Showing posts with label thankful thursday. Show all posts
Showing posts with label thankful thursday. Show all posts

Thankful Thursday or tickets, tailgates and teeth-skin ... yes, you read that right

Taking a little work break to write a Thankful Thursday post about all the amazingness that has been happening around here.

The first 3 things that come to mind are:

1- I am thankful that my sister scored tickets for James Taylor. Yes, Sweet Baby James. This is the woman who teases me about my love for all things Mellencamp when at least he's still mobile.

Hopefully, her seats are close enough to the stage that she'll be able to hear his bones getting brittle and see the wires holding him up and moving him across the stage. True, when Mellencamp sings "when I fight authority" he's talking about the AARP, but at least he won't crumble to dust if you shake him vigorously ... yet ... just kidding Tori. I love James, too.

2. I am thankful that hubs got a new tailgate from the dealer. Hubby went to some kind of "restaurant" auction (are we opening a restaurant now - I don't ask) and his truck tailgate was stolen ... off his truck ... in the parking lot. Someone just lifted it off (you would think these things would be welded on somehow) and carried it away.

(I think it was his "buckle up, it makes it harder for the aliens to suck you out of your car" sticker)

so anyhoo, he got a temporary dented up one from the junkyard and drove around for awhile with one of those sticker families on the wrong color tailgate. The wrong color didn't bother us, but the sticker family with its tiny little row of ... cats ... was driving Olive nuts.

3. I am thankful that Shark Week repeats are now on youtube so we can spend our evenings alternating between Jon Stewart and learning everything you ever wanted to know about Great Whites before we head out to the beach this summer.

Like did you know that the skin of a Great White is composed of denticles, which are like scales made of tiny teeth. How badass is that? This shark can kill you with its skin.

(which is kind of like me right now, have I told you I have a staph infection ... on my nose ... don't ask)

Also sharks prefer Pottery Barn to Target. Trader Joe's to Whole Foods. And they wish to God we'd stop peeing in the ocean.

OK now back to work for me - I feel compelled to mention that there is a new moon right now in Aries which makes it a perfect time to set our intentions for some new things to be thankful for - true you may not be able to manifest the kind of amazingness we have going on over here in Jersey, but James Taylor could be falling apart performing at a nursing home theater near you ....

*ninja tee from geekthings

thankful thursday - business lessons from the home front


I have had so many aha moments lately

(where the hell is Oprah when we need her?)

and maybe the biggest aha AHA has been that when we know something we cannot unknow it.

Life just doesn't support our playing dumb.

(when we were kids and we got in trouble, my sister would cover her eyes thinking that if she could not see our parents they could not see her - even then it didn't work - well, it probably did work because she was kinda cute, but it shouldn't have worked, dammit)

When we learn something and we resonate with it and we know that it is true for us and we do not live it, well, things have a way of just not working out and at the very least things have a way of being alot harder.

It's like we get off easy with a little dumb luck early on, but then life says - ok this one knows more and then ... more is expected.

Anyhoo, although I know from my business that it is best to set my intention and work/enjoy the process without trying to control exactly how everything is going to happen, somehow I have not been translating this knowing to life with David.

We set our intention, take action in that direction, then trust that life will take care of the details.

I realized that this was exactly what I was not doing with David.

I was totally focused on the 'hows' - how to get him to agree to see a psychiatrist, get him housing, health insurance, etc, etc - how was I ever going to make these things happen - I was failing.

Then it hit me that maybe the 'hows' are not my job. And it hit me that I already know this, but I just haven't been doing it.

So, I set a clear intention for myself, because I can't control any of this (and I definitely can't control David) and have been doing what I can with what I have from the place I am right now.

I started seeing David visiting a psychiatrist, moving into a wonderful place with other dual diagnosis men, getting to the doctor, having a happy life and I started spending an hour a day (total) doing something in these areas.

Life rewards action after all, but I also have alot of other things to take action on and since the hows are not my job I trust that there are stronger, better hands at work here.

(since changing my thinking or I should say since taking actions that support the truths I already embrace with my thinking - David has agreed to see a psychiatrist, is going to social services tomorrow for the first time with his new intensive case manager - yay, it took 2 months, but we got one - and he got his fishing license)

xo all

* shoe print by cookstah

Thankful Thursday and yes, I know it is actually Friday


It's not like I think no one knows what day it is (except me), but this week flew by so fast that it still feels like Thursday and I am old enough to not be thankful for fast flying weeks

except maybe the week before, the week before, Christmas

not sure if that just made any sense at all now that I read it back, but I have promised myself to stop editing this blog so much, so I will just keep typing and hope for the best

Grateful 1 - I am very grateful for all these free little address labels I receive this time of year

(sort of)

I used to just get these from the American Lung Association who would send me about a gazillion teeny tiny ones adorned with cute little cardinals.

(the birds not the Catholics, although when I was a kid they used to encourage us to pray for the cardinals and I never knew if they meant the birds or the ball team and was so disappointed when I found out we were supposed to be praying for the men in the red robes- although now that we know what some of them were covering up- I really wish we had been praying for them after all)

And what exactly do birds have to do with healthy lungs? Cigarettes do a lot of bad stuff, but I have yet to see a smoker cough up a cardinal.

Confidential to Philip Morris- could you please make this happen?

