Forward, Not Backward

I don’t believe we are born fearful– the kind of fear that holds us back– but instead we are are “taught” it through various situations that start to define us. Lately, I’ve been feeling that as I cope with my own disappointment that the events I had signed up for– starting this weekend and going into the fall either are canceled or remain uncertain at this time.

I’m easily finding myself falling back into my old ways of thinking, why me?, why this?, I’ve been working hard, why can’t I make things happen? But I’m also finding that– because I’ve taught myself to stop that thinking and instead ask myself what I can learn, what I new doors I can open– that I’m not staying in that place long. I know it would be easier to stay there, but I don’t want to. I want to go forward. That’s when I realize I’m just disappointed that all my hard work from several months ago feels like a waste in this moment as I need to find another way forward.

Life is a series of events to teach us how to go forward, how to not just manage our emotions of what happens to us, but learn how to navigate the events and happenings that we could easily let define our lives. However, we are given a choice of what to do with them. It’s easier to sit in a place of anger and sadness as many people are, and the harder journey is to go forward.

That harder journey on the unknown path is the most worth it though. Why would you want to go back and retrace your steps when you can go forward and create something new?

Motivating from Within

Whether we like it or not, as people, we are meant to interact with each other

While we are still able to speak to each other– although in different ways if we are used to being face-to-face with people– many of us are finding our interactions with people are more limited than usual. It occurred to me this morning, as I was mentally motivating myself for the day, what I hope to accomplish, that I don’t have as much energy coming from my personal interactions from others.

It might be talking to someone at the store (I’ve been sending Greg out for all errands), at estate sales, at church, the gym pool, or other places that are part of my routine daily life. I still have what I call my “morning community” when I run and run the dogs, the people I see around the park. But after that, I’m obviously home all day unless a neighbor and I gather outside to talk a few minutes.

I know that I do a good job motivating myself, maybe even too good of a job. But I do appreciate having contact with others and sometimes that contact is a reminder than I’m on the right path or is just enough to give me the motivation to keep going when I’m feeling tired or wondering if what I’m doing is worth it.

As I said last week, it’s like that third lap of a four-lap race, the place where we need to dig deep within ourselves and find the motivation and inspiration. Sometimes we can’t get it from others and this experience is a true test of seeing how much we can motivate ourselves. And with that, we’ll find more strength that we ever knew we had.

Digging Down Deep

There’s a metaphor I’ve been using since I was in high school that helps me through challenging times like right now. It all goes back to running (as it usually does for me).

The 1600-meter run, my specialty back in the day, is four laps, and I was taught in high school that the third of the four laps is the one you need to concentrate on the most because if you look at split times, it’s the one where you tend to drop off and run the slowest.

It makes sense because you’re past the excitement of the start and even the energy you still have into the second lap (thus reaching the halfway point of the race). But that third lap, ugh, you just want stop and so you slow down, knowing you still have that final lap to go.

I see people’s posts, I see the struggles right now, and I know my own struggles and challenges, of trying to keep myself motivated in the face of many unknowns. I’m tired of it and I want to know that certain things are going to happen. But it’s not that way and I don’t know when it will be.

In trying to keep myself inspired, motivated, and focused (something I pray for daily), I realized how much what we’re going through is like that 1600-meter race. This is the third lap. We’re tired, but that’s when we need to dig down deeper inside ourselves to find the energy, the inspiration, and the motivation, to make the most of the situation our world is currently experiencing.

And in that, I couldn’t find a good photo for this post, but in the one I used, what I see is that question of, do I jump in? Do I do this?

Yes, I do. The water is cold and uncomfortable, but if I can get through this third lap, I know I’ll be able to get through the fourth. And to the finish.

What are we supposed to learn?

In the early morning darkness of the top of the hill, a place where I can see the city lights to the west, I was in the middle of my daily prayer when I run Lilly. While I was there, I realized how little I had been praying for the world during this time. And it was in this prayer where I asked, What specifically should I pray for?

I was quickly reminded of the changes I’d made in my own life, in my own thinking, and how I’d neglected them since the virus has taken over our lives.

