Tag Archives: family

Happy New Year—Hitting the Reset Button

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Okay, so it took me five days to write my New Year’s Blog, but HEY! I have a lot going on right now!

Between kiddo being home, Christmas and New Year’s meal preparations with a bum right thumb, doctor’s appointments, and the general hullabaloo of the holidays, I feel myself lucky that I am sane right now! But I digress. We had a wonderful time, and it was nice to celebrate without thinking about “what things may become” in the future. Now that I have put the grown (21!) baby back on the plane and he is back at college, I have a lot to do this month!

So I tackled the chores in my frenzied Cleaning, Cleaning, Cleaning phase (always after the new year, it seems.) I always feel as if I can get rid of stuff I haven’t used in a hundred years (or since we got married—how many of you remember all those crazy wedding gifts from twenty+ or thirty+ years ago?), then the old mantra, Clean House, Clear Mind, will ring true.

First, I tackled the paper shredding affair. Ugh! What a task. (Everyone who does this understands what I am saying.) I shredded two years’ worth of old tax documents dating back to 2017 and then had to pack it into two big bags for disposal. Then, I had to clean up the floor. Sheesh!

Then I went through the office closet and found way more stuff to give away, such as a zillion children’s puzzles. I am taking them to the rec center for summer camp, 2026!

Then came the kitchen. Since we have such a small kitchen, I went through the pantry and the shelves, cleaned them out, and put on new shelf paper.  I found yet more gadgets that I hadn’t used since the beginning of time (or when we bought them). I’m removing them from the pantry and storing the ice cream maker, popcorn popper, and snow cone machine for the kiddo to see if he’ll take them away when he gets his own place. If now, well, ARC here I come!!!!

We’ll finally tackle taking down the tree, putting away the Christmas decorations, and putting away the Lego Village this weekend. I’ll have my living space back! Yes!

So, with a wonderful old-fashioned Tea Cake Recipe from the past (Thanks, Jo!), I’ll relive my Grandma’s love, and make them this week (after the Frenzied Exercise startup, of course!).

So here’s to singing in the new year, and creating Mantras (NOT RESOLUTIONS!) to do better, be better, and help others. It’s all inside of you!

I completed the updates to both Silver Element and Silver Storm (new cover in progress), so the refresh/reprint is online as well as the third book, Silver Lore! Hope you purchase and read them, and have a blast with the stories!! https://www.amazon.com/stores/Drusilla-M.-Tieben/author/B00ET98OVA

I also want to share an email from a friend on New Year’s Day:
“Hi Friends! I woke up this morning dreaming about our meditation group. I was saying that meditation is not about adding something- but uncovering what is already there- your beautiful, soulful self. Keep uncovering your best, loving self in this New Year.”—Stephen Wurzel
“We know what we are, but know not what we may be.” Shakespeare’s Hamlet (Act 4, Scene 5).

So have a great start to the new year. Love each other every day and help those in need! I love you all and can’t wait to see you or meet you!

Hallmark Moments

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AND: Love, Romance, and Aging Brains
Have you ever found yourself watching the Hallmark Channel around the holidays and getting sucked into the story, even if it is really bad, full of cliches, and with a festive atmosphere where no one is angry with each other? And a little part of you is starting to want to have that life, that moment after the big fight where you kiss and make up, near the mistletoe, and everything is wonderful, and everything is with your soul mate?

Wellllllll…. We all know this quest for true love and romance doesn’t always happen in real life, right? We all go through the ups and downs of daily life, and as we age, things get harder to face in the real world. (Also, notice that everyone in all of these movies is beautiful, has money, and is very young?)

What I’m trying to say is this: We create our Hallmark moments every day that we interact with the ones we love. We strive for perfection, yet embrace what is given. We can love each other the way we are, not perfect, yet make our dreams come true with what we have. Love can conquer our greatest fears as long as we acknowledge our past and move on to a future of our own creation.

In the movie Fred Claus, Fred, Santa Claus’s brother, realizes that there are no naughty kids and that every kid deserves a present at Christmas, no matter how small. It’s the thought of having a loving family surrounding them that counts, not the present itself. In the real world, not every kid is always good, and not every kid gets a present, or even has a family. There are so many of us who forget about the love portion, no matter what we do.

