Smoother sailing

While the waters are still a bit choppy, the sailing has become considerably more feasible. I did step in it yesterday but it turns out that it wasn't poo I stepped in but more like a small mud puddle. The person whose business I stuck my nose in professed appreciation for my insight and suggestions and appears to be taking it to heart. Only time will tell if this can be written as a success story or merely a delayed failure. My fingers are crossed for the first scenario. Moving along towards today, the sun is shining, my bills are all paid and I have two quarters left to rub together. Yea!! Now I am looking forward to the warm up of the day and for it to be warm enough to start hitting the pool again. I desperately need a tan!

Stepped in it...

I am pretty sure I stepped knee deep into a pile of poo this morning. I just couldn't watch the bag blow in the wind so I stuck my nose into somebody else's business AND gave them council on how they were not handling their business. It is their business, but it is also my business because it does directly affect me. When someone you care about exhibits behavior that makes you question the strength of their character, it affects you. It makes you question everything you knew about them and wonder if it is all lies or only mostly lies. This may all blow up in my face, but it was really eating away at me to not do anything. How many of us can sit on our hands while we watch someone else struggle with an armload of packages and a closed door? When you care about that person and even sometimes when that person is a stranger, you get off your duff and open the door. Only time will tell. Once you hit that 'send' button, there is no taking it back...

March 29th, 2011

Have you ever been on the outside of a situation watching those involved flailing about helplessly? As a person of action, my first instinct is to step in and do everything I can to fix the problem, but too often there is really nothing I can do but offer my advice. Once the advice is given, then I sit on my hands watching helplessly while nothing is done. I have found myself in this situation more than once and each time it breaks my heart that I am unable to really do anything to help. Maybe my place is only to offer the advice? It is like watching a plastic bag flying down the street. You know the wind is blowing too hard for you to catch the bag and any attempt made is futile, but do you still try to catch the bag anyways? Or, do you shout to someone directly in the path to catch the bag then watch as they stick their hands in their pockets and make no attempt to stop it? I want what is best for my friends and my family, but no amount of me wanting what is best for them will cause them to do what I think they should do. I guess faced with the decision between what is easy and what is right, most people choose what is easy and blame their decision on external causes that are clearly out of their control. I am at a loss for words as I watch those I love the most spiral out of control with no hope of stopping them. Any attempts to catch that bag are met with the bag shouting for me to go away and let it fly free as the wind for flying is surely better than standing still even if it means safety. I have so much more to verbalize about this one but when I do, it seems that I am just repeating what I have already said using different words or different scenarios.

March 30th, 2011

I have been seeing a lot of references all over the place about living in the present. My step-sister put a quote on her Facebook that I had to repost on my page. "The reason people find it so hard to be happy is that they always see the past better than it was, the present worse than it is and the future less resolved than it will be" - Author Marcel Pagnol. This really started me thinking. I remember my past fondly for the most part, but I have specific portions of my life that I remember as if they happened to someone else. Like reading someone else's story then remembering back to what I have read and pondering it as my past. I had the first book of my childhood when my parents were still married. The second volume of that story was my childhood after my parents divorced. Then there was the story of boys and parties and always on the go, go, go... Those books all seem to be part of the same series, but once I hit adulthood, the author changed dramatically and often. Each book has a distinct beginning and ending where it doesn't cross over into another book. No cliff hangers for me! I begin to wonder if this is normal. Do other people remember their lives as a series of events or chapters in the same book, written by the same author? Or, is life really a series of different books written by completely different authors? Some of my books are so different that surely the authors must be from different countries or speak different languages. I guess the point of this entry is to tell myself that I need to stop worrying about how the book is going to turn out and spend more time letting the best of all Authors - God, work out how this mystery will continue. I am pretty sure I know how it ends. LOL!

Tuesday, March 22, 2011

Every now and then something will happen in my life, or in the life of one of my loved ones that leads me to be particularily inspiring. Unfortunately it is harder to apply these inspirations to my own life than it is to help others but whenever I can help, I am always glad that I shared my thoughts.

That being said, my dear friend Steph has asked me several times to start my own blog. I had one a very long time ago but found it difficult to contribute anything valuable on a consistent basis so I stopped. I now realize that I don't have to post often and I don't have to post inspiring things. I just need to post my random snippets to help myself keep things straight in my head.

No promises, but here goes:

Snippet for the day:

Relationships are like a buffet, it is up to you to take as much as you can of want of what you enjoy and skip the stuff you don't like. Nobody will make you eat the brussell sprouts!