Sharing My World 77

Share Your World – December 4, 2017

What household chore do you absolutely hate doing?

I half-assed hate all of them.  Vacuuming (and sweeping and washing and polishing) floors is brutally hard on my back.  And even when it isn’t I will complain that it is.  Cleaning bathrooms is puke inducing.  Laundry is just an annoying pain in the ass.  I guess it’s ass day here at Breathing Space headquarters.  Sorry.

Okay, if I absolutely hate it, it’s probably something I never do, like washing walls or cleaning blinds.  It’s insane to ever do something you absolutely hate doing.  Nothing insane about me!  My daughter dusts my blinds.  It’s just one of the many reasons why I love her.

At what time in your recent past have you felt most passionate and alive?

Right after I retired and really, ever since to some degree.  Except I’ve calmed down a tad lately and no longer wake up every morning screaming in my brain OMFG I DONT HAVE TO GO TO WORK TODAY OR TOMORROW OR ANY OTHER DAY EVER UNTIL I DIE!  And not even after that, as far as I know.  I guess going to work was a chore of which I was less than fond.  Not that my job was horrible, it’s just that being the boss of my own time is infinitely better.  I certainly roll my eyes a lot less.

I have passionately pursued my art and redecorating and decluttering since retiring.  Along with sleeping in.  That is a popular one.  Now I believe I’m in a transition phase, although I have no clear vision of where I’m transitioning to.  Hopefully it’s not permanent couch potato status.

How many times have you moved in the last ten years?

Zero.  We are stuck in a house bound rut.  I just counted on my fingers sixteen different places I’ve lived, but don’t quote me on that because my math skills are less than stellar.  Our next move, should we choose to get off our asses and make one, will be to something smaller with no stairs and minimal yard work.  Preferably self-cleaning.  My mother-in-law, in her nineties, still lives in the two-story, laundry-in-the-basement home W grew up in.  I don’t know whether I should call that amazing or just down-right dangerously nuts.  Well actually I do know, but I try to be polite and mind my own business most of the time.

I hope we both are smart enough to know when it’s time to down size and simplify and give up doing things like cleaning out eaves troughs and trimming trees and driving vehicles and operating machinery and going up and down stairs and cooking eight course gourmet meals.  (Already ditched that last one, if it’s possible to ditch something you’ve never actually done before in your life).

What inspired you or what did you appreciate this past week? Feel free to use a quote, a photo, a story, or even a combination.

I love that my grandchildren are growing up and heading ever closer to adulthood and even though every one of them faces difficulties and issues and growing pains, it’s okay.  Because I’m not the one who has to deal with it.  Haha.  Yeah.  That IS a selfish bad grandma attitude despite the fact that of course I’m here if I’m ever asked for help or advice, but I’m also perfectly happy to stay out of it.  Our parents had confidence in us to deal with our kids without interference and I have the same confidence in mine.  So the inspiration for that little rant came from a weekend visit and conversations with my son and with my daughter-in-law.  Yes, kids, we talk about you when you’re not around, but you are in good hands.  Just don’t be assholes.

I’m running out of ways to incorporate the ass word in this revealing share, so I see no point in going on.  Plus I’ve taken the “sitting still” thing to its maximum limit for today.  Oh, who am I kidding.  There is no agreed upon limit for that.

Good Intentions

The Impassioned Singer (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

He runs a ring around the rest of them, always ending up at center stage;  intense, melodramatic, passionate, extreme.

They pour cold water on his ambitions,

believing they can save him from himself.

*****

Trifecta Challenge: This weekend we are giving you three words and asking for you to give us back another thirty of your own, making a grand total of thirty-three words.  Your words to work with are:  ring, water, stage.

Ten Things You Should Set On Fire

1.  Your bra.  You know the one I’m talking about.

2.  All notes and letters in your possession containing dangerous secrets.  It’s faster and more effective than eating them.

3.  Your mortgage, once it’s paid.

4.  Zombies.  I don’t know about this one from personal experience, but it sounds like good advice to me.

ADELE – Set Fire To The Rain (Photo credit: [ captivated ])

5.  The rain, if your name is Adele.

6. Those incense sticks and the aromatic decorative candles that are just sitting around collecting dust.

7.  Your imagination.

8.  Your passion.

9.  Someones heart.

10.  The world.

For numbers seven through ten, don’t use real matches.  But do say something cool like ‘burn, baby, burn.”

Does anyone burn autumn leaves anymore?  We pay yard people to clean them up and cart them away.  We used to rake them up and put them in clear plastic bags to be picked up and composted.  Well, I never did any raking, W did it all.  I’m very opposed to the whole idea, feeling strongly that leaves are meant to cover the grass and protect it from the ravishments of winter.  And then we can all be doubly annoyed with them in the spring.  Plus raking is hard work and I’ve never been a strong advocate of that, ever.

I remember when we were kids jumping into a gigantic pile of leaves and then having to clean up the mess all over again so we could light them on fire.  The smell of burning, smouldering leaves is something so wound up in the whole concept of fall that it’s hard to think proper autumn thoughts without it.

But I guess there’s enough things being set on fire these days.  No need for any more smoke getting in our eyes.

How One Thing Leads Backwards to Another

It’s dangerous to let me wander around unattended in the self-help section of a large bookstore.  I get ideas.  I bring them home, and then I share them.

