I’ve been busy the past few days finishing final layout on the September issue of Horizons Magazine and haven’t had time for too much else.  That seems like a fib when I check the nonsense I’ve written on my Facebook wall all day long, but it only takes a moment to make a post while working in other programs.  I over-moused my starboard paw, so every few hours I had to come up with something else to do to keep my wrist in another position.  I looked around the office and began organizing and rearranging, then decided I’d paint the two tables I just brought in there.  I went to Walmart for white paint, then came back and rolled the tables out onto the driveway.  I quickly gave a first and second coat, and while they dried, I checked the files I had stacked on the shelves in the five bookcases in the office.  Much of it I needed to keep, a third of it I tossed.  One bookcase had a makeshift shelf laid across the top, and I remembered I had another shelf the correct size in the garage.  It took me just 10 minutes to put the proper top piece on, a job that I could have done two years ago.  It’s interesting I think how organized and uncluttered I am, then I find 50 lbs of paperwork I can toss.  One big downside of even a little clutter is that it takes valuable time maintaining all this paperwork and stuff, time I could be spending doing fun things. Continue reading →

I went down to the beach at sunrise this morning and watched the waves lap the shore.  A lot of seaweed had washed up during the night and formed an embankment on the beach.  I thought, the waves are like the people and events in our lives, washing over us and leaving behind their own unique residue.  Many people think they have to acept what washes up on their beach as something to be held onto forever but we always have a choice.  We can weed through what Life gives is and keep only what’s wanted and useful, or we can spend our lives grumbling to others about what trash washes up on our shore.
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While we can’t avoid our lessons in life, we can live in such a way that when challenges arise, we have plenty of support at the time we need to go through them.

Our personal reality is always changing because it changes to reflect our shifts in consciousness.  We see the world around us change as we change.  As the Talmud and Anais Nin said, “We do not see the world as it is, we see it as we are.

Put it there, pardner

I read an article today Project Husband – She’s Got the Gown, Now She Needs the Groom. Silly me, but I thought getting married was about finding someone to love, not just having vacant slots that any possible partner could fill.  I wrote a year ago that I’d been talking to a male friend who is on the single and dating circuit.  I’d written earlier at Online Dating Scams and Online dating: E-Harmony vs. Match.com about the insincere types who are on the dating scene simply looking for a meal ticket.  Dave is a handsome, successful guy and the situation he encounters often is that after two dates, all the gals want him to meet their folks.  Dave is the complete package.  I told him I guess these gals are so darned smart that they figure that out by the second date. I am always surprised at the number of women I speak with, friends and clients I counsel, who still seek a man to support them.  It’s like when most chicks are kids they are trained to play games where they are the bride and they plan their wedding, and they spend the next 18 years doing just that. They go over every single detail in their mind, the dress, their bridesmaids, all that stuff. That’s why they look at every date as a prospective groom.  They’ve been playing that game all their life, and the next step is a face to paste into the groom’s photo.  It doesn’t matter what face gets pasted in for the groom, that can be just about anyone.  The important thing is the wedding itself.  That’s what they grow up dreaming about and planning on.  So if the men feel targeted, that’s because they are.

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Talk about a rough night. A British tourist was seriously injured when he fell off a hotel balcony on the Spanish island of Majorca while sleepwalking, falling 35 feet from a third floor window, suffering serious head and facial injuries and a broken leg, according to the UK’s Daily Telegraph newspaper.  His girlfriend tells police he regularly sleepwalks.   Original article at Tourist Seriously Injured After Sleepwalking off Hotel Balcony by Fran Golden.  As a sleepwalker, I’ve learned to place wind chimes at each doorway and door, so I have a series of chimes to gently wake me up if I try to walk out. My sleepwear is always something I wouldn’t mind showing up wearing in a neighbor’s headlights. It hasn’t happened yet. The most drastic thing I’ve done is load a shelf of books into the washing machine (glad I didn’t turn it on) and once I put my pillow in the refrigerator.

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I have friends who are writers, artists, teachers, musicians.  With rare exception, they all say “I can’t promote myself,  I can’t review my own work.” I’ve learned that’s a cop out since all it takes is a little serious consideration, and you can’t expect anyone to be more excited about your work than you are.  If you’re not excited enough about it to review yourself, you may want to work on that first.  I learned early on with Horizons Magazine that (1) it takes a lot of work to write a review and (2) I don’t have time to get good at it; and (3) printing a book review is giving free ad space, so I instead creating a monthly Suggested Reading and Listening column. Continue reading →