It's Steel Our Anniversary

The eleventh anniversary is steel, which makes me think of my cousins in Rochester, NY who weld found items of scrap metal into creative pieces of art.  Cliff and Karen have taken what began as a hobby and shared it with others, turning it into a passion that will endure for generations as the artwork is passed down within the family.  They steel are rockin' it!

Today, Jerry and I celebrate our eleventh anniversary; it's the first time since we got married that we are HOME for our anniversary.  Usually, we are traveling.  For the first decade, we'd been in Natchez, at the Bluff Top B&B on Clifton Ave.  But then Neil Varner, "proprietor, head cook, and botttle washer" died and we decided to change things up and go elsewhere for last year's anniversary.  I was not quite two weeks post bariatric surgery, so we wanted to take it easy and do something that allowed for lots of rest and relaxation.  We went to Memphis, stayed in a converted garage made into a small cottage thru AirBnB.  We went to the Georgetown's Friend's of the Library store, browsed for ages, bought stacks, and enjoyed tremendously.  We visited the Pink Palace {Memphis's planetarium}, where we were one of two couples ~~ it was like a private showing!  The local train depot had been converted to a soul kitchen and I was able to eat some of the creamed beans, southern style of course.

Today is special to us always, as it is our anniversary, yes; but why did we choose this day in particular?  For several reasons, actually.  It is Jerry's second marriage, his first wife and he had just celebrated 29 yrs when she died, which was startling and difficult for all concerned.  Their five children were young adults and building their own families, stepping into various elements of their lives that would change and grow thru the following years.  No one is fully prepared to lose their mother, but these kids had no time chance to wrap their minds around this as the accident was horrid and death was difficult.

I met Jerry three years later, when he was 53.  I had just turned 38.  We clicked immediately and enjoyed ourselves immensely.  When we did discuss marriage, it felt like a foregone conclusion, an inevitable event on the path we were chose.  As we were both adults, having become the people we were, we felt that choosing an autumnal date to wed would reflect how we viewed ourselves and our relationship~~sacred, hallowed, and in the well seasoned portions of our lives.

Since Jerry has been in my life, I've become much healthier, all the way around, but especially with regards to my mental health.  The safety and security of the environment that we've created and continue to generate has allowed me to relax, grow, explore, strengthen, be curious, learn more about myself, and become a person who I truly enjoy being.  He's very supportive, enthusiastic, caring, loving, accepting, understanding, willing to try new things, willing to learn new things, and always encouraging.  His love knows no bounds and is enduring, comforting, exciting, delicious, and surprisingly refreshing.  Steel.

Gratitude Journal

 So another special moment that occurs this week is that it is one year post bariatric surgery for me.  I know I have spoken about that before, so I won't belabor the point here.  However, here is a pic that Jerry took of me before I headed back to bed.  I was just feeling off yesterday, not any one thing, just tired and a bit nauseated with a touch of dizziness.  So this weekend is spent mostly in bed, sleeping, resting, and some reading but mostly not~~esp as I had a hellacious headache that is only just now fading a bit.

However, the other day, I mentioned Gratitude Journals and wanted to continue in the vein of writing and forms of both thinking and writing.

I think most of us are familiar with daily gratitude to some extent, whether it is a review of the day and listing five {or some number} of things that we are grateful for that particular day.  It could be an actual object or person or idea or event or the weather or something that didn't happen or something that did.  It could be your own inner attitude or perspective or having had patience for someone else that might usually be someone you would not normally have patience or tolerance for.  It could be that you are thankful for someone else extending some grace and understanding toward you.  Maybe some stranger stopped to help you with a flat tire or gave you the dollar you were short of at the grocery store or your child slept thru the previous night for the first time in a month or you had enough milk to add to your coffee or your realized that you are thankful for your ability to breathe today.

Some folks do this as a matter of course, give thanks for the food they eat.  Perhaps their prayers have become a matter of rote and yet today, they truly became mindful of their abundance because they saw someone who went without.  Maybe you know that you might have narrowly avoided catastrophe when you decided to stop at the yellow light instead of speeding thru it, as you normally do.

Gratitude journaling can be about any and all of that.  I like to do mine in the morning tho, so it does NOT contain the things that actually did or did not occur, like that I've written of earlier.  Doing my gratitude journal in the morning means that it puts me in a better frame of mind for the day.  Mostly, my gratitude journal consists of particular presence in my life that is constant and consistent.  So it is feeling gratitude, being thankful and grateful for my husband, my friends, my health support network, my home, my financial security, my health, my ability to think, my wit, and so forth.

Being grateful first thing in the morning helps to frame my mindset for the day so that I am more likely to greet various elements with happiness and acceptance, with an open heart and open mind, versus already dwelling on what isn't right, or just, or the dreaded must~do tasks that can overshadow and taint everything with a bit of sourness that twists the stomach and tenses the body.  Being happier and healthier means I get to be ... healthier and happier, it's a cycle that feeds into itself and sets me into a better stronger place to deal with any pitfalls or stumbles thru the day in a better way, a way that I choose to greet the day, making my day, my day.

If you don't already do this, or something like it, give it a try for two weeks, just to see what happens for you.  Then let me know what you think!  Was it worth the trial test run?  Will you continue to do it?  Did it make a difference?  How did you feel as compared to how your days progressed prior to giving it a shot?

