Remembering

Building, planning, enjoying life are the fun, memory makers and exciting parts of life. Make sure your personal road includes deeds others will talk about with admiration, love and thankfulness for knowing you. Written by JW Owens, shared by Carol Silvey. Thanks Kev & Kelli for the memories...

How do you know you have a good partner? Because you do things together. Last year we even made new bill envelopes together. His haandwriting on the envelopes... I so miss him.

In search of nobility

Quoted from Elijah Wood, "True nobility lies in being superior to your former self."

SILENCE IS NOT GOLDEN

I don't understand. How is it that acquaintances did not have the decency to give verbal condolences. Hey I'm not looking for flowers and cards... just a verbal or written recognition of his death. Really, now, it wouldhave been decent and compassionate. Now I'm thinking you're an asshole.

Finding a Purpose

Our purpose in life,as I see it, was to offset or complement each other... to do things together... to know each other's favorites and buy them when we went shopping... little daily gifts of a smile, a made bed, a prepared dinner... a good looking yard. All were ways we enjoyed each other and what we had. I don't know why it had to end. And I don't know how to find joy without him.

Divorce vs. Death

My good friend is challenging me as to how his death is any different than a divorce. Good question. A divorce is the formal ending of a dead relationship. His unexpected death was the unplanned ending of a very alive partnership. There are massive holes in my spirit.

Never Too Far

I'm shopping for food and go by the bakery. Mike never ate many sweets but he did like his eclairs. I was looking at the 4 pack of eclairs and wondering if I should buy it for tomorrow night... Sunday night dinner with family. I would often bring dessert and it would often be eclairs. I just cn't buy them. I bought the eclairs for him, really. The rest of us just enjoyed them. While I'm thinking about this, the music in the store is now playing U2s, "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For." I'm trying to hold it together - Mike would sing that song to me... way back in the late 80s or early 90s. It's not a romantic song but I remember him singing that and La bamba one night after we played tennis. They were special because he sang them to me. Our song was "Unchained Melody." So I end up talking to him in the supermarket and I know I'm fighting back tears. People must think I'm nuts. Maybe I am.

Creative Tax Reporting

Wow. I work with this woman who is a single mom with 2 children and has 0 taxes taken out of her check. I'm thinking it's probably because of her income BUT NO. She claims to have "an expert," who's a friend from a H&R Block office in Tullahoma, do her taxes. This "friend" is claiming my co-worker's commuting miles and medical plan premium payments as a deduction. Having worked business and personal taxes for H&R Block, I know this is not legal. Wow, did she get mad when I told her it was illegal, so she must know it's fraudulent. However, she told me I better review my tax law... that her friend knows what she is doing. (Ooo Kay. With that intensity, you'll have to find out on your own that I am right.)

I just hope that the co-worker is taking out that additional Peace of Mind that Block sells for assurance against any mistakes their tax preparer makes... you know, the one where they pay the government when the mistake is found, plus penalty fees. She'll definitely need it if she gets audited. Oh, and this friend does her mother's taxes too. How can a 0 tax withholding and suspicious deductions not get flagged for an audit? I get love letters from the IRS if I forget to add bank interest (and that is such a huge amount of pennies these days...)

I believe the that tax preparer could be prosecuted for basically lying. Meanwhile, my co-worker is bragging about this technique of not paying taxes and is going around the office recruiting people for this tax preparer. Of course, she gets an additional tax refund as well as paying 0 in taxes. I wonder if I should find the pages in the IRS pubs that distinctly outline the legal mileage deduction (not commuting costs) and medical expenses (not premiums) rules and regulations. Block could really owe mucho dinero with this preparer's creativeness.

I promise I'll be kind to her if she announces an IRS audit... I won't remind her that I told her it was illegal and she went ballistic on me at 8 a.m..

Animal Actions

So I'm driving to work, through a mostly residential area with little plot yards for each brick house. There is, however, one of the original houses complete with pigs, goats and a very muddy yard. As I'm coming to it, I notice an animal just on what would be a sidewalk, if we had one. It's a goat, out of the fence, about to cross the road. So I honk. Guess what? goats can jump vertically which it did. It barely landed back on its feet and it started running. Fore legs out straight. Who knew they could run like that?

So I'm thinking about the running goat, get by the hellatious S curve with no guardrails but a good drop on each side, and I'm coming up on a family compound on both sides of the road. At least, I think they're family. I draw this conclusion from farm animals that seem to wander back and forth across the road between the houses.