There are rich spoiled kids with good and bad parents, and poor kids whose parents treat them poorly, or kids who don’t have parents at all and are in the system. But I’d like to believe that the majority of parents pull together for the holidays in ways that aren’t about how they were treated by their own parents. I’d like to believe in those happy moments where families just love each other for who they are in this present moment. Sometimes it’s hard to get beyond our weird family dynamics, but there is hope for all of us to love each other in ways we weren’t loved. There is hope that we can become better parents and grandparents and forgive those who treated us poorly in the past. There is hope in seeing others not as different or less than us, but as part of our bigger family, part of being human, people we should embrace and call our own.

So sometimes I have weird dreams, and my family dynamic from the past interferes with my aging brain’s headspace. But I try to overcome these moments and say a little mantra, forgiving all the past trespasses of my family or me against my family. I try to see where I’m at today and be thankful for my loved ones who love me unconditionally. I try to love them the same way that I want to be loved. I remember the good times and try not to beat myself up with the bad times. It’s hard to forget everything, but my brain and body have lived for a long time on this planet, and I hope it continues to live a little longer to see a change in our world for the better.

All I know is that I have done what I could to help others and will continue to do so through many, many small acts of kindness. I hope you’ll do the same. But I think most of us can be better than you know who, and, at least when I fall asleep in my chair, I don’t have the world watching me because I am in charge of the highest office in the land. Time to step down and become a human being, mister! And threatening people’s lives is not cool, so stop it and overcome your pettiness and selfishness. Be a kind and gentle leader for once in your life! No amount of gold on the walls will make you happy with who you are if you don’t take care of all of the people in this country. Enough said.

I hope everyone has a happy and peaceful Thanksgiving. Make beautiful food, share it, and continue your traditions, as well as make new ones for the future. Overcome your dark moods before everyone comes home and try to stay in the moment. Love each other the best way you know how, and extend a helping hand to others in need. I send out much love to all this week!

Traditions

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I have just started preparing for the holidays. My neighbor has all the lights up around his house and is working on the inside! Wow! We will probably start doing that this weekend. We always miss the good weather and end up doing it in the snow. Crazy us.

We’ll get down all of the boxes and boxes of lights and ornaments that are up in the attic over the garage, and I will get out my Lego Village and put it on a long folding table upstairs for display. (We bought the Lego Christmas train this year to add to the village!)

We won’t build the Lego set or put up the tree until kiddo gets home from college, another tradition we’ve started over the last few years. Everyone takes turns putting all the decorations and ornaments on the tree, and if you know me, I will rearrange them a million times before it looks just right.

It’s fun to create traditions that are your own. My husband’s mom passed away recently, and I remember her kindness and thoughtfulness to me when I was struggling with a piece of writing. She would always review my books, and they were always honest and still positive. One of her traditions she started was sending us a Hallmark Christmas ornament around Thanksgiving each year.

We sometimes got the tree up early, but usually it was about two weeks before Christmas. When kiddo came into our lives, David’s mom started sending fun kid ornaments. We have a whole box of them now, and we only put up a few of them for sentimental reasons. This is the first holiday season we will be without her, so I decided to keep the tradition going. I bought a Hallmark ornament for us and for my husband’s Dad. He received it last week, and I think it cheered him up a little bit. I will try to honor her in the future in a way I hope has meaning for all.

And we always hope for a dusting of snow like in the movies, but of course, we haven’t had any snow or rain in 233 days now, so who knows? We can wish. I love you all this week before the holiday season starts. And remember those in need through Colorado Gives Day on December 9th!  https://www.coloradogives.org/

And, of course, catch up on my series before the new ones go live:
SHOP Drusilla Tieben on Amazon

Celebrate and Change with Me!