I had promised myself I would stop asking, “Why?” when something happened and instead ask, “What can I learn?” so that I could go forward. Yet for the past few weeks I’d been caught between “Why?” and trying to keep myself moving forward in the face of the unknown of when I’ll be able to resume knocking the dominos down to propel Chelle Summer forward.

Each day I pray that I be the person I’m supposed to be, that I do what I’m supposed to do. And I believe that I’m supposed to be something much bigger than I am. But that has brought uncertainty with it, feelings I don’t understand. It means standing in spaces I don’t get, in letting feelings wash over me that are uncomfortable. When I don’t get washed up in these moments, I’m reminded that these feelings are all about being something bigger, being who I’m supposed to be, translation they are logical and not so overwhelming.

The day before my surgery two years ago to have my uterus removed, I was scared. Very scared. I had tried to embrace the journey, but with less than twenty-four hours before the procedure, powerful fear overtook me. As Greg and I sat with our priest, Fr. Marc, who was going to give me the annointing of the sick, I said this to him and he quickly retorted, “You asked for it.”

I remind myself how quickly he snapped back at me and it in turn reminds me that I must feel this to go forward. It’s a yucky feeling because we like to be comfortable and this feeling means constantly stepping outside one’s box, never making myself so at home that I want to stay there.

We all have been caught up in our lives, in moving forward, in not feeling. We are distracted, we don’t pay much attention to the world around us. Many people don’t care.

Words from Pope Francis have stuck with me, when he mentioned our “ailing planet.” It struck a cord that we are being forced to stop, to stand still, to look around, to feel. This will take us further forward but we must ask what we’re supposed to learn from it so we don’t repeat where we’ve been.

I do this daily. I stand every day and attempt to face what I don’t understand. I hate the discomfort, but I know that if I’m going to have a well-lived life, this is part of the journey I must walk. We can’t go back and undo the virus or any of what’s happened, but we can make sure that we make the most of this overwhelming strange and uncomfortable time.

Routine

I get up no later than 4:30 every day, including weekends.

It’s quirky, I know, but it’s what sustains me, especially in times like we’re experiencing now.

I’ve also been working at home pretty much my entire working life since I stopped being a high school teacher. I knew early on that going to an office or school wasn’t my bag and I worked hard to find my place in this world where I could make a living (translation, pay the bills) and have that flexibility.

Many people are seeing the challenges of working from home right now, but I have always used them to my advantage. I do laundry and dishes when I take “water cooler breaks.” I’m able to accept deliveries and not let things sit on my front porch. The biggest challenge is that when we do leave, the dogs aren’t used to being alone all day so we have to find house sitters who come and go, not work all day and are here at night.

But in that framework of being home all day, I have a schedule that I adhere to most days, Monday through Friday. I have lists, I have piles, I know what I need to get done first. I try to do all my desk work in the morning and sew in the afternoon.

My routine isn’t for everyone, but I do know that we have to have some sense of routine, especially as the weeks are turning to more weeks during this time. The routine at my house has been turned upside down in some ways because Greg is now working from home as well.

However, because I already had a routine in place and because he’s usually at home in the summer, I realize the changes are minimal. And the fact that there was a routine and schedule makes it easier for him to adhere to something as he gets used to teaching online.

Everyone needs some schedule in their lives, it’s partly what wards off depression. Make sure you do something you need to each day and do something that brings you joy each day as well. This might feel like a huge interruption in your life that you don’t fee like you can get past, but it’s all in how you look at it. It’s an opportunity to do things you haven’t had time for (those things at home, that is) and in that process keep a schedule that also makes you feel productive and happy when the end of the day rolls around.

Moving Your Blues Away

I have often said that running kept me moving forward in my life, that it has helped me through many very difficult and challenging times. And then getting dogs and having to walk/run them, has kept me going, knowing that even when life is difficult, they should have their time out and about (plus it’s less poop to pick up in the backyard).

Some years ago, a friend told me about a book called Walking Your Blues Away and often that title resonates in my head as run, walk, and even swim. While each of these movements provides me with something different– walking would be the one that doesn’t help me feel as physically strong, but sometimes it’s just about being out. Running is obviously the one most important to me, but as I get older, my legs and feet are enjoying swimming more because it’s less stress on them. And swimming provides what I call a “mental health break” midday as I leave my morning work behind and get set for an afternoon of, hopefully creating at the sewing machine.

