Hi It's Me

Colors, Emotions, New Dawns, Breathing Deeply

My color is aqua blue today - not green blue but blue green if you're thinking 120 box of Crayons.

I discover a day's color usually only if I have attended yoga practice. I find it in Savasana (shah-VAH-sah-nah) - that last delicious pose of relaxation and letting go. It's a tough one - eyes closed almost finished with practice and trying so hard not to let your mind wander to the rest of the day. What's next? What will I eat? Who am I meeting?

The color finds me. Some days I have to hunt for it in my mind. Sometimes there are lots of colors and I have to still my mind to settle on the one.

This all began during a meditation that followed yoga one Tuesday night on the beach. Debby was teaching and it was my first meditation. She guided us through it beautifully. And ever since, I find my color after class no matter who is teaching. It's lovely and something I look forward to. It's calming or energizing or smile making.

Today's color was calming.

I needed it. Much has happened (good and bad) and not happened since my last post oh so long ago and I'm trying to look toward the future and find focus. I'm struggling. Also, today is inauguration day - a day of trepidation, hope, uncertainty for the coming four years when there is a new president - and sometimes when there is not.Good things: 

• Visit to Rochester, NY, with B for Christmas with his family. It was a lovely Christmas. He's a good egg. Perhaps the best egg. I got to meet Maeve - B's niece who I have adored in pics since she was born. She's even cuter in person - so much fun.

• Came home from my trip and my sister Heather and her family had arrived with our parents. Love those kiddos of hers - and love her and her husband too! Heather, Matt, Ana and Alex went home after a week but now my parents are nearby until May. That's nice.
• So many Christmas wishes and cards and love. Grandaddy sent me  a lovely necklace. He's the bestest best egg of them all. Then my dad. Then B. :)
• I had my second leg surgery - all healed from that now. May have to have some tweaks.
• New Year's with friends and family - spent the day watching Kentucky basketball (Go CATS) with family. Spent the evening with B, Karl and my Chicago "family" - the Bothwells.
• On my birthday, I felt loved and cherished (Jeri, Bev, B, Mom and Dad, family, Courtney, Stephen, The Cookies, Erin, Karl, Dougie, Squid Bits, Brad, Karen and so many more including special guests down from Wisconsin - Kristen, Chris and Jess).
  
  And then I felt sick. I spent the early morning the day after in the ER (this part goes in the Not So Good Things list).
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

  

  Heather, Matt, Ana, Alex

  
  

  

  With Lynn and Karen

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Not so good things:

• Being sick on my birthday, having to leave birthday dinner early, spending evening miserable and in pain, spending 4 hours in the ER, finding out the antibiotics I was given weren't for what I had and had to go see primary care for something new that actually made me feel better soonest.
• The ER charging my debit card $1,000 instead of the $100 copay was I was supposed to be charged. Between the ER, the holiday and the bank, it caused a lot of stress, annoyance and troubles.
• Fighting lab company that tells me insurance won't pay while insurance says it never received a bill and it would be covered 100% - it's in collections. Advocate helping me sort it but it's another layer of stress and exhaustion.
• THE lawsuit. Ongoing annoyances with clerk's office and confusing legal stuff ('nuf said).
• Never-ending brokeness. It's just stressful. I keep trying. One day I will get it sorted. I will.
• And finally, I broke Washington D.C. So sad. I liked watching it snow in the capital.
  
  
  
  

More good things:

• Did some serious purging and cleaning and reorganizing in my place - mainly so Nomee (who had to cancel a planned visit) and Jess and Chris didn't have to climb over boxes to get to the guest bed, but it feels good too. Really starting to have a homey vibe around here.
  

  

  Hanging things, setting up the bar

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
• Lots of visitors in February to look forward to.
  
• Oscar.
  
• I think I'm mostly well.
  
• Little things are joyful - like dolphins jumping, the 90-year-old (at least) man riding a 3-wheeled bicycle today, pictures and letters from my many nieces and nephews, seeing the babies faces and videos. B showed me one of Maeve using a Bills sippy cup the other day and my nephews Lincoln and Jackson were bouncing around with my brother Bob on Facebook last week - loved it.
   Amanda, feel free to send lots of videos of the boys!
  
• Sunsets - I honestly get grumpy when I miss one.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
• Colors.
  
• And this from today's presidential inauguration: 

KEEP FAITH, KEEP WATCH, 
TAKE HEART, TAKE COURAGE, 
GUARD MIND, GUARD SPIRIT. 
FEED LOVE, FEED LONGING - The chorus of an original song written for the Missouri State University Choral to sing today.

http://blogs.missouristate.edu/inauguration/2017/01/19/the-lyrics-of-an-original/

I'm certainly taking heart. I'm good at that - I'm yellow. 

Love, Peace, Patience, Kindness, Joy

Right on My Doorstep

My doormat is usually turned around for visitors to read as they stand at the door. Yesterday, the groundskeepers turned it the other direction with the leaf blower, and this morning it was positioned for me to see. 

Love. Peace. Patience. Kindness. Joy.

I purchased it when we first moved in as a reminder to J and me to be this to each other and to remember that this condo was more than just a dwelling, more than a project, but our home. 

Today, it was a reminder to me that I should have been seeing and following this daily, that I have strayed from these words and actions - in my anger and my self reflection and selfishness. I go to yoga practice two to three times a week where these actions, these feelings make up the majority of what we try to bring into our bodies.

This morning, I realized I'm failing.


I'm going to keep the doormat turned toward me. I'll keep my hands up at yoga this morning to receive and I'll make these words my intention.

Yoga Today

Instructor Debby quoted that there are four kinds of people in the world: Happy, Unhappy, Virtuous and Wicked.

She encouraged us to be happy for those who are happy, to be compassionate toward those who are unhappy, delight in the virtuous and disregard the wicked - don't react, be unattached.

Debby said she chose this lesson for me today. She is a knowing soul.  I so appreciate it. It touched me and I thought first that it is so difficult to not react and second that perhaps I'm the wicked.
I hope not.

The end of our practice also touched me more than on other days. I'm paraphrasing:

May you always have good thoughts for yourself and others.
May you always say good things about yourself and others.
May you always take right action toward yourself and others.

I must take all this to heart, along with Love. Peace. Patience. Kindness. Joy.