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Or: Half-Way Mark for 365 Days of Kindness Blogs
Today marks the 182nd post or the half-way mark of my endeavor to enlighten, entertain, and encourage people to keep on living life to the fullest and doing great things. Although there were a few days and weeks where I skipped posting, negating the promise to write every day, I must humbly admit that that was me being me, promising something that is often a huge grand gesture, yet, like life, is hard to deliver. But I am persevering through all the ups and downs of my life with everyone else, and continuing to do my part the best way I know how. So it may take more than a few days after that original 365-day mark (November 2024), but I hope you keep reading and sending out good vibes, love and happiness after my messages come to you unbidden.

Re-reading The Monkey Wrench Gang once again helps me understand how the cyclical thoughts on progress got us where we are today. We want convenience to get to places where we shouldn’t be going. And the big money corporations and their CEOs want to continue to get richer so they pretend that they are doing things for the public (destroying the western lands, like building roads and dams, drilling, mining, fracking, ad nauseum) making life better for us, more convenient for us, all the while hurting the earth and the environment and all of us who live in it. After all, the ads always paint a rosy picture, right? And of course we should believe those, right?

Seldom Seen Smith was right: “The river, the canyon, the desert world was always changing, from moment to moment, from miracle to miracle, within the firm reality of mother earth. River, rock, sun, blood, hunger, wings, joy—this is the real….All the rest is androgynous theosophy. All the rest is transcendental transvestite transactional scientology or whatever the fad of the day, the vogue of the week.” [Abbey, Edward. The Monkey Wrench Gang (p. 61). RosettaBooks. Kindle Edition.]

We all want the adventures from our past but in a more convenient, easier way. After all, we are getting older and can’t do those hikes like we used to. We embrace those conveniences at the detriment of those beautiful areas. But we also deny how much our climate is changing and what havoc is wreaked upon all of us. Perhaps it is just too big a problem not one for immediate resolution and that breaks us. So many of us ignore what is happening, and yet many of us are stepping up to the task. We know we can’t fix everything, but we are trying to do the best we can in our smaller environments. Every day I am thankful for all of my adventures in my younger years and what I saw. But I am also thankful for the new inventions in gear, such as better equipment, less plastic, and better shoes and backpacks for the young ones to take those adventures. We can’t give up on the new inventions, yet we have to come up with solutions to stop destroying the land for profit.

Monkey wrenching in the oldest of ideologies doesn’t work the way we think it should. Perhaps we should think of new ways to change progress, maybe purchasing lands (including the mineral rights, if possible) to protect them from the marauders. Smarter people than me are making this happen in many states. It is my hope that this way of thinking will be the new tool to protect our children and grandchildren in the future.

So my thoughts for today are these: Keep picking up trash and plastics no matter where you are and recycle, reuse, etc. You know the drill. Stop using plastics in your home. Go electric or maybe hybrid in your vehicles (I know I am in a few years!) Eat less beef (I love it and I know we are in beef country, but come on!) And grow some wonderful food items in your gardens to feed your family and others!) Stop listening to advertisements. If we can start these practices, thinking before doing, and making changes in our lives, the movement will grow and change will happen.

Keep writing your congressmen to stop granting rights to those in big oil and gas, big mining, big, well everything. Ask your congressmen to stop taking money from these corporations in order to stay in office. I know that is a hard one and many people don’t think like me, but that’s the only way we are going to stop it. Support those who support us. I know we won’t change everything, and I know we’ve heard it before, but we can keep the conversation going. At least our tiny piece of the world will be cleaner. Thank you for listening and I look forward to better times!

Love to all tonight.

Who Will Be There for You?

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I have been contemplating how I want to be remembered and who I want to have around me, especially when it’s time to dance off this plane of existence. My writing has always been one of a mixture of fact and fiction and my past frequently shows up in the characters I’ve written about. I don’t always reveal my darkest moments, and I am okay with that. I want to be remembered as one who loves life and appreciates others for who they are. I don’t want to dwell on past realities or relationships that brought me down. I want to celebrate the love I have been given over these last 25+ years. I hope that my family feels the same. I constantly search for what Wallace Stegner called a usable past that I can employ in my characters and reveal a little of myself to strangers. There are so many things that I want my family and friends to remember about me that are positive.

