Debbie Downer Days

Do you ever wake up a different person? You went to bed all happy and woke up all sad? Who is the person with my body laying in bed all Debbie Down in the Dumps  . .  not wanting to get out and start the day with a zip in her step and a song in her heart? Did the bluebird of happiness fly off in the night to meet up with a nightingale and leave you chirpless?

Here’s a few things you can do . . . 

Call a friend that will tell you that you deserve to be a Little Debbie today because of this and that and get validation for your feelings of lowliness. Once you’ve gotten it out to a sympathetic ear and hear that it’s okay to be you no matter who you are, then call a friend that makes you giggle.

Now you can laugh at yourself with someone and begin to feel pretty good. Life is funny, your friend is funny, you’re funny and the situation you find yourself in will pass.

While you’re talking with this kooky friend you can simultaneously open up a can or a bottle of Coca-cola, pour it over some crunchy ice, and let the fizz give you that cleaning out feeling as it goes down your throat like Draino through a clogged sink, taking with it your woes, freeing up what is making you sluggish. Who cares if it’s eight o’clock in the morning!

Now it’s time to show Debbie who’s boss. Pick out something colorful from your closet. If you don’t have anything but black on black then pick a wildflower from the side of the street as you go to work or take the kids to school and pin it to your shirt. Be real wild and put it in your hair . . .  without the bugs, of course. Decide you’re going to treat yourself to that People Magazine during your lunchtime. Go ahead! Who cares what the person behind you in line is thinking. Buy it and eat something that you normally wouldn’t eat, just for fun, and sit under a tree and have yourself a picnic. Tell Debbie Downer that you’re glad she can understand your woes but that she can take the rest of the day/afternoon/month off. You’ll call her if you need her.

In the meantime the sun is starting to come out . . .  today . . .  not tomorrow . . .  and you can be proud of yourself that you conquered your depression.

One day at a time, darling. Second by second, minute by minute, hour by hour. Life is full of itsy bitsy successes that pile up on each other to make one, big Yes!!

Hang in there. Breathe.

© Nancy 7.15.2010

A Butterfly Kiss From God

Sometimes you just need someone to tell you that everything is going to be okay.

Maybe you were two years old and got a “boo-boo” on your knee from falling down in the driveway.

Maybe your mom kissed it to “make it feel better” and your dad picked you up and told you that you were okay.

It doesn’t change

when you get older.

But if your mom or your dad aren’t around to kiss your hurts to make them better or pick you up, hug you, and tell you everything’s going to be okay . . . 

then what do you do?

Look around.

Maybe you’ll get a butterfly kiss from God  
  like I did yesterday.

I had heard something that was disconcerting and went out into my yard to water the flowers and be peaceful.

And a beautiful, orange and black butterfly landed on my shirt over my heart.

I looked down, then looked up, and said, “Thank You!”

Butterfly kisses from God

make everything better.


© Nancy 7.10.2010

THINK ABOUT IT ...

I went into a store the other day to look at the selection of books on the shelves. What to read . . . what to read.

Actually, I went in to take something back and the person at the register said that I could not be reimbursed but that I would be given store credit. So I walked over to the books and began scanning the titles. Since this store had items regarding the healing arts it contained stones, CD’s for meditation and massage, teas, and such. I just wanted something that I considered ‘normal’. I went to the book section and found all kinds of normal and out-of-this-world literature.

The book that caught my eye was a beautifully bound small one with a powder blue colored jacket, gilded paper edges, a gold ribbon for a bookmark, and the beginning words of a Bible verse on the cover: As A Man Thinketh by James Allen. This verse has to be one of my favorites and it comes from Proverbs 23:7. The first part of the verse reads “For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he." 

So I picked it up, it felt good in my hands, and I wondered if I had read it back in the 70's when I was reading not only the Bible for the first time but also inspirational books by Dale Carnegie, Zig Ziglar, Napolean Hill, Norman Vincent Peale, etc. I decided that if I had read this book that it would still be a good thing to have, that I really liked the look of it anyway and that I would buy it with my store credit.

I love the smell of new books. It is a smell of pages yet to be turned, words yet to be read, adventures yet to be experienced if only in one’s mind. This “Keepsake Edition”, in its original publication in 1903, did not have a brief biography of James Allen nor his final book entitled Eight Pillars of Prosperity. But it did have words that are powerful and thoughtful. Words which are now repackaged in 2010 and sold in bookstores under different titles and by different authors. There is no new thing or rather thought, may I say, under the sun. There are definitely new things . . .  ipods, Kindles, electronics of every kind. But new thoughts?

