end of Monday...

Nobody grows old merely by living a number of years. We grow old by deserting our ideals. Years may wrinkle the skin, but to give up enthusiasm wrinkles the soul. ~Samuel Ullman

There are days when happiness bubbles along quietly inside, as a sort of background mood to the day. The more I recognize that it is there, the more energy I have. I try to cultivate some of that when it seems to be missing, but in a circular fashion the less energy I have, the more difficult it is to feel or find that quiet bubbling... and the less energy I have. And enthusiasm? Well, that too seems to be a factor of energy at times.

Oh and that's the long way 'round to the reason for this short post. I had started something else that needs refining and might not ever make the public view, but I've started to enforce a more strict time to attempt sleep. A regular schedule seems to do remarkable things for happiness, energy and enthusiasm. ;-)

One of the pictures from the visit to my sister's in San Diego county:


There are wonderful little corners and vistas all around their property.

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Unconscious Mutterings Week 147

I say ... and you think ... ?

1. Stuffed:: turkey
   
2. Armstrong:: Neil
   
3. Bruise:: 'd feelings
   
4. Content:: table
   
5. Musical:: score
   
6. Assistance:: helpful
   
7. Scrambling:: eggs
   
8. Battle:: cries
   
9. Extended:: hours
   
10. Discount:: store

Weekly word list at Unconscious Mutterings

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Thanksgiving

"Clouds come floating into my life, no longer to carry rain or usher storm, but to add color to my sunset sky." ~Rabindranath Tagore



The sunset tonight from my upstairs window...

Sorry about the lack of posts this week. I managed to get bitten by a spider last Saturday and have a large localized reaction. It's getting better, but I am still visiting the wound care folks at the walk in surgery clinic every few days. I have a reprieve until Sunday unless something changes for the worse. For those who have been asking, all other medical stuff is still an unknown, though there were some clues in the bloodwork. I am simply moving on with things, and whatever is, is... and whatever comes next, does.

Thursday is Thanksgiving here in the U.S. and I am headed to my sister's to celebrate and give thanks. I am grateful for so much, including blog friends.

I wish everyone a happy, family and friends, love-filled day.

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Unconscious Mutterings Week 146

I say, and you think:

1. Heads up:: warning
   
2. Kicker :: extra point
   
3. Aggressive:: comfort levels and perception; passive-agressive
   
4. Getting ugly:: angry personal attacks
   
5. To be continued:: never ending tale
   
6. Twist:: unexpected
   
7. Form:: shape; endless paperwork
   
8. On the road:: again
   
9. Import:: goods
   
10. Flowers:: "Where have all the flowers gone?"

Join in - weekly word list at Unconscious Mutterings

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Where to look

A Sufi story and comments within
Living Loving and Learning by Leo Buscaglia :

There's one story that's very poignant. It tells of the day Mullah was out in the street on his hands and knees, looking for something and a friend came up and said,
"Mullah, what are you looking for?"
And Mullah said, "I lost my key."
"Oh, Mullah, that's terrible, I'll help you find it." So he was on his hands and knees, then said, "Mullah, about where did you lose it?"
Mullah said, "I lost it in my house."
"Then what are you looking out here for?"
He said, "Because there's more light here."

Dr. Buscaglia goes on to say:

You know, that's hilarious, but that's what we do with our lives! We believe that everything there is to find is out there in the light where it's easy to find, when the only answers for you are in you! Go ahead and look and look and look, but you're not going to find them out there! Nobody has your answers--only you have your answers. And if you think you can pack up your bag and escape you, you're in for a mighty big surprise. Run to a mountaintop in Neapl, and when you get over the wonder of being in Nepal, who are you faced with in the mirror? You! With all your hangups, with all your fears, with all your confusion, with all your lonliness, with all the things that you are. So it's time to begin looking where it makes sense to look. What is essential is not out there. What is essential is indeed in you. But it's frightening inside and dark, and it's not easy to search in the dark. And nobody teaches us how.

This strikes me as amusing on many levels, including that I think I've been searching books all my life for the whys and hows and some clue about which are the essential answers...


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noticing...

