tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-71633981335739379862024-02-19T04:26:33.130-08:00Wildflower 57 ~ Barefoot and TangledA little bit about life, style, design and being the girl in charge at Wildflower 57. A day at a time..... Barbarahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02487757049956058273noreply@blogger.comBlogger57125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7163398133573937986.post-87947523633129388822019-12-31T09:59:00.001-08:002019-12-31T10:01:17.784-08:00Walking the WalkWell I could tell you all the reasons and whys that I haven't been here, haven't written, haven't sewn and haven't been to the gym in a year. I could explain and go back but maybe just maybe it's not the way to go forward anymore. I spent the last year finding out why I have felt physically and emotionally unbalanced for the last decade. Totally my fault for not dealing with it but there is more to it than blame. I simply just couldn't and then I could or rather I did and I'm glad for it. I did the best I could to do what was needed and that's that..... Moving on...<br />
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I'm so done with over thinking and over analyzing and all the angst that comes with it, especially the middle of the night variety. I'm ready to just live and live authentically with purpose and joy. I'll be happy because I choose to be, I'll sew when I want, and I'll write when I want and I'll live how I want. I will honor my body and it's lovely hard work, the 5 children it carried and the me it carries still. For an over-feeling, over-sharing, over-thinking girl it's not easy to just trust the way. But I do. I will not apologize for the space I take up or the noise I make, nor will I feel badly for putting myself and my path at the top the list. I will make things, sew-stitch-knit to my heart's content, I will write, I will move my body, I will walk in the mountains, put my feet in any body of water I can find, I'll stand under the stars and talk to the moon, I'll curl up on the couch and watch silly TV or movies, I will eat good food and learn to nourish myself in all ways, I'll drink tons of water and do a face mask on Sundays, I will grow my hair and I will cut my hair on a whim, I will nap when I want to, I will probably get another tattoo. I will ride a horse again this year and I'm plan to learn to make amazing mini blackberry pies. I will wear what I want, I will read all the books on my night stand or maybe I'll get a totally new book and read that, I will take road trips to anywhere I want, spend time with people I adore whenever I can, maybe revive my handmade business or maybe not but mostly and most importantly.....I'll stop explaining or defending who I am, what I choose to do or what I stand for. I'm going to answer the questions about life by just living this big amazing decade of my life that I've been waiting for. I think I will walk my walk and see where the winding road goes... Here is to living life....<br />
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Happiest of New Years to you all.<br />
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<3 Barbara<br />
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<span style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #3f5bc0; font-family: "georgia" , "palatino" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: center; vertical-align: baseline;"><em style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Tell me, what is it you plan to do</em></span><br />
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<br />Barbarahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02487757049956058273noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7163398133573937986.post-50780650684587150902019-09-12T09:40:00.002-07:002019-09-12T09:40:47.056-07:00Whispers <br />
<img alt="The Best Inspirational and Motivational Quotes / Phone Wallpapers" height="200" src="https://i.pinimg.com/564x/23/ef/c6/23efc6ce9527597852ec12c8262164a3.jpg" width="112" /> I took a job a year ago and walked away from my handmade business and this blog, although to be honest.. I had been sputtering along for a while on both. Discouraged, unsure and needing steady income for the life journey ahead (more on that in future posts) I just left it all be and didn't close doors but didn't actually stay either.... I've dealt with some medical stuff that needed dealing with (MUCH more on that soon as well) , I've settled into a full time work schedule and adjusted as needed. But....something has been missing, I've felt lonely and not quite in synch with myself and wondered what it was I needed to do. I woke in the middle of the night and heard a whisper "time to get back to work".... and if I have learned one thing...trust the whispers. I have absolutely NO IDEA what shape this will take or the frequency with which I will create and write. I know my work space has sat empty and unused with projects in the middle of being made. Writings in the middle of being written and ideas left alone to wait for me to return. Here is the first of it. warming up my writing brain and hoping that what is inside will come out the way I want it to but also just trusting that this is exactly where I need to be. A sweet inspiration for a collection of handmade goods is sprouting and I'm going to follow it all where it leads. I know I ask this a lot but it's true...I hope you will come along with me.<br />
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Time to wake up my maker, writer soul and get back to work. The whisper said so.<br />
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Love B<br />
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<br />Barbarahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02487757049956058273noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7163398133573937986.post-4355111764077817822018-09-27T13:18:00.000-07:002018-09-28T07:40:19.635-07:00Start Where You Are, Use What You Have, Do SomethingI've sat down so many times to write this post. I've played with the title and how much of the content to include in this first post. In the interest of just being me and keeping it totally honest, I'm just diving in.<br />
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A few years ago I saw a picture of myself and was just taken aback by what I saw in my eyes and on my body. I saw shame, guilt, frustration, excuses, hopelessness and helplessness. I was overweight by a lot, I had such a sad vacant look on my face, even when I smiled. I was sad, broken down... so sick and tired of being sad, broken down, sick and tired. I had tried many times to walk my neighborhood, eat healthyish and do squats in my bedroom. I had failed many times and I've come to understand I didn't start with love, I started with shame. Broken spirit, messy overthinking soul, discouraged and in the deepest pitiful dark damp hole you could ever dig for yourself. I watched my kids take on fitness and eating changes, I excused it as too hard for someone of my age to do or I had so much to lose or my mild hip arthritis kept me from chasing something better. I remember the day that my daughters took me aside, gently but honestly told me I needed to do better for myself. Because they love me and wanted me around. It was that simple....and that hard. I got defensive, I may have cried and argued with myself. Eventually, I had to get super honest with myself, let my defenses and excuses go because I wanted something more and that meant I had to do something. That is when it was clear that self love was the answer to everything. I deserved more from myself. When I put down shame and started to heal myself from the inside out. I started from where I was. <br />
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A friend has asked me to share my journey and my thoughts on what I have done to become more fit and healthy. And I've wanted to do this, I love a story and some honest talk about being better for ourselves. I'm going to break this down into the tips and hints and resources I count on as well as the mindsets that have come to be my truth and my mantra. I'm NOT a professional fitness coach and do not profess to have all the answers. I am solely sharing what has worked for me and I urge you to find your own people who can guide you. This will take a few posts so please hang in while I open up and tell you my story.<br />
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1. Start where you are, Use what you have, Do Something<br />
My guiding principal. You can always always find some way to do more than you did the day before. I did start with squats, push ups, crunches and other body weight work and I did it in my bedroom. I did it every day, I increased my sets every week. I stretched before hand and after to increase my flexibility. Every single day DO SOMETHING you haven't done the day before.. EVERY DAY. Push yourself , do hard things because you can do hard things.<br />
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2. Get rid of your shame.<br />
Shame has no voice here, it will not serve you. I don't care how much you weigh, how much you can do or can't do. You must come to this with love and more love for your body and your spirit. You must not care how you look or check the scale daily. The numbers will lie to you. Take a starting picture, as stripped down as you can get and then put it away for later. That is no longer who you are. <br />
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3. Change your relationship with food<br />
For me comfort type food was my medicine. If I did a good workout, I drove through McDonalds for a cheeseburger and fries as a reward. If I was sad, I got something full of sugar, if I was in a good mood, a little something was in order. This isn't what food is for, it's not for medicating emotions. It wasn't until I came to understand that good food would fuel my body for this journey. The more I was asking of my 58 year old overweight body, the more I needed to support it and feed it well. If you can do 80% healthy food, whole ingredients, mostly protein, veggies and some fruit (you need carbs for your hard work, let them be good carbs) , you are on the right path. You will find as you eat better, better food tastes so much more vibrant. Your gut will not swell from inflammation after a meal and your energy will be served by your good choices. There are tons of apps and healthy food websites. I started with the Whole 30 to just get myself in the mindset and to learn, a month of concentrating on what was going to heal and fuel me. (https://whole30.com/). By relearning how to think about food and make better choices, I have an underlying understanding of what works for me. Again, if you need to, consult a health professional on this. I have also found that ANYWHERE I go even a fast food place, there is a way to eat healthy or healthier. Find a resource that works for you. Just make those food changes, a lifestyle not a diet and do them out of respect and love for you body and well being. And this...if you want a cupcake once in a while, get a darn cupcake. Make it a good one, worth the calories. If it's a burger and fries you are dying for. Get the best burger and fries you can, enjoy it, don't guilt yourself. ENJOY THE BURGER.. But after drink water, and return to the healthy food habits you have been building. And let it go. You won't undo everything with one meal, or weekend or milkshake....Don't use food to punish or shame yourself. You will lose that battle every time.<br />
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4. Learn to enjoy the process<br />
. You will find strength you didn't expect, you will find that this journey will change you.... Mind, Body and Spirit. But you won't see change overnight but you will feel and see it soon enough. You have to surrender and give to the process and the journey. You will have days you hate going to the gym or putting on your walking shoes but I have found that I NEVER regret a workout after I'm in it. I used to turn to comfort food and naps when I was sad, angry, hopeless or in a rough place. I now turn to a workout in some form. The Serotonin your body produces is a mood elevator and will carry you for a bit. You will come to love how that feels. Every workout builds on the one before. Change is coming, I promise you but it will be in your spirit before you see shifts in your body. Fall in love with the journey, fall in love with the way you feel, fall in love with the strength. You will gain so much more than you lose. I promise..<br />
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I have become pretty passionate about self care, health and fitness, because it feels good to feel better and stronger. Better and stronger, it's very thing I didn't know I needed. . My daughters wanted it for me and by being brave enough to tell me I wasn't doing what I needed to, they may have saved me. My emotional state is calmer, brighter and yes stronger. My body is changing inside and out. Balance, flexibility and mobility are improving. Confidence and the sparkle in my eyes returning. I have far to go, as this isn't a short term thing, this is my life and it's long road trip from here but every single day I get something amazing from the work I have done. Again, I am NOT a health or fitness professional, this is simply my story... if you need to consult a Physician or fitness professional, do that. I'm lucky to have personal resources, a son who is a Certified Personal Trainer and my other children are well versed and knowledgeable, I pick their brains and ask for help constantly. I will share other resources next time, I have other parts of the story, I'll tell you about my workouts, how skincare has changed my world, what I wear, my workout playlists, supplements, nutritional support and all the truths of this life and spirit saving path I walk with great joy. Just my story ... I hope you find your way to whatever level of health and well being you are searching for, this is a love story to yourself, don't ever forget how worth it you are. Life is meant to be lived with purpose and love... it really really does come down to wanting to be better from the inside out. Tend to yourself sweet friends...<br />
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Love wildly<br />
Barbara<br />
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<br />Barbarahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02487757049956058273noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7163398133573937986.post-68686615247528712022018-07-31T09:47:00.000-07:002018-07-31T09:47:36.861-07:00The Girl with the Daisy on her HeadI need to put my phone down more.<br />
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I've never been successful at meditation but I am good at looking up into the sky and letting the world fall away. So that's what I've been doing in the form of spending time at night in the backyard hammock while the world gets dark and the stars come out to sparkle. Away from the tv and the lights and the walls...Outside where I can walk barefoot on the grass and let the day gently wrap up. I leave my phone inside and try to just be there without letting the thoughts and plans and ideas for making stuff invade this precious magical time. Refresh and relax.. let the world and every thought fade away, just a little break from the noise of life.<br />
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The other night in the hammock as I felt the air cool and sweet breeze let the leaves of the apple trees whisper to each other, I fell asleep.....and had a dream. I dreamt I had roots coming through my feet and up through my legs where they turned into a plant stem. As the stem grew, a daisy popped out of my head. Like a sweet little daisy hat that shaded me in the hot summer and decorated my hair. It was a little unruly, a wild daisy on the top of my head. At first people were really freaked out, because....I had a daisy on my head. But then they got used to it. "Oh, it's Barbara, the girl with the daisy on her head" it was just a part of me. <br />
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This funny quirky dream has stuck with me and I've tried to figure out what it means...And then yesterday I re-stumbled on a bunch of words I had seen on an Instgram feed and saved in my phone because, the time may come when I know why they caught my attention...and suddenly. Connection. The very thing I was searching for had found me...when I got quiet and listened or rather dreamed.<br />
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There it is...the things we think are challenging and making life feel so heavy...The things that we can't figure out and the times we feel we are squeezing ourselves through small openings. The doors we can't open and the ones that refuse to close. Life changes we want and don't want. The disconnectedness and ache in our hearts....and the good stuff. The whispers of life calling us in new directions, memories, family and friends who do see us when we don't see ourselves. The rush of excitement when a passion comes to rest in your hands or eyes. All of it. Blooming. Let the roots and stem grow inside you until your blossom pops out of the top of your head and you wear it like a beautiful crown regardless of what anyone else may think or say. Blooming...</div>
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With love in her eyes and flowers in her hair"</span></div>
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Love Wildly and Bloom.</div>
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Barbara</div>