I can think of a number of reasons why movement, especially being outside, is important. When I take Lilly out around 4:50 in the morning, it’s completely dark and by the time I run her, run Ash, and do my run, the outline of the Sandia Mountains has appeared and the sun is starting to show up for the day. A new day is coming and the slate has been wiped clean from the previous day.

Swimming helps me to let go of any anxiety I might have developed in the morning and remember that there are other things that are important and what’s not worth the worry.

There is something about movement, about letting my mind wander, that helps me focus again and brings me new ideas. It also makes me realize when I’m letting the same thought (an annoyance) permeate my mind when I should be allowing new, inspiring and creative thoughts in.

Even though we’re social distancing, there’s no reason to go outside and take that walk. It’s a weird time to say the least and at least when we keep moving, we keep hope alive inside us. And you never know what great ideas might form as you move those blues far far away.

Keeping the Glass Half Full

When people are down on the world, politics, or something else that affects us all, I often tell them that I have to keep my head in my writing, my sewing, and my creativity otherwise I wouldn’t get out of bed in the morning. While I am aware of things that are happening around me– probably more so than most because I read two daily newspapers– I have found that getting in too deep affects my mental health.

That’s why I have stayed out of the corona virus posts– I have my own stories of what has transpired in the past few weeks in my own life and what’s been upended, but I don’t believe posting any of that is useful. I also am finding myself this morning (it’s Monday morning as I write this), feeling a little depressed.

It’s going to be a beautiful day here in Albuquerque and I ran and ran the dogs before the came up over the mountains. I have plenty to do, especially given that between the virus and Hattie’s death, I’m behind on what I should have completed last week.

But I also have found over the last week or so my inability to stop checking the news, particularly because once Thursday when the first cases were announced here in New Mexico, everything also was breaking loose nationally and things were literally changing every five minutes.

It’s made it difficult for me to write, to focus, although I found I can sew okay and if that’s the case, I need to get my “desk work” done” and move to the “sweat shop” and keep myself away from newsfeeds. There’s nothing wrong with it; it’s about keeping myself sane as I had thought I was settling into my still-unkown future since my job ended a month ago. I had things planned and now as I face not knowing if they will happen, I need to keep creating and make use of this time. And reminding myself that all is well as old game shows play on the Buzzr television station on my iPad in the background.

The bottom line is that while I’m not happy about things, I also know there has to be something I can do during this time that will help me feel better. And that’s to keep creating. And be ready for what I hope will be a successful Chelle Summer year ahead.

Hattie: A Charmed Life

I can still remember the awful hole I felt in my life after the death of one of my grandparents on our way home after the funeral. You knew that life was different because someone wasn’t “in it” anymore.

And while that hole is still there each time there is a death (Hattie was just one of two last week as a man I know from walking the dogs at the park died from injuries sustained in a motorcycle accident as well), in each loss, I have learned to ask myself what I can do with it, where I’m supposed to put it.

I didn’t see it at first, but Hattie’s death leaves a different kind of hole than I’ve experienced before.

As I have written many times before, and in my book, Ginger’s Gift: Hope and Healing through Dog Companionship, Hattie was a Hurricane Katrina dog. She was just a puppy in a rural shelter when the hurricane hit. My first husband had asked me if he could go help his friend Craig in Maine deliver supplies in a lobster truck because most everything was going to Louisiana. I told him it was fine under the condition he take dog food and bring me back a dog. Craig also adopted a puppy, one of Hattie’s sisters, and named her Lucy. She died about five years ago.

But what’s also significant about Hattie’s adoption is that Craig returned to Mississippi and twenty-some dogs out of that shelter, pretty much cleared it out, and flew them to Maine where all but the two who died found new homes. Several of them were Hattie’s brothers, too.

I had forgotten about this until Friday after she died. It’s a different world we live with social media and I sometimes forget how I share of my dogs, what I create, and what inspires me. I also didn’t think much about how many people Hattie had intersected with whether through a party at our house (she was notorious for stealing chocolate cake off low tables where people left their plates) and houseguests (she slept with you if you left the door open and if you shut it, in the morning she body slammed it until you woke up, hoping you’d let her in so she could curl up next to you).

