Wow!! We’ve reached the end of the monthlong NaNoPoBlano Challenge. And I’m thrilled to report that I did it....a blog post per day for 30 days! This is big because I had just started my blog like a week or so beforehand. As a complete newbie, I was apprehensive. But I’m so glad I did …
Month: November 2020
The Way -NaNoPoBlano Challenge Day 29/30
Spiritual seekers particularly are on a quest to understand life; we want to examine our own lives and find meaning in what we do and who we are. We find meaning in the seeking itself. Every step along the way is the Way.~ Lama Surya Das 💚www.earthschoolharmony.com The above is copied from a Facebook post …
NPE/MPE Arriving at Truth -NaNoPoBlano Challenge Day 28/30
“You become. It takes a long time. That’s why it doesn’t happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in your …
Continue reading NPE/MPE Arriving at Truth -NaNoPoBlano Challenge Day 28/30
NPE/MPE Truths- Coming Out Of The Closet One Blog Post At A Time
Weekend Coffee Share 11/27/20 - NaNoPoBlano Challenge Day 27/30 Hello my friend!Wonderful to have you drop by for coffee! I’ve come to look forward to coffee share time. These days, we have to take our socialization where we can get it! Right? So fill your cup with something you love and get comfy. I want …
Continue reading NPE/MPE Truths- Coming Out Of The Closet One Blog Post At A Time
You! -NaNoPoBlano Challenge Day 26/30
Image from unsplash Wherever you are, whatever you’re doing, I’m grateful for you! I see this life as a massive jigsaw puzzle or mosaic. Each one of us is a piece of the grand design. It’s crazy and ungainly and all of the images flow and bleed outside of the lines. All of the overlapping …
HoliDAZE Part 1 -NaNoPoBlano Challenge Day 25/30
Photo taken by my husband First of all...You’re not alone! It may well feel like you are and I know how hard it is to cope with that feeling. But you’re not alone. In the U.S., tomorrow is Thanksgiving. And that lights the fuse of cascading holidays or holiDAZE. Thanksgiving, Chanukah, Kwanzaa, Christmas, New Years... …
Continue reading HoliDAZE Part 1 -NaNoPoBlano Challenge Day 25/30
No Certainty- NaNoPoBlano Challenge Day 24/30
These days have so many embedded questions that there’s no room for casual thoughts or thrilling conversations. Casual and thrilling have been temporarily replaced with uncertainty...especially in terms of the things that were always supposed to be certain. It was a certainty that the professionals would care for the aged and infirm when the time …
Continue reading No Certainty- NaNoPoBlano Challenge Day 24/30
Family Photos- NaNoPoBlano Challenge Day 23/30
Picture from Facebook Throughout my life, the word “family” was difficult. The word, the associated dynamics, the players...it was all stressful...still is. So I had to tweak and revise my definition multiple times. Family became about choice and ease once I realized that family isn’t just about genetics. Family is about including those who love …
Continue reading Family Photos- NaNoPoBlano Challenge Day 23/30
Musings- NaNoPoBlano Challenge Day 22/30
Productive or not, my thoughts often wander to all kinds of “what ifs”. It’s what my brain does. Sometimes it’s useful, it’s a form of contingency planning. And when you’re dealing with disability, contingency plans are important in case things go off the rails. But today isn’t about survival planning. It’s more about life in …
Communing with trees -NaNoPoBlano Challenge Day 21/30
Grand Matriarch When I was a kid, we lived about a block from “the duck pond.” It had a proper name. But it was a very small town and that’s what everyone called it. Back then, the town catered to the ducks. There was a feeding station where you could get a half of a …
Continue reading Communing with trees -NaNoPoBlano Challenge Day 21/30
If we were having coffee 11/20/20 – NaNoPoBlano Challenge Day 20/30
Photo and virtual banana bread courtesy of my husband 💜 Welcome my friend! So happy to share some virtual time and space with you! If we were having coffee, I’d offer you coffee, tea, soda or water. I’d also offer you some of my husband’s banana bread. He’s using my mom’s recipe...and adding chocolate chips...because …
Continue reading If we were having coffee 11/20/20 – NaNoPoBlano Challenge Day 20/30
How could this be worse – NaNoPoBlano Challenge Day 19/30
How could this be worse-A strange and effective coping tool! A friend taught me this little tidbit about 30 years ago and it continues to serve me well. When I was in my late 20’s, I joined a women’s spirituality group. We were quite eclectic. There was a lot of both direct and incidental learning …
Continue reading How could this be worse – NaNoPoBlano Challenge Day 19/30
Compassion- NaNoPoBlano Challenge Day 18/30
“I write entirely to find out what I’m thinking, what I’m looking at, what I see and what it means. What I want and what I fear.” – Joan Didion Thank you to Sarah at -https://thestarsandrainbowsjournal.wordpress.com/for this quote. I read it on her blog yesterday. She’s a wonderful writer and I appreciate her blog. This quote …
Continue reading Compassion- NaNoPoBlano Challenge Day 18/30
Patience Please! – NaNoPoBlano Challenge Day 17/30
Photo taken, once again, by my husband! My dear friend Jo said to me years ago, “Dinah, immediate gratification is too slow for you!” And, of course he was spot on! I’m so bad at waiting. I feel like I’m walking a razor’s edge trying to be patient AND proactive. It seems to me that …
Continue reading Patience Please! – NaNoPoBlano Challenge Day 17/30
Living the Questions-NaNoPoBlano Challenge Day 16/30
“I beg you, to have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don’t search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live …