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<b></b><i></i><u></u><sub></sub><sup></sup><strike></strike><br />Barbarahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02487757049956058273noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7163398133573937986.post-56479894345447630402018-06-29T08:47:00.001-07:002018-06-29T16:49:11.111-07:00In the middle of it.....So a few months ago I declared how I was going to rock my little business and write all the time...And I haven't done either exactly the way I meant to. What I have done a lot of is apply for jobs, part time minimum wage jobs. And I don't want any of them. Which is okay because none of them seem to want a 60 old dreamer who is happiest making stuff and writing words. And why would I apply for jobs I don't want and that don't want me? Simple...It's fear talking. Stupid, mean, defeating fear.<br />
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I desperately need to fix my car and fill up my bank account and feel like I'm some kind of success that makes sense to the world. Fear talking it's twisty words and making me afraid that time is running out on my good days and I had better get stuff fixed and handled right now. Fear that keeps me from sleeping which makes the days feel like so much weight and worry. Fear keeps me stuck, sucks my creativity and gumption and I believe it...for bits of time..<br />
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Here is what I have figured out. Self care defeats fear. Because using the tools that make you strong, well fed, hydrated, rested and happy help truth and hope come flooding back in. Instead of applying for jobs that are like an itchy sweater that is too tight, I'm doing what I know I need to do to get where I want to go. I'm spending my time in that place. In the middle of it. Making things that I want to make, taking the leap of building a website (where this blog can live right next to my online store) a place that you can land and everything, all my whole bundle of hopes, dreams and the things I believe will live. I've gotten creative with how I work social media, ever mindful of how other's are working things but making sure I stick with my vision and purpose. I made a routine of how I get up in the morning and end my day all filled with the actions that relieve my stress, help with overthinking and keeping myself in peaceful place. Make time for my workouts, eat well, drink a whole lot of water, put my legs up a wall, stretch, take care of my skin and hair. Learn about foods that will fuel and lift me up. Stay away from the things that drag me down to the place where fear has a seat at the table. <br />
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I am quite simply in the middle of it. Creating that life that feels like my favorite tee shirt instead of the itchy sweater. I want maybe do some freelance writing and I have no idea what that looks like. I mean to be intentional here with this blog. I am working on the website and making collections of goods that feel like what I meant to make. I am saying yes to getting together with people so I don't feel disconnected (I say no a lot and I'm over that) . Making time to hang with the sons that are still in my house but creating boundaries so they don't ask so much and learn to take care of themselves. Saving for the car repairs and with grace accepting rides from friends. Trusting the direction I am heading...Trusting the things I believe in are here to serve me well. I'm not there, yet, I don't think there is actually a there to get to but I do know it feels like the middle of it and I like it. I have no idea when I won't feel like this, maybe never but I certainly do feel that might actually be the place where I am supposed to be. The bank account will be fine, my business is starting to flow like a river, or a creek which is fine too. A trickle is good.....a million tiny steps towards something is better than sitting at the table with fear. And certainly there is more than enough time for everything I mean to be doing. I am here to tell you, if you wonder when things will get better, they will get better the moment you decide to live right here and now. And trust that just a step is a journey, and that your big hopes, dreams, wishes, ideas and visions are there for a reason and don't ignore what it is you mean to do. Get in the middle of it and you will see.<br />
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Love Wildly<br />
BarbaraBarbarahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02487757049956058273noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7163398133573937986.post-56601145347134089562018-05-30T11:28:00.001-07:002018-05-30T11:46:40.559-07:00Oh JackI've tried to start this posts about 37 times in the last few months....I haven't found all the words and erased all 37 tries. But today I must breathe and get the words out. Because today my youngest child graduates from high school. The end and the beginning of so many things.....<br />
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I had Jack when I was 43, his older brother when I was 40. Way past the time a girl should get pregnant . Way after his older three siblings, way after I expected to be a new mom again. He was a beautiful surprise even though I counted the years on my fingers and knew I would be so much older than the other moms as he went through school. I remember clearly the shock I felt when I realized I would be 60 when he graduated from high school and admit I was just a teeny bit freaked out. But it felt so right and important. And then Jack showed up, he came 3 weeks early and although he was nearly 8 pounds, he looked tiny and fragile like a little bird. Jack was always easy, from the start he snuggled up and slept like he was born to fill that spot next to my neck. Quite simply, he was the last piece to my puzzle, then and now. <br />
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When he was in Kindergarten he developed quite a story about himself. He told me he was the son of an Eagle mom and she taught him to fly, then she gave him to his Cheetah mom who taught him to hunt and run fast. When she had taught him, she gave him to me for the rest of the loving and teaching. I gladly accepted the honor and with his eagle eye and cheetah speed, I tried to teach him about life but he truly taught me instead. I am anxious and worried, he is calm and easy. I find it hard to just be and tend to get a little serious and weighty, he is light and has the be still thing down to an art. He shows up and is friendly, he is loving and welcoming. He is kindness and goodness down to his core. He extends his hand to pull up the ones he tackles in football. If you ask him about anyone at school, he says they are his buddies and means it. He carries in him, an easily wounded heart that he may have gotten from me. He loved football and spent much of his off seasons working to be stronger and better. He soaked up every minute of his senior season like nothing else and I loved watching him. I loved screaming his name on Friday nights in the fall. He is strong in body and in spirit. He is funny, he loves movies of adventures, super heroes and fantasy tales. He loves space and things that take some pondering about.. He loves shows about making swords and building things and he loves animals, probably thanks to his Eagle and Cheetah moms.<br />
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What I know for sure is that his full life is ahead of him, he will in his thoughtful and earnest way figure out who he is and what he wants to do with his days and years. He is like the Earth, soft, nurturing and strong enough to grow anything or hold anyone. He is brave and he is true. And he is so full of deep human emotions and truths while at the same time he is light and so very funny. He is comfort and he can create some amazing food if there is enough cheese in the fridge. I cannot today look back with any sadness, except perhaps with wistfulness about how years fly by so very fast...it was so fun and heart healing. I so look forward to watching him soar, I look forward to our relationship in all the stages of life. I look forward to knowing him forever. He was a child of love from the start and he will continue to love and be love in all the days to come. He keeps me dancing, singing, resting and breathing when it doesn't come easy and that is everything. <br />
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Tonight I will shout his name and clap loud through my tears as I sit in that football stadium under the full moon and know that this is the start of everything glorious to come. You shine like the stars Jack Buster Wiggins and it has always been and will always be my great joy to be your human mom. let's do this...<br />
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Love Wildly,<br />
B<br />
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<br />Barbarahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02487757049956058273noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7163398133573937986.post-28350697215278933742018-03-30T18:48:00.000-07:002018-03-30T18:48:03.257-07:00Open Windows and a Mini PizzaIt has been a day you guys. There was this big tumultuous thing with my sons. The last two at home and growing faster, more independent and older by the day. The youngest is graduating from high school in 2 months and the other is 20, working and going to the local junior college. We are all a bit on edge this week, the ball joint in the truck my 20 year old drives went out, and if you are like me, you didn't know that the thing that holds the wheel to the axle is called the ball joint, the thing that keeps the wheel from laying on it's side like it is now. It's a catastrophic thing when it breaks and let me first say that I am beyond grateful that when it happened, he was safe when it could have easily gone a different direction. But now after taking it to 2 different repair places by tow truck because .....totally not driveable. Both places said they could repair it for about $500 but when it got looked at they upped it to $3900. Let me tell you straight up. The truck is not work even half of that but things being how they are, a new truck payment is not in the cards. So the stress of that situation combined with my no job and trying to make a business take off and be profitable situation has caused me many many hours of living on the edge of losing my mind on a daily basis. <br />
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Here is the thing, I know beyond a shadow of doubt that life has a way of unfolding and somehow things will be okay. The looming phone bill and this repair that has my stomach in twisted knots....all of the things like this, will get handled, life will go on and it will be okay. I know that . It's just I'm a stresser kind of girl. So this morning what would be a minor thing turned big between my sons and I. Hurt feelings and built up worry exploded into the kind of thing you never want to have with people you love. I felt left out and unappreciated, they felt I am over dramatic have NO CHILL. And we all said a whole lot of things in quick bursts of loud emotional crazy unloading that could have sounded like yelling. NEVER ever a proud thing for me. Losing control and just hurling words and tears all over the place. And then it was over. Me still in tears because this stuff sucks and I hate it and them wanting it over and to move on. We all wanted that. So Hank went off on a 2 day vacation (lucky him) after many hugs and I'm sorries. And my youngest son Jack took me to lunch.<br />
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Let me also say that 1. I don't eat or sleep well when I am stressed. AT ALL. 2. I'm really trying to be healthy and make great food choices 3. Did I mention that I'm very low on money and not splurging on treats ( frugality is good but sometimes it's hard). So without being judgy about the smells in his vehicle or letting any of my negative worry thoughts slip out, we went to lunch. We tried a new pizza place that makes individual pizzas to your special order and you can watch them in the open pizza oven. I got a super amazing veggie pizza with white sauce on a thin crust. Jack got his favorite Pepperoni and Pineapple. We got a big chocolate chip cookie with sea salt on the top to split and....we had root beer. Old fashioned, not diet, root beer. And we talked about graduation, big plans, football and girls. No phones, nothing else beyond being at lunch and having pizza and root beer. I didn't think about the sugar in the root beer or the processed wheat in the pizza crust. I let that cookie sit in my mouth and I enjoyed every single bit of all of it. I let the argument and the truck repair worry slip away. Just my boy and I having lunch. Oh how I needed this.<br />
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We drove home with his truck windows down, the weather is that perfect mix of warm but not too warm, the weather where we live hoovers there for a bit in the spring and fall and today was just such a perfect windows down day. I opened all the windows in the house when I got home, realized I was exhausted and I lay down for a nap. The cat joined me and Jack opened his windows and lay down as well. I let the angst of the fight and the financial stuff float on out those open windows. I let myself let go for an hour feeling a little more content and appreciative. I remembered how much I trust the unfolding of things (so do it already) and how very much I needed to breathe.<br />
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I woke up and felt cleansed. Like I can gather my resources both financial and emotional back together and take on the stuff life throws my way. My young men are learning how to be in this world, they don't mean to be inconsiderate and difficult and I certainly do not want our only interactions to be over the top and so emotionally charged. Maybe I do need to find some Chill and get used to not being turned up to freakout mode all the time. We came clean with each other, we hugged and said we loved each other and all promised to do better. Tomorrow a friend of my husband is showing up with his car fixing tools and together they will tackle the broken ball joint. I'll be here making and writing my way to financial success (putting it out there Universe, do your thing) and when Hank gets home on Sunday we will have my ham and scalloped potatoes like every Easter Sunday. Life stuff...good life stuff<br />
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We will be okay. The truck will get fixed, the phone bill will get paid and life will go on. On a day such as this it's important to remember all of that . It's good to roll the truck windows when you drive around town and go get a pizza once in a while. The world will keep spinning. Amen.<br />
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LOVE Wildly.<br />
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BarbaraBarbarahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02487757049956058273noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7163398133573937986.post-71837242185847513162018-03-29T15:27:00.004-07:002018-03-29T15:27:52.452-07:00Showing up I don't ever want to go to the gym... I could come up with a hundred or 3 million reasons that I have other more important things to do. But I go ..not as often as I should which is silly because I am ALWAYS glad I went. Because showing up is the deal. Getting there, ready or not and doing the stuff that I am avoiding. Starting is always harder than it should be but when I'm done, I feel like I own the world. The whole thing, all of it is mine. At least at that moment..<br />
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I think this may apply to a whole lot of life things. Creating reasons why I can't or don't want to do it today. I know I could write a book about how to not do stuff. But as always, good things happen when I actually do show up.. when I make space and time for the things I know I will love and want once I'm in the middle of it. That's sort of where I am with life right now, wanting to be and do more but still avoiding the showing up and just being present. Participating in the good life moments by just being there....<br />
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Yesterday I showed up big time. I made stuff, I wrote here, I took pictures of the stuff I made, listed them in my online shop, sent the links and pictures to social media pages and dropped an order off at the post office to ship out. It was a good productive day, nothing outstanding but it was the kind of day I am here for.<br />
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This morning I wanted to eat cinnamon raisin toast and sleep in til 10. Instead I got up, had a healthy breakfast and headed to the gym. You see when I'm stuck in my worries, I self medicate with naps and carbs. Today I didn't do that. I met a friend for a good workout and rewarded myself with an amazing salad. Came home, cleaned the kitchen well and got to work in my sewing space looking out at the trees. It wasn't big or fancy, just doing the things to take me where I want to go.. One day at a time, having a plan and purpose and being present. Showing up for myself; showing up for life... It's self care, it's a daily practice and effort but so much more fulfilling and effective than naps and toast.<br />
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Til tomorrow.<br />
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Love Wildly<br />
BarbaraBarbarahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02487757049956058273noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7163398133573937986.post-13233014546249094092018-03-28T14:43:00.000-07:002018-03-28T14:43:48.481-07:00One Day at a TimeIt's time to be committed to the writing of things. What I know best is where I am in the middle of this middle age thing. Maybe I don't know it all but I surely have overthought life and all the things that got me from there to here and in trying to be present, maybe putting it all into this space is the best way to navigate and share . So this spot will be my safe place, talk about my day, speak my truth and connect to the world kind of place. I'll hopefully grow as a writer and stop overthinking and letting the unfolding of this part of life happen. The story of my story.<br />
