March 4, 2015

Chicken legs, Who Me?

Leg days.  I always thought leg days were about well, chicken legs.  Sadly friends, I have been mistaken.  Leg days are not about chicken legs, which is a shame because I have a few recipes I’ve always wanted to try for chicken legs.

Leg days are apparently all about my legs, or yours or whomever else happens to be r participating leg days.  Suddenly leg days aren’t as much fun.  Well okay, if I took it seriously Im sure it wouldn’t have been fun.  But leg days.  How on earth can I take that seriously?😉

But have no dear friends, I’ve found my legs.  Rest assured I’ve found them right where I thought they always were, above my feet and below my waist.  How do I know I’ve found them?  Because they let me know.  You see every day after leg days, I can feel them! 😊

ive  been told eventually leg days won’t have my legs feeling like jello.  Apparently at some point my legs will no longer notice leg days and then, well then friends I’ve not clue what will happen.  Perhaps leg days will be about chicken legs again!😉

Sure I’m having a bit of a laugh, mostly at myself, as I struggle with leg days, and arm days, and well all these exercise days.  Not because I’m that bad at it, well I probably am given my lack of coordination, but rather because this is one of those times when I just have to laugh of myself.  Besides as a kid I was called chicken legs for some odd reason.  (For the record I dont have yellow legs!)

March 4, 2015

Refreshingly Not Golden

We all have, or at least know of, someone who succeeds at anything s/he tries.  Of course we know, logically, that no one can be completely successful at every little thing that is tried.  It just seems that way.

I happen to have a very dear friend who appears to have this gift.  He has made a career out of something you’d never think a person could ever have a career in.  Not only has he managed to make a career, it’s a very successful career.  So successful he travels the world-wide doing this work.  (I must confess I have just the slightest bit of jealousy bone!)

So imagine my surprise and shock when I was told he was learning how to surf.  Not that he was surfing, but learning how to surf.  Now this friend has always wanted to surf, but there wasnt money for this when he was younger, so he was taking advantage of this now in adulthood.

There is some video footage a mutual friend of ours took, of all these surfing attempts.  Frankly it’s been refreshing to watch because for once not everything my friend touches turns to gold.

It took him many attempts to get up on the board from paddling.  Once up he goes down almost immediately.  Balance, it seems, isn’t natural for him on the surfboard.  In all fairness though, he is learning on a board that’s too big for him.  You see he hasn’t bought a board of his own, he’s borrowing from someone who is an old foot taller than he is.

This will of course impact his learning curve.  Could he be golden if he grabbed a board his size?  Could he just suddenly “know” how to surf?  Perhaps, but perhaps not.

Some of  you are probably thinking I’m not a good friend since a part of me finds my friend’s struggles to be refreshing.  But really I do feel bad for him, while at the same time feeling relieved of now that he is human, that there is some balance in the world after all.

And for the record, my friend knows that I find his struggles refreshing.  He tells me refreshing is all in how we look at things.  Sometimes he doesn’t find his struggles refreshing, but he always learns something, which is refreshing.  And he knows that sometimes the Midas focu is all about Fools Gold.  He refers to his surfing as just that!

March 3, 2015

Down The Road Up To No Good

Behind me is a trail strewn with good intentions, things I meant to start or complete, and the clutter of hanging onto items that will be useful somewhere down the road.

I assume somewhere down the road leads you Up To No Good.  I’m positive Up To No Good is like a nightclub or such.  And of course the irony is that Up To No Good is probably a good place to be!😊

Now and then I will look back at the stuff behind me and think ‘yes I can do something with this’, but really I’m just kidding myself.  It’s these temporary fits of insanity that seize me and make me believe that I’m crafty when in fact I struggle at doing the most basic of things that craft-like.  Sadly theses are typically the  items that are left behind me.

I guess, as much as its hard to believe, there is a small part of me that thinks I can be a tiny bit, just a smidgen really, like Martha Stewart.  But I guess that’s not the case, because making my own pie crust is never going to happen.  Life is too short to spend time doing that when there is good quality ready-made stuff available.  Sewing?  Oh my word, that’s up there with me and hot glue guns.  In other words as rare as a blue moon on the fourth Tuesday on a mild spring day.  Or never!😉

still now and then I feel a need to try and finish or start what I meant to start or complete way back when.  The results are typically atypical!  I think in wt distracted by the thought of the road taking me to that wonderfully intoxicating place called Up To No Good! 😄

March 3, 2015

The Cycle Of Did I Do That?

Someone recently asked if Beloved does anything right given my complaints about the refrigerator door and empty tissue rolls.  The truth is he does a lot more right than annoying, however the good stuff is taken for granted.  Which yes, I know, is wrong.

