Pushing The Lawnmower

As I'm on my quest for happiness, I'm also on the quest to do more things with my husband. These past few weeks we have been redoing our flower beds together. So far it has been very successful and I think we bond a little bit more. We laugh a lot and we literally enjoy each other's company. After all, I did marry my best friend. So I decided to take it a little further and help out with our lawn. Sipping the good wife that I am, I went around and did hand edging/Clipping around the house. If that was an exhausting enough (which by the way it was)  I got the harebrained idea to do the hand mowing which my husband normally does. This involves using the push mower around the trees, Hills, Flowerbeds, etc. I was ready! I had on old sneakers, my favorite baseball hat, sunscreen, and a water bottle close by. So I started off. I thought it start with the easy things first by going around the trees and the flowerbeds then onward to this small hill next to our house. Keep in mind I do yoga every day and I powerwalk at least three times a week. This, by far, literally kicked my ass! You think your lawn is nice and flat and relatively easy to do; so far from the truth. I really thought my lawn with this nice looking, well manicured area which my husband I put together. However when you add a push mower to the mix, it really put some perspective on it. I was never so exhausted in my life. Pushing babies out of my vagina was much easier than the push mower. As usual, with every experience in my life, I learned some lessons.

1. Be prepared for the expected. Life can always go along Nice and flat and on even keel. It's the hills that challenge us. The hills are therefore reason; they are there to show us what is important to us.
2. Never go downhill - the mower can get away from you. In life we tend to see things on the negative side we are going downhill and the chances of reaching your goals are never going happen. Going uphill means staying positive, focusing on our passions and what is important to us. When we go uphill, we should never look back. If we do look back, we should look back at the lessons that we were taught; not on the emotions that kept us there.
3. Mow carefully around the flowerbeds. What I mean by this is think around the box or globally. When you mow carefully around the flowerbeds you're paying attention to every aspect and every action you take. You do this in life! When you have a situation, think of every possible outcome from your actions before taking the right decision for you. So when you are mowing around the flowers, you're making sure that you're taking the proper course to keep the flowers pretty.
4. Sweating for woman is not sweating; you are glowing! So why can't we glow every day? Each day get out of bed and say to yourself, "today I will glow with inner sunshine and happiness." It probably sounds a little hokey, but what the heck! If we look at ourselves from the inside and see how strong we truly are, we see that we do glow with a bright sunshine that can empower us to be the true person you really are. Glow and be proud!

It's never a bad thing to try I do things with your spouse. After doing the lawnmowing, I had a newfound respect for that man. That was some hard work! Even know deep inside I was whining and complaining, I think I'll do it again because I saw so many great lessons in lawn mowing. He didn't tell me I did a good job and with that, I sat down and had my glass of iced tea, and looked upon my yard with great pride.

Men Growing Old

My husband is 64. As he has gotten older he's gotten a little slower, a little grumpier, and extremely OCD but I love all that. What gets me is the out of control hair; not the hair on their head. It's the out of control eyebrows! And the ear hair! OMG! But wait, the underarm hair somehow decides to become an entity of it's own; like the island of crazy hair.

Let's break this down and analyze this one at a time. Ok...the eyebrows. It's like God fertilizes them overnight and they wake up like an overgrown bush! And they don't grow one way, they grow everywhere yet somehow they come together right about the nose. They even grow down on the eyelids! What's up with this hysterical joke? So every few days we have my husband sits on the side of the bathtub and I get out the eyebrow brush and little scissors and trim. And every few days I do this somehow one hair grows even faster than the rest; maybe it gets more sun. Then the wild ones on the eyelids get clipped; then we move to get close to the skin to trim the ones in the middle. I can tweeze because "it hurts too much." Really? 

Where in the world does all that ear hair come from? Not just inside the ear like potato roots but around the ear too! Like the eyebrows, the outer ear hair grows like weeds! And long too. The inner ear hair which hardly sees light somehow manages to grow long enough to braid. Again every few days we go for a trim. And again I am amazed at how fast these things grow! Nature is remarkable.

My husband's armpits since turning 60 are like the hair of a yetti. They grow and grow and grow. We measured one hair (which I did trim) at 16 inches. If he starts wailing a mating call, I'll begin to worry.

There is no reason for the pharmaceutical world to create synthetic testosterone when you have guys like my husband. My goodness! If I could figure out a way to harvest it and sell it to guys with low 'T' I could make a ton of money. Or better yet, we could create an organization for guys who need body hair. Now that would be profitable.

Guys like Sean Connery, Pierce Brosnan, and George Clooney (Brad Pitt maybe) must have the same problem. Someone has to be sitting them on the side of the bathtub and giving them a trim every few days. So men you must unite and create a group to share grooming tips. There are some out there who need it.