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I've had some incredible moments of sureness and purpose in the past couple of months since my day job ended. I've also had some horrible feelings of failure. Keep in mind I haven't done much in the way of making things happen, I worked a quilt retreat and watched snow fall in the mountains for days. I've reorganized my work space and 12 bins of fabric so I can find my "supplies". I've weathered an awful cold/flu thing that roared through my family. I've been so sure that my little handmade business would explode with all the things I made and I was so sure I would make enough to pay my bills. And to be sure, I've had some sweet things happen but truly I haven't been as productive as I should or need to be. Which makes being discouraged and fearful a really silly thing, because I haven't done the work that I know will take me where I want to be. I let other stuff take up my time. <br />
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Last night I let this huge doubt cloud engulf me and I lost my vision for a few hours. I cried a lot in overthinking, frustration and sense of failing (when I haven't even truly tried!!! omg the emotional minefields I can create!!). I filled out applications for jobs I don't want through tears and unsureness. My bank account is pitiful and empty and I keep wondering how it is at my age I am here, unsure and low on resources. But the thing is, I wouldn't let my children fall down this rabbit hole. I would tell them that they hold the answers to all their worries in their own hands. I would tell them to breathe, step outside and remember their plans and purpose. And I would make them drink water, stretch, go to the gym and get some sleep. And then do the next thing they are here to do...I would guide them through the self care they need to remember who they are and what they are capable of. Yes I get that I need to parent myself through this crisis of my own making.<br />
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I am here because my life didn't travel a safe straight line. I am here because I believe in something that I can't quite put my hands on but know is important and real. I am here because I'm making space for the things that matter which includes letting my creative soul come out into the light even when the doubt cloud is hovering. So today I drank some water, stretched my body, worked out and slept well. I ate a good breakfast and got to work. In my pajamas, with my hair in the messy ponytail I slept in. I made a to do list of 10 things and am working my way through. And I'm here, writing stuff down because I love the writing down of stuff. I had a couple of sales, I have a growing stack of cute things that will be sent to my favorite wholesale shop in the world and I listed stuff in Etsy. That is progress of a tangible nature. I am here feeling less like a failure and more like a girl who is building what she intends to build. Because I did the things I meant to do.<br />
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Yesterday was my dad's birthday and it's been a while since I could sit and talk with him. I miss his way of listening and then teaching me to sort it out. I wondered what he would say if I told him all the stuff that is weighing on my heart and I remembered a sign he had in his woodshop classroom. It said " your mother isn't in this class, clean up after yourself" That was his way, take care of your own stuff. I think if he was around, he would tell me to stop crying and wasting time looking for jobs I don't want. Be realistic, do the work, make the things, work the plan and don't let doubt win. I think as always he would be right. Just keep going and stop crying and wringing my hands.. Remember stand out under the stars each night to remember how much I love a curvy road.<br />
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So that's that.. Where I am today. I'll see you all tomorrow, you can count on that.<br />
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Love Wildly<br />
Barbara<br />
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<br />Barbarahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02487757049956058273noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7163398133573937986.post-5809642451677174922018-02-27T13:54:00.001-08:002018-02-27T13:54:51.698-08:00Me<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Daughter</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Sister</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Mother</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Wife</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Grandmother</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Friend</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Worker</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Maker, big dreamer, truth speaker, story teller, love giver, star gazer, open hearted, wild and willful. flower gatherer.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Clumsy, easy crier, loud talker, constant singer, emotion wearer, peace seeker. Ninja warrior princess when called.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Hug giver, strength chaser, moved by music, frugal, creative, afternoon napper, food lover, comforter. Conflicted and sure. Heart aching, love craver. over sharer, constant talker. cowgirl without a horse.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Squirrel brain, midnight thinker, moon dancer, barefoot always, hair tangled, lie hater, love and truth , avoider, procrastinator, bad joke teller, at last unbroken. Simple style. Cluttered and uncluttering. Wishful wanderer, brave and fearful, over-thinker, bad saver. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Business builder, fabric hoarder, needle and thread, book reader, too frequent smart phone user, self care giver.... rain, mountains, movie musicals, good quotes, grey tee shirts, clouds, ferris wheels, small birds, animals, beach, breeze, sun, freckles,curves, simple and complex, health and fitness finder, soul tender. Live out louder. Wild flower. Me</span><br />
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BarbaraBarbarahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02487757049956058273noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7163398133573937986.post-60889736226288435012018-02-07T12:02:00.001-08:002018-02-07T12:02:44.661-08:00Plan AI must have started this particular post a thousand times in my head, in the middle of the night when I couldn't sleep. Which has been most nights lately. The not sleeping thing. And those thousand posts sounded much better than what is flying out of my fingertips in the daylight but I'm here and committed to this....the writing of things and telling of stories. So please stay with me while I find the words that I had in the night....<br />
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I am here in the first week after my part time quilt shop job ended. Also, without my sports mom duties that also ended. 2 big parts of my world are gone....loose ends.... I'm all in for my little table top business. Wildflower 57, my heart and soul made into cute things and this blog for writing of good words.. I'm here for all of that... . My Plan A. It is time to see it through, put it all on the line and with blind faith in nothing but myself. It was way easier to look at it as something in the future, to look forward to while I schemed and plotted my course. Way easier than being in the first week and waking up in the middle of EVERY single night wondering what kind of crazy I am. <br />
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Oh and did I mention that my only ever professional career was over 20 years ago, I was a paralegal and department administrator for law firms. I had all the suits and navy pumps and a working girl haircut. I carried a brief case style bag full of notepads and pens and wrote lots of stuff down. I went to court and I spent time with my nose in law books, writing legal documents. I was good at it but that was a very long time ago. I'm outdated and not relevant in that world anymore and honestly that's okay. <br />
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So I'm here in my work room, surrounded by all the gorgeous fabrics, vintage sheets, buttons and threads. I am here to make things and write words and build my company to where I know it can go. I am 60 now, in the middle of this re-creating and redefining of my life and my purpose.. Or maybe I'm just falling back into what I always knew was my place. It's terrifying and yet I'm giddy except in the middle of the night when sleep is hard. I'm having trouble finding my starting spot if I'm totally honest, so here I am trying to step over my fears and not wake them up. I'm showing up and putting fabric into stacks, vintage sheet fabrics to mix up, cut up and sew back together. Trusting my instincts and just being here in the midst of it. I will stop being tentative and overthinking and let it fly as it will. I don't know if I am out of my mind or if this is the best idea ever but I'm here to find out. Because my friends....I have NO PLAN B. I have $23 in my bank account and half a tank of gas. I have this room I call the Tree Fort, my sewing machine, I have my squirrel party imagination, creative drive and a fierce desire to boss this business into profitability. I have blind silly never ending, insane trust in the things that whisper my name...I'm hurling myself over the edge of safety and comfort.... This ....is.... it...and I'm here.. <br />
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Mostly what I know is that whatever comes, however this all goes....it will be okay. Those other things had to end to make space for this and whatever comes next. Change is not easy even if it takes us to a better or a different place that holds something important. The process is messy and sharp and hard. Letting go of things that mattered is a twisty turny process, the memories of the best of it hold on tight and make it hard to wiggle free. But there is something waiting for us on the other side. In the space left by the things that had to go... life moves on, the tide comes in and sleep will come.... mostly.... I will be okay.. I will be okay.. I will be okay.<br />
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<br />Barbarahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02487757049956058273noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7163398133573937986.post-10134022211843884632017-12-31T10:38:00.000-08:002017-12-31T11:52:39.063-08:00Wild Daisy in the SunAs happens at the end of every year, I do a little assessing of where I am. It's not a bad thing to take stock and refresh ...make plans and list hopes . Not a bad thing at all. Especially for the over thinkers, worriers and dreamers. It's the perfect time to evaluate and plot the course for the 12 months ahead . Fresh starts and big ideas... <br />
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I like to create a theme for myself, built around a word or a notion that fits where I am in life and where I want the next year to take me. The story I want to write for myself. And this year especially seems to be the blankest of pages waiting for life to scribble itself all over. Change is the new normal in my world...my sports mom life is over, my youngest is heading into his last semester of High School, my job is ending and I will never again have a crappy Christmas (that's a story for another day)...so I'm left with trying to figure out what I want....and what I've figured out is that I want more. In all caps....MORE. More of what is good.... more taking care of me, more financial security, more of my handmade business, more writing, more making, more of my path, more health, more fitness, more travel, more of my children and grandchildren, more family, more of my besties, more taking chances, more time well spent, more peace, more happiness, more fun, more love and more life...my life, the one I choose, so much more of that. MORE...which means I also want less...<br />
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Less worry, less over thinking, less sadness, less feeling powerless, less clutter of all kinds, less of what is bad or heavy and oh my goodness....LESS WHINING... less complaining about what is wrong and more fixing it so that it is all right. Less thinking I have no control when it's actually my life in my own hands...Less allowing what feels like an itchy life sweater... I think you get it...More of what is good so there is no room for anything else...filling up on MORE<br />
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"Turn your face to the sun and the shadows will fall behind you"</div>
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~Maori proverb</div>
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This photo by @sacraluna on Instagram caught me this morning and along with the proverb are my 2018. Wild Daisies growing in the sun...shadows behind them. That is how I feel and want to be, growing wild, face to the sun ..... </div>
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The best of everything to you all this year, I hope you will stay with me for the MORE to come. Plot your course and come with me. <3</div>
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<br />Barbarahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02487757049956058273noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7163398133573937986.post-15011551720205694402017-11-11T14:28:00.003-08:002017-11-11T14:28:36.063-08:00Just Like Fire I turned 60 a few weeks ago. I whined a whole lot about it, partly in disbelief that I am an age that I always considered to be beyond my best years. That was until I got here and it's sort of a jump in and enjoy it or cry and be a sadpants whiney baby. Sadpants whiney baby doesn't sound so fun. So I find myself asking myself "how does it really feel Barbara Wiggins...to be 60" and I will tell you. It feels like fire. It feels like the volcano inside of me that has been bubbling under the thin surface is coming out to play and it's not going to be gentle or quiet at all..unless gentle and quiet are what I want at that moment. I am seriously not going to take much of anything that doesn't feel like it's working in my favor. <br />
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Let me be clear. I'm not angry at anyone. The things that I have let hold me down and back, that's on me...., the notion that I have little choice in the matter of my own life, the excuses I make for my situation whatever that may be, also on me. I bought into other people's stories and promises with no proof that they were true....That shit stops now. ( oh ..I forgot to warn you that there may be some cussing in this post. I'm not sorry but if it offends you, I totally get it and you can get out right now before I go a little deeper).... So as I was saying. I'm not angry at all. I'm just not interested in running all my actions, words, wardrobe choices, hairstyles, thoughts or feelings by anyone else for approval. You can call it defiance, I call it waking the Hell up. <br />
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There have been a couple of things on my mind that got me to this place right here and right now. ...First of all my lovely part time quilt shop job is going away. The bosses are retiring and the shop is closing. I have so enjoyed my 4 years there, I 've learned so very much but I've diverted my attention away from my own business and lately I've found myself sharp edged and easily frustrated which tells me, I'm ready for this even as bittersweet as it is. I love the girls I work with and am hopeful we will find time for each other going forward. When this news broke, I had a huge overflow of hot emotions...a crazy hot lava volcanic explosion that clearly needed to be sorted out. Fear, sadness, frustration, ,worry ......all of it....blew out of me with such a ferocity that I didn't understand or expect. So maybe, most certainly, the timing of this change while unforeseen, is not a bad thing at all.<br />
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And then this...my youngest son is finishing his last football season... which means his senior year is moving by at light speed. My life has been for 35 plus years about taking care of my kids and while I have failed in many ways, my intention and love for them and what they need have been my driving force. I have literally built my life around who needs what from me. I've made job decisions and life decisions based on nurturing other people and being needed . That being needed full time is waning. My older kids are nurturing their own babies and doing a far better job than I could ever do. My youngest are 20 and 17 and I need to step off and let them do more of their own taking care of things so they are ready for the big leaving they keep talking about. They have big plans to move out and onward together and while it's not imminent...it's getting closer and will happen before I blink 20 more times. I must have my feet under me without depending on my children for my emotional and life balance.<br />
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I stood under the stars the other night with tears and fears all falling down around me. The cool air always soothes my spirit and the breeze whispers sweet love into my ear. And as clear as anything, I heard "it's time to do what you are here to do"....It sounded a whole lot like my dad's voice and I imagine if I could possibly have 5 minutes with him , I would ask him what I should do. And he would say "you got yourself here, you can get yourself anywhere you want to go, figure it out"..because he wasn't about finding my answers, he was about asking the questions and letting me find my own solutions...which is why I can change a tire and siphon gas....but that's for another time..<br />
