Things I am thankful for:

1. I am thankful for my health. I take it entirely too much forgranted.
2. I am thankful for my intelligence. Go ahead and laugh here! but I am thankful for it nonetheless. I am not a genius but thanks to the harassment of a jerk I took a couple of IQ tests which have assured me that I am somewhat above average in intelligence. (I didn't tell him that I actually think IQ tests are crap. I was disappointed that my brother said he thought my score would be higher, he should know that I am no John Nash despite the fact that he bought me the Waterman.)
3. I am thankful for my creativity.
4. I am thankful for my family both my immediate and extended even though I might not always show it like I should.
5. I am thankful for Toblerone! (one needs to be thankful for little things also)
6. I am thankful for my Grandpa and Grandma M. and I miss them dearly almost everyday although I am glad that they have moved to a better place.
7. I am thankful for this house that I live in now, even though I miss the old neighborhood.
8. I am thankful that change is constant even though I am a bit anxious about change sometimes.
9. I am thankful for my friends.
10. I am thankful that I don't have a 9 to 5 job (although I complain about this quite a lot!)
11. I am thankful that I have the freedom to complain!
12. Truth be told I am thankful for more things then I can even think of!

I meant to create this post last Thursday but time got away from me! Maybe I should post things I am thankful for more than just once every year. I knew a woman who said she wrote down every morning first thing in the morning 5 things that she was thankful for. She said that she especially made sure she did it when she wasn't feeling thankful for much. Probably a good policy!

Wow! Its been a week since I have posted anything! It would appear that my brain may have shut down, but actually that is not the case at all; well maybe it is the case....oh I just don't know! If you were the adminstrator you would know that there are several drafts saved which were deemed not worthy at this time of being posted, perhaps will never be posted (especially since I Am the adminstrator around here!). We are headed in a direction here, I just am unsure of which direction it is. Let's hope up, shall we.

I have looked at a few other blogs. Some are interesting entertainment, others have a statement to make, and still others are personal accounts of the individual's life. It is that last category that troubles me somewhat. I think my blog falls into that last category, although from time to time I have a statement to make (effectively or not....we will not decide that here and now) but for the most part this blog is a take on my world seen through my eyes. I do not want it to be a diary of my daily events and I definitely do not want it to became a whining, bitching, complaining, waaa-waaa why me - can you believe (insert name) did this to me blog. I have seen plenty blogs out there like that and while I imagine that it might seem cleansing to the mind to piss and moan, I do not believe that it is entirely beneficial to the soul. Something about ones attitude and ones mood going hand in hand and another thing about mind over matter or some such thing. Anyway it all leads to the fact that while we might not have total power or control over our lives, we do have control over our responses and our attitudes.

All that said leads me to why I haven't posted much lately. It is because I am struggling not to piss and moan...bitching will get me absolutely no where. The only problem with this line of thought is that in my struggle to not complain I am still getting nowhere. I am wasting all my energy trying to pretend that everything is fine. Everything is NOT fine...there I have said it....definitely not fine, not by a long shot. I have been treated in ways that I do not deserve especially by those closest to me. I have allowed their hurtful ways to change me. I am angry that I have allowed all this!

I have turned into exactly the type of person I always swore that I would not be. There, now I've said that also. Its out! My life, like most everyone else's life has not turned out the way I expected it to. And along the way I have tried to remain flexible and learn how to make the best of almost everything. But now I find myself stuck. Lemons all around me but I lack the strength to make lemonade.

I am not doing what I know might help the situation, and I am doing things that might hurt the situation. If I have any major pet peeves that would be it. And now I am doing exactly what bugs me the most in others. I am starting to understand how people get into situations and feel like they cannot help themselves. But that is bull! So once again I am going to pull myself up by my boot straps (I really need to buy some, would make the pulling easier hardy har har) give myself a bit of a kick and straighten back up!

N would tell me to meditate. Especially because many of the problems really have no good apparent solutions...unapparent solutions would emerge during meditation. And even if no solutions were found it would give me a peace, which in itself is a solution! So I will start to follow his advice. I was meditating but when we moved I stopped. It really did help immensely!