 

Angels Around Us - A Tribute to Candy

When I was young, I believed I could see things that weren't there. Family members who passed would come visit me and talk to me. As I grew, I lost that innocence and life got ahead of me. About the time I got sick I wanted to something believe in. I'm not a religious person at all. I found great spirituality through meditation and yoga. But more kept coming to me through nature. I was driving along one day and a hawk followed me and was looking at me. That solved it for me; I had to talk to someone. My friends pointed me in many directions. First I went to someone who could interpret what nature was telling me. She told me there were messages from the other side for me to listen to. Ok, I got that; however it is pretty cool to see what nature tells you. Next stop, a psychic. Found a really cool one who was local. He told me some pretty remarkable stuff. But my journey wasn't over. He sent me to an angel reader. There's where it get's interesting. I met my friend Candy. I've known Candy for years but never really went to her. You see, she's an angel reader. Now, before you shake your head and debunk it, it's not.

Candy explained to me we have angels all around us all the time. She also explained we have a guardian angel all the time along with family members who are watching out for us. All we need to do is listen to them (again, that gut feeling). It's been over two years since I saw Candy and I still believe everything she said to me. She gave me homework too and I did that.

Candy gave me a renewed belief in life and the universe. While I'm still not religious, I do believe there is a great abundance for us to take from the universe (I'm a big believer in The Secret), and I also believe I have angels all around me. I talk to them now and in their own way, they talk back to me. Like I said in my earlier post, it's that gut feeling. Angels are really cool and the afterlife is more amazing than we know. We are so caught up in life and we forget what it's like to believe in things that aren't there. Candy gave me that belief. She is a remarkable woman who I have come to respect even more but have an unconditional love for her because of her gift. She has not one angry bone in her body and greets people as if they're family. Candy is getting ready for her journey in to the next phase of her life. While I will miss her in the body, I will know she is with me and I will continue to talk to her and my angels.

When I need to get a professional angel reader, I go to my friend Anne Marie who is an amazing woman. She was trained by Candy and I know Anne Marie will guide me as Candy did. When I meditate daily, I talk to my guardian angels and my family members. Talk to yours; they are your guides. Listen to them, and they will help you through the toughest of times.

Seeing Your True Beauty

The other day my friend Cindy was visiting me. We sat outside enjoying the beautiful spring weather and she remarked that I looked beautiful. I thanked her for the compliment but part of me wonders, "what do see in me that I don't? why are we so critical of ourselves? Are we really beautiful?" So easily we can look in the mirror and see ourselves as we are but we also need to see our true beauty.

I looked up the definition of the word beauty in the Merriam-Webster dictionary. It is defined as,

The quality or aggregate of qualities in a person or thing that gives pleasure to the senses or pleasurably exalts mind or spirit: loveliness.

We see the beauty in flowers, food, clothing, etc. We're too busy being critical of our own life and bodies that we forget to see the beauty in who we are! There's a website just for people to notice how beautiful they truly are: operationbeautiful.com. This website encourages us to write positive affirmations on Post-it notes daily to remind ourselves how beautiful we are. Their mission statement is pretty awesome and it says:

The goal of the Operation Beautiful website is to end negative self-talk or “Fat Talk.”  If this little blog only does one productive thing, I hope it helps readers realize how truly toxic negative self-talk is  — it hurts you emotionally, spiritually, and physically.

I know I am just as guilty as anyone else with the negative self talk. I can't tell you how many times I said to myself that I'm stupid or ugly or unworthy and the things that I do. I change that around and I literally yell at myself when I hear myself starting to say things like that and change it around to something more positive. By talking positive to yourself you see yourself as you truly are: you are worthy, You are beautiful, you can achieve. By talking positive your whole attitude towards yourself changes dramatically. The negativity that you hear and see within yourself dissipates and you become more confident about yourself; you start seeing yourself in a light that is brighter than a sun and stronger than anything you've ever experienced. You smile more, you hold your head higher, you feel healthier when you talk positive about yourself.

There are so many people in the world that don't even consider themselves to be worthy of being alive. This isn't so. We are all worthy of being on this earth and in this lifetime. We create life with passion and love, continue with that passion and love within your own life. We aren't mistakes! We were put here, right here right now, to embrace the world and the universe and everything that comes in it. So stop this self negative talk! Tell yourself all day today how beautiful you are! Do it! Look in the mirror right now and tell yourself, "I am beautiful! I am awesome!" Every time you look in the mirror today tell yourself this. You will find your day Will be absolutely amazing.

So how do I see myself? I am dead sexy! I am worthy of everything the universe has to give me! I've worked hard on the body I have and I am comfortable with in my skin. I am beautiful.