Continue reading Living the Questions-NaNoPoBlano Challenge Day 16/30
We’re halfway there-NaNoPoBlano Challenge Day 15/30
We’re halfway through the NaNoPoBlano monthlong blogging challenge coordinated by Ra Avis https://rarasaur.com/about/ I had only been blogging for a week when it started. And I have to say that I’m so glad that I jumped in....even though I was terrified! It’s said that, in order to develop a new habit, you need to do …
Continue reading We’re halfway there-NaNoPoBlano Challenge Day 15/30
If we were having coffee 11/14/20 -NaNoPoBlano Challenge Day 14/30
Good Morning my friend! Oh so good to see you! How was your week? I’m hoping all is well in your world. If we were having coffee I’d want you to go beyond the word “fine” and really tell me how you are. What frustrated you this week? Was it resolved, at least in your …
Continue reading If we were having coffee 11/14/20 -NaNoPoBlano Challenge Day 14/30
He’s that guy -NaNoPoBlano Challenge Day 13
Today is a big deal. It’s been a big deal for 33 years. And yet, in 33 years, I’ve never known how to celebrate this day in the manner it deserves! Today is my husband’s birthday. It’s also the 33rd anniversary of our first date. -33 years ago I asked him if he wanted to …
Continue reading He’s that guy -NaNoPoBlano Challenge Day 13
Discombobulated-NaNoPoBlano Challenge Day 12
Photo taken by my husband. He’s good at noticing! It’s a discombobulated kind of day. I’m taking another few “first”steps in this long journey back from the big fall. Every “first” is both momentous and trivial at the same time! And, the very fact that each big/little thing is such a huge/trivial deal, is draining! …
Continue reading Discombobulated-NaNoPoBlano Challenge Day 12
Manifesting -NaNoPoBlano Challenge Day 11
I met Nancy over 25 years ago after my marriage and my world collapsed. I never saw it coming and I was barely hanging on at times. Most of the time, I felt like I was just moving through fog...pretending to function but so disengaged that I felt like an observer in my own life. …
Just Breathe-NaNoPoBlano Challenge Day 10
I thrive on certainty. I like routine. Sameness makes me feel safe. I’m strange that way. Maybe you are too?I suspect this is a byproduct of growing up in chaos. Dysfunction is threatening. Dysfunction, by it’s very nature, is unsettling and fatiguing and makes you hold your breath as if tension and breath can protect …
Livingston I Presume-NaNoPoBlano Day 7
When I was a kid, like 8-10 years old, my mom loved the story of Jonathan Livingston Seagull by Richard Bach. She had an album of Rod McKuen reading the book. And she played it ALL. THE. TIME. I grew to hate that story and Rod McKuen! But time heals and teaches and clarifies. I …
Writing Stew-NaNoPoBlano Challenge Day 8
Pensive Moments Well, I’m about 2 1/2 weeks into blogging and one week into the 4 week NaNoPoBlano Challenge. And today I’m stewing. I have about eight different blog posts started and I’m trying to decide which ones to actually finish and post.I’m realizing that blogging is an art unto itself. There is certainly a …
Angels among us!- NaNoPoBlano Day 9
Photo from Facebook I first posted the story below on Facebook, in a closed group, in August. I was testing the waters. I wanted to see how it felt to publicly share an experience that some might consider weird or… Whatever. It felt fine. It was received well. So now I’m sharing it publicly. One …
If we were having coffee 11/6/20 & NaNoPoBlano Day 6
If we were having coffee 11/6/20If we were having coffee, I’d want to sit outside because we’re having shockingly warm weather for November. We need to enjoy every second of it. We could talk about surviving these stressful political times and about maintaining, not just our sanity, but our loving kindness for self and especially …
Continue reading If we were having coffee 11/6/20 & NaNoPoBlano Day 6
Normal -NaNoPoBlano Day 5
My view of the double rainbow from my room at the rehab center Normal....A week and a half ago, the doctor said that my arm was healed enough to start living more normally. And I’m learning and relearning that normal is relative and that it changes from day to day. Up until July 29, normal …
Being. -NaNoPoBlano Day 4
“We have a tendency to think in terms of doing and not in terms of being. We think that when we are not doing anything, we are wasting our time. But that is not true. Our time is first of all for us to be. To be what? To be alive, to be peaceful, to …
Hiraeth-NaNoPoBlano Day 3
Hiraeth is a Welsh word for homesickness or nostalgia, an earnest longing or desire, or a sense of regret. The feeling of longing for a home that never was. A deep and irrational bond felt with a time, era, place or person. -Wikipedia This vague nostalgia, this homesickness for a place I’ve never been has …
Feeding the Soul -NaNoPoBlano Day 2
Feeding the Soul....In keeping with yesterday’s theme of feeding one’s soul, I started thinking about what, if anything, I’ve done to feed my soul over the years. In high school, I wanted to take a photography class. My dad told me not to. He said that photographers need to take pictures from all kinds of …
LET THE WRITING CHALLENGE BEGIN! -NaNoPoBlano-
Facing the NaNoPoBlano Challenge And so it begins....Ok, it’s NaNoPoBlano month. I feel like there should be a trumpet or drum roll or something to mark the beginning of this auspicious occasion! Those of us who’ve joined the level 1 NaNoPoBlano Challenge have committed to blogging EVERY SINGLE DAY for the month of November. So …
Continue reading LET THE WRITING CHALLENGE BEGIN! -NaNoPoBlano-
With Angels and Elephants 