Harvesting the Fruit.....

Don't you just love this picture!

 

 

Today I was taking a nice, peaceful, perfect Autumn walk. Enjoying the colors, the comfortable tempurature, the crunch of some fallen leaves. Mmmmmm....my favorite time of year. It got me thinking about the seasons and how people liken them to the different seasons of one's life. Is it equally divided up into four blocks of years? Or is it out of balance like the seasons I have always known, living where I do? (that would be 1 month of Spring, 4 months of Summer, 1 month of Fall, and 6 months of Winter!) Let's say you are granted 100 years and you divide them into 4 seasons of 25 years (I don't mind skimping on the Winter). So, from birth til age 25 is the "Spring" of your life. 25-50 is the "Summer" of your life. 50-75 is the "Autumn" of your life. And the rest.....well....I hate winter! With only about 18 days left of my "Summer", does that bother me? No. I Love Autumn! And I think I will Love the "Autumn" of my life! Not so crazy busy runaround hot cramming in everything you can Summertime. Maybe a bit less hurried, kind of like the difference beteween me on my walk and the young mother that passed me with her fancy jogging stroller in her fancy jogging clothes breathlessly responding "hello" when I said "hello" to her. Will I miss that ? No. I love that with my four children are adults (well, if you count the 17 almost 18 year old as adult!) my role has shifted from parenting them, disciplining them, to being good friends with them. There for them if they want advice or a listening ear, but letting them live their own lives as they get to the Summertime of their life. I LOVE this. Hopefully I can help them out now and then with that Summertime stuff. My husband and I were talking about that, and how even though life is not always perfect (but sometimes it is!) we are enjoying some of the Harvest of our dedication to raising our children. Thus the picture above.  One of my darling children created that!

Now....for a little BON JOVI!

 

"You're born then you die, It's all gone in a minute,

I ain't looking back, cause I don't want to miss it,

You better live now cause no one's going to get out alive.

Can I be happy now, can I let my breath out,

Let me believe, I'm building a dream,

Don't try to drag me own.......Can I be happy now.....

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W4HzLXuS-nM

 

 

Welcome to Autumn....hope you will enjoy it with me

 

 

P M A !!! Life is Sweet!

That's "PMA" not "PMS" as I was explaining to my daughter...."PMS" wasn't even a known term at the time "PMA" was in wide use! I had been thinking alot about Positive Mental Attitude lately. Back when we were teens, my sister and I would ridicule the notion of "PMA". What crap, what garbage, what fakes people were who tauted such ideas! We would seriously discuss how we were so much more "deep" and had real feelings and this PMS stuff was just a thing to hide behind....

Skip to me in 2012. That PMA stuff is a really good thing! Sometimes I have heard people say its just a "Pollyanna" attitude. Ignoring the real issues, the real problems, real life. I now disagree. I think it can make all the difference in the world to living a happy and peaceful life. I was even backed up by someone I heard while listening to the radio today. "It is more difficult to be positive than it is to be negative." Maybe that's like you using more muscles to frown than you do to smile. I really think we need to look for the positive, look for happiness, create our own peace. Of course there will always be sad times, tragic times, difficult times. But, I think keeping things in an Eternal Perspective and learning to calm yourself, learning to feel peace within your heart, that's what true happiness is. And, things always change, that's the one constant. So, if  you are not having a good day, or there is something tragic or depressing going on in your life, change will come. Also, a friend of mine taught me something important. She asked me if I am the kind of person that believes that if things are going well that only means pretty soon something bad will happen. I admitted that I did believe that. She said that a therapist had told her that there is no basis to believe that. Think about that for a sec.... there is no basis to believe that just because things are wonderful something bad has to even it out. So, now when I am enjoying life and the thought "oh no! what bad thing is going to happen" creeps into my mind, I kick it out of there!!! I am going to keep having positive thoughts, and enjoying life. I will deal with the bumps and bruises along the way....but, I am having a GREAT TIME! I invite you to do the same.

Only Keep It If You Absolutely Love It!

While chatting with a good friend of mine the other day, we ran into a subject that I had just been reading about in a magazine. An article by Jennifer Braunschweiger "Lose the clutter, find your style".  "I've always believed that clothing reflects who we are. But if we hold on to stuff, it starts to reflect who we used to be. How can we grow if we can't let go?" she says.  A surprisingly simple strategy for stepping into your best look now.  "My rule: If I put it on and then take it off, I have to give it away. No holding on to anything I won't even wear out of the house. If I wear it to work and feel uncomfortable, then out it goes as well. I have learned that forcing yourself to wear something is very different from tossing it on the "keep" pile. ...a closet isn't a museum or an archive. It should be a simple storehouse of clothes that reflect who I am today..." My friend told me that she was going through her clothes, item by item, and deciding once and for all if she truly loved it. If she didn't, then out it went. Since I had just read the magazine article and had been thinking of doing this myself I decided to post about it in case anyone out there is in need of the same kind of makeover. Okay, I have only begun, and have only put in the "out" pile about 4 things, but I am going to continue on! Hey, if the closet is empty, I guess that means I will have to go get more things I love to fill it back up! Ms. Braunschweiger did say that when it came to a very nostalgic item that she just couldn't bear to give up because it brought so many good memories to her, then she would put it in long term storage (like the attic) so that it wasn't taking up room in her closet. Take your "out" pile to a good will type place so that someone else can benefit. Or, take your good stuff to a consignment shop. Pennies on the dollar, but better than just taking up room. My BIG Birthday is one month from today.....I think I should have the goal of having my closet cleaned out by then......