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So here is to my 60 and beyond, and to the fire that came with the years I have lived. I don't think I was ready for this place or time before now. My friends all say this is the best time, I believe them now... it's absolutely time I get it.. I'm letting the fire out to play, my spark has returned and I have big purpose and plans for myself that I'm excited about.... I'll be loud, I'll be quiet, I'll dance or skip or nap...I'll create, read, wear, eat and say what I want and when I want. I've earned the right to be here in all my glory darn it and while I hope the people I love will get it and love me more for all of my firey stuff showing up.... <span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: transparent; color: black; display: inline !important; float: none; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">I'm left with the question...."how does 60 feel Barbara Wiggins?". the answer is ...it feels like fire, the very best kind....It feels like life...</span><br />
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<span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: transparent; border-collapse: collapse; border-spacing: 0px 0px; color: #444444; display: inline !important; float: none; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 19.5px; list-style-image: none; list-style-position: outside; list-style-type: none; orphans: 2; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">"Just like fire, burnin' up the way </span><br style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: transparent; border-bottom-color: rgb(68, 68, 68); border-bottom-style: none; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-collapse: collapse; border-image-outset: 0; border-image-repeat: stretch; border-image-slice: 100%; border-image-source: none; border-image-width: 1; border-left-color: rgb(68, 68, 68); border-left-style: none; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-color: rgb(68, 68, 68); border-right-style: none; border-right-width: 0px; border-spacing: 0px 0px; border-top-color: rgb(68, 68, 68); border-top-style: none; border-top-width: 0px; color: #444444; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 19.5px; list-style-image: none; list-style-position: outside; list-style-type: none; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; orphans: 2; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;" /><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: transparent; border-collapse: collapse; border-spacing: 0px 0px; color: #444444; display: inline !important; float: none; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 19.5px; list-style-image: none; list-style-position: outside; list-style-type: none; orphans: 2; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">If I could light the world up for just one day </span><br style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: transparent; border-bottom-color: rgb(68, 68, 68); border-bottom-style: none; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-collapse: collapse; border-image-outset: 0; border-image-repeat: stretch; border-image-slice: 100%; border-image-source: none; border-image-width: 1; border-left-color: rgb(68, 68, 68); border-left-style: none; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-color: rgb(68, 68, 68); border-right-style: none; border-right-width: 0px; border-spacing: 0px 0px; border-top-color: rgb(68, 68, 68); border-top-style: none; border-top-width: 0px; color: #444444; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 19.5px; list-style-image: none; list-style-position: outside; list-style-type: none; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; orphans: 2; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;" /><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: transparent; border-collapse: collapse; border-spacing: 0px 0px; color: #444444; display: inline !important; float: none; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 19.5px; list-style-image: none; list-style-position: outside; list-style-type: none; orphans: 2; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">Watch this madness, colorful charade </span><br style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: transparent; border-bottom-color: rgb(68, 68, 68); border-bottom-style: none; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-collapse: collapse; border-image-outset: 0; border-image-repeat: stretch; border-image-slice: 100%; border-image-source: none; border-image-width: 1; border-left-color: rgb(68, 68, 68); border-left-style: none; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-color: rgb(68, 68, 68); border-right-style: none; border-right-width: 0px; border-spacing: 0px 0px; border-top-color: rgb(68, 68, 68); border-top-style: none; border-top-width: 0px; color: #444444; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 19.5px; list-style-image: none; list-style-position: outside; list-style-type: none; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; orphans: 2; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;" /><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: transparent; border-collapse: collapse; border-spacing: 0px 0px; color: #444444; display: inline !important; float: none; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 19.5px; list-style-image: none; list-style-position: outside; list-style-type: none; orphans: 2; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">No one can be just like me anyway </span><br style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: transparent; border-bottom-color: rgb(68, 68, 68); border-bottom-style: none; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-collapse: collapse; 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border-collapse: collapse; border-spacing: 0px 0px; color: #444444; display: inline !important; float: none; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 19.5px; list-style-image: none; list-style-position: outside; list-style-type: none; orphans: 2; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">Just like magic, I'll be flying free </span><br style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: transparent; border-bottom-color: rgb(68, 68, 68); border-bottom-style: none; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-collapse: collapse; border-image-outset: 0; border-image-repeat: stretch; border-image-slice: 100%; border-image-source: none; border-image-width: 1; border-left-color: rgb(68, 68, 68); border-left-style: none; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-color: rgb(68, 68, 68); border-right-style: none; border-right-width: 0px; border-spacing: 0px 0px; border-top-color: rgb(68, 68, 68); border-top-style: none; border-top-width: 0px; color: #444444; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 19.5px; list-style-image: none; list-style-position: outside; list-style-type: none; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; orphans: 2; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;" /><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: transparent; border-collapse: collapse; border-spacing: 0px 0px; color: #444444; display: inline !important; float: none; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 19.5px; list-style-image: none; list-style-position: outside; list-style-type: none; orphans: 2; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">I'mma disappear when they come for me </span><br style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: transparent; border-bottom-color: rgb(68, 68, 68); border-bottom-style: none; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-collapse: collapse; border-image-outset: 0; border-image-repeat: stretch; border-image-slice: 100%; border-image-source: none; border-image-width: 1; border-left-color: rgb(68, 68, 68); border-left-style: none; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-color: rgb(68, 68, 68); border-right-style: none; border-right-width: 0px; border-spacing: 0px 0px; border-top-color: rgb(68, 68, 68); border-top-style: none; border-top-width: 0px; color: #444444; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 19.5px; list-style-image: none; list-style-position: outside; list-style-type: none; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; orphans: 2; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;" /><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: transparent; border-collapse: collapse; border-spacing: 0px 0px; color: #444444; display: inline !important; float: none; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 19.5px; list-style-image: none; list-style-position: outside; list-style-type: none; orphans: 2; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">I kick that ceiling, what you gonna say? </span><br style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: transparent; border-bottom-color: rgb(68, 68, 68); border-bottom-style: none; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-collapse: collapse; border-image-outset: 0; border-image-repeat: stretch; border-image-slice: 100%; border-image-source: none; border-image-width: 1; border-left-color: rgb(68, 68, 68); border-left-style: none; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-color: rgb(68, 68, 68); border-right-style: none; border-right-width: 0px; border-spacing: 0px 0px; border-top-color: rgb(68, 68, 68); border-top-style: none; border-top-width: 0px; color: #444444; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 19.5px; list-style-image: none; list-style-position: outside; list-style-type: none; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; orphans: 2; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;" /><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: transparent; border-collapse: collapse; border-spacing: 0px 0px; color: #444444; display: inline !important; float: none; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 19.5px; list-style-image: none; list-style-position: outside; list-style-type: none; orphans: 2; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">No one can be just like me anyway </span><br style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: transparent; border-bottom-color: rgb(68, 68, 68); border-bottom-style: none; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-collapse: collapse; border-image-outset: 0; border-image-repeat: stretch; border-image-slice: 100%; border-image-source: none; border-image-width: 1; border-left-color: rgb(68, 68, 68); border-left-style: none; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-color: rgb(68, 68, 68); border-right-style: none; border-right-width: 0px; border-spacing: 0px 0px; border-top-color: rgb(68, 68, 68); border-top-style: none; border-top-width: 0px; color: #444444; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 19.5px; list-style-image: none; list-style-position: outside; list-style-type: none; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; orphans: 2; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;" /><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: transparent; border-collapse: collapse; border-spacing: 0px 0px; color: #444444; display: inline !important; float: none; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 19.5px; list-style-image: none; list-style-position: outside; list-style-type: none; orphans: 2; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">Just like fire" </span><br />
<span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: transparent; border-collapse: collapse; border-spacing: 0px 0px; color: #444444; display: inline !important; float: none; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 19.5px; list-style-image: none; list-style-position: outside; list-style-type: none; orphans: 2; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">~Pink, Just Like Fire~</span><br />
<span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: transparent; border-collapse: collapse; border-spacing: 0px 0px; color: #444444; display: inline !important; float: none; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 19.5px; list-style-image: none; list-style-position: outside; list-style-type: none; orphans: 2; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: green; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Love Wildly</span><br />
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Barbarahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02487757049956058273noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7163398133573937986.post-52154611125796297352017-10-13T15:10:00.000-07:002017-10-13T17:45:40.141-07:00The Gift of Perspective<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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.My favorite constellation is the Big Dipper, it's easy to find and from my backpacking and camping trips in my youth, it was always for me a way to get my bearings while in the dark of the mountains. I look for it every single night as I stand barefoot on the damp ground no matter where I am. My feet on the Earth and star watching centers my soul no matter what the day has handed me. The Big Dipper looks over my mom, my siblings and their families, my children who are scattered around, their spouses and my grandchildren. It looks over my girlfriends, it watches over me me and everyone I care about. It looks over our dark world. and just over the handle of the Big Dipper is a big dark empty spot in the sky. Or so I thought... this is what is really there.</div>
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Can you even believe that beauty???? We can't see it because it's so far away but the Hubble telescope can because it sits and waits for the light to come through. Someone on Earth created the tool to see farther than we can imagine. I find that to be a wonderful thought. There is so much more than what we can see. Let me say that again.... THERE IS SO MUCH MORE THAN WHAT WE SEE.</div>
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You guys... I wrote the above on a Sunday October 1... Thinking about amazing stars and things like that. I was texting with a dear friend who was in Las Vegas. At the Route 91 Harvest concert. And then her texts changed... at 10:38 </div>
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"OMG There is shooting everywhere"</div>
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There was more but none of it made sense. My friend, her husband and another friend had been in the middle of one of the worst mass shootings in our nation's history and my blood turned cold with fear and worry. I got a call from her from the airport the next morning to let me know they were okay and heading home. Exhausted, scared, traumatized and so ready to hug their children. I didn't even know what to say except that I loved them and grateful that they were safe.</div>
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It's taken me a bunch of days to find words and even now as I type it feels so insignificant, far better minds than mine have contemplated the nature of our collective anger, hurt and shock. I don't have the ability to do more than offer my perspective and thoughts. </div>
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I wasn't at the concert, I have never had to run for my life or be so afraid, yet I feel changed... This shooting....fires all summer in the Northwest, floods, hurricanes and now my state of California is on fire...it's all grabbed my attention. So much real suffering and loss. I've allowed myself to be the hostess of some ginormous pity parties lately...which is craziness because life is pretty sweet for me and I am ashamed that at times I have taken the best of it for granted and wallowed in the stuff that isn't meeting my expectations. I've let stupid petty words and actions undo me and given away time and energy to situations that aren't deserving of such time and energy. I've allowed little things to be bigger things and dwelled when dwelling served no purpose. Wasted time and emotion on things that didn't matter much. What can I do in the face of everything that is going on? Stop it . That's what. I can do better first for myself so I am available as a human being for bigger and more important things. I can love my people even deeper and show them every chance I get that they mean the world to me. I can be kinder, slower to anger and goodness, I can stop holding one bit of judgement or assumption in my heart. I can raise my standards of behavior and fix the words that slip out of my mouth. And every morning when I wake up in a warm home with enough food for my children, I can remember that these things at not to be taken lightly. </div>
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I can do small things rather than nothing. People's lives have been changed in all the rolling disasters that we are experiencing right now. I can't fix it all but I surely can love a little deeper and appreciate a whole lot more. Appreciate wildly the gifts and blessings in my world. Be positive and shining in all things. Stop whining and just live my best life... regardless. Give more than I get, love more than I cry, let people know that they are seen and that they matter. Appreciate Appreciate Appreciate. Because there at in the midst of all of this, I believe there are still days upon days of goodness and possibility. I believe in the middle of chaos, the best of us comes to the surface and we will learn to hold on to each other a little more and find what binds us together and reach out a hand in anyway we can. I believe in the middle of it all, we are changed for the better...</div>
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So above the Big Dipper, when you go out and look at the stars, you will see that big blank space, remember it is actually filled with the brilliant and colorful light of a few trillion stars and galaxies, you can't see them but they are most certainly there, waiting patiently for us to look hard and long enough. And in the midst of what feels like endless disaster and tragedy, there will be trillions of points of light that will carry people through, I know I want to be that..... Perspective, gratitude and love....count on those....</div>