"If the stars should appear but one night every thousand years how man would marvel and adore." ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

Faintly visible is Mars rising over the mountain; Thanks SpaceTramp, for the postitive identification

I don't know about anyone else, but some of my favorite blogs to read focus on the person's life and feelings. The writing is personal, often (but not always) introspective, but always about their reaction to, and feelings about life and the surrounding daily events- small and large, inner and outer, good and less, things that interest or touch them-- and not so much about their analysis of the factual events. I don't look for earth-shattering stories or great wisdom, though those can often be found no matter the writer knows or not. Instead I look for some flavor of the real person's life. How do other people think, feel, what makes them tick, care, share- are some of my life questions (the why could be analyzed, but I'll decline for the moment). I don't want to read words about the feelings of others to pass judgment or to analyze the people. But the feelings and thoughts of others, sometimes leads me to understand moments of my own.

I spend my days in some combination of assisting others, living a daily life, and bits of personal introspection, though the types of things that cause me to look within and re-examine parts of self are different these days than thirty years ago or even twenty. I've settled many bits of angst, grown accustomed to many others (shrug shoulders here), and found new bits of things that aren't settled at all (even if I previously thought they were). Delight, surprise, acceptance, new vistas, old ones, aha moments, helping others, tedious tasks, mundane daily living, introspection, self critical moments, and others - all of these are part of the life I live, though not necessarily each in every day.

I am on a quest for self- who is this person, how to live a happy life and what do I think a happy life is for me? Can I make a difference anywhere and what balance between things is the comfortable one for me? It's the same quest as I was on at twenty, but the air changes with every new twist in the journey. I share here in some moments, because it is what is interesting to me about others. I want to hear/read others stories, their daily lives, their passions, their inward thoughts, even the mundane- and maybe sharing mine, dull as they sometimes might be, will help someone else.

Is this being self absorbed, self obsessed, even when reading others? Perhaps. Is there a purpose to my sharing of the mundane and the slightly less so? You bet. Hoping that others will share in return, is only one. But maybe I've got this self disclosure bit, wrong?

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Questions

“Asking the proper question is the central action of transformation … Questions are the key that cause the secret doors of the psyche to swing open.” ~Clarissa Pinkola Estes
(Her book, Women Who Run With Wolves, has been on my want to read list for years- finally getting around to ordering it...)

found the quote at: Conscious Living Foundation- quotations

Sunset tonight in Canoga Park..

There are questions on my mind, maybe not the proper ones, though. I don't know as I have figured out what those are for me, exactly. I surely know some of the "proper ones", but they seem to change every few years. It would be so much easier if I could figure out an answer to more of them, before there were so many new ones or before I run out of time...

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Unconscious Mutterings Week 145

I say ... and you think ... ?

1. Mighty:: Mouse
   
2. Gotta find time to ....:: put up more bookshelves
   
3. Statistic:: correlation is not causation
   
4. Midnight::
   
   'Twas midnight on the ocean, not a streetcar was in sight.
   The sun was shining brightly for it rained all day that night.
   It was a summer's day in winter and the snow was raining fast
   as a barefoot boy with shoes on, stood sitting in the grass.
   (unknown author, something I read as a child)
   
   
5. Thaw:: a frozen heart...
   
6. Hips:: rose
   
7. Reader::word, thought, idea lover
   
8. Related:: associated
   
9. Brilliant:: shining with light
   
10. Posture:: shoulders back, head up

Join in, play along - weekly word list can be found at Unconscious Mutterings

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What color heart do you have?

file under silly things to do on a Saturday morning break:

Your Heart Is Purple

For you, love is about establishing and developing a deep connection. If it's true love, it brings you more wisdom and inner strength. Your flirting style: Sincere Your lucky first date: An afternoon at a tea house Your dream lover: Is both thoughtful and expressive What you bring to relationships: Understanding

What Color Heart Do You Have?

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Random notes

Random notes; maybe I'll have some photos later...

Slight Frowns:

When did so many places stop considering Veteran's day as a holiday? Soldiers don't make the decisions that take us to a war and their service ought to be honored.

Listening to Shrub speak makes me cringe (as I've mentioned repeatedly for different reasons at different times). He should shut up now about the things he is currently stumbling over to say, because re-spinning facts isn't going to change the light beginning to glow in the middle of the country.

