes, pretty good count.

When invited last night, I hesitated and then thought, we have been doing this for 41 years this month, for me to stop now would mean to be old, and I can't do that, get old.

Thankful to be here one more year, seeing this beautiful night sky and with my boyfriend.
Happy 41st Anniversary Sweetheart!  Love you again this year.

Self Love, Couple Love, Family Love, then World Love, Love Has an Order

Thich Nhat Hanh, a Buddhist monk we have come to know and love, teaches these four elements of true love when asked about couple's love.  I agree but I also recognize as a man he has a single man's viewpoint that does not include the love and protection of a child. Rarely do Buddhists speak of the children and wife. The Buddha himself left behind his family in search of his own endeavor of wisdom. We agree he has found it, as a wife and mother I think of the wife and children he left behind never to return, his choice is not good for the his family unit. I don't care who he is, children and wives need a father and helpmate to raise children.

In fact Buddhists never mention the "harm" of the absence of a father from his family or the need for a coherent family unit.  Stability is needed between a wife and husband for a child to grow up in a healthy home with an independent and healthy self-image.  This is my discovery after years of studying Buddhism, as much as I respect and love the teachings, the focus on the world love, omits couple love.  Without couple love, and the family unit that produces kind, respectful, children, there will be no more monks, Dalai Lama, or Popes.

If you look at major religions of the worlds in history, and even Buddhism, (not a religion) there are no female leaders, no female Dalai Lama or female Pope.  Women are capable but men convince everyone that follow their doctrines that women are not able, and women allow the males to rule over them again. What do we as women and mothers need to do to open our eyes and stop accepting these male dominating edicts that do not serve females?  That's the question, it surely is NOT acting like men, leaving spouse and children behind, that is NOT working.  In fact this produces more of the same, families without husband or father, women carrying the entire responsibility of childcare and education, etc. and smothering the woman's loftier goals as an individual. We have to stop this cycle of abuse of the women of the world and in families.

Having said this, the definition of "True Love" has deteriorated to mean you don't protect yourself or your loved ones, you have to forgive every bad action instead of stopping it. Now we make excuses for bad behavior. Religious men and women think you must be forgiving of every bad action demonstrated, make excuses for the destruction of personal property, personal space, and even allow another to physically harm you as you turn the other cheek. This is NOT love of any kind.

True love according to Thich Naht Hanh has four elements and I agree with these:

1. You bring happiness to the other.

*** My thought of this...(You don't make the other happy, you bring greater happiness to the other. No one can make you happy but yourself, do not look outside yourself for personal happiness. Another in a relationship may make you happier but not happy.)

2.  You have compassion for the other.

***My thought of this...(You have compassion for the confused, sick, or violent person but you do not allow this malevolent action to continue in your house and home.  How you decide to deal with this is your choice, but do not allow this to continue in your own house and family, you are not a sacrificial lamb.

3.   You bring joy to the other.

***My thought of this...(Through your presence in the other's life you bring laughter and                much  peace to the home and being with each other. You feel safe with this person always. You help one another achieve goals in life.)

4. You know that the other is not separate from you in that you include their feelings and their uffering with you. You feel for the other person, you see you are not separate.  When you achieve this oneness with one other person then you can love the world and see you are not separate from the world's suffering. This is Buddha's love of the world.

***My thought of this, especially as a woman and mother, (You do know you are a unit when you have a baby, you do know you go through the tough times and the good times together when you are a couple, you work things out, if you have done the first three mentioned above, there is no physical violence in a home. You do know you are one with the world however you do not let a malevolent individual steal the peace of the family.  The world does not come before your personal family or self.

The environment of the neighborhood, the community, the town, the state has to be safe to raise a family in and if there are individuals that are causing harm to others, these must be stopped for peace to be the prevailing atmosphere.  When the majority of the people of the world are seeking to be as peaceful as Buddha, then yes, we all can live and let live, but when there are confused and malevolent beings among us, these must be taught a more  peaceful way, and the law is needed to restrain violent actions of such people.

Thankful to live in the USA.

Nope, We are Out of Ketchup

My husband and I were having a cup of coffee after dinner still seated at the table. Our little 5 year old waitress came up dressed in white ruffles with pink edging and sparkly white and pink tenny shoes with a small spiral pad and a pencil and said, "I'm your waitress, what do you want?"

So my husband and I smiled and he said, "I would like a hamburger with cheese, tomato, lettuce, pickle, on a sesame seed bun with a side of onion rings, and an unsweetened tea."

"Ok, she said" as she scribbled lines on the pad, she had not learned to write yet.

She turns to me and asks, "What do you want?"

I thought, "Not the friendliest waitress we ever had but..."

I order a grilled cheese sandwich with mayonnaise, tomato, on whole wheat with a side of fries and a water with lemon."

"Ok, I'll be right back!" the waitress goes into the first floor pretend bedroom kitchen and returns to say...

"We're all out of tomatoes. What else do you want?"

She still has her pad and pencil.

We both say, "The same without the tomatoes."

She scribbles on the pad again and says,"Ok." and she leaves again.

Now she returns and says, "We are out of onion rings, what else do you want?"

Pulling out the pad to scribble again.

My husband says, "I'll have fries like your mother."

"Ok." Back to the bedroom, a pause and then she returns again.

"We are all out of cheese." Out comes the pad with pencil in hand waiting...

"Ok," Dad, "I'll just take the burger without cheese.

Mom, "And I'll just have the fries."

She scribbles and off...

Now she returns to announce they have no buns or bread.

"Ok."

Now mother says, "It would be easier to ask you, What do you have that we can eat?'

She says, "You Dad can have a burger and you Mom can have fries."

"Sounds delicious! Thank you, we'll have a burger for dad and fries for me."

She goes to the pretend bedroom kitchen and comes out without the pad and has pretend plates in her hands. She places these invisible plates in front of us on the table and says, "There."

Then she places pretend drinks in front of us, and says "Here's you tea and water."

"Is my lemon in there?"

"No, we are out of lemons today."

"Ok, thanks."

"I say this looks delicious, and we are so hungry, thank you."

She smiles and looks so happy we play along with her imagination.

I say, "Can I have some ketchup for these fries?'

She says, "Nope all out of ketchup today too."

I should have known better... 😉

Happy Birthday to our wonderful creative daughter, all grown up she is still a barrel of laughs and fun and she is still in charge of her own life. So thankful for the woman you are, so proud of all you have accomplished in life and the many laughs we have together as always.

Love always, Mom & Dad