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Love Wildly, Radiate Love</div>
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Barbara</div>
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<br />Barbarahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02487757049956058273noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7163398133573937986.post-61865344127520698002017-10-01T09:07:00.001-07:002017-10-01T09:08:17.760-07:0027 Gifts I've been gone a while...about a year. I've been pretty much hiding and trying to find myself at the same time, really just getting by and trying to make it feel like enough.. A move I didn't want to make and well just life and what it throws around. But now seems like as good a time as any to show up, like really show up. You see this is a time of what feels like the most important days of my life. I'll tell you why.<br />
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I'm turning 60 in 27 days. Seriously you all...60. I'm sort of struggling with it and not because I wish for my lost youth back. Really NO..... But more because I'm not where I would like to be in life. I've let comfort and fear hold me here. 60 feels like the something is whispering...."Are you kidding me??? You are going to do it like this?" I'm simply not living the life I know is my best life. So that crap needs to stop. I'm not going to whine, blame or deflect. I need to change some things and some of those changes are going to be well...not so comfortable. I need to live free and happy to just be me and that is going to rattle some cages. I must do better for myself.<br />
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I find that I'm deeply reflective but also ready to stop being so serious. It's time to have some fun and take off the heaviness that I've worn around for more than a couple of years. I am by my very nature a extroverted introvert, a quiet and loud girl, tired and energetic, happy and sad, afraid to speak up and wanting to share my voice.. I'm a study in contradictions. My own problem and my saving grace. And with all the over thinking and wanting simplicity, the one thing that comes back to me is my overriding need for connection and belonging. In short, I need to love, be loved and live with my heart a little closer to the surface. I need to live my life unafraid to be who I am. Stop defending my way in the world and stop letting myself be where I feel wounded and small. And goodness knows I really need some fun. Life has to be more than sadness. I must do better for myself. <br />
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So in all of this internal chaos, let's add in the impending empty nest. Okay not totally empty but my last child of 5 is a senior in high school. Since the age of 23 I've been mothering as my first job. I don't always get it right, goodness knows there are some things I wish I could do over and take back and make right and fix. But I can't. I hope they all knew I loved them first and foremost. I hope they understand that if nothing else. So at an age when most of my friends are traveling and retiring, I find myself for the first time in my adult life needing to have my own adult life that isn't solely based on who needs me when and where and figuring out what they need to eat. I find myself knowing that I need a life that isn't completely about my children. That is exhilarating and terrifying at the same time. While my youngest two are going to be around for a bit longer,( they have chosen to attend Junior College and live at home), life is changing fast. When they are here, they are together, preferring each other's company to mine. And that's as it should be. I know that these days are gravy. On Friday nights watching my youngest play the last half of his senior football season, I know the moments like this are ticking by faster than a stopwatch. He drives himself to school and where he needs to go. I go to the gym with them a couple of times a week and am grateful for that time and attention. But clearly, I can no longer be all about their lives because as they find their lives, I need to create mine. I must do better for myself.<br />
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I've spent the better part of the last couple of years, trying to shed sadness and fear. I was in a dark place dealing with some hard stuff and so much pain. I knew for certain that I was not loved in a way that made any kind of sense to me. I let my value and worth be determined by so many wrong things. I struggled with truths I didn't want and not to make it sound simple or easy because it wasn't at all. But I was letting how I felt be decided and toyed with because I didn't value or love or trust myself. When I was able to climb out of that dark damp place, I came out with the promise to put myself on the list of people I take care of and figure out what it is I wanted and deserved in this life of mine. I started doing self care and investing in my own well being. (we are so going to talk about all of that, more than a few times). I also knew I needed to make my way financially but honor my handmade life and desire to write. I don't want to live broke anymore, with my hand out to ask for small loans from someone who is supposed to provide for me. I had to figure it out so that the days ahead won't be so worried and I will have freedom. There, I said it, I'm tired of being broke, I'm tired of being controlled by money and I'm not having it ANY MORE. I am capable and creative and it's time to be in charge. It's easier in my world to not do that but honestly, that isn't working. I must do better for myself.<br />
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So I titled this blogpost 27 gifts and this is why. 27 days to the big 60 and I think it's a gift, this time in my life, it looks like nobody else's 60 and that's perfectly okay because I am not like anybody else, none of us do.... (shocker). I wanted to make a statement to the world, the people I love and mostly to myself that it is my time. I've talked to them about it all and they aren't quite getting it. So I'll say it here and now. I'm taking care of me. I'm surrounding myself with the best kind of people and experiences and I'm going to do what is good for the life I deserve. 27 gifts, one for each day until that magical birthday, when I will celebrate for myself with freedom from what doesn't serve me well. Today..the gift was to write and speak up. To let the light into this over thinking soul of mine and return to this blog, a place for truth telling whatever that might be. I deserve a life lived out loud, I deserve peace, I deserve happiness, I deserve all the good things that I want to give. I deserve Love and Belonging.. Here and Now. <br />
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Today this is my gift to me. SHOW UP, create and write without hesitation, fear or second guessing, . Here and Now. A little stronger, a little happier, less quiet and pretty giddy.....<br />
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Love Wildly<br />
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Barbara<br />
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<br />Barbarahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02487757049956058273noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7163398133573937986.post-78685118700231526922016-11-13T10:11:00.000-08:002016-11-13T10:11:08.194-08:00Safety and LoveI was 14 years old walking to meet my ride to school. A sunny spring day and I was wearing a sweet baby blue dress with puffy short sleeves that my grandmother had designed and made for me. And on my feet, white Dr. Scholl Sandals, the wood bottomed slip on shoes that clacked when I walked. I weighed all of 95 pounds and didn't even wear makeup. It was 1971 and I cannot get the clarity of that day out of my head even now. <br />
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Because there was no bus service to my parents home 3 miles from school, I walked a mile and a half to my friend's home to catch a ride, her brothers and sisters had a car to drive them all to school and there was a spot for me if I made it to their house by the time they left for school. The first part of my walk was a half mile that was more like a road through a tunnel of trees than a regular street. Then there were scattered houses and twisty climbing streets until I reached my friend's home. <br />
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On that day as I entered the tunnel of trees part of the walk, there was a pale blue VW bug parked on the side of the road. I walked about 200 yards into the tunnel clacking my new white Dr. Scholls on the road. Then there were footsteps behind me, that was unusual I remember thinking. But being a shy small 14 year old, I kept walking. Until the footsteps caught up to me and I heard a man's voice say "Do you have a match?" I turned around to answer...the man had his pants down and was exposing himself to me. I turned to run and just like in every bad dream, it felt like my feet were in cement. I must have somehow managed to take some running steps because I can still feel how hard it was to run in those pretty white wood bottom sandals of mine. I heard him start to run after me, and I ran as fast as I could manage although it felt like I wasn't moving fast at all. Then his footsteps sounded farther away as for some reason he stopped chasing me and ran the other way. <br />
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I burst through the darkness of the tunnel of trees to where the scattered houses were. He was gone. I now know I was falling into some kind of shock mode and I stood by the driveway of a house shaking for what felt like hours. And then because I didn't know what else to do. I finished my walk to my friend's home. I got in the car like always and rode to school feeling like I was going to throw up. I didn't say anything, I didn't know what to say and I hadn't fully processed it all. <br />
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When I got to school, I went to a couple of classes and then the tears began. I found my way to a pay phone and called my mom. Who called the police. And they came to school. The police called me out of my class and walked me to the office in front of everyone. Then they interviewed me. It was awkward and horribly embarrassing. And not once did anyone offer any degree of comfort or anything I could grab onto as concern. The police left me at school still reeling and on the verge of falling apart. I believe I confided in a couple of close friends but the rumors had already started swirling as the entire school saw two officers walk me through the campus. I may have shared the details with people who weren't close friends but I was being asked over and over why the police had been with me. And then older boys started looking at me in the hallway and I was asked over and over again "Do you have a match?" I suppose they thought it was funny. I supposed the Juniors and Seniors who asked me out on dates thought I was the kind of girl who had asked for this to happen. I don't know. I had never even been kissed. I was beyond naïve and they wanted to take me out.....<br />
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I got a ride from my parents the next day to school, but the day after that I walked the tunnel of trees and every other day until my friend told her mom what had happened and that mom had her kids drive towards my house and they picked me up at the entrance to the tunnel of trees road. Nobody really spoke of it afterward. Nobody including me. It wasn't how it was done back then. I felt unsafe and afraid every single day. Nobody asked if I was okay, nobody told me I was safe or that it wasn't my fault. I never wore that baby blue dress again and I certainly didn't wear Dr. Scholls sandals. Because you can't run in them.<br />
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I was terrorized and afraid for my life because a man thought a 14 year old was someone to assault and victimize on a dark deserted road when she walked to school. I had pushed this memory down where it was hidden in the deepness and although it surfaced once in a while, I worked hard to leave it hidden. I hadn't thought much about it lately until I started to run into words being thrown around lately about men who can take what they want from women. My memory and how it felt to be at the mercy of a stranger who inflicted so much damage with his actions came shooting to the top of my consciousness. The minimizing of this kind of thinking and talking and behavior has shaken my sense of safety and calm. Men joking about locker room talk or people saying that those who speak this way are just joking. It doesn't feel like joking, it feels like some people's true thoughts showing up. It doesn't feel okay. It makes my stomach hurt to be honest. <br />
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I am sharing my story now because I am compelled to speak out for anyone who feels minimized and afraid. Silence isn't how we heal, silence isn't how we stand for what is good. Pushing down a memory of assault and fear isn't how we go forward for it will always come back to be talked about and dealt with. I believe it's time for us to stand for what we believe in, that we should gather strength to stand for what matters. Hold ourselves and others to a higher standard. Find a way to connect so that we see the humanity in everyone. I'm just a girl writing a small blog, I don't have answers to what is waging right now. I know it feels unsafe and everyone seems to be on high alert. For me, I'm going to do for others what my 14 year old self needed in 1971. I'm going to check in on people, I'm going to make sure we are okay and I'm going to make sure I'm okay. I'm going to protect those who need it, stand up for what needs to be stood up for and love the fear right out of the space I am in. If you need someone to check in on you, ask for it. Don't stay silent, reach out. Take care of yourself, take care of the people around you. Give and receive compassion, listen more, rant less. Let your light shine bright so that it is a beacon of goodness. Love deeper. LOVE more. LOVE ON.<br />
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With Love and Hope <br />
BarbaraBarbarahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02487757049956058273noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7163398133573937986.post-30584930041372160382016-10-19T14:10:00.001-07:002016-10-19T14:10:35.360-07:00What it looks like from hereMy birthday is next week. It's the last one that starts with a 5.....I didn't know what 59 would be all about, but I'm pretty sure I didn't think it was like this... I sort of thought I'd have IT ALL FIGURED OUT...I don't. At all. But honestly what would be the fun in all that?<br />
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I've made no secret of my personal struggles with life circumstances and where I am with that. I went through a very difficult few years that felt like I was laying on the damp floor of a dark hole and I could not see the way out. I could surface for moments, to be there for my kids and to do my work but truly, I was faking it. I'm a sensitive girl in a world that I don't understand and I processed my truth as being broken....And broken became where I lived for what felt like too long. I don't know what I was waiting for, probably some kind of answer, truth, pain relieving change...I didn't know at all. I had some friends who saw the truth of my despair and simply stayed with me. They didn't try to fix or push me, they just stayed, sitting there with me on the ground until I was ready to sit up and there we stayed for a while longer, just sitting in the dark. And I am grateful for their love, even when I couldn't say so. I sort of intuitively knew this darkness , the brokenness and the despair, it had an important purpose but goodness I wanted to rush on through and be done with it. Because pain sucks and pain for along time starts to feel normal. and I didn't want that to be my life. I didn't know how I was going to do it but, I decided to unbreak myself....I decided to invite the pain to sit down and have some real conversations with me. And it did...So I sat at the table with my pain and what I thought were my shattered pieces because I thought it would be good to put them back together not realizing they didn't fit anymore...I spent a whole lot of time with the pain, trying to learn everything I could in the dark and figure out how to stand up and leave the table. But not before pain and I had to hash out a whole lot of messy stuff. <br />
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Then two things happened..<br />
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.1 Pain was there to say to me in no uncertain term, that until I loved me enough to trust myself, listen to myself and BE MYSELF fully and completely, I would allow myself to put my own best interests last and take care of the rest of the world. It isn't the job of the rest of the world to look out for me. That was my job. To love and honor myself....in order to love and honor what mattered to me. Pain told me that my sensitive, intuitive self was just the way I am wired, not wrong, not broken not in need of fixing. That was my greatest gift even though it had never felt that way. My knowing and feeling and truth telling...it didn't need to be hidden and for sure shouldn't ever be given away. This world that is hard for me, needs what I bring because I am loved...I am love. I listened to pain and it gave me the greatest bit of knowledge I've ever gotten...Pain did not lie, pain was a teacher. Pain stayed until I got it right....<br />