S would tell me to do the Artist Way and my morning pages. (yeah, I'm talking about you here :-p ) I'm not trying very hard in this department. I even contracted with myself to work through this, but I will not beat myself about it but just resolve to pick it up and continue the work. I really, really want to start drawing again...I really, really am finding it difficult to do!

I would tell myself to be more consistant in my exercise and eat better. Mum would tell me to take my vitamins. This all would help my energy level and my moods. I also should tell myself to be more gentle with myself (I wouldn't usual tell myself that but I have been too hard even for me....I am so much harder on me than I ever am on anyone else).

And now enough whining! I need to move on. Don't be surprised if you detect a bit more from time to time but I promise to check it and not let it get out of hand. I always remember that there are plenty of people in much worse circumstances and plenty of them do not whine at all!

So let's move on and get moving!

By the way...

while I am complaining (I'm on quite a roll don't you think?!) I would also like to say that I am highly disappointed that my results from the Action Hero test were not Lara Croft. Most disappointing really...although I could rig my answers so that my results come out as being 100% Lara Croft. So for the sake of my mood, let's just say that's what happened! shall we?!

Inconsistency - the quality of being inconsistent and lacking a harmonious uniformity among things or parts

I think I just might be one of the most inconsistent people that I know. The odd thing is that I am particularly inconsistent in things relating to myself. In those things that I do for others I am almost as predictable as the clock chiming the hour.

Yes from that statement it should be easy to tell that I am not succeeding well in working through the book The Artist's Way. Or maybe you could just look at it like this...for me it will be a 12 month journey instead of 12 weeks. Yes that is how I prefer to look at it! I have not given up my effort, I just am not progressing as rapidly as I would like. I am still looking for the courage to paint...if you have any extra might I borrow it?

I also am not improving on my eating habits and exercise like I had vowed to do. Such as right now....it is so terribly cold and miserable outside 45f/7.2c which supposedly feels like 37f/2.7c considering the factors (although for some odd reason my thermometer says it is 71.6f/22c outside...I guess it has finally given up the ghost and I need to buy a new one). So regardless of my resolution, I put on a new pot of coffee and am now sitting here feeling somewhat brain dead, drinking a fresh cup of coffee with peppermint mocha creme in it (is it only us Americans who have to try and make both coffee and tea exotic?....so many favors, so many possibilities to add in....so little time!) and to make matters worse I hear the jar of biscotti on the counter calling to me....I will resist! I WILL resist!! (that bit of dark chocolate isn't at all the same as that biscotti, right? Right??!!!)

This weather also puts a damper on my enthusiasm for exercise. I want nothing more than to just curl up in that big comfy chair in the living room, pull a blanket around me and doze off. Forget going for a walk, it is too bone chilling cold and wet out! Forget doing pilates, I am too cold to be flexible so the same goes for doing yoga. Sleep....sleep...sleep....it sounds like the absolute best plan that I have had all day! Perhaps it is not my inconsistency that has lead to my laziness today....I will blame my lack of sleep last night for it today! A body should not be up wandering the house at 3:00 am when the alarm will sound at 6:15!

The good news is that if you expect me to be somewhere at 8:00 I will be there. If you were expecting a report from me, you received it. If you need a warm meal or something to drink, I have it. And if required, you have been taken to school and picked up again...right as rain, as dependable as the post office used to claim to be! (This brings us to an entirely different noun - predictability, which I know also leads me to another noun - familarity which in turn leads to yet another.....now if I switch these nouns to adjectives I begin to see a pattern here....I don't think I like this pattern very much, no not much at all. (predictable, familar, convenient....I see resentment at the end of this pattern.) How is it that what I thought should be a good character trait can come to such bad?

Of course I probably look as worn out as I feel while doing it....but for all my inconsistency I am not giving up yet!! Even when I say "I give up!" it isn't really true. You can't make me, no matter how hard you try.

