I love the hair and makeup commercials I see on tv and on AOL: “Tricks to Beat Frizz on Humid Days” the headline reads.  “The Best Foundation for Summertime.”  Have these writers ever lived in Florida?  It doesn’t matter what gel or spray you put on your hair and what styling tools you use, the Florida humidity in the summer will soak into your hair as surely as if you walked through a steam bath.  And waterproof, sweatproof foundation and mascara?  Not so.  They slide right off.  Until I travelled outside Florida for the first time, I thought everywhere had high humidity.  After I took my first trip out west, I realized that wasn’t the case.  I lived in California for awhile and that’s when I realized, ah, that’s where these writers live.  They must think everyone lives in the same climate as they do.

Sunday May 31, 2009. My brother gave me a small tabletop rose bush earlier this year.  It arrived with one rose and a small rosebud.  Within 2 weeks, both roses were spent, and I placed the bush on the table in the sunniest corner of the back porch.  I mean, it being a tabletop rose bush and all. Weeks and then months went by and, although the rose got a couple of hours of direct sunlight each morning, it wasn’t really growing and it took 2 months until I saw another rosebud on it.  My brother would ask how the briar patch was doing.  Then I had the idea to plant it in the yard, just 3 feet from where it sat on the porch, and it immediately began to grow.  The full sun all day long made the difference.  I told Brother Jerry about it, and he said, “That little briar patch is kinda like people, you can baby and pamper them and try your best to make them bloom, but the flowers don’t appear unless you allow them to have their own little place in the sun.  Then the laws of nature brings forth the roses.” Continue reading →

Saturday May 30, 2009.  I watched the tv show Mental last night. Chris Vance is Dr. Jack Gallagher, an unorthodox psychiatrist who becomes Director of Mental Health at an L.A. hospital. He takes on patients battling unknown, misunderstood, and misdiagnosed psychiatric conditions.  Gallagher has developed an ability to get into the minds of his patients and see the way they see reality, allowing him to uncover what might be the keys to their long-term recoveries. This perspective leads him to offer alternative treatments for his patient.  I wondered why I was led to turn the show on, but then I saw the doctor and staff around a table discussing treatment plans.  Since one patient had already gone off his medication, Gallagher suggested they keep him unmedicated, let all the chemicals get out of his system, and use counseling, acupuncture, visualization and other forms of alternative therapy.  Then after the patient had a period of no medication, re-evaluate him in light of new technologies. You can imagine that not everyone at the table was in agreement.  One responded “You don’t treat schizophrenia with aromatherapy.” This might be a very good show.

Later in the show, Gallagher is approached by an authority at the hospital who asks for his cooperation in keeping the funding in place from the major pharmaceutical companies who use the hospital to run their drug trials.  This should play out nicely as a story line.  And also educate some people; especially the elderly who are over-medicated and sit in front of the tv all day.  I hope they watch this show.

I spent about 10 years with the tv off, and it’s just recently come back on.  That’s a good thing to do to gain perspective.  Now I see programming is slowly making some changes for the better.  It’s encouraging.

Friday May 29, 2009.  I got this email from a client’s brother after reading my May 2009 Horizons Magazine editorial.   “Hello Andrea, just wanted to let you know how the universe came together for me through one of your suggestions….  First, my name is Steve and I live in Michigan. I have access to Horizons via my sister, Laurie Taylor (ad on your page 22), who shows me various issues  whenever I end up at her home in Florida. Sometimes she sends me the occasional magazine, as was the case with May’s offering.   So I’m reading your column about interacting with nature, and you’re going on about squirrels and cardinals, and mulberry trees, and its all hitting home to me to me in a personal way, not because of my love for critters and the outdoors, which I have, but because of the significance of of your instruction, which was to write those creatures a note should you bump heads with one another.   You see, Andrea, bumping heads with creatures has weighed heavily on my soul lately in an “in-your-face” sort of way, primarily because of the actions of my dear neighbor – my tattoo covered, carny working neighbor, who decided he could not live another moment of life without those most precious of pets, a pit bull.” Continue reading →

A lazy Thursday. Not lazy for me, as I will be running around doing things starting early, which means I had better get to bed quickly.  It’s 4:00am as I type this.  So the lazy part is me sharing some of the past week’s Facebook posts, with some after thoughts.  I kind of like keeping track of my Facebook posts, it’s like a periodic journal of what was on my mind throughout the day. Continue reading →

I was Googling myself this morning and came across something I’d written several years ago, that someone had shared on their site.  It was a good one, so I wanted to share it here:  “I had a great lesson in the power of my beliefs this morning.  As usual on final layout week, I spend extra hours at the computer, creating and revising ads, opening mail, logging in payments, seeing who’s paid and who needs to pay, playing phone tag with a dozen new advertisers getting last minute details, making last minute adjustments to design and layout.  So I work well into the night and get up early to begin again.  And this morning was no different.”

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Tuesday, May 26, 2009. I didn’t do a blog post this morning because I needed to fly out of here as soon as I woke up to drive to Ocala. I’d finished my  phone work just after 2:00am this morning and had to leave by 7:00am to meet with my Ocala connection before she got into her day.  I can do fine on 4 hours sleep, but making myself fall right asleep the minute I stop “work” isn’t so easy.  I got 3 hours in before I had to walk out the door. Usually, when the magazine is delivered each month, we do the mailing that day.  I take all the stacks left over after everyone has taken theirs, and I deliver Ocala and Cassadaga myself.  This time, I had to reschedule the Ocala trip to before the mailing, and I had to do all the last minute figuring to see who gets how many.  In my haste and exasperation, I did the math wrong and was 1500 magazines short, and didn’t notice it until I got to Ocala and opened my trunk. Continue reading →

Monday, May 25, 2009.  Happy Memorial Day. Yesterday for the first time in a long time I found myself driving after dark.  I’d run out to a meeting about 6pm and threw my wallet and phone in my pocket.  I really never need to carry my purse with me, so I didn’t put it in the car.  I figured I’d be back by 8pm, long before dark.  And of course I wasn’t, and of course one thing I keep in my purse is my driving glasses.  I mean, I can see fine to drive with my regular glasses and I do it all the time.  But if I’m driving somewhere unfamiliar, where I need to read the street signs, I put on the driving glasses.  I also put them off after dark, because I can just see the small details so much clearer.  So, as I was leaving downtown Melbourne about 8:30pm last night, I made a point to drive home along the best lighted route.  Continue reading →

I went on a long drive yesterday afternoon.  I’ve not had a chance all week to get out for a change of scenery, and I needed one. I know I live in Paradise, but sometimes driving out to see the rest of the world lets me appreciate it even more when I return.   I’ve heard that “Paradise does not make itself known to you until you’ve been kicked out of it.” I want to make sure that never happens to me.  I want to recognize and draw Paradise out of anywhere I am, anytime I’m there.  Ma Yoga Shakti says, “Wherever you are, make a heaven of it.”

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