“Do not complain about growing old. It is a privilege denied to many.” – Mark Twain I’m on the cusp of a new trip around the sun. Age has definitely brought about some changes – especially in recent years. A few new wrinkles…a few new pounds…a few new aches and pains…weird sleeping patterns. Sometimes it’s kind of…
Category: getting older
14 years
WordPress reminded me yesterday that I first posted with them 11 years ago. Prior to moving over to this platform, I’d blogged somewhere else under a different title. In all, I’ve been blogging for 14 years. Some more diligently than others, but 14 years. I briefly scrolled through my first posts and I started thinking…
Impact
“Your impact on other people is bigger than you think. Someone still giggles when they think of that funny thing you said. Someone still smiles when they think of the compliment you gave them. Someone silently admires you. The advice you give has made a difference for people. The support and love you’ve offered others…
Make sure
“Every minute someone leaves this world behind. We are all “in line” without knowing it. We never know how many people are before us. We cannot move to the back of the line. We cannot step out of the line. We cannot avoid the line. So while we wait in line: Make moments count. Make…
Neighbors
“We didn’t realize we were making memories, we just knew we were having fun.” – Winnie the Pooh My Monday morning started out with this note on my doorstep, a darling portrait of me, my dog and my sweet little neighbor. The sentiment had me smiling all day. When I talked to my mom about…
Turn the page
This weekend I began the process of purging my house of all the things I don’t need — starting with stuff in my room. I started with my closets, dumping the contents of each old purse and bag. One by one, ticket stubs and other mementos started dropping out, until a pile of memories sat…
What Was That?
So life has been weird lately. Depending upon how you look at it, I’m either entering a new phase of life or leaving an old one. My kids are building their resumes, planning careers, and I will likely have an empty house by the end of the summer. I’ve never had a childless house in…
Goals
“Ah, how good it feels! The hand of an old friend.” – Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Please forgive this blurry photo, but when you see something this dear, you use whatever you have handy. Which in this case, when I was looking out the window at the art museum, I only had my iPhone. So I…
Always Be a Unicorn
“Always be yourself. Unless you can be a unicorn. Then always be a unicorn.” Recently I posted about a photography hike and how embarrassed I was about looking weird to other hikers. I’ve thought a lot about that day, trying to understand what I had been so worried about. I finally realized that what made that incident unusual is…
Long and Short of It
“There is one simple thing wrong with you – you think you have plenty of time.” — Carlos Castaneda, author Getting older has been on my mind a lot lately. I’ve not done anything unusual in the way of self-reflection or anything, but I’ve noticed some changes in myself. People, circumstances, and difficult discussions don’t…
Pause
“Learn to pause…or nothing worthwhile will catch up to you.” – Doug King, poet Today is the first day of the 21-Day Reverence Challenge that I’d mentioned in an earlier post (link here). I loved it and wanted to pass along: “Drop Into The Present Moment: Busyness is an epidemic in today’s world. Our calendars have…
Lessons Learned
“To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all.” – Oscar Wilde Today my grampa would’ve turned 130 years old. We’ve been without him for almost 25 years now. That’s so hard to believe. (That’s him holding me before my baptism.) He passed away when he was just shy…
Memories and Loss
“… even out of unspeakable grief, beautiful things take wing.” –AR Torres, “The Lessons of Loss” Today included a little road trip for work to help with one of our special events. It’s a camp that helps children who have experienced the death of a loved one. The goal is to teach them to cope and…
It’s a Bird, It’s a Plane…
Did I mention that we saw Superman at the grocery store this weekend? And nearby, we saw his sister, Wonder Woman. Although I couldn’t quite get a photo of her. Kids in costumes make me smile so much — especially when it’s in public and it’s not Halloween. There’s just something so fantastic about seeing…
25 Questions to Ask Yourself — Part I
One of the programs that my workplace offers to our hospice patients includes something called a life review. A life review is just as it sounds — a look back at one’s life through a series of thought-provoking questions. Since the program’s start, however, I’ve believed that this reflection process is something that should be done…
Bring it on.
Being snowbound on a Sunday made me feel like I had a good excuse to bake a bit. Boom. Birthday cupcakes. Extra sprinkles. And there you have it. Okay, forty-*ahem*. I’m ready. Bring it on.
Past…Present…Future
After spending part of the afternoon catching up with a long-time colleague and friend (one of her sweet kitties pictured above), I came home and noticed a letter addressed to my younger son in our pile of mail. His elementary school was scrawled as the return address in the obvious penmanship of a child. I…
Humility Be a Teenager Tonight
When I first started my 5k training, I worked out daily at the high school track down the street. Prior to daylight savings, workouts were done after dark under the dim night lights of the stadium. I was typically alone, clad in layers to protect myself from the cold. Then two months ago, I bought…
Sigh.
So today brought a long overdue trip to the doctor’s office. Normally checkups aren’t a big deal — get your arm squeezed really tight, breathe in and out a couple of times, try to pretend that it’s normal to do something with a cup in the bathroom other than drink out of it. But today…
hey there, friends 