My Dream Job

The title of my dream job is "Transitions Specialist."  In this job I am present with people in transition - much of it is related to females, but men are welcome too.  Transitions such as birth (with mother, father, baby or any combination of the above, also older siblings), onset of menstruation (mother and/or daughter), onset of menopause (woman), graduations, wedding (bride), breakup of relationship (woman), religious ceremonies (man or woman), retirement (man or woman), loss of a pet (anyone) and death (dying man or woman, family, friends).  This would involve just being present for people, holding their hand if appropriate, grounding them in the moment, help with fighting through fear, helping to recognize and act out joy.  I would not be a consultant on how to experience these life-changing events, just with how to be grounded in the moment and experience the most growth.  To me, having someone holding my hand during major life events like these would be tremendously meaningful.  I put out my intention to the universe and ask that the opportunity be given to me in a way that I can be of greatest assistance.

I can become a hospice volunteer to realize part of this dream, and I know that can be an all-encompassing experience, and even though lengthy is definitely transitional in its most succinct definition.  In fact, I don't see this as a traditional paid profession, rather an exchange of energy, where I give my support, love, attention and intention, and my clients give whatever might mean the most in return.  Ultimately I will gain as much or more than I give, by experiencing life in its crossroads moments, and my life will be deeply enriched as a result.

It's obviously not something to be advertised in the Orlando Sentinel or Craigslist.  I hope by writing this intention in a place that goes out to the world in whatever way, that I will be placed in the situations that allow me to be of the most help.

Peace and love to everyone!

What I Learned Running 26.2 Miles

I was recently reminded of this story, and thought it might be interesting to someone else.

The year I turned 50, my goal was to participate in a marathon, 26.2 miles of running/walking goodness.  I decided in April that I wanted to run in the Walt Disney World marathon the next January, so that left me plenty of time to train if I was devoted to it and didn't blow off running days.  At my brother Randy's recommendation I bought a book by Jeff Galloway (actually I think he sent me his copy!) and started following the training program he laid out.  Jeff is a proponent of a running/walking system rather than trying to run the entire time, and that worked out well for me.

I would run an hour on Tuesday through Saturday, then on Sunday was my long run.  I started with a long run of 10 miles, then increased it every week until I ran 24 miles - actually Jeff says you only need to do a 20-mile long run, but I wanted to experience as much of what the marathon was going to be like as I could.  I really loved the long runs!  Santa and I were both training, but in November he was injured and had to drop out.  I thought I was going to hate running by myself, but I didn't at all - it gave me a lot of time to think and meditate.

On one of my long runs, I was thinking about all of the training I'd put in thus far, and how there was no way I could do this if I had started a month or two later.  In fact, I realized, every single person running in that marathon had to put in a significant amount of training if they intended to finish 26.2 miles - nobody can get up from the couch and run that distance.  It doesn't matter how rich you are, how persuasive you are, how beautiful you are, how witty you are, it won't get you over that distance on race day.  Everyone involved has to do all the footwork and all the training that is required to complete that distance successfully.

This was somewhat of an epiphany for me.  Because I am smart, and talk well, and even have been cute at some times in my younger days, I've attempted to do things without following the rules that everyone else had to follow.  Sometimes I was even successful, but not very often.  But I always harbored a hope that I could get by with less than the rest of the world was having to do.

That day on that long run, when I had that major realization, it changed my world.  I didn't have a need to hold myself apart as special - although yes, I *am* special, so is everyone else, and no matter who we are, we have to follow the rules - either laws created by man, laws of nature, politeness, respect, and such.  Now I could be a member of the human race.  I had never felt so grateful, and yes, so accepted.

Race day arrived in January, and I was set to go.  The race started at 6 AM in the Epcot Center parking lot.  I was there plenty early.  I didn't know anyone else running the race, so I didn't have to worry about keeping up with anyone.  I was in one of the back corrals because my time wasn't fast, so it was a good 15 minutes before I actually went across the start line.  I had been tracking my pace with a wristband GPS, and somehow I managed to mess that up right before the race, so I had to just go along and trust that I was going at the pace I needed to go.  I stopped along the track several times to get pictures taken with characters, and had one stop with my family where they helped me change my socks to prevent blisters.  I was in heaven during the whole race, having the time of my life, almost flying because I had set this really really high goal and was accomplishing it.  As I approached the finish line, my family was there to cheer me on, and my son Eric jumped onto the course to cross the finish line with me - we did it singing "The  Final Countdown" by Europe.  That moment is etched in my mind with crystal clarity.