I don’t think Mike Dooley will mind if I tell you to buy this book.  And I don’t think you will be disappointed in my advice if you take it.

It won’t take up much of your time to read all of it, but if you’re anything at all like me, you’ll spend the same amount of time going back to the beginning and skipping through it one more time to re-read all the things that made you smile and laugh and feel truly amazed and so emotional you wanted to cry.

In a good way of course.

Now that I’ve read more notes I’ll read the original Notes from the Universe which I’ve downloaded to my kindle. Along with Leveraging the Universe because I think these two books will be equally amazing and because I seem to like doing things in multiples of three; going backward or forward apparently doesn’t matter to me.

If you were here with me now I’d happily lend you this delightful little book to read for yourself.

Sharing a couple or three passages here will have to do for now.  These are the pages I’ve stuck the book jacket flap between because the words touched me in a way I can’t explain.  It’s a comforting thought to believe that souls come back to live again, and that we each choose our own circumstances before starting the next adventure.  We won’t have any idea why we picked this particular life until it’s over and only then do we get to see what we’ve made of it, one way or another.  Maybe it’s a little crazy to think that way, but on a crazy scale of one to ten I’d give it a middle of the road 5.  People have believed way stranger things.

If these particular passages don’t speak to you in any profound way, don’t worry.  There will likely be something in this book that does.  Maybe lots of things. (Maybe nothing!)   Maybe it will change your life.  Maybe it won’t. Whatever you decide, it’s nice to have a choice.

Have a great weekend.

When I’m At My Best

Well it’s not first thing in the morning, that’s for sure. Especially if there’s some reason why I must get up and get ready and get going. Talk to me after I’m showered and dressed and have had my coffee if you value your life.

And it’s not last thing at night when I’m tired and drained and can’t keep my eyes open. You shouldn’t trust the accuracy of anything I happen to mumble at you when I’m half asleep and nodding off.

And I know it’s not in a crowd, or surrounded by negative thinkers or when there’s an undercurrent of stress in my day or when I’ve over-committed to too many things and have no idea how I’ll handle any of them well. Or when I’m being rushed. Having to hurry irritates the hell out of me.

I’m at my best when I’ve had enough sleep and am well rested and alert.

I’m at my best when I don’t skip meals, when I drink lots of water, and eat nutritious healthy foods and snacks, get enough protien and just say no to sugar in all its refined and sneaky disguises.

I’m at my best at work when the expectations are clear and realistic and the methods to meet them are of my own chosing. I’m best one-on-one for problem solving, when I have time to really listen and empathize and decide what we need to do to make things better.

I’m at my very best when I can relax with no distractions and focus and concentrate; when I can engage myself fully in the things about which I feel passionate.

All that being said, here’s how things are going so far today. It’s my day off so I slept in. Then I had to rush around and try to make myself look half assed presentable for the furnace guy who got here twenty minutes early. So I haven’t showered yet. I’m sorry he had to experience and cope with that, but it’s his own damned fault. I made coffee and I’ve managed to consume two large cups of it. I made my breakfast in the blender – juice, yogurt, frozen fruit and protein powder. I’m drinking it now. I just wrote a cheque for the furnace maintenance, and now that that’s done and he’s gone and half the morning is as well, I’m reading this over and deciding that due to all the interruptions, it perhaps is not my best work.

Too bad. I’m going to go shower now. Do your best to deal with it.

Thrown Away

I wish I had never thrown away my diaries.  And papers and poetry and notebooks and stories and public speeches (I’m not kidding, I used to write speeches!) that I started compiling pretty much from the time I learned how to print.

Of course 99% of it was no doubt insignificant drivel, as evidenced by the few pieces that have survived the years,  but there might have been some hidden gem in there.  Now I’ll never know.

When I met ‘the love of my life’ and knew it was serious I also wanted it to be perfect.  So I had to be perfect.  With no sordid past.  One weekend I came home and gathered up all my diaries that I’d been keeping for the last dozen years of my life.  There wasn’t time to sort through them or even give much thought to what I was doing.  I just lugged all of them down to the wood furnace in the basement, ripped them apart book by book, fed them in small doses to the flames and watched them burn.  Getting rid of all the incriminating evidence.  I’m not kidding, those were the exact words I had in my head.

I suppose it’s some indication of how important the relationship was to me, that I didn’t want anything to put our future happiness in jeopardy.  I thought if he ever found out about even half of the things I did before I met him he’d be completely put off and disillusioned.  So all the damning data went up in smoke.

It was all pretty pointless.  Turns out he is a complete respecter of privacy and not even all that interested in how I got to be me.  I probably couldn’t have forced him to read one of my journals at gun point.  He’d have given up after a couple of pages and reached for the newspaper or a biology textbook, both of which he would have found infinitely more fascinating.

So all that teenage history of angst and passion is gone.  All the names and dates and crushes and mad flings, hopes and dreams.  Although even if they’d survived the years and our various moves over all this time, there’s a very good chance I’d have destroyed them all eventually anyway, if only to save myself from potential embarrassment.

But man, there were a lot of stories in there.  The honest truth, because in a diary you don’t lie to yourself.  Now I have to rely on selective memory and invent the details and I’m probably not getting it right at all.