She ran and/or walked with me almost every day of her life as long as I was home; she went places like the car wash with me; and she was just a general presence in my life. For all the writing I have done, she was usually under my desk not far from my feet as I wrote blogs and books and worked on Chelle Summer posts.

I know that I will be more than okay, and in time I’ll feel more at peace that she is doing well. It’s that separation that’s hard. She is with my family and as the last of the “original four” dogs that I had, they are together again, including her “mom” Daisy who died much too young at 5 1/2.

My grief is from that hole that will eventually scar over. I will get used to a new routine the morning, of not saying “Hattie Hattie Hattie” a bunch of times each day to her for no reason at all, and the energy in my house will eventually feel “normal” again. But letting go of a life, no matter how long as short, does leave a hole. It’s a price we pay for love.

And yet I wouldn’t trade it for anything. She and I were lucky to have each other. And share that with everyone else.

Lenten Journey 2020

I have written on social media recently that I feel like I am on a journey of crossing a murky lake, much like the one in the photo above. While we have been taught that Lent is about crossing a desert, for me, this year it’s about the murky lake.

I’ve been crossing the desert for years for Lent and in other times of my life and this year I felt the need to change things up. While I always feel that Jesus, Our Lady of Guadalupe, Saint Rita, and Saint Monica travel with me, this time they are in a boat rowing alongside of me, cheering me on, helping me to see the way to the shore ahead.

And for many years I wrote here that I felt I needed to put more effort into letting go at Lent although that changed a few years ago. I’m not saying I’m good at letting go (excuse me while I fall off the ball I sit on and laugh on a few minutes), but I needed to do something different. The last few years it’s been about working steadily on a writing project during Lent.

Part of this stems from the fact that the writing, sewing, and creating are coming at me strong and it’s hard to keep things in check and make sure that I stay focused and complete things, not just start them and move on. There are several unfinished writing projects and my thought was that if I keep my focus on one during Lent, keeping my nose to the grindstone and staying the course, the goal is to have the rough draft completed by Easter.

It sounds easy and the first week or so, once I get started, isn’t so hard.

But the hard part comes a few weeks in when other ideas creep into my head, I get distracted wanting to do other things. It’s at that time that I want to climb into the boat, dry off, and not work so hard for a while. Ah! But that’s the third lap of the four-lap (1600-meter) race around the track, the lap when you need to work the hardest to bring you momentum for the final lap.

That’s when the Lenten Journey gets tested. Can I do this? The finish line isn’t that far away, but just far enough away that I can’t see it.

Here I am, work having started slowly, talking myself up, and getting ready for what will be worth it come Easter: a completed rough draft of another novel.

There is something to be said about the reminder that we should take this journey each year. For me, it makes me stronger and reminds me that I can do it. And I’ll be even stronger next year.

My Own Genre

When I have been looking for a publisher and an agent, it’s been a challenge to say what genre my books fit because as my writing has evolved, my work doesn’t fit into one space.

I have a friend who said she didn’t read The Green Dress because, “I saw it was a romance and put it down.” Well, Green Dress wasn’t a romance nor is That Cooking Girl or anything else that’s going to come after it. When I think of romance, my mom’s cabinet filled of Harlequins comes to mind and I could only stomach a few of those and never read them again (although I would love to find a few for Chelle Summer photos…).

I really struggle to find fiction that I like, often resorting to my first love of biography and autobiography. I often find myself not identifying with main characters– the same problem I have with many television shows and movies– because of their, well, stupidity. I get tired of the bad decisions. People say it makes them feel like they can relate to a character, but I have tried to write characters who make bad decisions and I find it so hard to empathize with them that it comes out…wrong. That also means that my writing doesn’t fit neatly into one box which also makes it hard for me to find writing that enjoy. And so I keep writing.

I’m not saying my characters– or me– or perfect. I’m also not saying that my character and I have picked the perfect relationships (speaking of my past– not life with Greg!), but I see relationships as secondary to the stories in my books. Yes, the relationships are important because they make life and reading more interesting. However, I don’t see my stories that way.

I prefer to write about women who are trying to go forward, to make the best decisions, and trying not to stand in the way of their own happiness and success.