I had what I thought was a huge disappointment the next day though.  I went to the website to see my name posted as finishing the marathon, and it wasn't there.  I could not believe my eyes!  I checked everyplace I could imagine, and it just wasn't there.  It took me a while, but I finally figured out what had happened.  You see, there was a 7-hour course limit, after 7 hours the course would be closed.  Although I have no way to know for sure, I think I must have missed that 7-hour limit by no more than a minute or two (and there's still a tiny part of me that wants to think that I really did make it, they just made a mistake).  I was crushed.  But my family who loves me so much helped me see it differently - I had achieved my goal of participating in the marathon and finishing it.  I had enjoyed myself, had no injuries, and was so proud of my achievement.  What difference, really, was it if my name was on that list or not?  Only thing is, if some future descendant is looking to verify genealogical information about this, they won't find my name - maybe they will find this blog entry though.

So that's the story of how I learned that I have to follow the rules just like everyone else does.  And when the rules are about how to become a writer, that means showing up to the page every day, day after day, and writing.  Because that's the rules.  I can't get a book published just because I say I want to be a writer.  I have to work for it.  And even if what I do ends up being leaving wonderful memories for my children's children's children, I will have followed the rules - and succeeded in my goal.

I recently moved a bunch of pictures to my external drive, and that included all my marathon finish line pictures, but I did find this one, back at the hotel afterward and proudly sporting my medal.  This picture is incredibly precious to me - take a look:

Peace and love to everyone!

Something Completely Different...

Yes, blog fans, today it's time for something different.  I am going to write about something other than book summaries and Instagram photos.

Today I'm exploring edges - an edge could be the edge of a door, or the edge of the pavement, or the edge of a knife. Or it could be the edge of my sorrow, or the edge of my joy.  So far today I've seen the edge of my knowledge, the edge of my hearing, the edge of my tolerance (or my intolerance, as the case may be), the edge of my bed, the edge of my oatmeal, the edge of the bird's cage. Life is full of edges.

What happens, then, besides just noticing edges?  Patti Digh tells us that the edge is where we learn the most.  If I'm at the edge of the pavement, I will learn about the grass.  If I'm at the edge of my knowledge, I'll learn about the huge vistas of learning (not including Google searches).

I have not seen the edge of my love.  That feels boundless and wide open to me.  But I can look backwards and remember some love-edges, and wish they were not there.

At one time I wanted to live an "edgey" life, and was certain what that meant to me at the time.  I still want to live that life, but it's a different meaning today - today it is, as Patti said, a place to learn more about me, my boundaries, my resistances, my freedoms - is there an edge to my freedom?  Good question.  For the bird, the edge of her cage represents her entry into freedom.  Maybe my own freedom has the same edge, that of the cage that I insist on constructing around myself regardless of the opportunities open to me.  And the edge of the knife - is that to create new edges on a block of cheese, or does it represent the edge of my destruction...or the edge of my creativity?

When I look around, I can see the edge of my faith.  Complete faith sounds enticing to me, but I'm quite aware of these edges.  Can God really restore me to sanity, or is that an edge that I cannot be brought back from?  I think (and therein lies the problem) that if I had enough faith, there would be no question.

The power greater than myself
which many call God, as do I,
shows me edges and borders,
always with doors opened.
Why do I brace myself hard,
hands clutching, arms rigid,
to avoid moving through at all cost?

Maybe through that doorway,
surpassing those edges,
lies peace and protection,
joy without measure,
light never-ending,
love, no conditions,
strong arms to hold me,
blessings eternal.

Yes.

Peace and love to everyone

Promises Delivered

Happy Friday everyone!  Yesterday I promised to catch you up on my reading progress, so here I am to make good on that promise.  I decided to also include a thumbnail of the book's cover to make it a bit more interesting.

The Last Nude

by

Ellis Avery

This gets four stars from me.  It's a novel inspired by events in the life of Tamara de Lempicka's history, set mainly in the 1920s.  Tamara is a painter, and the story is about her relationship with Rafaela Fano, her muse and her lover for several years.  The story was well-told, especially with the main characters being ones I could relate to and understand.  It was quite interesting and moved along quickly.