I wish that I had been more of a documentarian like Edward Abbey and kept my journals full. I wrote during my travels, but over the last few years, I became more sedentary and didn’t keep up. I began writing sort of a prequel about my beloved Caitlin, which came from notes over the past 50 or more decades. As I go through the notes, there are so many things that I wished I had fleshed out when I was living them. But that is the beauty of storytelling I suppose. Write what you know, and remember, and the story will follow.

I suppose pictures will have to be good enough for my future generations. As they fade, we are endeavoring to digitize those old Polaroids and other camera photos. But one thing I’d like to share with you is to keep a journal on hand at all times. Document your adventures because places you’ve cherished may not be there when your family travels to them.

I loved the fact that Wallace Stegner had a legacy, to-do list on his desk when he died and it was later published. He reminded me that while I am on this earth, there is still so much work to be done. I have completed many to-do lists and put them on my desktop of my computer, both short and long-term projects. I want to begin to add writing lists to this, for people and places I want to research and learn about.

But who will be there for you through your failing brain, through sickness, through general aging? Decide who is most important and ask them to be there as you will be there for them. Even if you don’t leave a large legacy, be there for the ones you care about the most, a family member, a loving spouse, or a best friend. My spouse is my both my spouse and best friend. I hope that he will be there for me as I will be there for him.

Finally, ever think about what you want to put out there at the end of life? As a writer I think it’s important to create your own obituary ahead of time. Find a picture you love, and save it on a thumb drive somewhere. Put it in an envelope and give it to each other. You’ve lived a wonderful life so why not have your family celebrate it the way you want them to?

So after walking around the house for 10 minutes looking for your glasses so you can finish your epic novel, and after finding them on the top of your head, rejoice in the fact that you are still here. Embrace the knowledge that your loved ones still love you, and that your words may not be read by everyone, but that they have been immortalized in print. Know that you have left a tiny footprint on this earth and those that love you will still remember your impact on their lives, whether good or bad, mad, or sad, cursed, or beloved. Hope for happiness during the life you still have and wish for happiness for you loved ones in the future. Acknowledge (and write it down) that special someone to watch over you. Someone to Watch Over Me

Love to all on this dark and stormy night! Keep enjoying the zucchini! Here is a wonderful recipe I just tried! Very delicious! Stanley Tucci’s Zucchini and Potato Muffins

Day to Remember Your Dad

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Or: Gardening, Flight Delays and Treating Dad
So I was in my happy place outside today, finishing up a few things this morning, to keep the plants alive in this summer heat when I remembered I was going to make a breakfast for my hubby. Oh, well, kiddo is coming in—although a delayed flight—and when we pick him up, we’ll take Dad out for a meal.

Since my husband had never been up to Central City we took a drive yesterday the scenic route through Boulder Canyon and then through Nederland where they were protesting – yea! NO KINGS! We waved at all of them and gave them a thumbs up. I loved to see all of the people standing up this weekend against the craziness of you know who and his ilk.

The drive was amazing through HWY 119 even with all of the road work. Drivers were kind and we got there in one piece. We found free parking, then wandered around in the old part of town. We don’t gamble but it was a treat just to see the old mining town was still there, albeit a lot of casinos and people than the last time I went up there (before gambling!).

And the Opera House was closed on the weekend but the flowers were pretty and the weather was nice. The town was setting up for the bed races and Main street had some vendors. I bought a book from one of the locals. I want to give a shout out to Jen, J.R. Black for her book The Watchmen of Dalton Manor. It’s a wonderful story about growing up in an old, haunted house. She is a lovely storyteller and a native of Colorado. I recommend her stories to you to have a fun read. She’s on Amazon, just like me!

Overall, a beautiful weekend occurred in Colorado even though we are getting the heat. So be kind to your spouses and your fathers today. Embrace the celebration. Love to All!

Do We Change for the Better as We Age?

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I’d like to think that for every year we are alive on this planet, we all become the wise person that we have looked up to and attempted to emulate over our elder years. I’d like to think that we all grow and begin to see the world from a better perspective. I’d like to think that we become more of a human being, like the wise grandfather elder spoke about in the old movie, Little Big Man. (A must-see movie! Add it to your bucket list!)

