Take Back Your Life!

Hey inspirational ones,

I got this “musestorm” in the wee hours of the night several months ago to have an “encouragement booth” at my town’s annual celebrate the town day. Vendors, non-profits and community groups set up stalls/booths along these grassy aisles. People drifted in, out and around the booths as well as attended lots of other familyish events. This is the first year I did this. Of course, I had to do something really DIFFERENT or I would have felt off rebel kilter. So, the encouragement booth was born.

I’ve got a pic of me at the “booth,” but can’t seem to load it into WP media at the moment. Will work on it later and add so you can see it. The front of the table had the same poster as the back fence. I never realized until I looked at my newly installed sign that day that the word enCOURAGEment had the word courage embedded in it. Honestly, it took courage for folks to come to the booth and get encouragement. Did I find myself shouting, “Want some FREE enCOURAGEment?” Hell, yes! It felt right. (more…)

Hey folks!

I’m going to be disobedient and start my post today with a shameless plug for my upcoming on-line essay writing class. To learn more about it, please click on “Secrets of Personal Essay Writing.” Once you learn the secrets, writing a publishable essay becomes a whole lot easier. My in-depth comments on your writing assignments are well worth the price of admission.

Now that I’ve gotten that out of the way, let’s talk about being a “grown up.” The title of this article is a quote by Andre Malraux, a french novelist. I found it in a fab book I’m reading called, “Last Child in the Woods.”  Real juicy if you like to hang out in forests, talk to animals or look at the stars. (more…)

I’m so tired of reading in the paper that consumers have to “hit the malls and shop more” to get this economy going that I’ve decided to write my next newspaper column on that topic. This article will be a warm-up.

One of the reasons the economy tanked before was because we all shopped until we dropped. Only we couldn’t get up this time. We’d hit the shopping wall. In all my years of being a consumer trained to buy stuff I didn’t need, I’ve never seen such a shopping frenzy as I did during the years leading up to the crash. People maxing out on 5 credit cards and borrowing against the equity in their homes to buy endless amounts of stuff. Or getting a raise/promotion and running out and buying a new, more expensive home — thus, negating the raise and then some. (Saw this many times.)

I’m sure many of you know that buying junk we don’t need is an addiction. The “high” doesn’t last very long and it’s always followed by the scary and depressing realization that you have to pay for it by prolonging your stint as an indentured servant to a corporation, a credit card company or someone else. (Not to mention it all ends up in the landfills and/or the oceans.) (more…)

Hey creative thinkers,

I want to start off this post by thanking all of my fabulous commenters. Your insightful comments take what I’ve written and stretch it one rebel step further!

According to this Newsweek article, American creativity has been declining since 1990. Possible culprits? Increased television watching, less life hardships, standardized school curriculum and nationalized testing. Teachers say there’s little time for creativity due to curriculum and testing requirements.

The best part of the article?  The demand for MUSES will be way up! Gave me some great ideas for my biz. I’m gushing creative excitement here! (more…)

Hey folks who want to live while you are alive,

I love the greeting cards that marry quotes and pictures. The latest one I bought showcases a woman wearing white heels sailing off the curb into a muddy, watery mess. You know her shoes will not survive this gooey “crossing” and she’ll be calf-deep in mud. Yet from the bounce in her step, I can tell she’s going to enjoy ruining those shoes. The following quote accompanied the picture, “Ever notice that ‘what the hell’ is always the right decision?” ~ Unknown Hollywood script writer.

From my own experiences, I’d have to agree with the script writer, sometimes you need to throw caution to the wind and just do it, whatever the it challenging you is. (more…)

Dear Status Quo Changers,

Recently, a friend asked where I get my blog post ideas. Honestly? They find me. I pick up a greeting card, overhear a conversation, visit someone else’s blog, open a book. Sometimes I have more than two posts that want to be written at the same time. The one yelling “pick me” the loudest usually wins.

Two days ago, I looked out my upstairs bathroom window around 6:30 am to see three cottontail bunnies chasing each other all over the yard. (I thought it was three but it’s probably more like 33. They just look similar.) Up and over our small hill, through the giant hemlock grove, under the blue spruces. Round and round they went. It looked like they were having a grand time. (more…)

Dear great idea folks,

I’m bombarded with great ideas. They flow freely through by brain and also freely out of my brain if I don’t write them down. So, I carry an “Aha” notebook around with me. Even wrote “Aha Notebook” on the front. I write essay ideas, column ideas, life shop ideas, recipe ideas, logo ideas, blog post ideas and anything else I want to remember, but know I’ll forget.

If you think about it, all the products you use and the songs you hear and the movies you see and the books you read, they all stared with someone’s “Aha” moment. The difference? That person acted on their “Aha” moment. (more…)

Hey courageous ones,

Recently, I saw one of my favorite up and coming singer/songwriters, Kim Jennings. The city of Worcester, Massachusetts, voted her its best female vocalist for 2010. If you ever get a chance to hear her perform in person, you’ll know why. She’s dazzling, daring and dynamic. Because I look for everyone’s life theme, I couldn’t help but notice that two of her songs both contained the same line: nowhere left to hide. She’s definitely come out of her hiding place. Have you? (more…)

Hey questioning ones!

Yesterday, Jimmy and I drove by a field filled with lots of children wearing red and blue shirts doing some kind of organized exercise. Simultaneously, we turned to each other and said, “Mao’s Cultural Revolution?” Something about it left me with a unsettled feeling. The same feeling I get when I bike by a pre-school in a nearby town where the children spend 6+ hours a day “learning/playing” inside a chain-link fence. It feels like captivity has become the new childhood normal, a radical departure from my own. (more…)

If you’ve read my Skirt! essay, River Talk, then you may recall that I don’t remember much of the information stuffed into my head in high school. In addition to Siddhartha, I’ve recalled the basic premise of the Samuel Beckett play, Waiting For Godot. Two guys, Vladimir and Estragon, wait on a country road by a tree and talk about how they are waiting for Godot. But of course Godot never comes. As a high school student I thought, “what a dumb play.” Now as a middle-ager, I think, “wow, that play’s brilliant. It’s a commentary on life.”

Do you have a Godot (or Godots) in your life? Something that you’re waiting over and over for that never comes? (more…)