That Cooking Girl was never meant to be more than a fun story (charming, someone told me just the other day) to be enjoyed and also as maybe inspiration for someone who has people rooting her (or him on) in this game of life.

The point of the book was that Megan is on the brink of success in her life and it’s about how she lets the past and her own fears go to enjoy the excitement of all that’s ahead.

After all, isn’t that what any of us want?

The Chelle Summer Evolution

With my full-time job working on a military grief research study ending last Friday, I’ve been thinking a lot about the evolution of Chelle Summer. And since I’ve been doing more events, I also have come to realize how much that journey isn’t just me waking up one day saying, “Hey! I’m going to make some stuff!” as much as it’s been a life journey to get here. And no matter how I slice it, there are other people, while deceased, who are traveling this road with me.

My mom wasn’t afraid to use color nor was she afraid to let me constantly rearrange my room (not as easily said than done since I shared it with my younger sister for ten years). And when I hung pages from magazines on all my walls– didn’t we all do that?– I don’t recall her saying a word. Creativity was encouraged and we always had access to markers, crayons, and paper. I also don’t recall her being with Denise and I went we sewed. I think she was happy we had something to entertain ourselves with and she would take us to the fabric store and let us pick out a remnant of fabric– which are always sold at a discount– to make something new for the Barbie clan.

I believe that because creativity was encouraged, I felt more secure developing my own style into high school although I didn’t sew anymore. I loved the geometric designs of the late 1980s and wearing pencil skirts. I didn’t realize at the time how much more I could have done had I made my own clothes. Going to the mall was a social thing anyway.

I put the sewing away for college until Mom gave me her Bernina when I moved to Albuquerque and I had a housemate who sewed. That led me across the street to our neighbor Bonnie who had an entire room filled with sewing and craft supplies (her husband Greg thought the best way to dispose of it after she died was throw a stick of dynamite to it- of course he didn’t, but hearing him yell that from the next room where he was reading, still makes me laugh.

Bonnie used to joke that my job as a teacher was getting in the way of us making quilts, clothes, shell wreaths, potpourri, and everything else we used to do. She taught me so many skills that I use today and there was never a no. It always, “Hmmm, how can we do this?”

After she died and I was working on my doctorate, I once again put the sewing away. While I made a few quilts and such here and there, wasn’t until after Greg and I married in 2015 that we were walking around an Old Navy outlet store and I was griping about how they didn’t make colored denim skirts (but they made color denim shorts).

“Then why don’t you make them?” he asked.

That day the Chelle Summer seed was planted. The bucket bag came first and slowly but surely everything else has followed as I continue to experiment and make items that resonate with me. And that’s just the beginning.

Kindness

While I can’t remember each time it happened, I do remember countless times growing up– whether in school or at home– where the importance of being kind to people was drilled into my head. I remember the “Kids of the Block” program of puppets with disabilities (and I believe the woman who started it always wore a hat…) and how we were taught in elementary school to be kind to each other.

Then last week I read somewhere– almost a lecture– about how people– adults– should be kind to each other.

How sad it that?

I must be spending too much time in my world of color creating things that make me happy and I hope make other people that our world of treating people kindly has come to adults lecturing other adults about the importance of being kind to each other.

There are many times I am cranky– don’t use your turn signal, talking on your phone and not paying attention to people around you, slamming the door in my face at the gym because you’re not looking and don’t see there is someone behind you– but I always try to be kind to people. I reminded the Petco customer service lady on the phone that I realize the fact that Lilly’s new toy balls not being included in my box (or the lack of a lid on the Nature’s Miracle foam– I have no idea how that happened) wasn’t her fault.

The man at Sam’s Club in front of me last week took a long time in his scooter to say goodbye to the woman at the door and I was in a bit of a hurry, but when his box of Swiss Miss packets fell off his pile of items in the front of his scooter, I ran over and picked it up for him, knowing it was easier for me to reach down and get it than him for which he was grateful.

I could continue down my list of seeing the glass as half empty because it would be easy to do. But I don’t. I try to be kind to people. I usually hold a door open for a person who might be just far enough away that it wouldn’t be expected I would do it. And if my cart is full at Target and the person behind me has only a few items, I will offer that they can go ahead of me.

