Disclosure: I am very sensitive, and I can’t even begin to count how many times I’ve been told, “you’re too/so/overly sensitive”. I used to try to defend what was being said as a negative (and as an accusation as opposed to a compliment). Now, I simply say, “Yes, you’re right. I completely own that I’m very […]
Category Archives: Living Your Best Life
“What Is Love?” a t-shirt that proclaims, “super grandpa”, that’s love a note that shares the belief in another’s value, that’s love a perfect apple, left on the kitchen counter on a teacher’s first day of class, that can be love a blanket made for a little girl (and one for her tiny doll), that’s […]
• Do you ever feel like you’re firmly on solid ground— life is completely stable; everything’s under control; you’re easily putting one foot in front of the other? • Do you ever feel like you’re walking on an uneven path—sometimes you’re on stable ground, but other times you could make just one tiny misstep and fall? • […]
The guy in a designer suit strolled right past the man sitting on the frayed, and very dirty, piece of blanket on a street corner. It wasn’t as if he didn’t visually see him, it was just that he believed that man wasn’t worth truly seeing. After all, he must be a loser or a drunk […]
Yesterday, I was downstairs in the shop organizing hardware storage cabinets. Small bins hold everything from nails and screws to plumbing and electrical parts, and they’re all labeled by their contents, so we know where things are. The process is pretty mindless. For example, screws are separated by drives like slotted, Phillips, and hex. Sorting […]
I Second Thoughts How many times have you said something like: “on second thought, I shouldn’t have hit ‘send’, on second thought, I’ll have the asparagus instead of the broccoli, on second thought, going to that party is not a good idea, or on second thought, I don’t want to keep trying to be her […]
I pruned a tree right outside the mudroom door. Before I bought it many years ago, I made sure it was a species that would stay small since it’s in a narrow area next to the house. In the beginning, I was very diligent about cutting it back each fall so that it wouldn’t be […]
A young woman asked me, “If God created the universe, then who created God?” I shared the “God has no beginning. God created time. God created the universe. God has always been,” philosophy that I understand as truth. “But that doesn’t make sense and you haven’t answered the question,” was her response. So, I tried again: “God’s existence has […]
Awareness greets me each morning. She asks, “what will you do with today?” Almost always, I answer boldly, listing what I’d like to accomplish; knowing how I desire to make a difference in the next 24 hours. But, every once in a while, I whisper, “I have no idea”. My tank is already close to empty […]
There are times when our peace-full living is disrupted. It can happen suddenly, almost like a switch being flipped, turning off the power of love, the power of faith, the power of hope. It can happen slowly and insidiously, leaving us stumbling around in the dark, often not knowing how, why or even when our […]
We are spirit energy, stuck in (mostly) clunky bodies, with three-pound brains directing much (often most) of our living. We forget all the time that we mere mortals are much more alike than we are different. THE COFFEE SHOP The lights in the coffee shop are still on. The traveler drags his bag […]
I was pulling weeds, outside my front porch, on a beautiful summer night before the dark swept away the light. I had a purpose—remove the weeds in order to allow the plants I want there to have a chance to grow. Larry (my husband) sat with me, weeding too. He (a significantly more structured person than me) is pretty methodical. […]
It seems like we expend an awful lot of energy trying to “fit in”, which can mean a lot of different things depending on where you are right now. It changes significantly depending on who you’re with and is often fueled by the winds of just a few. I’m also aware that many of us […]
Growing up, I didn’t have a lot of “things”, so what I did have mattered—including my plastic doll named Sharon. The first time she started falling apart, my Dad put her back together with electrical tape. Over the next couple of years, she required quite a bit of that black tape. Did I think that made Sharon […]
Phenomenon—a fact or circumstance that’s observed, but sometimes difficult to explain or even understand. It’s about consciousness and what we experience and how that affects us. What we “feel” exists because we’re experiencing it. Psychological Phenomena refers to mental processes, like: • The Placebo Effect—if a patient believes that he’s taking something that’s supposed to heal him (even […]
Scenario 1: You’ve had a really stressful day: You worked overtime (or over-volunteered), got drenched in a downpour running into the grocery store for dinner because everyone’s screaming,” what’s for dinner?” and, when you finally get home, walk into a house that’s a mess, disorganized, in disrepair and just plain sad. You think, “what the heck am I […]
When I think of courage, the first thing that comes to mind is bravery—military personnel in war zones protecting our freedom; firefighters running into burning buildings carrying out those who are trapped; donors giving a kidney or bone marrow to someone they’ve never met; teenagers standing up to bullies who, once again, are going to terrorize […]
I’ve mentioned vestibular neuritis before, but what’s interesting is that as I live with this condition, that isn’t life-threatening but is lifestyle-threatening, I think about how blessed I am to have this as my most serious physical disadvantage. Vestibular Neuritis Information about motion, equilibrium, and spatial orientation is provided by the vestibular system which detects gravity […]
Four years ago, when our granddaughter Lauren was nine, we were driving to a soccer tournament when she asked, from the backseat, if we wanted to use her “future telling app”. Of course, we said yes. After all, who can resist a future telling app? Lauren proceeded to ask for dates in the future. We […]
The topic of the last three posts—a different kind of abundance—tackles the, often tough, issue of how we experience a fullness of life that’s not tied to an abundance of physical “stuff”. 11/2 part 1– initial questions, why we have so much stuff 11/3 part 2– guidelines for owning possessions, how to define clutter, the […]
When I was in high school, a local furniture store gifted to all of the graduating senior girls a “miniature hope chest”. A hope chest is where, at least in bygone years, a young woman collected items—like household linens—that she’d use when she got married. Maybe the idea was that “hoping for” helped to create […]
When I was in my late twenties, I was the assistant controller in a successful company. One day, the owner shared this with me: “There are givers and takers in this world. My wife is a giver. I am a taker. And, you, Kay, are a giver.” I recall the words clearly because they were […]
“Look up.” That was the message I was clearly given on a very early, October, morning as I sat at my desk writing. I did as instructed and saw that the cathedral ceiling was, literally, falling down! Fast forward to the second week in December. Over the past eight weeks, the library had to be […]
A boy drops a glass of water and his mother yells, “You are always so clumsy!” The husband works for hours, on a special dinner for his wife, and the response is, “I don’t know why you even bother cooking.” The little girl hears, “I just gave you a rosary last week. How could you […]
A while ago, I was at a seminar with a group of women I didn’t know. One of them immigrated to The United States several years earlier. She said that her “English isn’t good enough“, and that she feels “defeated and less than”. She wasn’t finding other women who wanted to build a relationship with […]
peace full home®—intentional living 