She stole my most precious entity
through thoughts of pointless excess
midnight worries, daytime anxiety
the cost was heavy and sobering: my success
My prescription to the current blooming?
Don’t stare at screens and mirrors
Narcissus was constantly grooming
and, your destiny looms ever nearer
You wake up early to draw.
You spill coffee on your paper before you get your pens out.
Oh well.
They don’t seem to mind.
Feeling stressed and anxious about the holidays is a choice. Yes, it is.
Don’t succumb to the pressure to buy.
“This year, shoppers plan on spending $660 on average for the holiday season. 27% report they did not create a budget at all and 24% say they overspent last year.” (USA Today)
Create a budget. Stick to it. If anyone has a problem with it, it’s exactly that – their problem.
Focus, instead, on expressing love for friends and family. Be kind to yourself. Be kind to others. That is the true spirit of the holidays, no matter what your faith.
Here is an interesting graphic from USA Today:
I am grateful for people – nice and mean
Fortunes – good and bad, I love
I appreciate the pleasures, they’re pleasing
But pain brings growth and is never ceasing
So accept it all!
You don’t have to be “moody.”
You don’t have to be ultra “proud” of your children, your spouse or your possessions.
You don’t have to react to everything…or anything.
You can choose to live within the band of happiness no matter the context or situation.
The next time something great happens, say, “thank you.”
The next time something “bad” happens, say “thank you.”
This is how to be fully present and truly happy all of the time.
Sunflowers are my new favorite flower. I just learned that they are “hyperaccumulators”! They absorb toxins and pollutants so well that thousands were planted in Chernobyl to absorb radiation. They were also planted in Fukushima to clean up that toxic spill.
The trick is to harvest and destroy them before they produce toxic seeds that birds could eat. 
#1: When your computer breaks down and you have to type and publish your blog on your cell phone, ROAR like a lion.
#2: When the bonus they promised to deliver in December gets postponed to February, ROAR like a lion.
#3: When Pinterest tells you that someone in Russia has hacked your account and you can’t reset your password (see #1), ROAR like a lion.
#4: When you start to feel overwhelmed, anxious, angry or depressed, ROAR like a lion.
Or…close your eyes, breathe deeply and know everything is fine.
My favorite children’s book series is Frog and Toad. I’ve always loved the simplicity and hilarity of the stories and it dawned on me only recently that perhaps Frog and Toad were more than friends. Lobel, author and illustrator, came out to his family pretty late in life and then died from AIDS. Everyone needs to accept everyone for who they are. Why judge others?
Which brings me to a comment my husband made to me this morning. He was looking over my shoulder, watching me draw the frogs.
“So when are you going to draw your own things?”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know…the things you like.”
“I like what I’m doing. I have drawn things on my own and they were pretty terrible. I’m still learning.”
“Just draw your own things.”
I understand what he’s saying. And I have wondered if I’m playing it safe by drawing out of a book, but I really am a beginner. My goal is to practice drawing until December 31st and then try my own “things.”
And that is when I will make my leap!
Holidays. Busyness. Stress.
Don’t forget that stress and complaining are choices. Complaining is a form of denying reality*. It also makes you sound like a victim. You don’t want that, do you?
Below are my drawings for today. They are incomplete. I helped my daughter learn how to drive today. Someone honked at her loudly as she paused at the red light, uncertain if she should go or not. She got stressed. And then we went out to help her buy her boyfriend a birthday gift. She worried it wasn’t enough. I assured her that her thoughtfulness in choosing the gifts was what really counted.
I am now at my other daughter’s high school concert. When all is said and done, I will have been here with her for six hours. I didn’t get to complete my drawing or get my workout in or get any holiday shopping done. Oh well. But I did get to have a wonderful lunch with her between two concerts and talk about everything she wanted to share with me. We ate and talked and ate and talked and then we had enough time to buy makeup from Target before going back for her final performance.
It’s all good. I’m grateful I can do these things – be completely present for each of my daughters…and be completely present while I draw my funny-looking lizards.
For so long, the world seemed like a bleak and hopeless place
my days were blotted with sorrow and fear
but I stopped fighting reality, I cleaned my own lenses
all is good and light now that my vision is clear
Kismet 