I’m not perfect. If I were I’m sure I wouldn’t be here on this earth. But I always try to remind myself, as I was taught, to treat people as I want to be treated. It’s not hard. And it’s always a bright spot to see a stranger’s face light up. Our interactions with people do affect how we see the world and our own inner happiness. It takes little to be kind to people and has great rewards.

It wasn’t a lecture, it was just a reminder that we reap more from kindness than we do from anger.

Setting Intentions

While I often don’t realize it at the time, in the rearview mirror after a significant event has happened in my life, I can see that I had set an intention. And that intention was fulfilled.

There are several of these that come immediately to mind– the first that I became aware of was when we had to pay for the second printing of my first book, Do They Have Bad Days in Heaven? Surviving the Suicide Loss of a Sibling. My first husband had helped me pour quite a bit of money into my suicide-related work and I didn’t think it was fair to ask him to do more. But I was $1,000 short and had no idea where it would come from.

A business-friend-acquaintance had asked me to attend a workshop held by Microsoft locally. It was something web related (this was circa 2004 and things were very different– web sites as we know them were still in their infancy). As the workshop went on, it turned out I was in the wrong place. I was supposed to be around the corner with the “users” while I had been in the workshop for the “resellers” which included my friend.

I didn’t realize this until later and just stayed and listened to a bunch of stuff that really made no sense to me. However, there was a raffle– there would be three prizes and the first person would get the first pick. One of those was a server worth almost $1,000.

Yes, you guessed it, I got picked first so what did I choose? The one thing I didn’t need but knew I could resell easily unopened on eBay. And there was my money.

This also happened with what I call my Australian dream. I had wanted to visit Australia since I was in fifth grade. Now I’ve been there three times. And somewhere along the line, my eyes opened to surfing. I didn’t really ever think I’d get on a board, but now I own a board.

When people say to me, “Well, I’ll never do that”– even though they clearly want to do it, I respond with, “You never know.”

Because I know. The intention is out there. You never know how and when it will be fulfilled. But somehow it happens.

The Significance of Home

I hate to clean my house. I’m sure if I didn’t have so many other things I wanted to do, I wouldn’t resent it so much. But having three dogs (plus two humans) means constant upkeep especially vacuuming and erasing slobber marks on the windows (no, those aren’t from Greg or me!). I also realize that if I didn’t care so much about how my house looked, or how it made me feel, I could let more of the cleaning and organization go.

However, that’s not me.

As I was changing the sheets on the bed yesterday and admiring my choice of colors, the calmness from coral and turquoise I had chosen for the week, I looked around our light-fill room and I thought, yes, this is what makes it all worth it.

It’s home. And home is the place where generally most of our life happens. And we spend most of our time (even though some of that is sleeping– but it’s good to have a place where we enjoy sleeping). Home is the source of our energy, it’s where we refuell after a day of work or school or whatever we have going on. It’s where we happily come back to after a trip, glad to having taken the trip, but glad to be home. And it’s where we might add a momento of our trip.

Greg recently look at the buffet in our dining room and said, “We have Morocco, Argentina, and Russia all represented here,” as he admired the objects placed on top.

When I was young, my parents took us to visit open houses in new developments as they sought out ideas for our house. The bug for the importance of enjoying where you live was planted in me then and it’s why I have devoted so much time to turning my house into a place I enjoy and a place that inspires me.

The work is all worth it. After all, every house should be a home.

Embracing Color

I have a goal, well, I have many goals, but one big goal I have this year is to encourage people to embrace color.

Why the fear? I find myself constantly wondering. We were at an event and a woman came up to me and told me how much she loved my outfit (I was wearing my orange leather coat from Morocco with a dress and long black boots) and that even though she wasn’t dressed up, she loved seeing me dressed up.

That also happens with color– people tell me how much they like my color-filled work. And yet they’re wearing black and afraid of expressing it themselves.

Maybe I have been lucky that my mom encouraged color (“That store was dead inside!” she might exclaim after going somewhere that she felt had no color) and then later it was the same with my friend Bonnie when my former husband and I bought our first house.

“Live with it for a while,” she had suggested, noting that I’d then know what colors to paint the rooms. And she was right– within several years all the white walls, except the hallway, were painted a color.