Grandfather, Old Lodge Skins spoke to his son, Jack Crabb—or Little Big Man, about the war with white men. Little Big Man asked if Grandfather—Old Lodge Skins, hated the white man now (after warring with people like General Custer and his army).
“Jack Crabb: Do you hate them? Do you hate the White man now?
Old Lodge Skins: Do you see this fine thing? Do you admire the humanity of it? Because the human beings, my son, they believe everything is alive. Not only man and animals. But also water, earth, stone. And also the things from them… like that hair. The man from whom this hair came, he’s bald on the other side, because I now own his scalp! That is the way things are. But the white man, they believe EVERYTHING is dead. Stone, earth, animals. And people! Even their own people! If things keep trying to live, white man will rub them out. That is the difference.”

After the war scene, Jack spoke with his grandfather once again about death and the fate of Human Beings (what his grandfather called his people):
“Jack Crabb: Grandfather, I am glad to see you.
Old Lodge Skins: Glad to see you too, my son. My heart soars like a hawk. Do you want to eat? I won’t eat with you because I’m gonna’ die soon.
Jack Crabb: Die, grandfather?
Old Lodge Skins: Yes, my son. I want to die in my own land, where Human Beings are buried in the sky.
Jack Crabb: Well, why do you want to die, grandfather?
Old Lodge Skins: Because there is no other way to deal with the White Man, my son. Whatever else you can say about them, it must be admitted: you cannot get rid of them.
Jack Crabb: No, I suppose not, grandfather.
Old Lodge Skins: There is an endless supply of White Man. But there always has been a limited number of Human Beings. We won today… we won’t win tomorrow.”

The message for me was clear: There are so many of us that don’t care about all the little things and the original people on earth that have been here long before we got here. There are many things we need to learn to survive in a world where evil people get the upper hand. And there are many things that are going to die and disappear in our lifetime, no matter what we do, because there are so many people who don’t want to respect the wise elders, or become one and do the right thing. All I am saying tonight to everyone who are still drinking the Kool-Aid:
Just….. Be better!

I send out love and happiness to all those who still care to do the right thing. And for those who don’t, Just Be Better!

Angry and Out of Control

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Or: The only perfect people are in the cemetery.
“The graveyards are full of indispensable [people].”—Charles de Gaulle

The other day, I talked to my friend who had a visit from her grandson’s wife and great-granddaughter. The young one was so out of control, talking back to her mother that my friend became upset. The kiddo kept saying she didn’t have to apologize or do anything they told her to do. She’s 9 and already at that teenager angst! My friend was very upset and got angry with her. She caught up with her, grabbed her up and told her under no circumstances was that behavior allowed because this was her house. My friend sent her out of the room and she slunk back in later, never really apologizing to her mother. It was sad to hear that. My questions about this ridiculous behavior are: “Were we all like that at that age or were we older when teenage angst overtook us?” And “Why aren’t we teaching these kids to be humble when they are in the wrong?” And one more: “Is it a discipline issue or is it a sign of the times?

Children go through all kinds of crazy emotions and love you and hate you at the same time. It’s up to you as a parent and grandparent to weather all the storms, and try to make the winds of change flow over you instead of right at you. If we get angry with our children we’ve proved their point. So the hardest thing to master as a parent, grandparent, or great-grandparent is this: Don’t get angry, just let them fume in another room. Then, re-visit them when they’ve thought about it. They will be pre-teens and teenagers – that is a human’s life cycle.

Adulting is hard work but you have to teach your children how to get there and accept responsibility for themselves, the good and the bad. Don’t enable them by letting them blame you for all their woes. Parents aren’t perfect, but they try to do the best they can with the knowledge that have been given or have learned themselves. If we have taught our children well, they will pass on that knowledge to their children. It’s hard, but we have to realize that when children find that they can punch your buttons and you give them ammunition, you allow them to place the burden on you as the parent. You have to be brave and let them make mistakes, hopefully, not life-threatening, by telling them what’s inappropriate. It is up to the child to learn over and over again how to make their life better and not blame their parents and grandparents. Give them the foundation, but let them go when they need to be on their own. Be there when they need you the most. But also, don’t expect a child to change if they haven’t had the background of loving parents who don’t teach them how to deal with the frustrations of life. You learn from each other, but you hope they learn to be a better person than you are. That is the goal of parenting.