Beloved, of course, has his list of things that I do that can be super annoying too!😮

While he may try to turn the kitchen into a haven for penguins, I apparently do not close the cabinets completely in their catches.  In my defense it’s so the Penguins have a safe place to go!😉

It is, of course, a fair comment on his part because I don’t often close the doors right in the catch.  I dislike the noise, even though it’s just a small little click sound.  When I was younger, my parents knew exactly which cabinet I had been in because I  never closed it all the way.  So yes, guilty as charged.

To him it doesn’t make sense why I closed the door  until it just about catches, but stop before that point.  Thus the door is left slightly ajar.  Which, unbeknownst to men, so apparently is a major invitation to spiders.  Yes friends,a slightly open cabinet or cupboard door is simply irresistible to spiders.  It’s like a drug that they just have to have! Helpless they are drawn to it like a moth to a flame.

Before you say anything, yes I do not like spiders.  I really do not like them in my house, lurking around my pantry items.

Which leads me to my next annoying thing, which is grabbing Beloved, if he is around, to deal with the spider.  He will kill it, or flush it down the toilet, which he calls a white water ride! 😊

Now considering I’ve called the man to dispatch of said spider, whom I’ve unwittingly invited into the house, you’d think I wouldn’t care what he does with the creature.  But you’d be wrong.  Nope you see I dont want the spider killed, just set free.

some of you are now seeing a cycle beginning starting with open cabinet doors….end ing with a spider sent outside just to be invited in again!

March 2, 2015

Kneaded Expectations

He stroked and kneaded, he rolled and he pleaded.  He twisted and turned and he dug in, but it was all to no avail.  His thumbs and fingers were burning, in pain and still that annoying ache in my back wouldn’t leave.

we gave up when he said his forearms were aching.  Despite have oodles of experience with kneading dough, he wasn’t able to do anything for me.

Now this ache didn’t just suddenly occur.  It actually had been a middle annoyance that grew to become an annoyance that couldn’t be ignored.  I’m not sure why I expected him  to get rid of it right away, but that was my expectation when he offered to try and rub it away.

So now he had tired forearms, fingers and thumbs and the annoying pain was still there, along with frustration that he had failed at his mission!

All too often I set these unrealistic and unfair expectations on some one or some thing.  I just blindly assign an expected outcome which is based on nothing other than my own whims.  How does it end? Typically one of two ways, either me being frustrated it didn’t live up to my expectations no matter how unrealistic they may be, or I ended up being pleased with the outcomes.  Of course far more often than not I’m frustrated even though I know it’s all my own doing.

March 2, 2015

Sick Like A Dog

THe dog has apparently caught a cold.  Until the vet had said the dog was suffering cold I honestly didn’t think it was possible.

the only outwardly sign there was anything wrong was the dog was that he had started to sneeze several times in a row.  Stop and sneeze again.  None of these were his cute little doggie sneezes either.  These were loud, full-blown, earth-shaking sneezing.

he didn’t cough, whine or moan.  His eyes weren’t bleary from the cold, and he had no Kleenex sprouting from sleeves and pockets.  He didn’t demand tea, didn’t complain about the bed hurting him and certainly wasn’t demanding chicken noodle soup.

in fact it was amazing that he was even considered sick. Frankly both Beloved and I could learn from him because when we are sick, we whine and moan.😊

The dog, instead suffers with dig it, the same way he wears his socks with dignity.

March 1, 2015

Physical Places or Something More

There is something soothing, calming about ritual.  There is something healing about going to the same building, listening to then sme words delivered by a passionate and gentle soul.

The ritual starts the night before.  There is the setting out of the “good clothes”, placing the book where it won’t be forgotten.  Shoes nice and clean.  Sometimes the vehicle even gets a lovely shine so it’s just as fancy. 😉

Where are we off to?  Is it church?  After all there are stsined glass windows.  But no friends, itisng an burch.  At least not in the physical sense of the building.  But if wen insider church is a community, not a physical building then perhaps we may be onto something.

Where inform can be found, shared and given where we are going.  A place where you can reflect upon the messages given, or just let it wash over you.  We are going to a university lecture.

Now normally we don’t dress up for lectures, certainly not considering that we give them as much as listen to them.  And we don’t typically get dressed up all fancy like.   But when there is a chance to listen to an eminent scholar do a series of lectures, to the two of isn to a bIt like church.

We are gathering with like-minded people and going through a healing of the mind if you will.  There is comfort in these rituals, a balm for the battered intellect of our soul.  A place where our imperfection is not just accepted but expected for we arent anything other than members of this community.