I started small, or light, and gradually worked my way into bolder colors, sometimes choosing several colors for one room, that way everything didn’t feel like it was shouting too much. People thought I was crazy to paint my kitchen lime green, but once the white cabinets and colored tile were in place, it all came together.

It’s the same with my clothes. I used to wear a lot of navy blue. When I married the first time, I used navy blue as my color. My chosen towels were navy blue. There was navy blue everywhere. I ran in a lot of black and dark colors, making me feel as dull and drab as a Midwestern winter day.

But at some point I wanted to be something more; I didn’t want to be a piece of paneling, blending into a wall.

Color makes a dark day feel happy, color makes me feel happy. I get more compliments when I wear color.

Life is too short, wear color, paint a room a happy hue. Carry a handbag with a fun print and pattern.

And you’ll see how much better life can be. With color.

No Regrets

It’s easy to get caught up in feeling like what we have accomplished isn’t enough or to reach an age where we look back and wonder what we missed out on. It seems it’s even easier to feel that way because the billboard messages are large and more prevalent– thanks to social media and technology– or because someone has written a book telling us so (the inspiration shall we say for this blog, but I won’t reveal the book as I believe it’s whiny and stupid and I’d rather give you a positive inspirational message).

Over the past few years, I’ve often found myself reflecting on choices I’ve made and as I drive through life and the roads I didn’t choose pass me by, I see how easy it is to spend my time wondering what if I had made other choices. Sometimes I believe I haven’t accomplished enough because I haven’t accomplished some of the goals I set for myself going forty years back.

Thankfully, I’ve managed to remind myself to fill the glass back up of all that I have accomplished. While in many ways it’s not the life I expected to have, I know that in the long run, I’ve had a better life. And when I feel bad about these thoughts, I ask myself what I can do with them, where I can put them, how I can include them in my writing (most my fiction).

Then there are the things that have happened to us that we, quite honestly, didn’t ask for. Those things? Those are the ones where our response is what it’s about. We can’t change them, we can’t spend our days agonizing over everything we could have done differently. What we can do is find a way through it and use it in our lives to propel us forward.

My life choices haven’t been the same as many people and, just as I see the choices others have made, I know they aren’t ones I would have made. However, that doesn’t mean they are bad, they are for that person, not me, because I’m supposed to have a different life.

If you’re still feeling like there’s something you haven’t done, then find a way to make it happen, or make some aspect of it happen. Life is short and you don’t want more time to pass you by. But if you need to rest to collect your thoughts and figure out what’s next, then take the time to do that.

Whatever it is that you need to do to make your life one that makes you happy, do it. Don’t let others tell you anything else. Reflect back on where you came from if you need to, but don’t stay there too long. There is much hope in the future and you can start now to make that light burn brighter.

Helping Each Other

Things had gotten slightly out of whack at our house.

It had been really important to me to make Greg’s lunch- and not for the reasons most people might think I did it– but because I knew that if I made him lunch, he was more likely to eat better than than eating crap or not eating at all (and arriving home starving and grabbing whatever he could from the kitchen).

But the pace of my life in the past year has changed, especially because I had to speed the Chelle Summer process and creation up in preparation for my research job that ends in six weeks. And in that time, there were some things I had to let go. One of them turned out to be Greg’s lunches.

Last spring when he did the Mt. Taylor Quadrathlon– the crazy thing where he bikes, runs, snow shoes, and skis both up and down a mountain– the weather was terrible. At the finish line where I shivered for an hour wrapped in a blanket in the wind waiting for him to finish, I told him that I was retiring from future races.

When he couldn’t feel the tips of his fingers several months from frost bite, he, too, said he was retiring from the race.

But the problem was he also retired from any motivation to exercise. Lilly didn’t get her morning runs with him (she usually gets one from each of us) and the weight that he had worked so hard to lose, crept back on.

I knew that when we joined “the winter pool” in October that my 11:00 am swims weren’t going to work for him because he’s teaching. When he found out the pool and gym open at 5:00 during the week, he adjusted his swimming from evening to first thing in the morning.

That left weekends when the afternoons can be filled kids whose parents have dumped them at the pool where they exercise. I made a proposal that we swim on weekends right after my workout.

