Who goes there? Please leave comments so (An Aries Knows)!
My favorite gang.
Related: I had to find a new case for my phone. I’m happy I didn’t have to settle–found one I loved first try.
It’s rumored my life may become a little less crazy around mid January. Lynne and I have even decided to postpone our joint family Christmas celebration until then. Anything that I have to mail–it may make it by then, too.
Merry Christmas!
Answer in comments! See what other people say! Snoopy wants to know.
Organization! Color coding! Highlighting!
In other news, it’s possible my two petite dry erase boards will keep me sane as well as happy.
For as far back as I can remember actually talking to people and not hiding behind one parent or another or on the other side of the locked door of my bedroom from invaders who might destroy my toys or read my diary, I liked to ask random questions as a way to gain insight into people. (I’ve also always been a fan of run-on sentences.) In the days before I thinned my Facebook herd (Nora’s term for it), thereby turning it into the place where I basically just link to this blog or stalk my family, this was my favorite thing to do there in my status updates. For example, I might say:
Donald Duck or Daffy Duck?
or
John, Paul, George, or Ringo?
or
Dynasty or Dallas?
Questions that mean nothing to anyone under thirty forty, but you get the idea.
The other night while Tom and I were out running errands, I spotted this at Barnes & Noble and bought it. It’s a box of 156 cards (it’s true; I counted them), each containing a question “guaranteed to spark an instant conversation!” While I have lots more readers of this blog than I did when I was on LiveJournal, I have fewer commenters. Maybe y’all are shy the way Wee Becky was. So today I’m beginning “Snoopy Saturdays.” Please use my comments here to answer my Saturday question. Because that will make me happy.
If I grab fast food for lunch when I’m on the go, I usually ask for a bottle of water instead of a soft drink. Because that bottle of water cancels out French fry calories or whatever chemicals are in nuggets, right? Then I keep refilling the bottle through the day, and often I add a packet of peach tea to it, giving my water a nice amber color.
The other day, I had another liquid of an amber color on my desk (we were considering putting some on Margot’s feet to make her stop incessantly licking them), and I can’t tell you how many times I picked it up and almost unscrewed the top thinking it was peach tea. Though people do drink apple cider vinegar, I think taking a big ol’ slug of it when you’re expecting something else is one way to coat a computer monitor in apple cider vinegar. I finally had to move it back to its pantry location.
The root beer is just in this photo so I could include the two rams checking out my Koozie. They approve.
I have plenty of words. I could be posting them. But right now, I’d pretty much sound like a grumpy old person shaking my fist and yelling, “Get off my lawn!” Even though I’m not actually in a bad mood. To be honest, it’s hard to write when so many people are writing and recommending good books for me to read. I’m swimming and floating in zillions of delicious words from other people and so am reluctant to return to land and add my own words to the sea.
Some times are just meant for reading. And if you can’t write or don’t read… Puppies!
Speedee was so far ahead of my time that I didn’t even know he’d ever existed as McDonald’s first mascot. If you’d asked me, I’d have said Speedy was the little Alka-Seltzer guy. In fact, you can read here how McDonald’s gave up their Speedee in part to remove any association with Speedy.
You can teach an old dame new trivia!
This happens to me on Twitter about a lot of things. Also on blogs when the conversation turns to technology.
My mind is a constant storm of should be/should do/should think/should go. Sometimes that translates into action, sometimes not.
Often I impose structure by using this blog: for example, the year I wrote a poem each day from randomly drawn words; the year I used a family photograph each day to inspire me to record memories or events or observations about my relationships and life. This past year, I opted not to attempt a daily anything here, though I missed very few days of posting something, even if only a photo. Some months I participated in Photo A Day. Throughout the year I also featured books: favorite books, books authored by people I know, books that have meant something to me, books that I found fun, interesting, or insightful.
Also over the past year, I consciously cultivated an attitude of gratitude. For a while, I made daily entries in a gratitude journal (a real journal, not an online journal), and then I realized that I’d stopped because gratitude became ingrained in all my thinking–I no longer needed to write it to remember to feel it. I think that was, too, part of healing from the losses of 2012–and by that I don’t mean there is no more grief or sadness or yearning. Just that it is not as consuming. There is more breathing through it and accepting that it will ebb and flow.
Each year since I moved my blog here from LiveJournal, I’ve let the masthead reflect my purpose. A pile of Magnetic Poetry words. Old family photos scattered on the table. My take on My Ideal Bookshelf. For the past few days, I’ve been wondering what “theme” the new year will bring and how my masthead might show it.
The phrase that stays in my mind as I think about all this is “mindful living.” I keep stumbling over this concept with people I know or meet and with things I read or see. I’ve always believed a message or a lesson comes when you’re ready. But what makes this particularly challenging for me is that I feel it’s a journey I took in the latter half of the 1990s, and it led to a flowering of creativity. Then my energy and focus went in other directions. I don’t see that as bad or good, although certainly there will always be other people willing to tell me–to tell any of us!–You’re doing it wrong. (Tip: This is an ineffective way to motivate an Aries.)
I’m not sure what any of this means. The title of this post is my attempt to make myself feel that I have a deadline. To come up with a masthead. To come up with a purpose for keeping this little bit of the Internet alive. To come up with a plan to live mindfully. That seems a little silly and counter-intuitive: mindful living means being in the moment. Yet here I am trying to take on a whole new year. Maybe I won’t have a new masthead by January 1. Maybe no master plan will have unfurled in my mind.
And maybe that’s okay. Maybe it’s enough just to be. And to know each day may bring a new way to be that I should welcome.
Photos: Sun catcher gift of David and Geri. Book gift of Brad. I’m grateful for both the gifts and the people.
