A Hard Day's Night

Just the other day, we lost our power. There was no storm, wind or other acts of Mother Nature going on to explain it. The fact that it went off for 3  - 4 seconds and then returned to stay on about 3 - 4 seconds...doing this to tease us for about four to six times before going out for good. Hmmmm

My first thoughts was that it was good that we are now on Day Light Savings Time, as it would remain a bit lighter longer. (Especially since it was a rather overcast kind of day.) The time was around 4:15 P.M. Both of us thought about our dinner plans. If we can't cook or heat things up then it will be making a sandwich, which we could or ordering out. 

We thought that we might order out if nothing came back on. Meanwhile, as the clock was ticking, I noticed that it was getting a bit chilly, so I reached down to turn the little heater on by my feet. HA!

That was not thought out very well at all. Electric heater. Steve had a better idea, which was to turn the fire on, gas, of course! It would take some of the dampness out for a while. Thank goodness, it was not super cold; just that damp chill in the house. 

At this point, I decided to read some. It was a little gloomy in the room so I reached up to flip on the floor lamp. Just as I touched the knob, it dawned on me...electricity! Let's go to a much better idea. Candles and a flashlight, handy for when we needed them. I lit the candles right away. This gave off a wonderful fragrance and a touch of extra lighting.

After a bit of reading, I stood up and thought that it might be a great time to go back and touch up my hair. Oh wait! Electric curling iron, blow dryer or curlers...hummm!  As you must be getting the picture now, it had become a hard day's night! It is simply amazing how we get accustomed to what we have and when we lose it, the whole universe changes. (Maybe a bit of an exaggeration, you get it though, I know that you do.)

There are times like these that hit us all. Let me mention a few, some of which have actually happened to me and some just have not happened yet; therefore let me say, I am not making fun of anyone. We need to all be able to laugh at ourselves, as we really do live  A Hard Day's Night.

One friend filled her car up with gas, but then drove off with the gas hose in her car. Bless her, twice even, because she did it again just a few months later. The attendant inside actually told her not to worry, another woman did it a few months ago. Then there was a friend who in the dark searched her car with the flashlight app on her phone. What was she searching for? Her phone! She thought that she had dropped it. 

Have you ever been talking on your cell telling someone either with you in person or on the phone with you that you have lost your phone and are trying to find it? What about having glasses on the top of your head searching the house for them? Let me add that none of these people have the onset of dementia. It is just A Hard Day's Night.

We are living in 2018 and most of us are working like a dog and to top it off SHOULD be sleeping like a log, except all a bit sleep deprived. What we need to realize is that we need to support one another and know that when we find that special someone and arrive home; they will make us feel alright!

Changes

We are in control of the changes we make in our lives. No one can do it for us, as Carol Burnett so wisely states. Before I hear a lot of moaning and groaning and but what abouts...let me add this. Yes, we are constricted to a degree about how we go about some of the changes that we may want. This is where creativity and thinking outside the box comes in to play.

Why is it easier for some people to make changes and so difficult for others? If you can answer this million dollar question then you have the power to change what you desire. None of us can force change; what we can do is take control of it. The best way that I have discovered is to go at it in baby steps.

Example:  1. Think about what it is you want to change. Keeping in mind that change is hard, let's face it. Usually, if it is a personal change, it is a habit such as smoking, or overeating, or trash talking to a loved one. Perhaps this 'habit' has been going on for over 10 years or so. 
               2.  Once determined change is in our minds, it is up to us to get it set in stone as a mindset. This could mean writing about it, drawing it, dreaming it, saying it, and practicing it. Baby steps really. One day you may not make it. That is not an excuse to give in. This is where I have made my very own mistakes on changes. Just go ahead, live and learn. 
                3.  Stay positive. Sometimes you may need help with a support system to stay on our toes, we need to practice and give supportive feedback. Have confidence within yourself and try new ideas that others may give you or ones that we may come up on our own.
                4.  To maintain this change requires constant supervision. Who is the supervisor? We are our own supervisors. As Les Brown said, "You've got to fight for your dreams like your life depends on it. Why? Because it does!"

When I saw that I had to get out of my comfort zone to accomplish what I wanted to change, this is when the journey with change stopped being an uphill battle in all parts of my life. One of my favorite actors is Morgan Freeman. He was in a movie titled, "Bruce Almighty." A line that he used that stuck with me was "If you want to see a miracle BE the miracle." We all have the power to make it happen.

Happy Place

There is a fine line between stress and relaxing. How each one of us handle it is up to us. What works for me, may not work for you and vice versa. For me, I start my day with a positive mantra that fits what I may be facing in my day to day life. It could be something specific such as getting a new car or going in for a check up with the doctor or dentist. Maybe it is giving a workshop to a room full of people who really resent just having to be there. 

The list of what can make me feel stressed out can go on and on. I can imagine that your list does the same for you. My way of dealing with it works great for me. Finding my 'Happy Place,' which is always the beach, is easy to do when I remain calm and focus on the positive. Using positive quotes and mantras and posting them works. Also, meditation with a focus on breathing is a technique that helps me.