And finally for a bit of fun!

I actually found this site on someone else's blog.

"Which Action Hero Would You Be?"

Curious I clicked it and took this quiz myself.

http://quizfarm.com/test.php?q_id=92013&first=yes

I am MAXIMUS

After his family was murdered by the evil emperor Commodus, the great Roman general Maximus went into hiding to avoid Commodus's assassins. He became a gladiator, hoping to dominate the colosseum in order to one day get the chance of killing Commodus. Maximus is valiant, courageous, and dedicated. He wants nothing more than the chance to avenge his family, but his temper often gets the better of him.

Although there was almost a tie which would have made me

Batman, The Dark Knight

As the Dark Knight of Gotham, Batman is a vigilante who deals out his own brand of justice to the criminals and corrupt of the city. He follows his own code and is often misunderstood. He has few friends or allies, but finds comfort in his cause.

Hehe that was kind of fun!

I also took Dante's Inferno Test just for fun a few days back.

http://www.4degreez.com/misc/dante-inferno-test.mv

According to it I belong in the Second Level of Hell

which says:

"You have come to a place mute of all light, where the wind bellows as the sea does in a tempest. This is the realm where the lustful spend eternity. Here, sinners are blown around endlessly by the unforgiving winds of unquenchable desire as punishment for their transgressions. The infernal hurricane that never rests hurtles the spirits onward in its rapine, whirling them round, and smiting, it molests them. You have betrayed reason at the behest of your appetite for pleasure, and so here you are doomed to remain. Cleopatra and Helen of Troy are two that share in your fate."

Although it would appear that should I change my ways I might be destined either to Purgatory or the Eighth Level of Hell - The Malebolge

Maybe I really shouldn't waste time with such rubbish....but well you know the title of my blog....what can I say??!!!!

And now to bore you yet again....

So I realize that I seem to be stuck in a thought process that I can't seem to exactly iron out. I have noticed of late that my posts continue to come back to one underlying theme. And I probably need to put it to rest very soon, to ease my poor little head....but before I do I have one more quote that I feel a need to share. I am a fan of quotes and also a disliker of quotes. I do not appreciate how some people spout quotes forth like they themselves are intelligent because one knows full well they are using quotes to sound that way because they have no intelligent thoughts of their own. They must hide behind some supposed authority instead of braving to express their own thoughts. BLECH to that! So forgive me if you have felt that way about my use of quotes. It is just that sometimes someone before me has expressed so beautifully a thought that I feel floating in my head. In those times I feel compelled to use the quote that was so eloquently written.

Your thought is a tree rooted deep in the soil of tradition whose branches grow in the power of continunity.
My thought is a cloud moving in the space. It turns into drops which, as they fall, form a brook that sings it way into the sea. Then it rises as vapor into the sky.
Your thought is a fortress that neither gale nor the lightning can shake.
My thought is a tender leaf that sways in every dirction and finds pleasure in its swaying.
Your thought is an ancient dogma that cannot change you nor can you change it.
My thought is new, and it tests me and I test it morn and eve.
You have your thought and I have mine.

Your thought advocates Judaism, Brahmanism, Buddhism, Christianity, and Islam
In my thought there is only one universal religion whose vaired paths are but the fingers of the loving hand of the Supreme Being.
In your thought there are the rich, the poor, and the beggared.
My thought holds that there are no riches but life; that we are all beggars, and no benefactor exists save life herself.
You have your thought and I have mine.

Take from Spiritual Sayings of Kahlil Gibran

Now please don't ask me exactly why this caught my eye because I am not sure that I can say.

Currently I am.....