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2. I started moving my body. That simple. I started the day after Christmas, thinking it was going to be a simple bit of walking the treadmill a few times a week and my excess pounds would fall off, I would be cuter and thinner and everything would just happen like that. It didn't The first night I fell off the treadmill in an amazing and frightening display of no body awareness at all. I still have the scar where I deeply skinned my knee. My sons picked me up and took me under their very strong arms and told me that they would work with me. And I started lifting weights. They went with me to the gym, we are doing this together. They gently guided me out of my comfort zone so far, I couldn't even see where my comfort zone was. they taught me and let me take on the gaining of strength. My older children became sounding boards for fitness and cheered every single thing I gained rather than asked how much I was losing. I stopped weighing myself and trusted the life long process that is taking care of me, this impatient girl has discovered patience and how good the hard work feels without expecting anything else. Trusting good changes would come but first I had to surrender to the process and have come to love it.. I cannot say this enough. If you want to change your life, move your body. This is what I know for certain about that...Mind, Body and Spirit are connected and you CANNOT fix one with out the rest coming along for the ride. . <br />
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The other day a friend said I looked like I was in the middle of becoming who I was meant to be. Maybe because I pierced my nose or maybe because I committed to doing a hard physical event or maybe because I am excited about recommitting to the success of my little company. Maybe these are outer signs of what's been inside all along. Maybe it just feels good to to take off the fear of what anyone else will think or say. I told her that I was just uncovering who I always was. Revealing and becoming. Because I get a voice in all this, how my story goes and how it all feels to be me. Because I have sat at the table with pain and lay on the damp ground with despair, I know what they offer. A chance to be unbroken. To decide that I am more than what hurts, so much more and the hurt has no power when I love and honor myself so hard that the rest just fades out of focus. Love is the thing. it's everything. LOVE changed me, it saved me and gave me myself in a way I have never had. I am unbroken, I am strong. . I can love what is real and good more than ever and I can walk away without anger from what doesn't serve that love. This is my story. And that is where fearlessness, strength and peace live....where pain used to hang out. At my table of love...about damned time.......<br />
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"Well I have no fear<br />
I have only love"<br />
~Stevie Nicks, Gypsy<br />
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BRING IT ON 59.....We are going to be just fine....<br />
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<3 Barbara<br />
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<br />Barbarahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02487757049956058273noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7163398133573937986.post-37202504123964805692016-10-09T18:45:00.001-07:002018-06-30T10:01:34.897-07:00Speak NowI've been tormented this weekend....like down to the knot in my stomach and the tears I'm barely keeping at bay. This is possibly the hardest truthiesst truth I have ever spoken and this is is about being human. And started as a text I sent to some people close to me who I trust...It is with their urging and love that I write this post. I'm terrified, my quivering hands are not easy on the keyboard as I type. I know that I may be opening a can of worms I am neither qualified to open or equipped to deal with. I'm a girl with a story and some truths and I have to speak now.<br />
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I don't know how to delicately step into this....The lastest bit of Donald Trump has hit me hard in the gut...And I'll tell you why. Unless you have experienced the full truth of the thoughts and actions of a misogynistic, true narcissist who objectifies, defiles and disrespects women and in the process destroys everything that resembles love and respect, you cannot know the stomach turning, gut wrench reaction that the Trump recording brings to a girl like me. I have had a physical deeply emotional reaction that I cannot ignore.<br />
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I know this kind of man. Who says it's funny, calls it locker room talk or thinks it is something all men do....The kind of man who truly believes every woman's purpose is to be there for his own needs and wishes. Who doesn't provide a safe place, protection or consideration to the people he claims to love. Who truly thinks that it's okay to force kisses or grab a woman in the most personal of places. Who thinks that it's all another joke and that we should all lighten up. Who apologizes by saying it was years ago (get over it ...) and justifies their heinous words by saying that someone else has said and done worse. Who doesn't really feel badly about it but is trying to get us to move on and once again accept the horrific and despicable nature of his true self without questioning his character. I know this kind of man and once their true self is seen and heard.. that.cannot be unseen or unheard. We cannot unknow. It is despicable and horrifying. <br />
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I know this kind of man and I promise you, under the thin façade that he still has, there is worse lurking...And for me...it's not okay. It's not okay to force anything on anyone that doesn't want that thing. It's not okay to make jokes or belittle anyone for on the basis of sex, race, age, looks, religion or anything else. It's not okay, none of this is okay and as horrified as I am by the words coming from a candidate for the Presidency, I'm terrified by the silence or saying the other is worse for other reasons. Maybe we speak for humanity when we don't allow a victimizer to think we are afraid. Maybe just maybe we speak now and love each other harder. Maybe just maybe we fix all this with asking for more of ourselves and each other but especially from the people who we trust to lead. Maybe we don't allow it to continue, don't justify or defend. Maybe we demand better.... Monstrous behavior speaks it's own unacceptable truth.<br />
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My loved ones have been terrified and worried about me for years because of such thinking and actions...... and I love them for their fear even when I was hiding in denial....It is hard to understand why anyone would allow such despicable behavior and words into their lives. It's hard to tell you why and how paralyzing this all can be. I have that same fear and worry about our country. From my place of experience it's imperative that we don't explain it away, blame the other party, other people or politics. It's not about politics, it's about being a decent person.... it's about doing what is right, and demanding that our leaders ACT RIGHT and that we act right. It's about expecting more and holding people to a standard of behavior and thought that at the very base doesn't allow for the victimizing or objectifying of anyone. Period. It's about speaking up and letting our humanity be louder than our anger and frustration. It's about showing our daughters and sons that this is not okay....It's just not.<br />
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I cannot and will not judge anyone for their politics and don't even ask my friends or loved ones who they plan to vote for. This post is not about that....I hope you understand that. I hope that you do not rain down on me with hard words, I don't think that you will... I've never been so afraid to hit the post button in my life but I am even more afraid to not hit the button.... I'm shaking but feel strongly that this is worth taking the chance that comes with speaking out....</div>
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Love More</div>
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Barbara </div>
<br />Barbarahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02487757049956058273noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7163398133573937986.post-32944564521626106872016-09-21T12:18:00.002-07:002016-09-21T12:48:27.475-07:00Love Letter to Summer Girls<span style="font-family: "georgia";">My Dearest Summer Girls.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia";"> I called you together, I spoke your name and<span style="background-color: yellow;"> dreamed for and </span> about you. I wrote of all the things we would do together, I imagined the sharing and exchanging of gifts, good books and summer wishes. I thought I was going to be present and summer the summer away with all of you. I gathered supplies, and Pinned a bunch of good things to share. I borrowed a couple of books and made some big plans for beach time, good stories, blog posts and everything I was craving and wanted to give to you. And I meant it when I said it. But then.....something happened. I have to back track a teeny bit to explain and please stay with me for a bit.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia";"> I've spent a few years being broken. Because truth could not hide anymore. I had to face a whole lot of hard stuff and it's been good work, good hard work, good hard painful work. Walking on shards of glass in a hailstorm and earthquake kind of work. Truth and learning what it means. Shame and guilt inventories were taken and I wore all of that like an itchy sweater for a long time.... In December I realized that the breaking was over and it was time for the unbreaking..I'll write about that stuff later.... So when summer was approaching and I felt the call of the memories of the easy way summer has of laying on my heart, I let myself fall into it just a bit. Summer Girl was created from that place...and you all jumped in and responded and I knew I wasn't the only one needing some respite and peace... </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia";"> I created a soft place for myself, I read books, I spent time with my sons, invested in my own health and took a few short trips to be with family and long time friends. I went to a baseball game, a party with friends of 40 plus years, a birthday for my youngest grandchild which meant that all my children, their loved ones and babies and I were in one place for even a few hours. I watched my oldest son get his masters . I watched movies, I knitted, I embroidered and I was still. I went to the gym and started eating better. .....all of that and more. It wasn't loud or news worthy, my summer was sweet and soft and perfect. The gathering of my broken pieces and gentle putting back what matters and finding I was not the same but better. Truer and just better...That is what I did this summer. That is what you did for me. By enthusiastically embracing the notion of bringing back what we all are deep inside and letting summer be important and nurturing. I summered myself all summer and in doing so, I got quiet everywhere else. And I left you alone.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia";">I threw a party and I didn't come....And for that I apologize. I am hoping you all used the energy we threw out and used it for your own type of summer. I hope that for moments you felt the peace, stillness and love that summer holds. I hope you walked barefoot and let your hair dry in the sun. I hope you spent moments with yourself and people you love, not on social media or checking your phones. I hope you ate great food and didn't judge yourself for doing so. I hope you let the sun shine on your skin and found that less is so much more. I hope you took pictures so that you can look back and remember how it felt to be a little bit more free and unbound. I hope you had a summer of good vibes that filled your heart. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia";">So here we are in September. It is cooling down where I live just a teeny teeny bit. School is back in session and my youngest son is in the middle of his first Varsity football season. I have good things on the horizon that were cooked up during the days of Summer. I gained so much by not doing much and doing it with people I love. I am ready for Fall which for me is my magic time, I am ready for cool mornings, rain, leaves falling and yes....even a pumpkin spice latte once in a while. I am still putting pieces back in place and ready for some truth telling and writing of stories about all of that. But summer has left her gifts scattered all over my world and has lifted my spirit. I wish the very same for you all....</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia";"> There it is....I thank you for jumping in with me. I thank you for your embracing of Summer Girl mindset and I thank you for your enthusiastic love for the idea of all things real and good. I thank you for opening up your thoughts and sharing your words with us. And I thank you for just believing that this idea had something worth grabbing onto. We are now the Girls of Fall carrying a bit of summer with us where we go. Stay in your magic and I love you all.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia";">Barbara</span></div>
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<br />Barbarahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02487757049956058273noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7163398133573937986.post-30347022898153640642016-05-30T07:56:00.000-07:002016-05-30T07:56:16.287-07:00Summer Girl-what is this all about??Something amazing has been happening. And I need to step back a few weeks to explain how this amazing thing got a seed of a start in my whirling drunken squirrel party of a brain. <br />
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I am a very lucky girl in that I had magical summers up until the time I went to college and got real summer jobs, I spent my summers in a funky and perfect little house in very small town on a peninsula of land between a bay full of soft sand beaches with water perfect for swimming, sailing and water skiing and the ocean on the west side, a short drive away. Our house was about a 5 minute walk to the edge of Tomales Bay. We spent every single summer moved into a 2 bedroom house with a porch on the back for sunning, eating and friend gathering.... and a front porch with a couple of sleeping spots and stairs made for perching when I wanted to read or embroider. We had no tv, dishwasher or inside washer and dryer. We spent sunny days at the beach and foggy days hanging with other summer families who became our family. During the week it was mostly the moms and kids, dads came up on the weekends and so did "company". Dinner during the week was often platters of cheese, salami and crackers while the moms played dominoes, had cocktails and laughed until it was time to go home. Weekends were large groups on our special beach with boats, sand and water everywhere. The kids were allowed to roam the streets between everyone's home even in the dark. It was carefree and magical and I know as an adult what a very very fortunate girl I was. At the time however.....I was surrounded mostly by boys. My 2 brothers and a collection of the most annoying boys in the world. So I found ways to entertain myself as a summer girl must do. I turned to reading, painting rocks, embroidering on shirts and jeans and playing the guitar. When the other two girls in the group were around, we did those things together but often it was me on the porch with my skinny legs tucked under me, using what we had around to make things or get lost in a book. I learned to summer this way from my mom and the other moms because they summered like it was their job. I was left to be me, hair unruly, freckles encouraged to catch fire from days on the beach. I was barefoot except when I was forced to slip into my flip flops for safety. My mom made the best apple and blackberry pie and if we picked enough of either, she would whip out a couple of pies before the beach. Pie for dessert and pie for breakfast on the porch in the sun. Bathing suits and sandy towels were perpetually drying on the porch railing. It was simply the best way to grow up and to spend summer days. Allowed to be my own tangled teenage self, I was probably the most at home and the most me I can remember. <br />
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A couple of weeks ago I was in a cabin in the mountains with some lovely women. We were there to indulge in our projects, sewing machines, cutting tables and fabric were everywhere. I happened to grab an embroidery project along the way and pulled that out on the first day. As I sank into the stitches, I was taken back. Back to what it felt like to just fall back into myself. Stitching while we chatted or while we got quiet, I thought a great deal about the gift those summers had given me. I wanted to feel the way it felt when the world fell away a bit and summer was magical. The more I embroidered, the more I traveled to that place and the more I wanted to recreate what that was like. That summer girl place, where the young carefree teenage girl lived for a few months each year. Barefoot, unruly hair and sun on my face. And Grow Wild Summer Girl was born. First a hashtag on an Instagram post, the idea nagged at me. I shared my thoughts with a friend who jumped at the notion of being a summer girl and she encouraged me to write about it. And then I wrote the first Blog Post (one post back from this one) <a href="http://wildflower57.blogspot.com/2016/05/grow-wild-summer-girl.html" target="_blank">http://wildflower57.blogspot.com/2016/05/grow-wild-summer-girl.html</a> Shared it on social media and something insane and beautiful happened. A whole lot of you responded. And when I say a whole lot, more than any other blog post I have written.. And I knew that I wasn't the only one......<br />
