Friday, What a Week!

Yes, it’s been quite a week. Two major things going on at once is rough. The Babe had his second followup yesterday, and today, the whole day is ours. I don’t want to leave home. I made Mom six grilled cheese sandwiches and she said to stay home. I need it. I’m staying home Monday, too. Then two days of stuff again. We’ll get through. Mom dubbed the Babe the “Fourth Man” of her four “man” team, of the Babe, Steve, Tim and me. We’ll get her through the changing times ahead.

All the learning in the world is no good if you cannot apply it. I’m amazed at how much writing has changed since the time I began my blog. If you are telling a story about something in your childhood, you are telling your recollection of how an event was explained to you or your recollection thereof. It may not be historically correct, it’s the story we are writing about. A lot of what we write is exactly that. It’s not meant to be a thesis, news story, or other report of fact. Recollections are different.

I started reading an old book today. It wasn’t required in high school, but I read it anyway, or so I thought. Let me tell you, I’m only twenty-one pages into the book, and it’s not anything I recall reading at all. Lots of life has been lived since then, and it’s no wonder the story didn’t remain familiary. It’s frightening, though. The thought-police are kind of all over the place now, and the world way different than when it was penned in 1945. Very thought-provoking. More on it later.

Due to the craziness in our life I’m calling it quits for today. Have a great rest of the day, and know we’ll see each other tomorrow. Take care, be safe out there.

Weekend, here we come!

Help Yourself First

Just as when we sit on an airplane, during the instructions from the stewards about safety, we hear, “If you are with a child or someone needing help, fix your own oxygen mask first, then help them with theirs.” It becomes apparent you cannot help someone if you are lacking oxygen. Makes sense, doesn’t it?

It does, unless we’ve grown up in a dysfunctional family, one who practices codependency. It’s not unusual for the adults to bluster, fluster, and scatter about, with high anxiety, and craziness everywhere, re-enacting “Who’s on First?” I’m glad to see almost every bit of self-care writing begins with taking care of you first.

It’s neurotic and just impractical to care to the health, welfare, and happiness of everyone else first. A natural answer to the question, “What can I do to others,” is not do for others so they don’t have to do for themselves. Enabling is just that – doing so they don’t have to for themselves. They will learn nothing if you do it for them, except to learn how to manipulate others into enabling them.

Certitude is the absolute conviction that something is true. Once we make others understand we are all here to take care of ourselves, we will have the confidence to set boundaries and enforce them. We will also be able to walk the walk and talk the talk. Not many of us can do both at once. It’s a difference in our lives we can be proud to model to others.

As we practice self-care and boundaries, we see the value in others doing for themselves. There is no contest for self-sacrifice, especially when it’s destructive to us and others. Having strong convictions about these things is what makes us good examples, citizens, and friends. Try establishing this as a habit for yourself. You’ll be glad you did.

As we get closer to Thanksgiving, it’s easy to feel alone and out of it. We may need to work at remembering how we are blessed instead of what we are lacking. Take extra time to be grateful and you will soon be changing your outlook. It is so very worth it. I remember years when the most I was grateful for was that the car started. Or it was paid for. And no one was ill or arrested or hungry. Look deep, you’ll be surprised what you realize.

Have a good rest of the evening, and we’ll see each other again tomorrow. Be safe out there.

#994 And Counting

Here we are, folks! We’re heading into 1,000 blogs published very soon. If you’ve a minute, please subscribe. I’d love to hit 1,000 followers just after the 1K blogs are published. It’s a goal, and one I’d be very proud to reach. I can’t do it without you, so please, help a girl out! Recommend me to your friends, share away!

Well, I had a topic all written, and my Chromebook decided to have an issue saving all those words of wisdom. It was stuck on Autosave forever. I exited. I was warned it might not save my work. It says that to me all the time, yet it still saves. CLICK. I was in the black hole of cyberspace. And I lost it all. About an hour and half of hard work, since the words didn’t come too easily.

My topic was addictions and how we can have our own opinions about the SCOTUS, I’m not landing one side or the other of that discussions. Now, we’ll punt, based on what happened about five minutes ago.

So here’s where a mostly positive person needs to practice what they preach. We can do one of two things:

ONE – you can let it ruin your entire day. You can focus on the hour and a half you just lost and you can lose the REST of the day by telling everyone you meet about your bad luck this morning. You can be angry, kick the cat, growl at your significant other and justify it by your bad luck this morning.

OR

TWO – you can get started on the work you lost, telling an entirely different story than you did first, laugh at yourself, your bad luck, and make it a great day in spite of your bad luck this morning. You can tell your friends about your bad luck, let them laugh with you, and know well, things happen. Even very experienced computer systems analysts have things happen. Not gonna ruin my day.

You’re perfectly free to choose ONE. I hope we don’t run into each other, though. I don’t need anyone to rain on my parade. One reason I’m choosing to be positive about it, is just by looking out my office/studio window, I can see things that cause wonder and happiness for me. Life is too good for us to waste it being crabby about everything.

I just was watching the little twin toddlers from across the street running through the sprinkler, laughing and having a fantastic time. Why don’t adults get to do that? Of course, my running days are over. I may stroll through the sprinkler. I would laugh and have a fantastic time, too. It’s fun. Why not have fun? There are no age limits on having fun.

Are you going to run/stroll through the sprinklers with me today? I hope so. We’ll have a marvelous time. And have ice cream. No one’s every grumpy when they have ice cream. At least, they shouldn’t be. I’ll meet you on Main Street. Noonish. How about that? Here we go. See you tomorrow!