• reading The Oxford Book of English Ghost Stories, Spiritual Sayings of Kahlil Gibran and from The Complete Poems of Keats & Shelley
• loving this weather cold snap...well expect for the rain last night that chilled me to the bone.
• looking forward to the season that is quickly coming upon me.
• planning to plan for said season before it is too late
• wanting some dark chocolate so much so that I am considering going out to get some, however, I have resigned myself to cutting down on sweets at least until the holidays actually get here....then I want to be able to enjoy! (maybe if I go brush my teeth I won't want chocolate anymore hehe)
• feeling melancholy but not sad
• listening....well listening to nothing much lately....could be part of why I am feeling melancholy
• lacking introspection

But even with that all said, here it is already Thursday evening and I feel pretty good about this past week. It has been thus far as exciting as ever but I do feel like at least I have stayed on top of the work that needed to be done and still had some time to relax.

This weekend I absolutely have to get things together for Thanksgiving, the start of what might be total madness if I don't keep up! and I need to do something fun, a childish fun something - even if it is only racking up what remains of the leaves from the trees' slow striptease and jumping in the pile! There lives somewhere inside of me a 5 year old screaming to get out, she might even be as young as 3 because I know sometimes I am very jealous of A and her abandon to tantrums, it is as if she is giving voice to what I am feeling inside - for that I thank her kindly!

A news tidbit that I found on the web. It beautifully puts to words my own thoughts about ethnic similarities and differences.

Another sign of a new approach came last week in the influential daily "Le Monde," where the country's best known sociologist, Alain Touraine, urged a rethink. "Rejection of ethnic separatism must be matched by a recognition of differences," he argued. "France as a society could become a threat to itself unless it manages to combine integration with differences and universalism with individual cultural rights."

The one thing that has always been so hard for me to understand is why we tend to be so narrow minded in our thinking. To only see one side of a solution when there is two components to it. Now that is not to say that I am not guilty of seeing only one side myself, oh no! I am the fartherst thing from perfect in that area. But I am trying.

A thought just popped into my head but I'm not even entirely sure what I mean by it...an objective participant in life.

Lazy Monday

Today of course is Monday. I always have mixed feelings about Mondays. To me they often seem full of promise...the promise of a new week, a new start, and productivity....the beginning of a week full, hopefully of accomplishment, which leads to feelings of satisfaction. Regardless of my self-proclaimed occupation of a slacker I delight in achieving. So I look forward to Monday mornings for that reason. I also dread Mondays because of the promise that day holds in my mind. I will be disappointed in myself once again if the week comes and goes and I feel that I have not achieved something.

Problem is that all too often I am unsure of what it is that I need or want to accomplish in any given week. Not because I sit on my arse all week long doing nothing. I have plenty of work and I work hard. And not because I am directionless. I have many ideas and dreams and I have worked to achieve these in the past. However, there is still a problem. Suffice it to say that I feel unchallenged, which leads to my frustration. I need something to accomplish, that I am excited and passionate about. This might take some thought. I don't truly enjoy being a procrastinating slacker but I am lost in an ocean of uncertainty as to what the next step in my personal path might be, the big picture not the day to day stuff, it is the years from now.

Do not take this as whining however, I am not whining, simply thinking outwardly. It will come to me eventually what should come next. At least after what feels like several months, I am more settled in my new house. It is an odd need of mine to be organized and settled in my environment before I feel that I can....can....well you know....whatever it is that should come next in the big picture that I haven't figured out yet. (lol)

I try to live in the moment but I still feel a need to keep on eye on the future. I do best when I have plans and goals. (Sometimes that feels like a contradiction. Be in the moment, plan for the future, huh?) This is what I feel like I lack lately. But given my circumstances I am somewhat unsure of my next move. So perhaps that is the challenge in front of me. How to plan for my future without destroying the now.

okay....okay....enough rambling and borderline whining. Whatever your needs for this week, I hope you achieve them. It is a pat thing to say...have a nice week...but isn't that to a large extent what it is all about, feeling satisfied - being happy? I wish you a good one.

Silent Suffering

Kahlil Gibran

Imprisoned Lovers

If I could wander
With the night
And
Be myself unseen
I'd travel to
Your place of sleep
And
Dream with you
Your dream.

But
I can't travel
With the night
Nor
Be myself unseen.
I
Can only in my sleep
Dream
Alone our Dream.

