Gratitude is Great

Posted on 08/02/2007 by chick

Gratitude is great. I’m feeling much better. I don’t think I need to write a daily gratitude post anymore, but I don’t want to completely give it up and then fall back into the habit of ingratitude. One gratitude post per week sounds reasonable, so I’m going to try that for a while.

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Trip Revisited

Posted on 08/02/2007 by chick

Some images from vacation . . .

On Monday, I woke up early enough to see the sunrise. During my first walk on the beach I found three shark’s teeth, a couple of friendly centipedes, and many pieces of glass. Most of the glass still had sharp edges, so I threw it back into the water, hoping that it might someday turn into real sea glass.

While shopping in Solomons Island, I found a wonderful book about sea glass. The beach near my grandparents’ house always used to have an abundance of sea glass in different colors. The book reminded me of how much I used to love hunting for the beautiful gemlike pieces and collecting them in the little pail my grandparents bought for me.

K— came to visit on Thursday. We had lunch at a nice little cafe and we each got a free mug. When we got back to the house, there was a storm approaching but it didn’t look like it would do much more than sprinkle, so we decided to risk a walk on the beach. The storm waited until we were completely out of range of shelter, then it ripped open the sky and dropped buckets of rain, soaking us to the skin. We went back to the house, dried off, then tried the beach again. This time, we had a wonderful walk. We saw lots of birds, including a heron and a bald eagle, and we spotted some rays in the water. They seemed to be following us and because they kept sticking the tips of their “wings” out of the water, we thought at first that they were sharks.

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Music to My Ears

Posted on 08/01/2007 by chick

I am grateful for my iPod.

I let it play in shuffle mode yesterday and was delighted by all sorts of artists and composers that I had accidentally forgotten about, like Erin McKeown, Ryuichi Sakamoto, Dave Matthews Band, Danny Elfman, and Franz Liszt. I will have to let my iPod choose music for me more often.

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Summer Ain’t Over Yet

Posted on 08/01/2007 by chick

It’s the first day of August and I feel like summer is already gone, but that’s silly. The autumnal equinox isn’t until September 23. We have all of August and most of September left. That doesn’t mean there’s time to waste, though. It will go fast. I’m planning some jaunts and activities to try to make the most of the time.

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Thinking Out Loud

Posted on 07/31/2007 by chick

Our fears die, usually before we do. That may be a good thing or a bad thing. It depends on how and when they die.

Some fears die because we kill them. I used to be afraid to drive on the highway, but I ran that fear down on I-95 a long time ago. I hate to think of how limited my life could have been if I had continued to avoid the highway. It’s a good thing that I killed that fear.

Other fears probably die naturally, withering away into meaninglessness as life changes. If I ever became paralyzed, I don’t imagine that I’d be afraid to dance in public anymore. The fear of dancing would die at the same time as the possibility of dancing. It wouldn’t be a cause for celebration, though, and the fear would most likely be replaced with regret over not having danced more while I had the chance. Regret is the heir of Fear.

It makes sense, then, to kill our fears rather than let them die of natural causes. If we kill them, we become more powerful. If we don’t, their power goes to Regret.

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Blog Love

Posted on 07/31/2007 by chick

I am grateful for my blog.

July is nearly over. I feel the rush of time. Panic. The summer is coming to a close and I feel like I did nothing.

Then I remember my blog. My blog is evidence that I read books, saw movies, discovered new words, wrote rhymes, invented a recipe, took a vacation, began the Great Library Purge, and practiced being grateful.

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Ugh!

Posted on 07/30/2007 by chick

“It is what it is.”

I hate it when people say that. Have you ever heard a more annoying platitude?

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Living Life by the Book

Posted on 07/30/2007 by chick

I am grateful for books.

We all have to live in the Real World. I am grateful for books that let me escape for a while from the Real World and its limitations.

The Real World is also full of beauty. I am grateful for books that remind me of it.

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Positive Cattitude

Posted on 07/29/2007 by chick

I am grateful for my cats.

People say that cats are aloof. Maybe some cats are, but not mine. One of them is always trying to sneak onto my lap. The other prefers simply to sit nearby, but he trills in greeting whenever you look his way. They are the sweetest punkins in the world.

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Sunday Stories

Posted on 07/29/2007 by chick

Thinking back to my post about blog-writing being a trap (One Hundred), it occurs to me that part of the purpose of my blog is self-improvement. If I say publicly that I’m going to do something, I usually follow through. It’s a pride thing. That means the same blog that’s a trap today can be transformed into a means of escape tomorrow. All I have to do is publicly promise to escape.

So I propose Sunday Stories, my own weekly feature. Each Sunday, I will post some kind of story or story piece. It may be a rhymed story (a la Baad, Baad Black Sheep), a paragraph from a story in progress, a joke, or anything else I can think of that either tells a complete simple story or describes a full scene from a larger, more complex story.

Look for the first Sunday Stories post next Sunday, August 5.

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