The book was set in two parts - part one was the main story told from Rafaela's perspective, with part two told from Tamara's perspective many, many years later.  Part one moved along well for me, I was caught up in the story and interested to see what would happen next.  But part two did nothing but confuse me.  There was no date reference given for the second part, so it took me several pages to figure out that this was being told so many years later.  Even once I figured that out, the story bounced back and forth over so many events that I found it mainly confusing.  I think I got the gist of what the author was saying, but in my opinion it would have been a better book if part two was left out altogether.

Pigeon English

by

Stephen Kelman

This gets 4 stars from me.  This is the story of Harrison, an 11-year-old boy who has recently moved with his mother and sister to London from Ghana.  His father, grandmother, and baby sister have stayed behind in Ghana until the family can save enough money for them to be reunited.

Harrison seemed like a pretty typical boy to me.  The title was a great play on words - Harri was learning English and spoke his own dialect, with phrases such as "dope fine" to indicate something really, really good - so it could be similar to "pidgin English."  However, the word play comes in because Harri spots a pigeon that flies to his 9th floor balcony and calls it his pigeon, and the pigeon actually has a part in telling the story, thus, Pigeon English.  Great title, I thought.

I'm not quite sure where I went wrong in reading this book.  As I said, Harri seemed to be a pretty typical boy, with school situations, being accepted by other students, playing detective with his friend in a not-so-serious fashion to try to discover who had murdered a boy in their neighborhood.  I was really enjoying reading the book until the ending, and that completely knocked me off my feet, something I did not see coming at all.  It's not that the ending was bad, necessarily, just that nothing in the rest of the book led me to think it might turn out that way.  I once wrote a short story in a creative writing class that was similar - the story was bright and hopeful, but the ending crashed down suddenly, and my peers didn't like the ending at all.  Now I see why.  Still it was a book worth reading.

A Vintage Affair

by

Isabel Wolfe

This gets 4 stars from me.  It's set in modern day London, where the main character Phoebe has just opened a vintage clothing store with the same name as the book.  In the process of acquiring clothes for her shop, she meets an old woman who sells her a lot of wonderful vintage clothes, but also tells her a story of a child's blue coat that is in her possession, where it came from and the people whose lives were affected by it.  The book weaves the tale of the shop in with the tale of the coat in an enjoyable and emotional fashion, and everything works out great in the end.

  

Miss Peregrine's 

Home For

Peculiar Children

by

Ransom Riggs

This book gets 4 stars from me.  It went on my wish list solely from the title, which I found fascinating.  Peculiar children are described as children who have special abilities that other people don't have - a boy who was invisible unless he was wearing clothes, the girl on the cover whose feet didn't touch the ground, another girl who could throw fire with her hands - and many others.  They were watched "like a hawk" by Miss Peregrine, who was peculiar herself.  These children lived inside a time loop, where the same day repeated over and over and over for many years.  The story centers on this house being discovered by a normal boy, who later finds out he is peculiar as well, and his efforts to decide whether to live with the peculiar children or back in his normal world.

One of the most fascinating things about this book was the photographs it was illustrated with.  There are a number of photographs that showed the peculiar children involved in their personal peculiar activity, all done in a vintage style as was fitting for the date of the time loop.  As I read, I assumed these were photos created especially for the story.  But at the end, I read that all of the photos were real photos that were basically undoctored, and had come from a number of vintage photo collectors.  So apparently the author wrote the book somewhat around the pictures.  That made me love the book all the  more!

So, that's where I am up to today, and it brings me to a grand total of 13 books!  Between the books I'm reading, the books I have checked out from the library, both  paper and electronically, and the books I bought from Better World Books, I have 49 more books in my possession.  So, if I get all these read, I'll have reached my goal of 52!  Keep your fingers crossed!

I don't have any big weekend plans, Santa has to work Friday, Saturday and Sunday nights, so maybe I'll get out and do something on my own.

That's it for today!  Peace and love to everyone!

Woo-Hoo!