One should be highly suspicious of a parent company who lets the health insurance premium payments for one of it's subsidiaries lapse while still deducting said premiums from the employee's paychecks.

In the same vein, thank goodness sometimes, for bureaucracy where one hand doesn't know what the other one is doing- as in an HMO accounting department sending out a letter saying they've cancelled insurance, but the computer still lists that person as a member so prescriptions could be picked up at the member price and she could still get a free flu shot. Here's to hoping that the wheels continue to turn that way if there is an emergency over the weekend or until this is sorted out.

Why don't leafblowers require sound mufflers? Better yet, why aren't they banned entirely in their gasoline powered form?

Why is there more and more junk snail mail that needs shredding? Remember the days when one could stand over a plain wastebasket and sort the incoming mail?

Smiles:

The sun is out today, with some cumulonimbus clouds hanging about growing taller, decorating the sky over the mountains (which are also visible- yipppie!!).

I'm grateful for a boss who writes glowing reports to my academic program advisor (and even tells me some of these things in person when he doesn't need to- it's a great motivator!). He won't see this, but I did thank him with a note.

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chasing self day

"Sometimes it's important to work for that pot of gold. But other times it's essential to take time off and to make sure that your most important decision in the day simply consists of choosing which color to slide down on the rainbow." ~Douglas Pagels

I do take more 'keep my sanity days' than I did in earlier years. None of those are possible for the next many weeks, at least not planned ones, but mini breaks are necessary to every day.

Some pieces from a tiny break on a very long Tuesday...



I pass this same rose bordered walkway every week heading into the home of two of my clients. The various blooms never fail to catch my eye. I suspect it might be due to being better at noticing things in the moment these days, even when I am stressed (then again, it might just be that I wish I had a few rose bushes to tend).

It rained lightly off and on Wednesday. I didn't leave the house - not even to look around in between showers. I did peek out the windows a few times and noticed the mountains were hidden. I wound up with a 'one thing leads to another, leads to another, leads to another, nothing gets completely done' sort of day.

One of the 'one thing' items was touching base with my boss... and heard the barest outline of a possible position that might be open for me to pursue in the Spring- around the time of my new degree or a little sooner... which led to some quick searches at O'net, comparing educational requirements and median salaries for various positions; not that money matters a lot (it matters, just not as the primary motivator), but if I am making a list of pros and cons for earning that dual master's, I ought to know what sort of impact it might make... turns out it is considerable- as in plus almost half again in salary at other employers who might make use of that part of the degree.

Another Tuesday pic:

I kept thinking the leaves seemed like scattered jewels in the grass... scattered jewels... leads to thinking about other important and scattered things.. which leads to ....

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storms of indecision

"All our final decisions are made in a state of mind that is not going to last." ~Marcel Proust

I was taking a break, looked out the window Sunday evening and saw the clouds glowing with the end of the sunset light.

These look a bit like wings...

I could be finished with my master of science degree in counseling, rehabilitation option, by the end of spring (4 classes [16 units] plus some final internship hours [5 units] and the comprehensive exam), in May 06, or by summer's end, depending on when classes were offered ...

or I could apply for the MFCC program and take 8 additional classes (32 units), 6 units of family practice clinic time (240 hours over 20 weeks), and 15 additional units of internship (600 hours over 30 weeks) and an additional comp exam, which in total might require another year or year and a half beginning Fall 06.

I am sooooooo tired. I want the dual masters and to be eligible to take the state's marriage and family counseling board certification tests (which would require some additional hours of counseling practice, under supervision), but the thoughts of the additional year or so of driving at night, hours in classroom lectures and testing- keeps suggesting the words tedious and overwhelming.

And this health stuff is looming over my head- all the 'what if's'; I can't decide. The counselor with career counseling training, needs a counselor.

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weird weather

File under all things Indiana- my place of birth and home for most of the first 28 years of life...
It's a very weird time of year for tornadoes in Indiana, no matter what the weather people have said. My thoughts are with those folks in Indiana and Kentucky who were affected.