Becoming the Parent of the Parent

All through my life, I've had my parents. They've raised me, watched me grow, have a child, and move into the phases of my life. My father passed away in 2003 after battling pancreatic cancer. This was tough and for the first time in my life I became the parent to my parents. I helped my mother make the decisions and, in turn, I took the time to take care of my father. I would leave my house at 5am for the hospice center, bathe him, help brush his teeth, feed him, brush his hair, etc. I helped my mother with this transition and started watching over her too.

Mom is now 80. Her balance isn't the greatest and neither is her memory. Her MS is working on her neurological issues. She still drives but only in and around the local area. She's not at the point of taking care of her but I've had to start checking in on her, make sure she eats, take her pills, etc. But lately I've noticed changes in her personality, her memory isn't the greatest and sometimes has a hard time remember everyday things. I worry about her being alone but she refuses to have a device in case she falls. She want's to be independent but yet, I fell it's important I'm there help her.

It's not easy being the adult here. When you become the parent of your parent so many things come into your head like all your childhood thoughts come back to haunt you. Here you're dealing with someone who raised you and all of a sudden you're thrust into a role of caring for them.

In an article in Psychology Today, Dr. Tamara Greenburg says,

When a parent becomes ill everything from our own childhoods, which we thought we had put to rest, can come back to haunt us. This is especially true when taking care of children at home. In the midst of our own vibrant lives we get reminded of the limits of our own upbringing. If we did not have an ideal (or good enough childhood) anger and resentment can take the stage. When this is the case, it is pretty tough to take care of everyone who may need us.

I'm not angry but I sure am frustrated. If you try to help, the parent gets angry because you're taking away from their independence. I'm finding ways of getting past this while helping her in ways she doesn't know. For example, if you're on your parents health power of attorney, you can let them go to the doctor themselves, but follow up with the doctor on the visit. You don't need to be at the bank to see what they have (if you have financial power of attorney), but you can go online to double check their transactions so they're doing ok. Small things.

Mom still frustrates me and I know the time will come soon enough where she will need care. I'm not sure if I'm ready for that but who ever is? Greenburg goes on to say,

Taking care of an aging parent can throw us into multiple versions of ourselves. We can feel like an infant, child, and parent all at the same time. Although parenting requires people to deal with how dependent they were as kids, taking care of an adult parent puts this dilemma in the forefront. It can seem like there is no room for us to feel like a grown up and a kid, but this is exactly what is required of us. When parents are ill and elderly, we have to manage a number of disjointed and seemingly contradictory feelings and identities.

So the lessons continue...

Go With Your Gut

When I was younger I would make decisions just on what I felt like at the time. I guess you can call it the "shoot from the hip" approach. As my thought processes have matured, I no longer make decisions quickly but I think first and go with my gut.

This way of decision making didn't come until two years ago. Profound words said to me by my dear friend and mentor Deborah when I had to make a decision about something. She said, "Go with your gut. You'll never go wrong." How can something so little make such an impact on how I make decisions? I even went to college and got a Masters degree just so I could learn how to make decisions. One sentence changed it all!

Going with your gut is something we tend to not even use throughout our lives. It's that feeling deep down in your belly that tells you whether it's right or not. Sometimes we don't listen to this feeling and go with what logic or society deems the right thing. Occasionally it's money driven too. However, more times than not, these decisions turn out to be a bust or makes us extremely unhappy. I had this happen a couple months ago. I signed up for some training which cost a boatload of money. They had a scholarship program which would cut the cost in half. Sounds like the right thing? I got in, got the scholarship, started the training and it was the wrong thing to do. I was so unhappy and it almost made me walk away from my passion and never do it again. I knew it was wrong and didn't listen to my gut. I stepped back and knew which way I needed to go and now on the path I know my gut is right with.

Is Deborah right with this thinking? Is there scientific evidence? In a journal, British Journal of Psychology, in 2008,  Professors Hodgkinson, Langan-Fox, and Sadler-Smith write the scholarly paper, "Intuition: A fundamental bridging construct in the behavioural sciences." Is this paper, the state,

Through analysis of a wide range of research papers examining the phenomenon, the researchers conclude that intuition is the brain drawing on past experiences and external cues to make a decision – but one that happens so fast the reaction is at a non-conscious level. All we’re aware of is a general feeling that something is right or wrong.
“People usually experience true intuition when they are under severe time pressure or in a situation of information overload or acute danger, where conscious analysis of the situation may be difficult or impossible,” says Prof Hodgkinson. (source: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/03/080305144210.htm)