As you can easily see, it's been over a week since I paid any attention to my lonely little blog here, and that's too long!  Every day when I finish my other two blogs, I say "Oh, I'll come back to mine later," and then something prevents me from doing that, so today I pulled this right up after finishing the scrapbooking blogs.  If you want to see what I've done there, check them out:

Beth Rimmer's Creative Chaos
Silvia Romeo Designs

It's just a small bit of creative writing, but I do enjoy it a lot, and hopefully it helps increase traffic to these two designers' scrapbook stores, that's the intention anyway.

Yesterday was the beginning of Verb Tribe, the 37-day writing class with Patti Digh.  I am so excited to be starting this class!  Yesterday we had a writing prompt:  How do you compare yourself with others?, and we were to do our writing on both sides of a paper lunch bag using a Sharpie pen, like the one Johnny Depp uses to sign autographs with, LOL!  We were to write for 10 minutes or until both sides were filled, and "write like our hair was on fire."  So got that one done!  We also copied a poem in longhand that Patti gave to us, which was interesting, it really helped me to notice things about the poem that I wouldn't have noticed otherwise.  She also had us start using a notecard to note observations about our day that might be used in later writing - this was very interesting, I didn't fill up my card because I didn't start until 5 pm when I read the first assignment, and today I just haven't grabbed the note card yet, but I promise I'll do that as soon as I'm finished with this blog entry!  There are a whole bunch of wonderful women (maybe a man or two also?) taking this class, and I am so excited to be in their company!

So, Monday my dear friend Miriam made it possible for Santa and I to visit Animal Kingdom at Disney, and we had a glorious day.  We got there about 10:30 and stayed til 4:30, which is quite a good stretch for me, and though I was tired at the end, it wasn't unbearable.  And we got to do ALMOST everything we wanted to do - we missed Expedition Everest, which Santa really wanted to ride on, but that will be our first stop next time.  Miriam is always so gracious in getting us in to the parks, but I have not felt up to going for the longest time.  This is a great indicator of how much my energy level has improved recently - I wouldn't have even attempted this two months ago.  Now the Flower and Garden Festival will be coming up in another month or so, and I hope we can see that - it's been several years since I've been to that.

Of course, one of the big things I wanted to do at Animal Kingdom was take pictures with my iPhone, and I was not disappointed in that.  I took approximately 200 pictures - started with a full battery and was down to about 15% by the end of the day, but I pretty much took every picture I wanted.  Some were successful, some not so much, but I felt like I got great pictures without having to cart around my DSLR - of course the pictures are different than I would have shot with the DSLR, and the phone camera isn't going to replace it, but I know I will use it a LOT!

Here are some highlights of my picture expedition:

Miriam and me before we went into the park

Santa and me

Big fat hippo lying in the sun

Reticulated giraffe

Baby elephant in front of the baobob tree

It's kind of hard to see, click on the picture to see the larger version, but right in the center you can see the lion all sprawled out on his back, basking with the warmth of the sun on his belly

The rainbow was not there when I took the picture - it's magic

Help Mr. Lizard!

The only gorilla we got to see - the others were otherwise occupied apparently

Painted mural in Asia

Bas relief in Asia - see the elephant on the left?

Sun flare

Tree of Life

This one is priceless - David was chosen from the audience at the Lion King Festival to show our section how to act like wart hogs.  Here he's crooking his fingers like tusks and making the BEST snorting sound!

Finale of the Festival of the Lion King

You can see this better if you click on the picture to enlarge it, but it's a tree full of (ibis, ibes, ibises, ibides - take your pick of plural form) roosting for the night.  We used to have large numbers of these birds come to our house when we lived on the lake, but I have no idea where they roosted.

I should add that all these pictures are straight out of the camera, with the exception of a couple that I cropped.  I know that editing them would brighten up the colors and sharpen them, but not so bad for a camera phone, huh?

I was going to catch you up on all the books I've finished since last we spoke, but Santa wants to go to the library (I need more library books like a hole in the head) so that will have to wait until tomorrow.  For now...

Peace and love to everyone!

Underestimation

Hey y'all!

Last night, as I mentioned, Santa and I went out on a photowalk.  I got a few good ones, only one edited so far, here it is:

This is (obviously) a carousel, shot with my iPhone 4S just as the sun was going down, at Old Town in Kissimmee - love this picture!

I'll edit and post more soon, promise!