Then it dawned on me that this is not a cure-all for everything and everyone. I stumbled on an article by Laura Schocker titled "Balance." The British saying of "Keep Calm and Carry On," does not work for everyone. In fact, for some people it can make it more stressful. People telling you to take a chill pill, or to just breathe in and out can make you tense up even more. There is a reason for this which is based on the theory that you can't force relaxation. 

It is a technique that can be learned with practice. It won't be learned overnight, so meanwhile, everyone has to decide how they will work on it for now. Which trick works for your emotional intelligence?  If having others tell you to just relax makes you want to throw them out the window, then you may want to try relabeling your stress and state it out loud. 

Example: If you were going to a big job interview, instead of saying how nervous and anxious you were feeling and then hearing others tell you to just relax; tell yourself that you are feeling this way because you are so eager to ace this job interview. This puts other words in your mind such as how excited you are to do well. This immediately gives you the control. The worse-case scenario is played out in your mind and you probably will discover that it was not as bad as you had imagined. 

Once you have found your own personal Happy Place, make it a habit to visit often. This way, it is much less stressful to pull out of the hat to use when needed. It becomes second nature.

After all the goal is to get out of the stress mode and in to the relaxation mode. How you do it is up to you.

Diversity

Nothing in the world can show as much diversity as when the Olympics, summer or winter are taking place. Some of the Olympian personal stories are so amazing that for most of us it is inconceivable of some of the hardships that these athletes lived through, and yet followed through to their dreams. 

The commentators did an extraordinary job of telling some of them. Many things came to life...these athletes are so dedicated and emotionally tied to their sports. Some of them have family support and others do not, yet this does not deter them for one moment. They find a way that works for them.

Another thing that I noticed is that no matter what country the athlete was from, you would have been very unwise to assume what the country was by the physical characteristics of the athlete. We all in this crazy world of ours have become increasingly more global. Parents get moved to other countries for their careers, which many times means the whole family goes. Some become citizens of their newly adopted country, even learning the language. 

Just from what I observed, the United States seemed to have many more diverse athletes, probably due to the size of the country. The host of these Winter Olympics, South Korea has been in a war with North Korea, yet they came together as a group of athletes. If there were any ugliness or bitterness, it was kept well out of the headlines and cameras (which is not an easy thing to do). I am willing to bet that there really was not too much of that going on when one has to be so focused on the skills required to win a medal; not to mention the years of training.

This year I even became interested in the sport of curling. Learning how to score and what all the yelling was about was quite an experience for me.

The one thing that did bother me somewhat was hearing negative talk about how The Olympics messed up the whole television schedule, even for other stations. Either don't watch it, go rent a movie or watch one on Netflix, just please don't spoil it for the rest of world.

My last note is that I have always loved Bob Costas as the Olympic commentator. He did a great job from 1992 up until now. This year NBC went with Mike Tirico. What a good choice! Even Bob Costas admitted that Mike was "killin' it." And yes, he did. Both correspondents made their job look easy, just as if they were sitting down with you one on one telling you what was going on. That is a skill in itself and one not to be taken lightly.

To end this blog I would like to quote John Williams who wrote the Olympic Opening music and even directed symphony orchestras in playing this and other music written specifically for the Games. 
"The Olympics are a wonderful metaphor for world cooperation, the kind of international competition that's wholesome and healthy, an interplay between countries that represents the best in all of us."

Waking Up To An Alarming Surprise

Waking up at 6:45 while being retired is bad enough. However, when I set my phone alarm, I usually just set that. I can turn it off right beside my bed. Steve got in the habit of setting the Bose CD/stereo to Van Morrison singing us awake when we were working, basically because at least it is something more pleasant to wake up to than alarm clock sounds or a rooster. For his birthday, I gave him a 2nd generation Echo (Alexa).  Of course it has all of the bells and whistles, however, I was thinking that he may like to have another Alexa in our home not only for music but for all of the other special things that she is capable of handling.

Really, we have only used the Bose ever since we purchased it at the outlet in Alabama. Except for appointments, we now only have to get up early on the days that our home is cleaned. Today being one of those Mondays. As much as I think getting up at this uncivilized time, I love that fact even more that we have a clean house. Both of us like things put away, smelling good and all done at one time.

For a gift, I gave Steve the 2nd generation Alexa because we both adore having good quality sounding music playing in our home all of the time. Plus we could ask Alexa what was the weather for the day, or just say, "Good Morning, Alexa."  She would come back with something that happened in history on this day or that it was National Hug a Friend Day. Lots of fun little tidbits. He got this Alexa set up in our bedroom and proceeded to set the alarm, then out of habit, he set the Bose and I set my phone alarm. 

Being in a deep state of sleep at 6:45, I was awakened in a very rude sort of way. I was pushing the button on my phone alarm to get that spa type of music off, while at the same time, telling Alexa to turn off the alarm that she was playing, which she seemed to have developed a hearing problem and just continued to play. I had to walk over to the Bose and turn that off manually because the battery in the remote has not been replaced. Finally, after trying to be nice to Alexa to no avail, I had to say, "Alexa, shut up." That worked! 