Today, I get the answer to the perpetual question, "Why does the chicken cross the road?" Right in front of me, I've got a flock of chickens ambling across the road. On the side that they are ambling towards is the rooster, who standing and watching the procession. He lets out a god-awful sound and now the chickens run. Chickens put their heads down low and stick their asses out for speed. (Speed is relative.) They are now hellbent on getting to the other side. So the answer to the question is they cross the road because the rooster was yelling at them to get to the other side.

I own a messenger dog. He knows it's his duty to pass on the message that the dog down the road within earshot is delivering. So every evening, he's like a yo-yo, in and out of the house, listening for the message. There are times I barely have the back door opened and he's pouncing up and forward as he howls. He gets himself in quite a tizzy sometimes so it must be a hell of a message. After those messages where he's been howling for 20 minutes or more, he'll come back in and collapse for an hour. A lot of energy expended... a huge responsibility to keep the message going. Somebody's got to pass the messages along... kind of like smoke signals.

Odd Actions

So the day starts off with a former sister in law questioning why I haven't accepted her request to befriend me on Facebook. She hardly spoke to me when we were in-laws. What's odder is she waits until my guy dies... this somehow spurs her onto befriend me? What's up with that? Where was she when my sister died in 05? A friend would send condolences. A friend gets invited to kids' weddings... no invite to her daughter's wedding. We had gone to her father's 80th birthday party, to honor the man... all she and her sisters did was make fun of the ex at the party. Now, I'm grieving the loss of my guy, my best friend and she is challenging why I did not accept her friendship. Wow. Where has her "friendship" been for 6 years.

So if this isn't enough to get me thinking about people, I've got 2 real special co-workers. This small department is 3 people big, myself and these 2. They both came from the same department to this one, so they know each other. That's cool. After the reporting gets done, I ask if they need help... they have to go decorate a room for an event. One says she's got it for now and she'll call me. Well, sure enough the other goes and helps. No call to me. I walk by the room and they assure me they have it under control. It gets better.. the 2 go for lunch and bring it back to their desks. Never asked if I wanted anything. I can't figure out if they're rude, ignorant of their actions or just don't like me. Actually, I don't care but it's odd.

So I take myself to lunch; the local Chinese for a lunch special, complete with a fortune cookie. Mine did not have a fortune. Wow. OK now. How should I take that?

The Missing Half

The sudden loss of a loved one is isolating.... so much time to be alone with thoughts. Thoughts of things we were going to do and places to go. Surrounded by things we did. Routines that are broken. Thoughts on how to continue. New chores to learn. The animals are good listeners but they don't have sense of humor; nor do they share ideas and knowledge with me. Tears do get licked off my face. I was strong and self sufficient before there was a "we". dreams are shattered; I need to find that old me.

If an empty vessel that had been sitting on a shelf for years looking pretty starts getting used and filled with liquids; does that vessel know that it is not full when it returns to its empty state on the shelf? Does it now feel empty since it knows what full feels like?

THUNDERSNOW!

THUNDERSNOW!

Pursuing Sanity

Shelle from Clearwater shared this in an email:

12 Quotes from The Power of Now   by Eckhart Tolle

1. Pay more attention to the silence than to the sounds.   Paying attention to outer silence creates inner silence:    The mind becomes still.

2. Use your senses fully.   Be where you are.  Look around.  Just look, don’t interpret.  See the light, shapes, colors, textures.  Be aware of the silent presence of each thing.   Be aware of the space that allows everything to be.

3. All Negativity is caused by an accumulation of psychological time and denial of the present.   Unease, anxiety, tension, stress, worry – all forms of fear – are caused by too much future, and not enough presence.   Guilt, regret, resentment, grievances, sadness, bitterness, and all forms of nonforgiveness are caused by tto much past, and not enough presence.

4.  In the stillness of your presence, you can feel your own formless and timeless reality as the unmanifested life that animates your physical form.

5.  With the timeless dimension comes a different kind of knowing, a knowing that does not destroy the sacredness and mystery of life but contains a deep love and reverence for all that is.

6.  The mind is a superb instrument if used rightly. Used wrongly, however, it becomes very destructive.  It is not so much that you use your mind wrongly – you usually don’t use it at all. It uses you.  You believe that you are your mind.  This is the delusion. 

7. When you are full of problems, there is no room for anything new to enter, no room for a solution.  So wherever you can, make some room, create some space, so that you find the life underneath your life situation.