I'm sure there are naysayers out there who try to debunk this theory. But here's my thought, if it's proven scientifically, it's gotta but right somehow.  Carlin Flora says in his Psychology Today article, "How to Trust a Hunch,"

The gut itself literally feeds gut feelings; think of butterflies in the stomach when a decision is pending. The gut has millions of nerve cells and, through them, a "mind of its own," says Michael Gershon, author of The Second Brain and a professor at Columbia University. Still, gut feelings do not originate there, but in signals from the brain. (source: http://www.psychologytoday.com/collections/201308/go-your-gut/how-trust-hunch)

So YES! Deborah is right. Your gut really is never wrong. Since taking this thought process, my decision making (when I listen to it) is dead on. Listen to your inner voice, your gut, your Jimminy Cricket. "Give a little whistle! And always let your conscience be your guide."

Learning the Meaning of Life From Becky

I learn so much from the people in my life. But the one person I learn the most from is my friend Becky. Becky has a quiet wisdom which, if you blink, you might miss it. She doesn't say much; it's more her actions and quiet mystique that really speaks volumes. Here's what I learned so far from Becky.

1. Unconditional love – Becky shows unconditional love to anything and everything. The first time I met Becky without a function at her mothers house (who was one of my closest friends). I watched Becky pick up the family cat, Roscoe, and nuzzle him speaking softly into his ear so no one could hear. The unconditional love she shows for animals is enough to make A grown person cry. But that's not all. Becky shows unconditional love for other things such as the frozen margarita in front of her. As she takes a sip you can see and unworded bliss come across her face, With a smile that radiates from the heart. You see in Becky's world, there is no such thing as hate, anger, vengeance, or anything that has to do with negativity. She doesn't know that how to to be negative or mean. I'll Becky knows how to show his love and she doesn't and her own mysterious way. When looking at Becky's special way of loving it humbles one to see beauty within her world. If only others could love like Becky there would be no war, fighting, or hate. I hope one day I can learn this unique way of loving each and everything I come into contact with what Becky can.
2. Style – Becky has a sense of style that rivals no other. Every time I see Becky she is dressed to perfection. She meticulously picks out her pants, which are usually jeans, and a top. More often than not Becky's style is all her own. Her color palette is wide but she chooses her favorites; mostly in the area of purple. But her flair doesn't stop there… oh no! This amazing one can accessorize like no other! Every day she has on her rings for matching each hand, bracelets picked out with great care, necklaces which only Becky could wear, and her bright purple watch. Because of this great sense of style I've looked at my own way of dressing and accessorizing and have also added bracelets and earrings because Becky is taught me that no woman should leave the house without matching throughout her wardrobe.
3. Speaking - Becky doesn't say much and that's okay. Sometimes the best things are left to be unsaid; that's how it's be. As the old saying says, "actions speak louder than words" should be the Way, Becky later life. Because that's how she is. This woman has a quiet way of going about life and not necessarily having to say one word. In the yoga and meditation world we call this mindfulness. I can only dream of having the ability to be as quiet and mindful within life as my friend Becky.
4. Scheduled - in Becky's world we live in breath by the calendar. Why? Because Becky leads a very scheduled life… by choice. Each day Becky look at her calendar to see what is going on for that day. And as she wakes up she prepares as soon as she wakes up (and no later) to be ready for her day; even if it starts after lunch, she is ready. While I'm not as regimented as Becky is about my schedule, she looks forward to each and every thing with a fondness of a five-year-old seen Santa Claus for the very first time. How I dream of approaching every moment in my life like Becky. I want to have my eyes wide open to see everything like it's the very first time, with beauty, love, and excitement. Even the most mundane thing such as going to the dentist is met with just as much excitement as a trip to the Bahamas. We all need to look at our daily lives that way.

My friend Becky is so special to me that there are no words to describe my feelings and thoughts for her. It's beyond love and deeper than anything I've ever felt for any human. Her soft, innocent, and gentle way of approaching Life every day reaffirms anyone that you can find meaning in the simplest forms when looking for truth and life. As I write this, tears of unconditional love flow through my eyes because of the beauty I see and Becky every day. I'm sure her mom, my dear friend Maria, could tell you she has her moments of trials and tribulations with Becky. But overall everyone in her family, her mom and dad, David and Kelley, Jessie and Art, and of course the infamous Lola would tell you they cannot imagine your lives without Becky. Because life without Becky is a life without meaning; and she has brought so much meaning to my life.

You see, my friend Becky has down syndrome. But you don't see that. You do not see a person who is handicapped or has any other disabilities at all. You see a woman, yes a woman, who is confident, compassionate, and full of so much grace that everyone in the world could learn from. In short, she is the coolest chick I will ever encounter in my lifetime.