I don’t think so.

I have been reading a book about Indians and their plight. The book is written by a man who married an Indian woman and in the story, he incorporates Indian beliefs and sayings. He wrote that this particular tribe calls God ‘the Creator Who Creates By Thinking What will Be’. I would like to add some words to the end of this phrase and say ‘the Creator Who Creates By Thinking What Will Be And Speaks It Into Existence’.

Just look at chapter one in Genesis. 

So I thought to buy this book and said, “Thank you” to the person behind the cash register. Carrying this little blue-bound book in a bag to my car, I began to be excited about opening its golden-edged pages to read what James Allen thought to write about.

Here are some of his thoughts:

“A man is literally what he thinks, his character being the complete sum of all his thoughts.”

“As the plant springs from, and could not be without, the seed, so every act of a man springs from the hidden seeds of thought, and could not have appeared without them.”

“As a being of Power, Intelligence, and Love, and the lord of his own thoughts, man holds the key to every situation, and contains within himself that transforming and regenerative agency by which he may make himself what he wills.”

“The soul attracts that which it secretly harbors; . . . ” “Men do not attract that which they want, but that which they are.” (Does this sound like a popular book title to you or a new earth law?)

“The outer world of circumstance shapes itself to the inner world of thought . . . ”

“Good thoughts and actions can never produce bad results: . . ”

“The world is your kaleidoscope, and the varying combinations of colors which at every succeeding moment it presents to you are the exquisitely adjusted pictures of your ever moving thoughts.”

There are no new thoughts under the sun. Just new book titles and new authors and a new generation who will read the new books and think they are reading new thoughts.

I don’t think so.

What do you think?

© Nancy 7.5.2010

BLUE SKIES

Recently I wrote a blog about RAINBOWS. Today is all about BLUE SKIES.

When I got online this morning my main page had the age-old question, “Why is the sky blue?”, written with other questions and where to find the answers. Since I have asked the sky blue question myself, I read on. To make a long story short, I will give you a link so you can read the answer as well! But for me I just like a true blue sky. Why? It’s pretty!! It’s just that simple. It’s even prettier if it has bunches of clouds dancing around in it. The clouds can be huge and billowing or ethereal and wispy . . .  barely there . . .  transparent.

What do you like? Think about it.

But if you want details, here is a non-scientific-I’m-going-to-Cliff-Note-it-for-you-explanation to that question for not only you but for your little one that constantly asks “Why, why, why?”

Here goes: 

“Why is the sky blue?”

The sky is blue because that’s what you see with your eyes. But that’s not all that the sky is . . .  it’s really made up of some of the crayon colors in your Crayola Box. Let’s go get them and line them up on the kitchen counter.

Ready? Now get out these colors . . .  what you see in a rainbow. That’s right!! Those colors would be red, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet. Ask your parents to look up the word “indigo” for you. Remember the next time you see a rainbow in the sky that the tiny raindrops that are falling on your face are the very same thing that the light from the sky shone through and broke up into tiny colors of red, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet to form a big, beautiful rainbow. So all those colors are there in the sky but your eyes usually only see the blue on a clear day.

And here are some more facts about blue:

That color in the sky has, what really smart people found out, was a longer wavelength. You can understand that better as you get older and can know what a wavelength is, but for now, it means that it lasts longer and stays longer in the sky hanging around with the other blues just waiting for you to look up and ask the question, “Why is the sky blue?!!!”

But if you, mom or dad, want more details, then you can go to: http://www.sciencemadesimple.com/sky_blue.html
and try to answer your little one’s question to his or her heart's content. Or you can just take your little one's hand, go outside, point to the blue sky above, and say, "Isn't that pretty!"

© Nancy 6.28.2010

Happy Father’s Day,
DAD...

I Love You
!!!

HUMIDITY

It's HOT !!! Summertime hit with high temperatures this week and the humidity followed suit. Ugh. The more I age as a fine wine, the more I dislike feeling as if I am swimming through the deep end of a pool to get to my car in a steamy parking lot. Might as well carry a beach towel around my neck to dry off once I do unlock my car to get in and thank God, once again, for those individuals who envisioned the idea of air conditioning a home and then a vehicle.

But with the humid days of summer come the glorious thunderstorms and downpours that make even a shingled roof sound like your grandmother's tin roof out in the country. Ahhh . . the smell of fresh rain on the way with a promise of coolness is worth opening the front door to take a gulp of it into my lungs. Breathe in . .  breathe out. And the hot sun will begin to turn the tomatoes red-orange on the vine along next to the basil that will co-mingle on that white bread spread with mayo that will find its way into my mouth. Yum.

