Pause, breathe, smile

Please, allow me to vent and to listen to myself talk.  And come along, if you want, on a trip through my mind (I apologize in advance for how the messy it is😉.):

Are you exhausted?  I am.  I am sick and tired of all the craziness out there, all the chaos, fighting, hate, lies, fear-mongering, violence, increasing prices (for less product or services), natural disasters, wars, rumors of wars, AI this-and-that, Big Pharma, social deviance/immorality, efforts to force people to tolerate social deviance/immorality, political posturing and mudslinging and nonsense, etc.  

I'm done with it.  I just so done with it all.  "You can stop the world now, God.  We wanna get off."  

I am sick of both social media and the news - because everyone just wants to fight, scream their opinions, demand their way, calls names, make accusations, and force everyone else to agree with them and do things their way.  Everything's an "us vs them" thing, and "if you don't agree with 'us' then you're a bad bad person who shouldn't be here."  It's sick.  And everyone reacts to soundbites and snippets, instead of getting the whole story and wisely responding.  There are no attempts to understand, to really listen, to connect, to talk through things, to be tolerant of other opinions.  (Maybe younger people don't know this because they've been fed bad definitions, but tolerance used to be about respectfully agreeing to disagree with someone, allowing others to have different opinions, even ones you don't like or agree with.  But now - due to social brainwashing - it's about supporting, affirming, condoning everyone else's view, over and above your own... or else you're "intolerant.")  

You know you're getting old when...

 

Turn it up even LOUDER!

You know those songs that you always have to play as loud as possible, and even louder if you could?

I've got some of those.  [To name only five, there's Numb from U2 and Chlorine, Downstairs, Choker, and Jumpsuit from Twenty One Pilots.  I'm addicted to Twenty One Pilots (musical geniuses)!  And so are my husband and sons.]  

And the only place I can play them as loud as I want is when I'm driving alone in the car.  That's MY time.  An introvert's dream vacation.  I can play my music as loud as I want and sing along... and there's no one to interrupt or complain.  (But I do worry that I might've butt-dialed someone and that they're listening to me sing loud and proud.)

And this reminds me: You parents know what we're supposed to do when kids complain about our music, right?

White horses and a cup of tea (part 3: my white horses)

[I'm working my way through this slowly.  Click here for part 1 and part 2 of this series.] 

First, here's The White Horse Parable again (my version):

A man and his son owned a field that they farmed for a living.  And one day, they found a white horse in the field.

"Oh, what a blessing," said the farmer.  "A free horse."

But then the horse started tearing up their plants.  

"Oh, this is terrible.  What a curse!" cried the farmer.  

But then they caught the horse and tamed it and were able to use it to farm the field.

"Oh, what a blessing," said the farmer.

But then the son was thrown off the horse, broke both arms, and couldn't farm for months, reducing their sales and income.

"Oh, what a curse," said the farmer. "I wish this horse never came to us.  Why, God?  Why!?!"

But then a war started, and the army issued a draft.  But because the son had broken arms, he was excused from the draft and didn't have to fight in the war.

"Oh, what a blessing!" praised the farmer.

White horses and a cup of tea (part 2: A theme)

(picking up where we left off in part 1...)

And that brings us to this year.  This year I wasn't going to make any New Year's resolutions.  I was like "meh, who cares?"

But then, two things grew naturally in my mind, goals for this year.  (The first one will take several posts, and then I'll share the second one after that.)

(Plus, I think I'll keep trying the "talk less, listen more" resolution, too.  I could always use more of that.  And I think I'll add "try to stop speaking negative things."  That won't be easy.  I do far too much of that.):

A Theme: 

This is going to be my "white horse" year.  

"What's a 'white horse'?" you ask.  

Well, I'm glad you asked.  I'll tell you.  

Another great sermon: What if love meant more than you thought?

Before I get to part 2 of "White Horses and a cup of tea," here's another great sermon from Willow Creek (they're on a roll): 

What If Love Meant More Than You Thought?

A sermon like this is especially needed in this "outrage culture" where people spend their days looking for things to be angry about, for people to lash out at.  Ugh.

But there's a better way.  It doesn't have to be like this.  We don't have to let the news and social media lure us into an ever-increasing spiral of hopelessness and discouragement, antagonizing us into hating life and everyone around us.

White horses and a cup of tea (part 1)

I generally don't make New Year's Resolutions.  I mean I do sometimes, but I don't really see the point because they never last.  It's often more fun making the resolution than keeping the resolution, isn't it?  And so what started out as a grand idea on January 1st becomes a grand flop by January 31st.  We can waste more time planning and daydreaming about our resolutions than actually doing them, am I right?😁  

(Besides, if it's important enough, we'll do whatever it is when we're motivated enough to do it, regardless of the time of year.)  

And so instead of any grand resolutions these past several years, I've been trying to think of more light-hearted things to "resolve" to do throughout the year, relaxing things.  