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I wanted to share embroidery, reading ideas, summer thoughts, friendship bracelets and mostly friendships. I wanted to create summer for myself and see who else wanted to summer with me. Connecting in a place that feels like home to our weary grown up girl selves....We carry the world and lots of worry about life and the people we are raising or love. We carry so much more than we need to and adult life sometimes sucks the girl right out of us. I say we take it back. We can't all quit our jobs and summer like we did at 17 but we surely can give ourselves that place in bits and pieces. So that is what this Summer Girl thing is all about. connecting. Connecting to other summer girls who need to laugh and let go a bit and connecting to ourselves. Create a tribe of summer girls, exchange gifts, exchange pie recipes, exchange thoughts, exchange pieces of your heart. Whisper to each other and to yourself the things you don't let out in the other seasons , trust yourself to let your truths out and set down your burdens for just a while. Let go and be yourself...Just be a Summer Girl even for an hour at a time. <br />
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I've created a place for you to come gather with us..A Facebook page just for all of this wonder and magic..<br />
<a href="https://www.facebook.com/Grow-Wild-Summer-Girl-1612348179082997/" target="_blank">https://www.facebook.com/Grow-Wild-Summer-Girl-1612348179082997/</a><br />
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I've also just started on Pinterest a Summer Girl Board and will be adding in some Summer Girl activities and reading list boards, all will start with Summer Girl...(I already started an Embroidery board).<br />
<a href="https://www.pinterest.com/barbarawiggins/" target="_blank">https://www.pinterest.com/barbarawiggins/</a><br />
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So join us, become your Summer Girl, grow wild a bit. There is no age that defines a summer girl, we are all the same in summer. The Facebook page is filling up with lots of other Summer Girls from everywhere! Bring your friends, create a tribe, start summering and please please please share your stories and projects. That is what we do as Summer Girls, we connect and we remember what that girl we sometimes leave behind. Laugh hard, get sunshine on your face , play dominos and have cheese and crackers for dinner once in a while. Put down your phone, pick up something that feels like a deep sigh to your soul. The world will look much brighter when you tuck your legs under you and settle in just a bit. Welcome home Summer Girl. I'm so happy you are here.<br />
<3 BarbaraBarbarahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02487757049956058273noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7163398133573937986.post-31251017447082137982016-05-25T07:21:00.000-07:002016-05-25T07:21:30.023-07:00Grow Wild Summer GirlI remember her well. My teenage summer girl. I was fortunate enough to spend my summers a house built by my great great greats in a small village near the beach. We had a group of other families that spent summers with us in their houses built by their great great greats and we spent our days together at the beach, picking blackberries, making jam, playing dominos and guitars late into the summer nights and just doing what comes next in summer. There was lots of time to entertain ourselves so I spent hours embroidering chambray shirts, painting rocks, making things like friendship bracelets and reading on my bed on the porch. My sheets were delightfully mismatched, laundry was hung on the line and sandy towels hung over the balcony every day after the beach. No TV...lots of quiet time for a girl to spend just being who she was. The way she came to this world with her true wild guiding her. I yearn for that feeling, of just being absorbed in the business of summer. Barefoot with messy hair, my freckles glowing from days in the sun. My mom's blackberry pie for breakfast, reading late at night out on the porch in my bed with a flashlight. The time when I was just me, before life got a hold of me and shook me all around. I miss my summer girl.....<div>
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I've decided it's time to bring her back in every way that I can. I've decided to take back my summer and bring back that girl. While I cannot leave my job or spend hours a day, every day at the beach. I can grab onto moments of summer girl pursuits. And I have enlisted a few friends to do the same, I've gathered a tribe and it took just a moment of sharing my thoughts with a few friends who shouted "I'M IN" without hesitation because clearly we all need this. I'll be sharing ideas and the ways that we join together from where we are, to live a summer girl life. It will be different for everyone but I know that there is a way to find that part of you that you've been missing. We take care of so many other people and things, life gets a little hectic and heavy sometimes. Put it down just a bit, the should dos and business of being busy. Remember what summer is for. Your kids, they can entertain themselves without you for a bit, or if they can't...train them. Teach them to be summer kids. Take off your shoes and walk in the grass, find a book you want to read and curl up in a cozy spot and give yourself an hour. Float in water, paint rocks and have pie for breakfast. The world will not come apart if you fall back into yourself. I promise...it just won't. </div>
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<span style="background-color: #ccccdd; font-family: Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13.4px; line-height: 19.1429px; text-align: center;">There's a wild, wild whisper</span><br style="background-color: #ccccdd; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13.4px; line-height: 19.1429px; text-align: center;" /><span style="background-color: #ccccdd; font-family: Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13.4px; line-height: 19.1429px; text-align: center;">Blowin' in the wind</span><br style="background-color: #ccccdd; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13.4px; line-height: 19.1429px; text-align: center;" /><span style="background-color: #ccccdd; font-family: Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13.4px; line-height: 19.1429px; text-align: center;">Callin' out my name</span><br style="background-color: #ccccdd; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13.4px; line-height: 19.1429px; text-align: center;" /><span style="background-color: #ccccdd; font-family: Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13.4px; line-height: 19.1429px; text-align: center;">Like a long lost friend</span><br style="background-color: #ccccdd; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13.4px; line-height: 19.1429px; text-align: center;" /><span style="background-color: #ccccdd; font-family: Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13.4px; line-height: 19.1429px; text-align: center;">Oh, I miss those days</span><br style="background-color: #ccccdd; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13.4px; line-height: 19.1429px; text-align: center;" /><span style="background-color: #ccccdd; font-family: Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13.4px; line-height: 19.1429px; text-align: center;">As the years go by</span><br style="background-color: #ccccdd; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13.4px; line-height: 19.1429px; text-align: center;" /><span style="background-color: #ccccdd; font-family: Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13.4px; line-height: 19.1429px; text-align: center;">Oh, nothin' sweeter than summertime</span><br style="background-color: #ccccdd; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13.4px; line-height: 19.1429px; text-align: center;" /><span style="background-color: #ccccdd; font-family: Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13.4px; line-height: 19.1429px; text-align: center;">And American honey</span></div>
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I'll be sharing lots of good summer girl ideas but my first is to gather a reading list and make some friendship bracelets for my tribe. There are tons of tutorials and YouTube videos out there..I'm starting with this one</div>
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Come with me won't you, gather a group of girlfriends who also are feeling a bit like adulting has taken a bite out of them. Find ways to immerse yourselves even for small pieces of time in what it was like to just be you. A summer camp for your soul....Can you imagine if all the girls you know decided to do the same. I think your world and mine would be a better place full of happier women giving themselves over to just being who they are and doing things that make them happy . Less social media, more reading with flashlights. I desperately need to let go of all the stuff that has been weighing down my world, not quit it all but put it in it's place. Get right with myself and embroider my jeans and for goodness sake.... lighten up. Back to the girl I have missed so much. Let your hair free, turn your face to the sun and listen to that whisper calling your name. I will be doing a series of blogposts about the Summer Girl Life....I hope you will come along with me and summer the heck out of this Summer. Welcome home summer girl, grow wild and free.</div>
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Barbarahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02487757049956058273noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7163398133573937986.post-33216119897856588222016-05-10T08:18:00.002-07:002016-05-10T08:21:06.358-07:00Strong is BeautifulSo.... I've been wanting to write this post for a bit but I wasn't quite ready until now. It's all about love....<br />
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My name is Barbara....I am 58 years old and on December 26, 2015 I weighed in at 234.5 pounds. I could tell you all the reasons why, 5 babies, changing metabolism, menopause, inactivity, indecision, stress, worry, hopelessness and probably a bit of depression, anxiety and inertia thrown in as well. I've tried many things to change all of these circumstances and feelings...many things. And never ever quite could get past the things holding me back.... which at the end of the day was fear and the inability to care enough about myself to do better. ...I was my own problem. I have had bursts of energy for walking, dance cardio in my kitchen, really healthy eating but always always, it trickledl through my hands like water and I gave up. I've tried over the past 6 years to really do something about it all but I couldn't stick with it. I allowed cruel words and my own jungle of crippling self doubt and again FEAR put me back into the safe and easy place of wallowing. <br />
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Nights for the past 5-7 years have been spent over thinking, entertaining worries that became bigger in the dark and kept me quiet and deeply sad. Weakness and fear. LIARS....both of them..... I watched my own children turn themselves into fit and healthy people, I watched friends turn themselves into fit and healthy people, with a glow that I knew might be inside but I honestly had so many excuses rooted in those fear and weakness lies that I just didn't put myself on the list of people I wanted to see healthy. I didn't put myself on the list of people who I loved enough to believe in. I'm going to say that again because it's the thing, the only thing.. I DIDN'T PUT MYSELF ON THE LIST OF PEOPLE I LOVED ENOUGH TO BELIEVE IN.... I didn't love me enough to take care of me. Sadness, excuses and fear.... You can see how I got to that place... I just didn't see beyond the lies that happened in the dark.<br />
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I wanted to be happy, free to be my own true self, unafraid and strong.. I wanted my barefoot and messy girl to be free to breathe, laugh, cry and LIVE TRUE . I didn't want the critical voice of others or myself to count anymore. I wanted to be brave and unafraid. I wanted to be able to bend over and tie my shoes and to slip into clothes that didn't have 2 X's in the size. I wanted to shed the girl that I had become so that the girl I truly am could fly a bit, oh heck, I wanted to fly a whole lot. I wanted the life I WANTED and I wanted it now...Not sure when or how that all happened, I have to say it was a huge light bulb of an AHA moment. just like that.... But.... I didn't know where to start except with my body. I wanted to glow and feel good about me. I wanted to feel love and give it to myself. I wanted to put myself on the list of people I love enough.....so I did...honestly like that I did...And on December 26, 2016 with all 234.5 pounds of me, I joined a gym.<br />
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And so it started. After a couple of treadmill sessions and one amazingly awesome treadmill accident that should have been caught on video, I asked my sons for help. And they took me to the weights. The part of the gym that was the most frightening and overwhelming, we went there. I guess if you are taking on fears, you should take on the biggest ones. I looked and felt totally out of place but we started. With gentle but firm guidance I started learning to lift weights, learning what would impact what muscles. Learned how to manage a workout and what I wanted to get out of it. I learned what was what and how to negotiate the sea of fit bodies and get my own spot on the floor in front of the big scary mirror so I could watch my form and concentrate. I learned about the sauna after and how amazing it feels to sweat a bit at the end of a good workout and how it keeps soreness somewhat at bay. And I learned that I loved being stronger. Learned to push myself beyond what I think I can do. And I have learned to keep going.....through what is frightening. Take on new challenges and triumph over things that I don't think I can do.....TRIUMPH...what an amazing word....<br />
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A few weeks ago, I experienced, a girlfriend's betrayal in a personal up close kind of way. ...My old self wanted to curl into a ball and cry. My old self almost went into victim mode, a place that feels safe and justified. But that isn't who I have worked to become. I confronted the now former friend, told her that I knew what she had said about me, violating every bit of trust and ending our friendship forever. My old self would have negotiated around the hard stuff and let her remain in my life. My new self took care of me like I would take care of someone I loved. And instead of curling into a ball and crying for days, I headed to the gym. I sweated out a furious amazing workout, I did 2 miles on the treadmill until I could not do more. And I knew that I was no longer afraid of anything. Strong felt really good that day....Strong feels really good every day.<br />
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So after 4 months of learning to do hard things, lift heavy weights, fast walk for many miles and feeling at home at the gym I should be able to show you a before and after picture. I could, but my "before" may look a bit like my "right now". I've not lost a pound. I lose a pound here and there and seem to gain it back (SERIOUSLY????). My clothes still have 2 Xs in the size label. But I can bend over and tie my shoes, I am starting to get some muscles that show,I can do what I couldn't before and I am unafraid. Because strong is more than my body, I believe you can't change one thing without changing everything about yourself. It's a ripple kind of of thing... Strong is Mind Body and Spirit. I am becoming the girl I wanted to be. Unapologetically . I am making some plans and setting some boundaries I didn't have before to have the life I WANT to have. To live free. I now sleep through the night, I eat better because it tastes better, I surround myself with people who are good for my soul, I am not afraid because I am stronger. I am at the TOP of the list of people I believe in....I am at peace about losing the weight, I know it will shake loose eventually. What I didn't expect was how much I would love all of this. Every single bit of rising up. And that is why I had to write this love letter to myself and to you.. Because it's everything. <br />
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The title of this post was inspired by this piece.....<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">http://www.therustedchain.bigcartel.com/product/strong-is-beautiful-necklace<br />
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I just ordered it from my friend at The Rusted Chain.... Beki has lots of stuff with good words but truly these may be my favorite right now.. http://www.therustedchain.bigcartel.com/ .. <br />
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Strong comes in many forms, it's different for everyone. But for me, it had to come from learning that I am indeed capable of doing hard things and learning that fear isn't something to run from. Fear is something to turn around, look in the eye and face down.... Fear will run from strong every single time. Because fear is a liar and only exists when you let it and strong girls are beautiful.... Even with 2 x's on their tee shirt labels. <br />
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<3 B<br />