Now to books!  Today I finished this one:

State of Wonder by Ann Patchett - This one gets 5 stars from me!  The main setting is in Brazil along the Amazon River.  The main character, Marina, is a doctor performing pharmaceutical research on cholesterol drugs.  The pharmaceutical company is also funding a project in a remote region of Brazil near the Amazon River, having to do with research for a fertility drug.  Marina's officemate has been sent to the site in Brazil to try to ascertain the state of the project, as the doctor in charge of it is not forthcoming with status information.  When a letter is received that the colleague has died and was buried at the site, Marina is sent to find out the circumstances, and learns amazing things, both about the research and about herself.  The characters are fully fleshed out, and I very much felt I was at that site along the river.  The ending is surprising, yet quite plausible, and all loose ends are tied up.  I had read Bel Canto by Patchett a while back, and this is my second one of her books to read - I will definitely be seeking out more.  I like the way she writes!

In moving stuff around on top of my messy dresser in my bedroom, I found two additional books that I've finished this month - thus the Underestimation title of this post, LOL!

The Vanishing of Katharina Linden by Helen Grant - The main character is 10-year-old Pia, and is set in a small town in Germany.  Pia is an outcast in her school due to the unfortunate freak death of her grandmother - it is said that she "exploded" - she actually caught on fire after a liberal dousing of hairspray to tame her 'do, then shortly thereafter taking over the lighting of the family Advent candle, so it was somewhat like an explosion and certainly became gossip fodder in this small town.  At a town celebration of something like our Halloween, a young girl vanishes with no explanation whatsoever, and Pia and her only friend, Stinky Stefan, set out to find out why.  They are frequent visitors to an elderly gentleman who tells them stories of the town, which they use to try to piece together the mystery of the girl's disappearance, as well as subsequent disappearing children, and the mystery is resolved by the end of the story.  It is funny and suspenseful and a quite enjoyable read - it gets 4 stars from me.

The Sandalwood Tree by Elle Newmark - Another book whose main setting is in India, in 1947.  Martin Mitchell has won a Fulbright Fellowship to study in that country at a time of political uprising and the turnover of power from the British to Indians.  He takes his wife Evie and his son with  him to India - but the marriage is less than happy.  They move to a somewhat remote small village.  In the house that has been assigned to the family, Evie finds a packet of letters from almost 100 years back, at another time of political uprising, that appear to be parts of a correspondence between two women.  Evie latches on to research about these women, who originally came from England to India to find husbands, a practice that was very much en vogue at the time.  The letters are not in good shape and so much of their content is indecipherable, but there are enough clues that Evie is able to pursue other means of finding out  more information.  She learns more and more as time goes on, but finds her family in peril, both because of her research and the political unrest.  The book contains two stories in one, the story of the two British women from the 1850s, and the story Evie's family in 1947, and both are tied up well in the end.  It is a great study in relationships, and I was completely caught up in the story.  It gets 4 stars from me.

Well, tomorrow is housecleaning day (insert small boo here, but alas, it must be done!) so it's possible I'll run across more books I've forgotten I've read in the process, but I don't think I will.  I'm currently reading a book called Just Wanna Testify - wow, I just searched this book on Goodreads and find that it's #5 in a series - guess I'll be going back to the first four because this one has me captivated.

So, goodnight me lovlies - peace and love to everyone!

Read Reads Read

Have you ever heard of the website called Goodreads?  It's a place for tracking detailed information on the books you've read, that you're reading, and that you want to read.  It also allows sharing of this information with friends you set up.  It allows you to search for books that may interest you.  It has blog postings by authors whose books you've read in the past.  There are numerous reviews for most books. If you are a reader, you definitely should check it out:  www.goodreads.com.  I love it personally!

I've been slowly but surely tracking all the books I've read, but since I'm such an avid reader, I'll never get an accurate list - I've been reading voraciously since I first learned to read.  I remember one Christmas when Nancy Drew was my book of choice.  My parents gifted me with five new Nancy Drew books, and I had them read halfway through Christmas break - they were amazed!  I also had a real love-hate relationship going on with our neighborhood public librarian.  In the summer I was permitted to ride my bike to the library to check out books - this was probably the summer between 3rd and 4th grade.  But the problem was that the library had a policy that children could only check out one book at a time. So, I'd go first thing in the morning, check out my one measly book, go home and read it, then go back to check out another one to read that night.  Of course, the librarian refused me for the longest time - this was back in the days when books were checked out by removing and stamping a card inserted into a pocket affixed to the inside cover, and the librarian couldn't be bothered to find my card from earlier in the day (apparently all alphabetizing and filing of the day's cards happened after the library closed to the public).  That didn't stop me though, I continued, day by day, to go back to the library to try to get a second book, sometimes even taking along my mom or dad so they could check something out for me.  At some point the librarian threw up her hands and just let me check out a second book in the morning - I remember how happy I was when that happened!  No telling how many books I read that summer.  And I promise there was not one single late book!