Who says resolutions have to be lofty or serious anyway?

Such as these resolutions from the past several years:

I am Little Drummer Boy

Merry Christmas late.  And Happy New Year early.

I've shared this before but I'll share it again:

My all-time favorite classic Christmas song has got to be the Little Drummer Boy.   If I’m listening to this song and start to think too much about it, I start to well up with tears.  Every time.

My sons occasionally ask me why this is my favorite Christmas song.  

“It’s stupid and it doesn’t make sense,” they say.

Juni Desiree's beautiful art and heart

 This is a section from a future post, which shows this painting I once did:

This was my favorite one, the first one I ever painted like this.  (I like it, but no one else has to.  I just paint for fun, not for quality.)    

And it graced my wall for a few years... until I gave it away to a dear online friend from Australia, Juni Desiree (we met online in the comment section of a blog she used to have).  It was the only way to say "thank you" for something amazing she did for me: dedicating to me a book she published of pictures she drew about her mental health journey.  

Here's a YouTube video on it: The Art of Mental Health: Book Launch!!!! (at 5:04 you can see the "Dedication: For Heather" page"😊), and here's where you can buy it: The Art of Mental Health Ebook - Etsy Australia.  

Late Summer for Gardeners

I haven't been able to get around to publishing any real posts lately because I've been so busy with other things... and right now, it's been shredding and freezing zucchini (or making zucchini bread and zucchini fritters) and canning homemade pickles and tomato sauce and crushed tomatoes and pickled peppers... and then busy cleaning up all the zucchini-pickle-tomato-pepper messes all over the kitchen... not to mention, giving away bags of fresh cucumbers and green beans because we're getting too many and can't possibly eat them all (I find it crazy that three of my kids hate fresh green beans - where'd I go wrong?😕)... and then doing it all over again just a little while later.

It's been like the movie Groundhog Day, endlessly repeating the same day over and over again, except with vegetables!

And so, just for fun - and because I can't get around to writing real posts - here's something that all you gardeners out there might enjoy right about now.  I feel this one:

Jill 4 Today: "Around the world in 80 breads"

While researching bread-baking around the world, I stumbled on this YouTube channel - Jill 4 Today - and I just have to say that I'm really enjoying her.  A lot of fun to watch.  And I love when older women do videos like these because it feels very homey, very grandmotherly.   

I'm especially interested in her new series "Around the world in 80 breads."  And I love it that she makes some of these breads for the first time on camera, leaving in the doubts and mistakes and all.  Amusing and charming.

Anyway, I'd love for her to actually do all 80 breads, but she doesn't think she'll get to them all.  So if anyone else is interested in this too, support her channel and send her some comments to encourage her to actually do all 80.  It'd be fun to see.

Here are the three breads she's done so far:

#1 No-knead French bread

#2 Icelandic Rye Bread (just listening to their reactions as they eat it makes me want to try it too)

#3 German Broetchen Rolls  

It's a long way to 80, but it would be a fun journey getting there!

Not such an old fuddy-duddy now, am I!

My idea of a good time

  

Troublemaker!

Just the other day...

 

It happens more than you'd think

 

I vote for ...

Here in America, it's election day again.  And I think we can all agree that it's a super-emotional, super-heated, super-critical election this time around.  Everyone's fighting over it.  Everyone's demonizing the other side.  Everyone's absolutely certain that their candidate must get in or else the country's going to go to hell-in-a-handbasket.  (Actually, I bet we're all thinking it's going to hell-in-a-handbasket anyway, no matter who gets into office.)

And as I walk around the neighborhood every day on my prayer-walks, I see all the political signs in people's yards:  Harris!  Trump!  Vote for love and truth!  Don't vote for hate!  Make America great again!  Take back America!  Vote like your daughter's rights depend on it!  Trans-rights!  No one is illegal!  Hate doesn't live here!  Blah, blah, blah.

But in all the political noise, I saw one sign that made me say "YES!":

Jesus 2024 - Our only hope!   

Can I get an "Amen"!?!  

Scariest Halloween decoration ever?

 So it's Halloween time again, huh?  Is it just me, or has there been a big increase in the amount of Halloween decorations in people's yards?

I don't decorate for Halloween, nothing more than maybe a few pumpkins.  But a neighbor and I were talking the other day, and she inadvertently stumbled on what I think would make the best Halloween decoration.  Something truly terrifying.  And if I had more guts, I'd maybe consider doing it someday.

She was reading out loud some reported quotes from famous atheists just before their death, and I thought Now that would make a scary Halloween display in your yard, a collection of tombstones with atheist quotes on them!  

Quotes such as these:

Two songs for the presidential election

I posted these for the 2020 elections too, but here they are again for this election season:

A couple of Tim Hawkins songs as this election season gets under way, just for fun:

Jimmy Buffet for President

The Government Can

If you can't do anything about it, may as well have some fun with it!

Those darn price-tag stickers