Written by Roseleen Walsh while she was interned as a political prisoner at Armagh Prison from which she was unconditionally released after being held 13 months and 2 weeks without ever being charged with a specific crime. She was given no apology.

Be steady and well ordered in your life so you can be fierce and original in your work. ~Gustave Flaubert

Blatant Defiance

In blatant defiance of my neighbor's rush for the Christmas season, we had a fire last night. Halloween is barely over and Thanksgiving not even here yet and my neighbor has put up Christmas decorations. Now don't get me wrong, I love the Christmas season, but reindeer and a sleigh complete with Jolly Ole Saint Nick in the front yard on November 5 is just too much for me. It is bad enough in the stores but in my own neighborhood? yuck! Why rush things? Why not enjoy right now? I am guilty also of running ahead but I am trying very hard to reign myself in. My neighbor obviously is not!

So in blatant defiance of her stand on Christmas, we had a fire in the back yard reminiscent of campfires minus the ghost stories. One last time before too frigid with cold and snow to cook hotdogs on sticks and roast marshmallows until gooey soft. And while I am not a big fan of either hotdogs or marshmallows, I savored every indigestion causing bite. A silent stand against people hurrying time because I don't like time getting away from me. Here and now! (now if only I remember that...heehee.)

Besides she obviously has not noticed the blazing leaves still clinging tenaciously to the branches. It is fall, in case she has failed to notice. One of my favourite seasons.

Rosa Parks

Rosa Parks died in her home in Detroit October 24 at the age of 92. There has always been something about Rosa Parks that had interested me. I mean aside from the obvious that she is known for. Such a simple act that rocked a nation....I loved what she was quoted as saying when she was arrested and the honest response that she got in return..."Why do you push us around?"..."I do not know, but the law is the law and you are under arrest." A simple act and an honest answer that brought clearly into light something a nation had not wanted to look at.

But it is something more than just her role in history that interests me. It is the intelligence and kindness that was so apparent in her eyes. She was a beautiful woman, both inside and outside, and it shows in her eyes. It also shows in the mark that she has left on this world. Both the public marks that everyone witnessed and were spoke of during her funeral proceedings and the private marks that I am confident she put on everyone that ever came in contact with her. You can see it in her face that that no one could have been in her presence and not in some way been changed.

Her passing made me wonder a few things. I was fortunate to grow up without being taught intolerance or ignorance. Although in someways I was perhaps sheltered from major racial conflicts, I did not grow up under a rock. The community which I grew up in was small but it was diverse. I went to school with Asians, Indians, native Americans and blacks. There were often exchange students within the student body. And I looked at it all as normal and interesting. I will not claim to have no prejudices because I think that is irrational to claim. I fear the unknown but I hope I have never let it stop me. In the most simplistic form I believe prejudice is born within a fear of the unknown and without the desire to understand.

I feel and I think. I hurt and I cry. I laugh and I smile. And I have always assumed everyone else does also. Maybe in different ways and for different reasons but more like me than different from me. That is not to say that we are all alike. What a dull world it would be if we were...each unique, each beautiful. These thoughts are not my own....they were taught to me everyday in a variety of ways.

What would I be now if I had been brought up different? What if I was taught to fear differences, to believe in superiority and inferiority?

Rosa Parks' death made me ponder the idea for quite some time. I tried to imagine what I would have thought and felt if I had been a white girl in the south in the 1950s. I also tried to imagine who I would have been if I had been a white boy. What if I had been born a black girl....a black boy? In a time and place where no one was immune to prejudice, what would I have learned and what would I have believed. I would like to imagine that I would have looked at life through the eyes of a child in that time and somehow would have known that this was all wrong and somehow made a difference...but looking at the people of the time and their beliefs, I wonder if I truly would have. I am very thankful to have been taught what I was taught rather than to believe what some believed, and sadly some still believe.

Change is very slow. Maybe we humans will never figure it out. However, Rosa Parks had figured some of it out and that one small woman made a huge difference. There is power in one even against the odds.