You don't need to devote lots of time to gratitude journaling.  Just three to five minutes.  I am grateful and thankful for....

1900 & Counting

 Here it is, midOctober, and I am thinking of various events and circumstances that are important at the moment.  Taking it to a micro scale, since most of you are aware of larger issues like covid19, USA presidential election, and so forth, I'd like to share some changes this month marks.  Personally, focusing on my own person, literally figuratively, of course, means that I'm a bit more than half the woman I had been last year.

I am one year post bariatric surgery, have been about 160-165lbs for several weeks now.  I'm smaller in the torso than I have ever been as an adult; wearing a size small in USA terms, which is about a 4 to 6.  I'm wearing a large in pants, a size 12 or 34/36.  My thighs are a bit loose {*gasp* loose!??!?  but are they cheap AND fast?  cuz that'd be the perfect trifuckinfecta, right there!} and there really isn't anyway to wear something that fits in the waist without being too tight in the thighs at the moment.  Then again, there is really no way to wear something that fits in the torso without my shoulders seeming to be disproportionately broad.  My mom always did say having broad shoulders was a good thing, solemnly nodding.  This is one more reason to wear clothes that are fitted, specially tailored JUST FOR ME, customized to fit my specific body and frame, meant to fit and flatter my figure.

The ONLY benefit that I can see for being obese is that my bones are thicker and stronger, since they carried around lots of weight.  However, that benefit is easily outweighed by the number and severity of potential risks and hazards.  Simply put, the detriments of being obese are not worth it.  Esp since stronger thicker bones are attainable even if one is not obese:  exercise, engage in frequently occurring physical activity, build your muscles and tone your body, increase the oxygenated blood circulation by moving your body, eat healthy foods, laugh often, and be sure to drink lots of water and get lots of restive sleep so that you are truly caring for yourself, your body, your spirit, your mental health, your emotional wellbeing.

So what does this title "1900 & Counting" refer to?  Over the past fifteen years, I've blogged publicly; sometimes I'd go thru and prune the entries, editing or deleting them if they are no longer relevant and meaningful to either me or readers.  So even tho my current blog considers this to be my 1900th entry, it's actually been many more; but these are the posts that have thus far survived.  Tomorrow it may be less, if I were to decide to trim more.  Or tomorrow, there may be more posts, if I blog more between now and then.  I won't make any promises as I know that often intentions and plans mean nothing without action and the resulting consequences.

In the next 77 days, I'd like to make a hundred more meaningful posts; this will bring my blogs total to 2000.  I'm seven views shy of 75 thousand, these are counted by unique hits and exclude my own forays; this gives me a more accurate idea of genuine interest versus someone merely refreshing the page to artificially inflate numbers.  At the moment, the blog has 2621 comments.  I delete those that are spam or bot originated.

Well, debRAHHHH, reading these last two paragraphs, it seems like you're in it for the numbers, the equivalent of FB's likes and thumbsUP; is that so?  Hm, I think that the blog has changed over the years.  At first, I blogged to process my own thoughts and points of view, sharing those and becoming part of an online community {way back with AOL had Journalland and John Scalzi was the blogfather, having yet to publish his Old Man's War, and Athena was just a tyke, and Ghlaghghee {pronounced like it's spelled, "fluffy"} was the equivalent of the librarian's cat}.

That's when I first realized that for me, writing is a form of thinking.  It's also when I realized that folks like my writing in general {Judith HeartSong awarded me a piece of her original artwork for the best written accounting of "how art affects my life" contest held back in 2004} and that gave me a true voice, when I was having a difficult time within many of my real time interactions, often feeling overwhelmed and overpowered.  Over the years, my blog has been very instrumental as my true self has been captured here, with  full range of happy joyous expression, frustration, scorn, disgust, encouragement, support, cheer, deliberation, celebration, depression, manic leaps, reflection, etc.

I've also published lots in the earlier years, then skipping over huge swaths of time with a tiny blurb here or there.  AOL did away with Journals, Blogger/Blogspot allowed folks to transfer and transition, audiences shifted, frequency, fervency, and FB were factored in and the impact of each can be seen, of course.  What does this mean NOW? 

Well, my recent past has been filled with me writing lots via FB's messenger/chat/PM/DM with particular individuals rather than engaging in creative writing, novels, manuscripts, short stories, etc.  Blogging is a nice combination of the two, something a bit deeper and more significant than, "hey there, thanks for reaching out and being proactive by asking what it is that you'd like to know!  You asked me to explain...and here's an explanation that will give you a better idea of....thanks, have a lovely day/evening/weekend" but not as personal as a card, letter, eMail.  Part of my daily routine for so long has included writing, in some form; so I'll continue to write, tho I think that shifting the format in which I do write is right for me for right now.

Right?

How do you use writing in your life?  Remember to consider texting, typing, longhand, email, cards, notes, etc.  Do you leave notes for your roommate on the kitchen counter?  Pack a post it note with the kids' lunches?  Leave yourself a reminder on your steering wheel {"GAS, debRAHHH"} or in lipstick on your bathroom mirror {SMILE, YOU ARE BEAUTIFUL}?

Did you use crayons to journal as a child?  Do you still?  Why do/not you do so now?

Next up:  Gratitude Journal!