So anyhoo, this year everyone from the Susan G. Kohman Foundation to the VFW is sending these to me. I think that maybe instead of mailing gazillions of address labels, they should just use that money to, well, um, support their causes.

I mean, does anyone even send letters anymore?

Maybe next time these charities will send me some cutting edge Betamax tapes or 8 tracks or some horses for my feudal plantation.

Gratitude 2 - My front door is not broken.

Last night bringing home some take-out, in the dark and the cold- I was standing on my front porch clicking my car remote at my house door to get it to open and thinking - dammit - my front door is broken

and well, I'm just glad it isn't

<---(note- this is not actually my front door, but let's just pretend it is- it's much cuter than mine)

Gratitiude 3 - It is almost Christmas. And even though my family has pledged no gifts

(bah humbug to them all I say)

and half my family (the half that can cook unfortunately- I really miss you Randi) has moved away - it is still almost Christmas and people are happier (yes, even in New Jersey) and kinder to each other and smiling more often ... even me.

I still really, really want to see someone cough up a cardinal though ...

Thankful Thursday or I will not whine, I will not whine, I will not whine

I thought instead of whining my way through the holidays, I would try something a little more positive and focus on things I am thankful for.

So do you guys want to hear something awesome?

Then you should probably go read another blog.

You are not going to believe what happened to me.

(just kidding... sort of)

Gratitude 1: A 2 Day local craft show last weekend that I have no idea why I signed up for (yes, I know I am dangling my participles and I also do know why I signed up, but I will take full responsibility for my own stupidity)

I was surrounded (on 2 of 3 sides) with buy/sell jewelry and yes, even though I befriended the very kind sellers of this junk, I totally knew it was buy/sell.

NOTE to buy/sell people at juried shows- EVERYONE knows you did not make your stuff when 1. You have 1000's of pieces with 1000's of different clasps, beads, settings, styles, etc and 2. You are selling necklaces for $10.00 that could not possibly be made for $10.00 (other than by six year old children in India)

(and oh yeah, also when you say that you "sell jewelry" because people who are not buy/sell do not say we "sell jewelry" - even though we try to - we say we "make jewelry")

And you make those of us who actually labor over our product look expensive and shows should be more careful - and they often aren't.

But, wait I am getting whiney, so let me say that I am actually very thankful that I did this show because now I am 100% certain I will never do another non-Indie show (and I've never done an Indie show, but they seem like more fun and no one is ripping Made In China stickers - unless they were the one in China actually making them - off the bottom of their stuff minutes before the show starts) again.

I am incredibly thankful that I did so poorly that I will never be tempted to do this again.

and that I got to meet this woman ---> (untouched photo I snapped as she was leaving and YES that is all her own hair)

who squealed when she saw my cork

(the kind of sound you would expect to hear if you punched a build-a-bear)

and of, course, I got her stylist's digits, because you know I just had to ask.

Gratitude 2: I was sick on Monday, but on Tuesday I was better. So I knew it was just a stomach thing and not the swine flu which I was convinced I had for a few hours there. Which, of course, is totally ridiculous because everyone who knows me knows I am like the last person to grab on to the latest fad. If I got swine flu now that would make me terribly in vogue, it's more likely that I'd have SARS.

Gratitude 3: I spent like 3 hours at Barnes and Noble trying to decide whether or not to purchase the new Stephen King.

(ie reading the first chapter while sipping spilled hot chocolate from my napkin - hey, it's a recession - and avoiding everything I was supposed to be doing ... like food shopping)

and I got to hear the best little quarrel I'd heard in a long time

(that I wasn't participating in)

Let me set the scene- they were an adorable twenty something couple- she had wide-set Bratz doll eyes and you just knew she would still look cute when she washed off all that eye make-up but you just couldn't hate her for it because she was just so damn adorable

and he kind of reminded me of that cute wannabe detective guy on the HBO series.

She was smacking the side of their table trying to get his attention.

"ANSWER ME"

She hit the table harder sending the Dean Koontz books he had been building into an elaborate pyramid crashing to the floor. "You spilled my Koontz," he whispered, calmly gathering the books and re-Jenga-ing them on top of each other. He looked sad. "Now, I've got dirty Koontz."

This sent my hot chocolate spewing and caused everyone to look at me.

"Sorry, asthma attack", I muttered, pounding my own chest.

"We are so broken up right now!" - she stomped off.

So, anyhoo, we have to be thankful for the little things (as Oprah says) and for some reason this little exchange (I did see them making out in the parking lot an hour later) somehow made me happy and had me thinking about young love and all the passion of it and then that made me a little bit sad and needing to see my own hubby.

So, I headed over to hubby's shop and he was wearing his 'crazy pilot from Mad Max' goggles and stopped dead in his tracks to say to me "damn, you look good"

(those goggles are a bit distorting)

and I thought, well, maybe old-love isn't so bad either ...

(of course, he burst my love-bubble by asking about the lines in the grocery store and about all the food I bought, which made me realize that I actually did have to hit the food store and not just the bookstore)

so I blew him a kiss and left him standing there with his saucer eyes and fraggle rock hair and went off to do my Thanksgiving duty.

Hoping everyone has a wonderful Thanksgiving and lots of amazing things to be thankful for!