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Waiting

"So what do we do? Anything. Something. So long as we just don't sit there. If we screw it up, start over. Try something else. If we wait until we've satisfied all the uncertainties, it may be too late." ~Lee Iacocca

"Let us not be content to wait and see what will happen, but give us the determination to make the right things happen." ~Horace Mann

"The man who goes alone can start today; but he who travels with another must wait till that other is ready." ~Henry David Thoreau

The MRI went fine, was short compared to what I thought it might be (was in and out including registration and waiting time in an hour and a half) and was interesting in that there was a rhythm to the noise- five bangs followed by five and sometimes four different bangs in a lower tone. I don't know what mineral I was injected with at the last, but it is something I would like to know. I briefly saw the pics but not to actually study closely. There were fewer finished scans than I thought there would be. The report and pics will be sent to the neurologist and my own doc, so I will know something hopefully in about two weeks. ( and the inner me is saying- two weeks!!!!!!!! - eeegads, that's a horrible amount of time to wait). One more specialty doc and possibly 'in office tests' that need to be done before the next neuro appointment unless they find something more urgent, or so I hopefully presume.

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Unconscious Mutterings Week 144

I say ... and you think ... ?

1. Deeper and deeper:: layers
   
2. Can’t help .... :: yes, anyone can
   
3. Devil’s advocate:: useful sometimes
   
4. Superpower:: without super leadership
   
5. Threatening:: don't believe am threatening, sometimes feel threatened
   
6. Played:: sometimes [shrug shoulders], it happens
   
7. War:: is not healthy for children and other living creatures!
   
8. Violate:: break
   
9. Invest:: time
   
10. Choke:: decrease air
    

Weekly word list at Unconscious Mutterings

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Tagged

Sherry tagged me and I said I'd play so here is...

20 random things about me:
(Twenty is too difficult; so here are 10:)
1. ...am handy with tools and have my own toolboxs full of them- auto, woodworking, electronic, and crafting
2. ...like figuring out how to make and repair things and how things work (but seldom have time for that pleasure these days)
3. ...miss romance
4. spending all day shopping in person belongs in the how to torture me column
5. ...once held an amateur radio licence, could send and comprehend code
6. ...need alone time in an amount slightly more or roughly equal to the amount of time spent with people
7. ...don't mind being and growing older, but DO mind losing abilities and sometimes mind looking older
8. ...like hard sciences, and never met an academic discipline whose basics couldn't be comprehended with some effort
9. ...like that people think I am competent, capable and strong
10. ...hate that people always think I am strong and don't need a shoulder to lean on or a little fussing over, now and then

7 Things to do before I die?
1. Travel and savor as many places as I can
2. Backpack very slowly up the California Coast Trail or as much of it as is completed (assuming they will have a "seniors" part of the trail???)
3. Find more missing pieces of my family history
4. Learn stonecutting and silver jewelry making techniques
5. Study more geology, seismology and physical geography, re-learn Latin
6. Learn to tango, salsa, etc.
7. Hold a grandchild in my arms

7 Things I cannot do:
(cannot do any longer or never could:)
1. summersaults
2. cartwheels
3. flips (never could)
4. backbends
5. lift 65 pounds (used to lift much more when I weighed less!! but I can carry almost that much in a backpack)
6. read teeeny tiny print
7. tolerate injustice in my presence

7 Things that attract me to the opposite sex
1. intelligence
2. empathy
3. confidence
4. intelligence
5. empathy
6. confidence
7. intelligence
;-)

7 things I say most often
1. How do you feel about that?
2. You can do it
3. Great job!
4. really [.?!]
5. good, and you?
6. Wonderful!
7. oh sh*t!

7 Celebrity crushes?
nah... my last celebrity crushes were George Harrison and Paul McCartney in 1968
These days I do find several of them physically attractive in a mild, easy on the eye, sort of way, but I wouldn't call it a crush.


Later edit: OOPS!! I was supposed to tag someone, I think. But instead, I will leave it open for anyone to pick up.

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pieces of the day

Part of living each day with a measure of joy requires being open to the delights that present themselves...

Some quick pics of a few of the moments that made me smile...





clouds and sunsets always give me smiles...










I was startled by Precious the parrotlet flying across the table to grab my pen; then a few minutes later I had a bird on my head.



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