Brooke is 2

It's interesting to watch children grow, especially now that I am a grandmother.  I'm not sure why that is.  Perhaps more of the freedom to take the back porch and watch and observe, love and let go.  Teach in little snippets.  

Yesterday she came over for a visit, while her Mommy went on a mad dash to the store and home to race through the house and clean.  (Not that she needed to in my book, but I do know what it's like to try to clean with a 2 year old under foot.)  

We read books, her favorites downstairs are "My Sunday Book," which is a book that her Pop-pop had as a child, and "Baby Dear," ironically a book I had as a child.  Then we watched (yes we, always we) Wee Sing in Sillyville, a story about two children in a coloring book land where all the colors aren't getting along and how they all come back together to help Sillywhim.  And then it's time for "Abba Dabba."  This is what we watch...

And she sings along with it.  (Oh, I wish I had that on video!)
Happy birthday, Brooke!

Life and Walden Pond

“What lies behind us and what lies ahead of us are tiny matters compared to what lives within us.” 
― Henry David Thoreau

Something has changed inside. Changed for the good.  I have felt it coming, somehow Walden Pond has helped come up to the surface.  

Life is a journey and it is what we make it.  Among little hardships, physical aging, worry about growing older, the spring of life in your inner spirit is what life is all about.  Success shouldn't be measured by monetary means, it needs to be measured by the knowledge that you have truly lived.  

If you feel that you haven't, or are waiting to, examine yourself.  It may take awhile, but life is, after all, "all about the journey."  

This is my signature that I maintain.

The World of Maps and GPS

I gave my GPS to my daughter a couple of years ago.  I didn't like where she would take me.  Twists and turns and sidestreets.  She made me so nervous I just decided it wasn't worth it.  I use AAA maps and Google maps (my sister recently showed me how to change the maps, which is really really cool, but I find Google really knows what is best for me, haha).

I recently had to travel through Boston.  Okay, I didn't have to go through Boston, I just thought I'd see how smart I could be navigating through Boston.  I used Google maps and did a printout.

"Where?  Turn left onto...and right onto...go .02 mi. and ..." 

 And then I was lost.  Okay, we know Boston is set up like a wagon wheel, you have to turn around, because the next street will not get you back.  After playing around and seeing the scullers on the river a couple of times, I checked my smartphone for my girlfriend's email with the hotel phone #.  It read, "Google the phone number, I don't have it here."  Fortunately I had the address.  Hurray for the smartphone, the phone number was in blue (touch and it says, "call").  The conversation was as follows: "I'm lost in Boston." "Ma'am, we're not in Boston." "Yes, I realize that, that's why I'm calling you..."  With the patience of Job, he led me across the city ("turn left and head for signs that say 'downtown Boston' and look for 1N").

Home again?  I asked the desk clerk, "I90?"  
"Just follow the next right and its 95S, go until you find I90W."

If I go back to visit Massachusetts (oh, Walden Pond!) I'm going to use the desk clerk's directions instead...

Old Friends

“It is one of the blessings of old friends that you can afford to be stupid with them.”
― Ralph Waldo Emerson, Emerson in His Journals

I laughed when I read this!  My favorite times that travel through my mind are in the gathering of friends--laughing with Karen (she's such a clip!), tucking my feet beneath me in the corner of Deb's sofa with a glass of wine (or coffee) and catching up (although these days it's at my kitchen table since she's relocated but stops in whenever she can).  And then there is Dianne, we tend to go for years (shame on us) without connecting, but then a letter or a phone call can catch us up and keep the bond, just like we'd never left each other's side.

There are "newer" friends.  Those I met after I came home again.  Instant bonds formed as we wove in and out of zones, seeking comfort.  Most of us found it with each other, and an important thing was learned by me--you don't have to maintain that steady closer-than-life-let-me-eat-out-of-your-pocket closeness to keep loving each other, but growth is determined by loving that person for exactly who they are and not looking to change anyone.  Make sure you are there for them in the role you are supposed to play.

I recently went to Walden Pond.  Now, I had never even heard of Walden Pond until my girlfriend, Sheila, and her husband Kent, had chosen to visit there a couple of weeks ago.  She wanted to go to Sleepy Hollow Cemetery too.  I was going to be bold and just hang out in Salem, but changed my mind quickly upon meeting these two wonderful people.

Now I have decided that old friends isn't just those that you have been friends with for years and years, but those that you connect with, old souls, drawn together once more.

Magic Mornings

Someone told me that if you keep waking up in the "middle of the night," make a note of the time and if the time is consistent, then sit up and take notice, this is the time when the you comes out.

My magic time is 4-5 a.m., before the world on the eastern seaboard wakes up and demands me.  This is the time when I try to remember my dreams so I can write them down (they say your dreams can either be confusing issues that your brain is trying to figure out, mumbo jumbo stuff, or something you are ignoring, or...I just got a book on Inner World, will keep you posted as I unfold and read).

So I rise, feed my cats.  They usually demand to go outside, but now that they are 3 and a little more mature, they recognize cold and are waiting it out a little bit more (which reminds me to go check that catbox upstairs...)

After taking care of their needs, (plop a spoonful of Fancy Feast into their dishes), I turn to my own needs.  The dishes more than likely used for supper last night--it happened to be a drop 'em dead meatloaf that dropped the glass dish dead and needed to be filled with hot water to soak!--and my now famous goose neck pot to fill so I can have my now famous pour over coffee. That started...

I turn on the laptop.  I go to my social networks and check in.  "Good morning" to friends, reading their writings, checking in on my kids.  And then answering my email and/or looking up things that I am interested in for personal growth.

Then 6 a.m. and it's time to do my stretches to the morning news.  And on with the day.

But I have learned to cherish that early morning hour.  I can't wait to go to bed at night because I know that my time is coming up soon when I can rise with no distractions (well, after the cats).  It's my time for thinking.  It's my time for me.

October

October is filled with many blessings for me.  From the brilliant color of the leaves and the fields, to the innocence of a child as they come to the door to get their treats.

Met my girlfriend in Salem this past weekend.  Oh my did we have fun...from Walden's Pond..

to Sleepy Hollow Cemetery....

to downtown to participate in the festivities....

October...I love your color, you are my favorite month of the year! 

Onward into November....and the harvest of Thanksgiving.