In his book, All the Wild That Remains, David Gessner stated that personalities develop through a dose of nurture and a dash of nature. Gessner wrote of the life of Edward Abbey and Wallace Stegner. They had hard childhoods, but persevered and became better human beings as a result. Gessner stated that Stegner believed that individuals have a hand in their own fashioning. “He held onto this conviction his entire life, frequently using what would come to seem dated words like will and determination.” They overcame the hardships of their childhood.

Today, we look at the children who are acting out in public to those who didn’t harm them, and it embarrasses many of us. Perhaps they were more privileged and didn’t get the nurturing they needed as children. Perhaps getting likes solves their need to be loved. We just have to keep explaining to them that all of that is not real. It’s more important to make changes in writing to those in charge. Tiny little cogs in local government can’t solve everything, but if enough people write and attend local meetings, things can change for their neighborhoods. Shouting and filming local police and council members doesn’t help. Persuasion using the written word and great public speaking will change things. Think about it: Does shoving a camera into someone’s face change anything? Sure, you might make them uncomfortable for the moment, and you might even get arrested. But think about all of the other people watching what you are filming. Think about how you are making them uncomfortable. And they may support that opposition because of your actions. Those that vote see your behavior as an attack on an individual (even if they are truly horrible to their constituents). You may not like those buffoons who are spewing information that has no basis in fact because they are following the party line and that guy in office, but have you really made a change in that person? Only reading what is being done, fact checking information that is being given to you on reliable sources, and voting for someone who cares about all people will create a wind of change. So young people, stop sitting on the sidelines or filming stupid acts! Get out there and vote and create relationships with a new driving force! Enough said.

“Order is the dream of man, but chaos is the law of nature.”—Henry James

I love you all and try to flow like me with the winds of change every day that you are alive!

Reflections on Defining Our Identity and the War to Come

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“Identity is an entirely made-up construct, formed largely based on stories other people tell you about yourself.” – Veronica G. Henry, The Canopy Keepers

There are many books in this series, but I encourage you to at least read this first one: The Canopy Keepers

You learn many things about yourself from your family’s stories before you establish who you are. But when you make a decision to go the path you are destined to take, you may counteract all of those stories they have given you in all the years you lived with them. You break out of the mold and become the person you were supposed to be.

If you spend any time with the Buddhist monks, they might ask of you “Who are you?”
I once met and hung out with some amazing monks from China back in the 90’s. I was at an event in Northern California and later at the person’s house who housed them for the time they were visiting. There were a few older ones and a lot of young ones. The older ones appeared to be so very wise and my skeptical self said whether it was a con or not, I listened to what they had to say. And for a while, I felt at peace. They weaved red ropes and gave me a necklace to wear to ease my pain. For a while, I was at peace.

It was the younger monks, though, that just surprised me and made me laugh and enjoy their shenanigans. They went shopping at the local stores, bought sunglasses, baseball caps, and Pepsi. I couldn’t believe how much of that stuff they consumed while they were there. These kids were able to step out of their serious world to a moment in time where they could just be teenagers.

There was a time when I identified with the era of dragons and dragon queens, of Celtic Lore and the powerful belief in magic. I researched the Power of the Myth with Joseph Campbell and read everything I could get my hands on from fantasy authors such as: Marion Zimmer Bradley, particularly The Mists of Avalon, Anne McCaffery, especially the Dragonriders of Pern, Andre Norton, and later Robert Jordan, to name a few.