8.  Give your fullest attention to whatever the moment presents.  This implies that you also completely accept what is, because you cannot give your full attention to something and at the same time resist it.

9.  Your life’s journey has an outer purpose and an inner purpose.   Your outer journey may contain a million steps; your inner journey only has one:  the step you are taking right now. 

10.  As far as your life situation is concerned, there may be things to be attained or acquired. That’s the world of form, of gain and loss.   Yet on a deeper level you are already complete, and when you realize that, there is a playful, joyous energy behind what you do.

11. When you are present, when your attention is fully and intensely in the Now, Being can be felt, but it can never be understood mentally.  To regain awareness of Being and to abide in that state of “feeling-realization” is enlightenment. 

12.  Most people find it difficult to believe that a state of consciousness totally free of all negativity is possible.  And yet this is the liberated state to which all spiritual teachings point.  

12 Quotes from Chopra Center

1. “When we can accept all of life’s contradictions, when we can comfortably flow between the banks of pleasure and pain, experiencing them both while getting stuck in neither, then we are free.”  Deepak Chopra

2. “The same creative force that generated the universe created your body.   It is vibrating with intelligence and spirit.  It is ultimately sacred and worthy of your love, respect, and intention.  Take good care of it and it will take good care of you.”   David Simon

3. “When you drink in nature through your senses, you deepen your awareness of the great silent intelligence flowing through all things. You nourish your mind, body, and spirit as you connect to the divine love of Being.” D Chopra

4. “The best way to evaluate whether we are moving in the direction of greater wellbeing is by listening to our inner messages of comfort or distress.  Our highest evolutionary path is the one that generates the least resistance and the greatest joy.”   David Simon

5. “When we surrender, we allow the universe to work its magic; we say yes to infinite possibilities: we trust that things will work out as they are meant to; and we give our self permission to let go of the outcome.  This can be liberating, intimidating, blissful, scary, and swirl of so many other emotions.  But in the end, if we are true to our heart, life unfolds with magnificence….and we get to celebrate.”   DavidJI

6. “The inner self of every human waits patiently until we are ready to discover it; then it extends an invitation to enter the luminous mystery of existence in which all things are created, nurtured, and renewed.  In the presence of this mystery, we not only heal ourselves, we heal the world.”  D Chopra 

7. “The love you pray for is trying to reach you at every moment.  Your longing, your deep fantasies about being loved are mere shadows of the melting sweetness that makes spirit want to love you.”   D Chopra

8. “The most direct and consistent way that I know to bring peace into every aspect of your life is through the regular practice of meditation.  Take time on a daily basis to quiet your mind and calm your body.   This helps you take peace beyond a mood you are trying to maintain to your essential state of being.” David Simon

9.  “Intention is the starting point of every spiritual path.  It is the force that fulfills all our needs, whether for money, relationships, spiritual awakening, or love.  Intention generates all the activities in the universe.  Everything that we can see- and even the things we cannot – are an expression of intention’s infinite organizing power.”   D Chopra

10. “Compassion is the divine expression of love.  A heart filled with compassion is broadcasting the message, ‘I recognize you. I know you. I accept you.’ ”  Simon

11.  “As you breathe each moment in and out, look to your soul and see what’s inside. What is abundant in your life right now? What are you grateful for?  What do you need more of?  As the answers flow to you, fill what is empty and empty what is full.”  DavidJI

“ Genuine inner freedom is the ultimate aim of life.  It is the unspoken goal of every thought you have and every action you take.”  Sim

PROCRASTINATION

"The road to hell is paved with good intentions," so stated Jean Damstra. "Can't we just finish something?" questioned Mike Weare.

PLEASE help me prioritize so I can get something finished.

APPROPRIATE WORD

is the noun "Zatzkapol" which is a present that you receive that you don't want, possibly because you can't figure out what it is or WHY someone would get it for you.

Blessing for the next year and beyond

May you have the fortitude to withstand the unexpected changes in life.
May you have the wisdom to accept limitations, both chosen and imposed,
May you have temperance to minimize verbal onslaughts and maintain calm in the face of adversity,
May you have freedom from fear to act when new opportunities arrive,
May you have discernment to help in selecting trustworthy people,
May you have faith to overcome the challenges along your life path,
May you have love to sustain your life journey with its joys and sorrows
 
A toast to good friends and family, to love, life and friendship. May 2011 provide us more joy and few losses.