taking stock

"Take full account of the excellencies which you possess, and in gratitude remember how you would hanker after them, if you had them not." - Marcus Aurelius

you say it's your birthday!

"Tomorrow may rain so I'll follow the sun." - The Beatles

My birthday was this week, and as a result, my Facebook wall was a host of many exclamation points, as well as a slew of X's and O's. My analytical side contemplated counting them, just so I could keep that large number in my head and choose to recall it if I needed to summon something positive.

When I was younger, the month of November would arrive, and there would be a giddiness throughout my being just because my birthday was somewhere in the middle of that month. Every year, I had a wish list of things I wanted. Usually expensive things my parents couldn't afford, but it was nice to dream for a moment about what might happen if money actually did grow on a tree.

I still get a simple pleasure when my birthday arrives, but it doesn't cause the same sensation it used to stir. Maybe because I've never walked into my apartment to people hiding behind the couch scaring me to death with loud echoes of HAPPY BIRTHDAY! Maybe it's just that I'm older, and as unashamed I might be about being 36 now, it's certainly not the milestone 16 was, or 21.

I was very introspective in the days that followed my birthday this year. In my life I have weeks where my life is full of activity, and then when I enter a rest period, I do a lot of thinking about my life. Evalutions and reassessments, validating where I am or pointing the compass to the next place. I constantly challenge myself to do better - which is great for the sake of achievement - but I have to remind myself at times to be happy and content with the person I am now.

So, to encourage happy thoughts of where I am in my life today, I went back to that Facebook wall and let my inner statistician take over. I counted every single exclamation point from my birthday messages. Four-hundred and eleven. And that number gives me a huge, uneraseable smile. I am loved. And that is enough for today.

I am focused on the good. Because I am good.

life is a playground... with very high swings

"You can discover more about a person in an hour of play than in a year of conversation." - Plato

(Random pic from Flickr of people I don't know... but I think I'd really dig hanging with them.)

left foot, write foot

I am a fan of the written word.

The days of epistles may be (sadly) long gone, but whenever I open up my mailbox and find a card, invitation, or something that requires actual handwriting, it never fails to generate an uplifting response. And in my efforts to nearly single-handedly keep stores like Papyrus and Hallmark alive, I've been the recipient of random phone calls of gratitude that quickly transition into rants about how Facebook and Evite have kept humans somewhat emotionally detached from one another. (Even with my handwritten efforts, I probably still randomly hit up various Facebook Walls more than the average person. Maybe I'm just chatty. Or perhaps I just love to hear myself speak. Okay, I don't like where this internal monologue is heading... parentheses must end now.)

Such appreciation by my friends admittedly makes me more a little more cognizant of my efforts to keep the written word alive and decidedly more determined to buy even more cards and stationery. I have boxes upon boxes of blank cards with cute, cuddly animals or inspirational quotes that are likely to cause certain friends to sing my praises and others to projectile vomit upon sight. Regardless of outcomes, I still favor the written word as my favorite form in which to communicate, even if the task of updating the physical addresses of various friends becomes quite a daunting one.

A good friend recently went on for about a half hour about how the only "real" emails he receives nowadays are in the form of getting-to-know-one-another exchanges on various dating sites - okay, maybe the term "dating sites" is a bit generous. After an initial coffee date (or other "get-together"), that correspondence tends to fade as well. The inbox returns to its normal state of cricket chirps. And the physical mailbox remains to be a means of collecting various advertisements that will inevitably find their way to the paper shredder.

I thought quite a good deal on the subject (inevitably leading to this here blog entry) and gave myself a challenge to send more physical mail. The above picture is a sample of what went out in today's mail. Next up, letters on pretty canary-colored paper. You can thank me later, US Postal Service.

it all comes back to you

"Reduce, Reuse, Recycle... because three, it's a magic number..." - Jack Johnson

Today is America Recycles Day.

I'm fortunate to live in an apartment building that is big on recycling. Boxes, paper, plastic, glass, cans, etc. Having lived in a bunch of previous places where recycling isn't very encouraged, it's amazing to see exactly how little trash there actually is once you get in the practice of recycling.

Today is also Clean Out Your Refrigerator Day. The Huffington Post has a bunch of photos of various "gross fridges," and I have to admit that I am quite happy to know my fridge by comparison is considerably less scary. Since I don't do very much cooking, there actually wasn't very much to clean! (Coincidentally, there were a few additional jars for the recycling bin!)

make your own kind of music

"If you study - if you learn too much of what others have done, you may tend to take the same direction as everybody else." - Jim Henson

I am marching to my own beat today. It's not easy to blaze your own path, but that's what I'm going to do.

world kindness day

Today is World Kindness Day.

(It's also Friday the 13th, but we're going to focus on the positive.)

life, boundless

"Life always bursts the boundaries of formulas." - Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Sometimes I have moments of happiness so big that I can't articulate or explain it.

Today is a red balloon day.

shelf space

I now have shelves I can see.











The books in these pictures now have a new home. It felt really good this morning to purge. I feel lighter.

cleaning out the closet

I went through the closet today. There was a ton of things on hangers and shelves I no longer wear.

We went on a trip. A short one, but a trip nonetheless.

Here is their new home...

how big? soooooo big!

"Your world is as big as you make it."

Make it big.

at the start, five simple words

"It's a matter of discipline," the little prince told me. "When you are finished washing and dressing each morning, you must tend to your planet." - from Le Petit Prince (Antoine de Saint Exupery)

I simply want my world to be a better place.

My world can be defined in many ways... on a grander scale, I suppose it could literally mean the world, but I'm starting small. I'm starting with just me. And from there, maybe everything in my immediate grasp will see noticeable positive change. But for now... just for now... I want to make an effort to continue to do good things with my time.

Whenever I'm faced with a challenge, my mother always has the same five words of advice for me: "Left foot, right foot, breathe." Very simple instructions, and if I repeat those words in my head like a mantra, I find myself getting from Point A to Point B.

The journey begins here.