This powerful connection to the lore of the past made me appreciate the connection to the earth and how we treat it. Reading these books also prepared me for an appreciation of the old world and later to western civilizations and exploration. It led me to debunk the glory of the cowboy and appreciate those that were here before the insurgence of people that didn’t understand the land. I read all of the greats, such as Wallace Stegner, Edward Abbey, Reg Saner (CU professor-Look it up!), and now David Gessner. Their powerful words led me to an understanding of why I am here and not on the east coast. It led me to an understanding of the things that I still want to do in life to preserve what we have, while trying to help people understand that we are the interlopers and should be humble in the presence of those that came before us out in the west. It led me to meeting interesting native peoples and learning how they lived their lives. It led me to a teacher who gave me perspective on their thoughts and ways of life. And finally, it led me to some understanding of how we must continue to protect this wild west at all times, against anything that is thrown at it from crazy corporate schemes. I picked my battles based on what I can do at the time. One day at a time.

There is a war brewing and when it begins, history will repeat itself. “When a war begins, history is quick to tell us who made the first strike (Veronica Henry, The Canopy Keepers, p222).” However, it is not really as clear as Sylvester Stallone’s classic “They drew first blood.” The war brewing outside of us needs to be channeled into what we can do to save democracy, and to save to world. But we must first quell the war inside us and take a stand, unclouding our judgment and creating a better world for us and all of the oppressed.

The war within us helps us define who we are and what we need to do. Parents and grandparents always seem to think they know best, but it’s not true. They can give the foundation for a good life, but it is up to their offspring to discover who they truly are and where they can do their very best in the world. You can have the most experience in the room, but sometimes you have to see a new way of doing things.

Old knowledge can get in the way when you think you know all there is about a subject. So I am asking all of you to listen to all points of view, even when you believe it is wrong, and stop waging the battle inside. Find a way to come up with solutions where we can work together and all wind up at the center of the universe, not as individuals, but together, in harmony, working towards keeping all people free and protected from injustice.

So I am asking everyone to think about who they are and why they are here. I am asking everyone to take a leap beyond what our parents thought we should be. Become that person beyond the perception of your parents, grandparents, and coworkers think you are. Be a responsible homeowner, parent, chief cook, and bottle washer. I am asking everyone to get involved and keep this beautiful land habitable. I am asking everyone to pick one cause that keeps cruelty at bay. Saving democracy and peaceful cohabitation is the right thing to do with our lives.

I love you all on this beautiful rainy Colorado evening.

Learning to Listen and Happy Mother’s Day!

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Or: People want to hear what they want to hear, not necessarily the truth.
I keep returning to this concept that we aren’t hearing each other. We are so busy trying to insert our opinions upon others that we forget to breathe and take in what the other person is trying to say. Listening skills are difficult, and I know I am one of the worst offenders on this subject but I have noticed this in our inner circles as well, especially in spouses and children.

Sometimes we can feel ganged up on and stop talking about a subject. And sometimes the subject is important enough to try and have a conversation. We should be there in the present moment to understand what the other person is trying to say. We should listen to the nuances of what is being said, and believe what they are saying at the time. Questioning takes us off the track of what we are trying to communicate. And we shouldn’t overgeneralize a topic that is being discussed and hear one another.

For the most part, human beings just want to be heard by their friend, family member, or even a stranger who has reached out to us. Others don’t always need to solve the problem of the moment. And it’s okay if it doesn’t get solved right away. Just having someone to talk to can calm us and make us rethink a problem. It can help us come up with a solution later when we are alone with our thoughts.

Active listening is such a learned experience and very few of us have accomplished this skill. Today, I am just asking you to try and understand that what you hear isn’t always what another person says. Think before you put something forward and come to a conclusion. Enough said.

And on that note, I have returned to my gardens. Today was wonderful. Kiddo called and wished me a Happy Mother’s Day. Husband went to Indiana to visit his mom for the week. I took the day to clean up more weeds, put in edgers and rock borders, put down some pea gravel near the raised beds, and sorted the seeds for planting. Next week will be Home Depot runs for new shrubs and plants. I also will be getting the flowers, tomatoes, and green bean seeds into pots. When they are lovely and green in a few weeks, I’ll be transplanting them later into the wonderful, raised beds my family built for me. So excited! Thank you family for letting me have this time! Times like these help me regain perspective and energy to fight another good fight!

I send you all greetings for a Happy Mother’s Day and lots of hugs and love tonight!