Silence! Almost! I say almost because I then heard waves and the surf sound that had stayed on all night to help us sleep. When my voice command took care of that, the dog (beast) next door started his barking. I truly was feeling that I was no longer in control. 

It was at this stage that I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that I needed a BIG cup of coffee. Probably more than one. This is just to prove to myself how important sleep has become to me. It is a must that I get the same number of hours of sleep each night. This usually requires a nap for me, when it is possible. I know how much better I feel when I get what my body needs. Once I retired, I could focus on this part of my health.

Really though, I believe that I needed to focus on it even more when I was in the work force. On days that I went to work on not enough sleep, I knew that I was not a productive worker. It also allowed my immune system to go haywire and would most definitely be the time that I would catch something going around work. 

Hind sight won't let me go back  to doing what I should have been doing. That has passed. If you still have time, then I most definitely encourage you to think long and hard about your sleeping patterns and exactly what you need for your own health. Everyone has different needs. 

"There is no hope for a civilization which starts each day to the sound of an alarm clock."

-Unknown Author

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         

Money, money, money,money! MONEY!

There has been a scary roller coaster ride lately in the stock market. The age old rule of what goes up, must come down is certainly proving itself to be true. Our financial advisors, have shown me how to go to our on-line Wealth Vault to see everything we have: the good, the bad and the ugly. (Lately, it has been so ugly that even the tide won't come in). I could ignore it and wait it out, except it is like the train wreck. I can't take my eyes off of it. Even when I know that I am not going to be happy when I see the numbers. As the money investors advised...ride it out.

This is good advice for us all, even those of us retired. My problem is that I can do that, however, I start to feel antsy and thinking of ways that I can save a penny here and there. Some of which, really don't make a whole lot of sense. Some ways that I already had in place seemed to be working out well, such as:

• sticking to a pre-written shopping list or better yet using the "Click List" (even with the fee tagged on for using this service, the amount of money saved by not going in to the store is phenomenal.)
• keeping the TV off when possible is like killing two birds with one stone - using less electricity and then the ads which can be very influential will not be exposing me to buy things that I really don't need until they show me all the reasons that I do need it
• make good use of coupons - only using the ones that are products that I normally would use
• buy on line - many times a product is in the store for a lot more money than it sells on line due to many outside factors
• pack lunches for road trips (so many car trips can take you for 100 miles or more before you even see a place to eat - and then that place is questionable)

There are other ways that I am still trying to work out if it really would save me money such as:

• being thrifty with homemade cleaning items (some of which I tried, however was sadly disappointed when I discovered they really don't clean that well)
• make your own beer (who knows? this could lead on to your own distillery?)
• eat on smaller plates (really?)
• take shorter showers in cooler water (this is most definitely not for me)
• take public transportation to work (if you are lucky enough to have a "working one")
• cut your own hair (even hairdressers admit this is a tricky one for them)
• sell unwanted stuff - as long as you have a body guard with you (wild things have happened to sellers using ebay or craigs list)
• use the energy efficient light bulbs (you know, the ones that you must
• 
  turn on 15 minutes before you need them, just so that you can get dressed in light because they take that long to warm up)
• wait 30 days before buying a big item (won't work when you are talking having no refrigerator or washer/dryer)
• buy a time programmed thermostat

Some of these at the end may work for some people. They just don't work for our family. We do not have a set routine any more for a programmable thermostat. I know that I am way too impatient to flip on a light switch and have to wait for the bulb to warm up. Plus their selling pitch is that these bulbs last much longer than the old kind. Well, sista, I am here to tell you that I have had to replace some of these newer ones and to this day, have not replaced the old fashion kind.

Let me share some advice that I have found to date that is most definitely worth heeding:

If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is!

What Exactly Defines You?

Just the other day, I saw a magazine headline on the cover that asked, "What Defines You?" I find that an interesting question. I would dare say that it definitely belongs as one of the interview questions for job candidates. Why? Because there really isn't a wrong answer. Well, almost...

For example: here are three pictures of Emma Stone. Each with a different color of hair. I am not talking physically defines you. 

I am talking about the real YOU! What you create as a person defines you. Everyone's creativeness is their own. Whether it is ideas, art, athleticism, children, problems...you own it. It is a part of your personality based on strength, values, actions, beliefs, which lead to your thoughts.

One day, I put the question out there for friends to answer what they thought defined them. It was fascinating to see how they all basically came together in their beliefs, even when they used different words. Let me use some of the words that I heard:

• strength
• music
• my word
• teaching
• family
• faith
• interactions
• morals
• beliefs
• pets

In my opinion, the world around us and how we respond brings out our uniqueness, which becomes our reality of how we have defined ourselves to others, as well as ourselves. Actions always speak louder than words.

People often say that this or that person has not yet found himself. But, according to Thomas Szasz, a Hungarian-American psychiatrist, the self is not something one finds, it is something one creates. This is a good description, however, one of my favorite actors described defining yourself more on my level of understanding by saying, "You have to leave the city of your comfort and go into the wilderness of your intuition. What you'll discover will be wonderful. What you'll discover is yourself." 

 ~  Alan Alda