This is torture for me as I’m coming off six miles and running and walking with the dogs and I’m cold. But if I go, Greg will go, and we’ll be finished for the day. The entire reason I run first thing in the morning is because I know I would never run if I waited until afternoon. If Greg does his workout early, I can see it’s the same for him. Otherwise, it’s easy to spend the day making up every excuse in one’s head of why not to go.

Now that we are back to the post-holiday new year routine, the first thing we did Sunday morning after arriving home from LA the night before and my early morning workout was go to the pool. I knew more than anything, we had to show up.

So that left me with Greg’s lunches.

I recently found a recipe for breakfast sandwiches that can be made ahead of time and frozen. Between these and breakfast burritos, he can down them after the pool on his way to school and then we can figure out snacks to keep him full the rest of the day.

It’s a hard balance with my overflowing plate right now and it means extra work to plan, but if I want Greg to succeed with his fitness and weight loss, he shouldn’t have to go that road alone. Two are always stronger than one.

It’s worth the journey.

Article in Rio Rancho Observer

Happy 2020, everyone! Let’s cheer a great year ahead!

In case you missed it, here’s an article recently written about me in the Rio Rancho Observer. The blog will return next week!

Read it here.

My Christmas Gift

I like to give parties. And I like to do Christmas cards.

I know there are many people out there who hate both of these things, or at least doing them. Many are happy to attend a party or receive a card though. And I am quite happy to invite them to a party and send them a card. If there were some way I could invite more people– because I have friends all over the world– to my house for parties, I would.

And I like to make a new dress when I have a party. Yes, I realize it all sounds extreme, but it’s not something I do daily or even weekly, just maybe twice a year. And through planning, as Greg will attest, the day of the party isn’t frantic at our house at all. In fact, the hardest part is right before the guests arrive and all the food is laid out, one of us has to remain in eye distance of the food because Ash will steal things off a counter, table, anywhere reachable.

Our house is typically very zen by fifteen minutes before the party starts (although there was the one party where Nestle decided to go for a swim right before the guests arrived and when she heard the doorbell, she went flying out of the pool and through the house, leaving a wrath of water on the clean floors).

I don’t exchange gifts with many people in my life now without my parents and younger sister here, however, Christmas to me isn’t about exchanging gifts anyway. It’s about something small I can do for a larger group of people and thus the party and the cards, those are my gifts to all.

The Patience of the Unknown

Fr. Josh, a priest I know, said once that he was praying to Mary because he needed help with patience and that was something obviously Mary knew well. It didn’t resonate with me at the time, but as I have found myself drawn closer to Our Lady of Guadalupe (essentially, the Mexican Mary) and on Thursday, December 12, I will celebrate my birthday on her feast day, I have awoken to what she is teaching me this year.

I have been writing recently that my job will end in late January and I’ve been busy trying to gain both traction and momentum as I await for new windows and doors to open. After all, I know well that if you want doors and windows to open, you need to work hard, too.

But in all of this, has been much frustration as I feel like I’ve been spinning my wheels, taking more steps back than forward, and feeling a start-stop-start-stop with all that I do.

Then one day it occurred to me, maybe it was because yesterday is the celebrated Immaculate Conception, that Mary didn’t know why she was called on to be Jesus’s mother. And that’s when what Fr. Josh said to me several years ago about praying to Mary to learn patience better made sense.

I feel like I know what I’m supposed to be, to do. I feel that I am supposed to be more, to do bigger things. And yet here I stand with a gorge separating me from where I want to be. I ask and ask and ask to cross it (and I’ve recently decided that it’s a gulf and that maybe I should swim across it), but it’s still start-stop-start-stop.

Every year this time I feel closer to Guadalupe, I feel a stronger sense of meaning on my birthday, that the day is more than, well, my birthday. It’s a day– and time– that Guadalupe comes closer and brings me messages for the journey, while we also are in the thick of the waiting and magic of Advent.

Patience. The unknown. All the things I hate. And yet Guadalupe is saying, “It’s coming. I’m with you. Keep walking with me. This journey will make sense and you’ll get across that gulf. But not on your schedule. On God’s, on mine.”

Stay the course, I often tell myself, just as we did particularly when running cross country. Stay the course. It will come, it will happen. Patience. The lesson has to be learned first.