The zucchini and the yellow squash plants are producing big, beautiful leaves that hide the deep yellow flowers that will produce fresh veggies for my plate. Guess what? You are eating sunshine. Seriously!!! And I am fortunate to get two volunteer watermelon plants from seeds that remained in the garden from last year, surviving a few good snows. This summer I will wait a little longer before getting the juicy fruit off the vine to hear it crack open as I spear it with a long knife hoping to see that sweet, succulent strawberry color on the inside. Yum.

Maybe the humidity will bring back that humungous manna from heaven like mushrooms that popped up in my grass last summer. Unreal !! Look in earlier posts to find the blog on that one!

But the best thing is my friendly, young deer that has graced my yard in the evenings to eat my Knock Out rose bush and just look pretty. Two times I was almost in the yard with it as I crouched behind the catmintha while weeding the veggie garden. No sooner did I decide to come in the house and wash my hands but I saw the deer through my kitchen window come out from the neighbor's ivy and stand right where I was not a minute before. I am waiting to see my fox too. That was a blog as well. If you have been reading, you will remember that he/she was crippled and would rest in my flower garden during the cold winter to let the weak sun warm its bones during the day! But the spooky thing is the raccoon who came onto my deck one night while I was minding my own business watching my TV shows. You know how it is . . . you can't quite place it, but you feel as if somebody's eyes are on you, but you know you're the only one in the house. Then you look over and through the sliding glass doors in the dark are two masked eyes peering at you while you peer at the tube. Raccoons really do look like little robbers waiting for you to turn your show off and go to bed so they can sneak down your unprotected chimney and steal all your silverware. Just to show the furry ball that I was paying attention and received its vibe, I got up off the couch, grabbed a flashlight, and shone it through the glass and screen into the critter's eyes. It posed with one foot up in the air, staring back at my light, as if to say, “I'm a garden statue . .  don't mind me. You can't see me can you?”

Yes, you little nutcase!! Now don't do that again. But I would like to see my deer pop up on my deck and peer in one night while I'm watching Glee. That would be just too spiritual, and I hope I won't jump off the couch from fright but take it as a blessing.

So . . . what's your summer delight? The next time you feel as if you are swimming to your car with your three grocery bags full of hamburger meat to slap on the grill along with all the fixins, try to think cool thoughts and be thankful for the AC in your car, the freezer to put that chocolate chip mint ice cream in when you get back to your air-conditioned home and the family you get to share it with.

And if you are lucky enough to have small children still at home, then enjoy the sprinkler days of summer with your kids 'cause school will be back sooner than you think, and you'll be packing peanut butter and jelly sandwiches all over again from August until next summer. Ick.

© nancy 6.19.2010

Memorial Weekend

Memorial Weekend is coming up. What are you going to do? Same 'ol, same 'ol?

Why not do something different this year. If you always go to the beach, then go to the mountains instead. If you always stay home and cook out, then go somewhere out of town and eat at a restaurant. If you're waiting for a family member to figure out a plan, you figure one out instead and go for it.

If you haven't figured it out yet . . . let me clue you in . . . life is short. Don't make it boring.

But on the other hand, I have to admit that boring is better than an accident and you find yourself hooked up to IV's and who-knows-what-else in the hospital. That's what my mother and I said one day when I was helping her after she had a heart attack which led to a triple by-pass. We thought about the days in the past that we thought were boring and thanked God for every single one!!!

We thanked God for being able to wake up in the morning with our chests uncracked and our hearts un-by-passed. We thanked Him for the time flying by slowly so we could enjoy every crawling moment. We thanked Him for home-cooked meals and not hospital cafeteria food, being able to breathe fresh air, being able to walk down a hall all by ourselves without an IV pole following us like a dog on a leash!

So even if you don't stir things up this Memorial Weekend and do something different, just enjoy doing what you normally do. Go ahead and lounge in your big chair in front of the TV with a sweet tea watching the cooking channel while someone else grills out on the deck. Enjoy the aroma of the hamburgers and hot dogs as they near their medium-rare goodness before they land on your plate next to your potato salad. Smile while you watch your children or grandchildren play with each other even if they do yell, “Mom . . .  Bobby's breathing on me! Tell him to stop!!”

Whatever you do this upcoming holiday weekend have fun and thank God for those who made it possible for you.

© nancy 5.23.2010