Failure....a ladder to Success?

I was sorting magazines into a "keep" pile and a very large "recycle" pile. I must have been inspired to do so. I ran across a couple things I meant to keep and I came across a little gem of an article by Jason Wright. He writes about all of the jobs he has had, which he considered failures, before being the writer he is today. His jobs went from working at Mr. Donut in high school to various jobs like modeling for a clothing catalogue, B-Horror movie actor, Singing telegram deliverer, various salesman jobs, founder of a few companies, etc. etc. He sums up with this:

"Do I regret these jobs: No. I believe the success I have today is a result of these failures. Each failure taught me to identify a new weakness and massage it into a strength. I'm tired of conventional wisdom telling us to forget our failures. My experience says embrace them. Next time you have a free moment, grab a pencil and a piece of paper; draw two columns. List your failures on one side and what you learned from them on the other. If you don't think you learned anything, think harder; no failure or test comes without a lesson. Trust me. If you'll identify your missteps instead of burying them under life's giant shag carpet, you'll find a free lesson every day. And each failure, whether miniscule or colossal, will refine you and make you wiser. Yes, I am a professional failure, but it's a badge I wear with honor."

(Jason Wright is a New York Times, Wall Street Journal and USA Today bestselling author. He is also a political commentator and the co-founder of PoliticalDerby.com, a popular website for political junkies.  http://www.jasonfwright.com/bio.html )

Wow. I think I will make  a list like he suggested with two columns. But, I think I differentiate between "failures" and "mistakes". As I tried to come up with "failures", I find it hard to label something as such. Maybe a failure is associated with a project or job, something that you embark on and have to abandon. A mistake is something that us humans just do all the time, and we have been taught that we need to learn from these things, try not to make the same mistake again. A failure is something that is a crash and burn.

fail·ure

[ fáylyər ]

1. lack of success: a lack of success in or at something
2. something less than that required: something that falls short of what is required or expected
3. somebody or something that fails: somebody or something that is unsuccessful

Synonyms: disappointment, letdown, catastrophe, bomb, fiasco, disaster, botch, miscarriage, flop

 

mis·take

[ mi stáyk ]

1. incorrect act or decision: an incorrect, unwise, or unfortunate act or decision caused by bad judgment or a lack of information or care
2. error: something in a piece of work that is incorrect, e.g. a misspelling or a misprint
3. misunderstanding: a misunderstanding of something

Synonyms: blunder, gaffe, faux pas, lapse, misstep, blooper, miscalculation, clanger, bloomer

 

 

 And as I try to make my list, I am realizing that I have a tendancy to try and forget failures. I can think of endless mistakes, but FAILURES? I am going to see what I can come up with. Let me know what you think.....about this idea of failure being the ladder to success and if you think there is a difference between failures and mistakes (don't tell me what you think about MY failures!).

Things I don't regret!

     In my first Half Century of living I have some things that I don't regret (love those things)! I don't regret sticking up for my little sister while we were little kids, like when my friends would say, "tell her your mom is calling for her" and I wouldn't do it. Stuff like that. I am glad I wasn't purposely mean. Maybe she would tell you otherwise. I don't regret changing my major from Commercial Art to Communicative Disorders (mostly because I wanted art to be a joyful, not stressful, part of my life). I don't regret getting a college degree. I don't regret Marrying my wonderful husband of 28 1/2 years. I don't regret having my four astonishing children! I don't regret choosing to stay at home raising my children even though it meant many many very lean years.... I don't regret staying up late and squeezing every minute out of the day (even though it meant hardly ever enough sleep). I don't regret making time for family and friends. I choose to focus on the things I absolutely do not regret and not give much thought, other than learning from them, to my regrets.
     I read something from the editor of a magazine I really like (check out "More" for women of style and substance  www.more.com ),

 "Age pokes holes in every youthful delusion, so that reality eventually seeps in. What a relief!" --Leslie Jane Seymour

Things I regret

I regret not standing up for the new girl in 5th grade when everyone was against her on the playground. A girl I knew went and stood up for her, they are still friends to this day. I regret blaming things on my Mom when I was in Jr. High when really I chose to not talk to her and let the situation be an excuse for me to not tryout for the track team. I regret always thinking I needed a "Boyfriend" throughout Jr. High and High School. I regret Not getting involved in High School activities due to the previous regret and due to being too serious and studious. I regret the crap that I let before mentioned boys bestow upon me - - I wouldn't put up with that stuff now. I regret not telling them how I truly felt. I regret not being a better sister while I attended college, my sister lived minutes away with a new baby and I could have visited and babysat, etc. I regret being hard on my little children at times, I hope I learned and changed soon enough. I regret being able to identify PMS in myself until it is usually too late! Of course this list is not complete, but I choose to not focus on my regrets