So anyway, it's enjoyable for me to peruse lists of books and mark ones I've read, and for the last several months I've kept a record of my readings.  Shortly after the first of the year, the website had a prompt asking what your reading goal was for the year.  I thought about it, and I didn't want to set it too high, so I chose 52 books.  And here it is the 24th, and I'm already at 6 books - I don't think I'll have any trouble reading 52, and it will be interesting to track just how many I do read.

Here's the list of what I've read so far:

Note:  The first two books on this list were ones I checked out as E-books from the library through a new program they have called Freading - books are always available for checking out, you don't have to wait until a copy is returned.  The books I checked out probably are not ones I would have chosen from the regular selection of E-books, but I was interested in the Freading concept.  I have two other Freading books checked out as well.

Blue Boy by Rakesh Satyal - Story of a 12-year-old Indian American boy who feels very different from the other kids his age.  As a way of explaining his differences to himself, he decides he's the reincarnation of Krishna, the blue-skinned Hindu deity.  The book shows many vignettes of how Kieran is different from his peers, and moves toward the conclusion where he actually dresses up as Krishna for his school's talent show, plays the flute, and dances with wild abandon - with surprising results.  I liked this book - I very much enjoy Indian novels, and this one was both fun and insightful.  I give it four stars.

Golfing With God by Roland Merullo - The title pretty much describes the story line - the main character is in heaven, and is assigned the task of helping God learn to putt better.  He is taken on a journey that teaches him much about life and about spirituality.  I'm not a golfer, and I'm sure that someone interested in both golf and spirituality would eat this book up, but just the spiritual references were enough to make it worth my while.  I give this one four stars too.

The Moment by Douglas Kennedy - Let me start out by saying, Five Stars for sure!  This is a novel about a man and a women in Germany in the 1980s when the Wall was still up.  They both lived and worked in a neighborhood on the West side, but the woman's life had always been in East Germany.  It's a powerful love story with tragic consequences and an interesting ending.  Although I've read a whole lot of sad books in my reading life, it's rare for a book to actually make me cry, and this one made me cry three times in the last 30 pages or so.  I loved this and will likely read it again.

The Autobiography of Mrs. Tom Thumb by Melanie Benjamin - I checked this one out because the title was intriguing.  It is exactly what the title says it is, and is based on historical fact.  It was interesting in many ways, but I think only a tiny person could actually portray how the world looked from their unique perspective.  I did enjoy it, but this one only gets 3 stars.

Blood Fever by Karen Moning, #2 in the Fever series - This series was recommended to me at a Breaking Dawn party last November, as another supernatural series that was interesting and well-written.  I read the first and second ones, but I don't think I'll go on from there.  I loved Stephenie Meyers's Twilight series, I certainly love Ann Rice's books, but Ms. Moning is nowhere near their caliber, and I found myself slogging through the last pages.  Three stars.

The American Heiress by Daisy Goodwin - I almost didn't finish this one because it was pretty light-weight, but got into it enough to finish it off.  It's the story of a woman in the 1800s who married a British Duke, of her life before and after her marriage.  It was pretty predictable, but it was decently written, and if I were the author of the book I would certainly want my reader to see it through to the end, so I did.  One of the biggest problems I had was that there was conflicting information in the story about a letter that was written, but it later said it wasn't written, then went back to saying it was written.  That drove me nuts.  Not the tightest writing for sure.  Three stars.

So, there you have it - I'm 6 books into my quota of 52.  And I definitely won't stop reading once I hit the target.  One characteristic of a good writer is that she is an avid reader, so I have that one down for sure - now all I need to do is start writing.

That's it for now - Santa and I are going to Old Town in Kissimmee tonight to give me more iPhone photo ops, so maybe there will be more pics tomorrow.  Stay tuned!

Peace and love to everyone!