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<br />Barbarahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02487757049956058273noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7163398133573937986.post-26749140006054315292016-03-30T11:08:00.000-07:002016-04-06T23:52:38.215-07:00Do What You Love......It's spring and time to lighten up <strike>a little</strike>/completely. I've thought and over thought my inside story but there is so much more to me than all of that. When asked what I do, I say "I make things..." because that is the truth of it. I love to make. I love the term MAKER.....It sounds so much fancier than "I make things". Goodness it sounds like a real job and to me that is what the making is all about.... to be able to create the business and life I desire, with my own hands. Made by me....<br />
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I have been a little bit in hibernation this winter. I felt badly about it but, sometimes it's just what you have to do to reset...... I may have wallowed and wondered for a short bit but what else I did was read <u>Big Magic</u> by Elizabeth Gilbert and it was the perfect antidote to my hinbernationess. It also prompted me to figure and put into writing, the core values of my maker's world and my Wildflower 57 business and this is what I came up with..mostly, I don't ever want anything else....and these are my driving core beliefs that I will use to guide me going forward.....</div>
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1. Figure out what you and your business are about. Be Clear about that. And then you can do whatever you want with it, change your designs , change the things you make, change your approach and marketing. Any of it. But Know what you are about.....My business is based on the love of faded, colorful, softly made things that remind me of Prairies, Farms,Mountains, Open Spaces, sweet florals, torn whites, bits, pieces and the freedom to be who I am...Tattered and Tangled..Unfettered....Everything comes from those things....</div>
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2. Stay in your lane......Don't worry about what ANYONE else is doing....there will be many people who make stuff that is similar to yours, or something you had ready to try. As long as you know what you are about, you know you aren't copying. NOW...don't take this to mean you can copy a name, steal a picture, encroach on trademarked designs....what that means to me is to not always worry about trying to beat out or out do anyone else who may be close to your style or vision (believe me, this happens and it's not always intentional, sometimes it is ..and that is a different story when trademarks and copyrights are exploited ).. But if you keep your eyes forward, stay in your lane and focus on your intentions and keep rule #1 in your heart....You will be okay. </div>
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3. Support each other. Don't get caught up in the stuff that will undo you. This comes from ..big sigh here.... experience. I've been a participant/ guilty of reacting to what feels like someone trying to steal my ideas and projects. I've been accused of stealing other people's ideas and projects. I've been reactive and possesive . I've been used and hurt. I know I haven't ever intentionally stepped on someone's toes and the ones I thought stepped on mine....they probably all felt the same.... but truly when you go down that road with another business person, you undo friendships, support systems and destroy good things. Why entertain this and give it any of your energy or try to have the discussion which is never ever going to end well. Truly, with Pinterest and all the millions of ideas and tutorials out there, we are all bound to step into the circle drawn by someone and they will step into our circle. And usually...it's just that we are doing what we do, following our creative energies where they will take us.... Instead of creating resentment and horrible negativity by thinking and saying that we are the only ones, maybe we just lift each other up. I've been on both sides of this, it feels horrible and embarrassing. Let's lift each other up and cheer a little bit for everyone, I hope we all make it... Back to #1 and #2 </div>
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4. Love and Persistence..... This is it.. Design...Make...Repeat..... and remember why you chose this maker's life. Because you have the heart and soul that doesn't understand any other way to be in the world. Because it's all that you want. Because it's who you are. And mostly... because you love it. The love will see you through the hard work, and make no mistake it's hard work. One dropcloth apron is fun, dropcloth apron #357....not as much...Someday you may get help in the manufacturing of your work which will free you up to create more ideas and designs but it's all going to be work and from my perspective, the best work ever. But please make sure you are all in....because it will test you but give you back more than you can dream of......</div>
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<a href="http://www.elizabethgilbert.com/" target="_blank">http://www.elizabethgilbert.com/</a></div>
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Lastly....where ever you may be in your creative business world....MAKE A PLAN. Know where you want to go, have a road to get there, write down the steps you need to take and pursue the goals every single day with all your heart. . Twists and Turns...take which ever of those feels right to you. TRUST your vision, TRUST the makers energy and the pull of what calls your name...TRUST yourself....And don't be afraid to leap when leaping is called for. There will be dry times, there will be busy times when you are exhausted and wonder what you were thinking and there will be times for hibernating and refreshing your tired soul. But always always always DO WHAT YOU LOVE.......</div>
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Long may you make and thrive... </div>
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<B</div>
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Barbarahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02487757049956058273noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7163398133573937986.post-29320564165291196192016-03-24T12:37:00.000-07:002016-03-24T12:37:00.327-07:00Don't get lost in your feels...<br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">I struggle at times with feeling sad....I do. I fall into a rabbit hole that drops me from doing okay to not so much in a short time. I'm emotional and I'm not good at hiding it. So there. I've made a serious serious decision to fight this deep rabbit hole at every turn to be happy and live happy. But sometimes I fail at that because what sends me tumbling down there, is feeling unloved and forgotten. I realize this is my own doing, yes I do. . For how many years have we heard "you have to love yourself before anyone else can love you" I mean really... when you suck at feeling loved, how on earth can you love yourself so that you are able to accept and give love. That statement has baffled me... <strike>for many years/</strike>FOR ALL MY LIFE!!!! Seriously. I didn't get it. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"> And then I read this...... </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">"It was my life-like all lives, mysterious and irrevocable and sacred. So very close, so very present, so very belonging to me. How wild it was, to let it be"</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Cheryl Strayed~ Wild~</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Let me tell you, I had to stop and read that over and over and over, about 10 overs and it was a light bulb moment. My life is sacred and belongs to me. Let it be...... Even as I type these words, I am in tears because this is the deal. If my life is sacred, if I was made this way, wired like this with love and raw emotion... Who am I not to love that, to love myself. Why wouldn't I give to me what I want to give to the world and what I want back. LIFE CHANGING stuff at least for my messy heart. If I am sacred, so is everyone else. We are all worthy of love....from ourselves first. Okay...I need to breathe after that...take in what that feels like to write it down, say it out loud and believe it deep in my soul....</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">I love deep talks with my sons, I love their perspective and their truths. I love their wisdom, trust me, the wise words that come from teenagers will break you wide open. I was rolling around in some less than happy emotions this morning, a little lonely and on the verge of tears... and my oldest said to me. "Mom, don't get lost in your feels, do something that makes you laugh and lighten up a bit. Trust the world and trust yourself." This from a kid who has been let down, stumbled and struggled more than anyone I know... I do get lost in my feels ( I love that name for my over thinking emotions) I think it's easy to do, one thing leads to another and there you are, heading for that place that won't serve you at all. Maybe if we walk away from our social media for a bit, go outside, face to the sun. Or have lunch with a friend, exercise your heart out, call someone you love and have a chat..MAKE SOMETHING. Maybe if we just don't get lost in our feels so very much, it will all seem a little less hard. Maybe if we throw that love around a bit more and open up our windows a bit wider, maybe that is how we stay out of the rabbit holes. Maybe we just trust that we are not alone in all of this...maybe that's it. Our sacred lives connected to other sacred lives....Well isn't that the magic?</span><br />
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<span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.0784314); -webkit-text-stroke-width: 1px; background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: Lato, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 28px; text-align: start;">"TOGETHER. WE CAN DO HARD THINGS BECAUSE WE BELONG TO EACH OTHER."</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.0784314); -webkit-text-stroke-width: 1px; background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: Lato, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 28px; text-align: start;">~Glennon Doyle Melton~</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Don't get lost in your feels, love your sacred life and let it be, belong to each other. I think that is some good love to throw around. Especially on a Thursday.. Let's do it again soon! </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>Barbarahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02487757049956058273noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7163398133573937986.post-33051302632888614872016-03-16T12:14:00.000-07:002016-03-16T15:03:33.088-07:00Too Muchness<span style="color: #20124d; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">You are too emotional</span><br />
<span style="color: #20124d; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">You are too loud</span><br />
<span style="color: #20124d; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">You cry too much</span><br />
<span style="color: #20124d; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">You talk too much</span><br />
<span style="color: #20124d; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">You react too quickly</span><br />
<span style="color: #20124d; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">You get too sad</span><br />
<span style="color: #20124d; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Get over it</span><br />
<span style="color: #20124d; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">You need to stop doing that</span><br />
<span style="color: #20124d; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Why can't you be like everyone else</span><br />
<span style="color: #20124d; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">You share too much</span><br />
<span style="color: #20124d; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">You say too many things</span><br />
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<span style="color: #20124d; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">and this....</span><br />
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<span style="color: #20124d; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">YOU ARE JUST TOO MUCH (translated means... I cannot deal with you, stop being you)......</span><br />
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<span style="color: #20124d; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">These are the things I have heard about myself for a whole bunch of my life. Someone I love dearly once told me I was just too much and they were not sure they could take much of me. I don't honestly know what to do with that... But being too much...I can't help it. I can't help any of it. I've always known I was too much, even as a younger girl, I knew it. And I knew it was hard for people to understand. It always felt like approval, acceptance and even love aren't easy for girls like me. It's hard when people think you are just too too too.....</span><span style="color: #20124d; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> </span><br />
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<span style="color: #20124d; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">"You used to be much more.... muchier.....</span><br />
<span style="color: #20124d; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">You've lost your muchness"</span><br />
<span style="color: #20124d; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">~Alice in Wonderland</span><br />
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<span style="color: #20124d; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">TOO much muchness??? I've spent <strike>some time</strike> /all my life trying to understand how that could possibly be. How can anyone be too much? </span><span style="color: #20124d; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I think we should let our exuberance and too much out ALL THE TIME....I think we should share, talk, breathe, cry, feel, hug, dance , create and LOVE.....way MUCH more than not</span><span style="color: #20124d; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> </span><span style="color: #20124d; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">and please for goodness sake don't stop doing that thing , whatever it is that makes you so wonderfully muchy.... Stop trying to fit inside something you were never meant to fit into at all. It wasn't for you. And please, this is so important....don't chase anyone who cannot or will not love you just the way you are. Chase your dreams; chase your truth; chase your happiness.... .but do not chase any person who isn't ready for your too much spirit or any person who doesn't want it. They are not for you and you are not for them......</span><span style="color: #20124d; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> </span><br />
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<span style="color: #20124d; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The world needs your muchness and it needs mine. The world needs us to push against the sides of the box we hide in until it breaks open and there we are in all our much too much glory. Let the ones who cannot deal, well... let them be. They have their own stuff to handle, just let your crazy brightness out and let it stay there. Be so much even if nobody gets it. That's got to be the real thing of it all. Be so much... REGARDLESS. Let muchness be your superpower. Don't believe those who say that you are just too....</span><br />
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<span style="color: #20124d; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I promise that people, the right people will love you more for it. I will love you more for it, because I too am too much.....just exactly what I was made to be. Muchness....Please don't ever stop throwing that around. Bring your magical abundance out to the light, bring it everywhere you go. LIVE LIKE THAT..... please, I need you in this with me. </span><br />
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<span style="color: #20124d; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Here is my truth and I've been up for many nights with all of this...I've debated and campaigned for and against myself. I almost stopped writing this blog, there have been some big gaps because I almost stopped doing many of things I love so much including this. Writing, Creating, Connecting....because I felt like maybe my too much was just not working and I needed to repack myself into a box; that maybe the world would take me a little more gently if I wasn't so me .... Until on a train this weekend I remembered....My muchness, it's a gift, a good thing and I love it. I love how very much I am and I have no intention or desire to fit into anything at all.... I just can't..... I shouldn't have to.....So I won't. I'm not going to stop writing, I'm not going to stop talking, I won't stop sharing and I will not stop loving in my too much way. I will make and create because that is my calling. I will just be this much, too much and I will be way too much until I'm not. And that is how it's supposed to be. Unfettered........ and OH SO VERY much too much muchness. </span><br />
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<span style="color: #20124d; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> I love you....Much..</span><br />
<span style="color: #20124d; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">B</span><br />
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<span style="color: #20124d; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">p.s. when I ran spellcheck on this, the only word that it wanted me to change was ...you guessed it MUCHNESS...... Underline away spellcheck, muchness is here to stay.</span>Barbarahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02487757049956058273noreply@blogger.com5