There’s just something about Cowboy boots

Just so that you know, I am the furthest thing possible from a cowboy, and I have to confess, I’m a little afraid of horses.  I mean really, why should they listen to me?  What’s to stop the larger more powerful creature from taking me hostage, or scraping me off their back with a handy tree branch just for laughs?   Anyone who has watched Mr. Ed knows they laugh.  And then there are their teeth….feed them a carrot?  And pull back a stump?  No thank you.

Then again, having lived with a Wolfhound for the last few years, and willingly holding his toy so that he can chew it more easily, I may be more comfortable around Horses now.  I will have to find out (add it to the list for this year).

Don’t get me wrong, I think Horses are one of the most beautiful, elegant, amazing creatures on the planet.  And I’m inexplicably drawn to cheesy Cowboy romance novels.  When I get really down, my friend suggests we run away to Montana to live on a ranch.  Not sure if reality would be half as enjoyable as fantasy.  I know from my niece of Tin Roof Stables fame (http://www.tinroofstables.com/) there is a lot of work involved, early and often, and hard…and smelly.

But back to cowboy boots: there is just something about them.  There is just some attitude that comes with them.  You can’t walk too fast, you have to do that sexy confident rolling saunter. 

They are the most comfortable things in the universe.  They totally hide that you are wearing mismatched Saturday socks to work.  The heel height is just right, not too high, not too flat; even Goldilocks would be hard pressed to find a fault with them.

Back to me – it IS all about me, correct?  Yesterday was a sucky day, more accurately a medley of disappointment and annoyances, you know the kind.  Nothing overtly awful, nonetheless I was really tempted to curl into a fetal position, find my blankie and my thumb and inform the universe that I was done trying. 

After licking my wounds, punching a few people (with permission), cuddling the aforementioned wolfhound and his sheltie buddy, I felt better this morning.  Not great, but better.

I was getting dressed (most of us wear jeans on Fridays to work), and I thought of my new-to-me boots.  A lovely friend, mother to another lovely friend, gave me two, yes TWO, pairs of real live cowboy boots last weekend.  Yes I am extremely lucky, both for their friendship  - and the boots

This is a different kind of toss:  My friend “released” something she wasn’t using, so that I could have it when I needed it.  I read somewhere (and I can’t find it, sorry), that when we release what no longer serves us, we make it available for someone else who may need it, like a metaphysical recycling program.

I like to think of it as all those wrongs, and hurts, angry feelings and “it’s unfairnesses” that we hold onto, when we finally release them into the universe get cleansed and refashioned, so that someone who is running low on strength, or is tired, or wants to curl up in a fetal position with her thumb and her blankie, can draw on the reserve and get what they need.  This belief makes it easier for me to let go (yes, I still have a lot to let go of, progress not perfection!), and reminds me to be grateful when I get the gift of what I need thanks to someone else’s willingness to let go.

Back to the Boots:  They are Amazing, they are black with red on the toe and heel, with red and white stitching.  I put them on and was transformed into a confident, happy, younger, smarter, sexier form of myself.  And people responded to me as if I were, in fact, all that and a bag of chips (Hi KT!) .

What about Tossing and Treasuring?  

Today I’m treasuring something someone else tossed (well she didn’t really toss them, you know what I mean).  And Cowboy boots in general.

Anyone have a horse I could meet?

Best Mother In Law EVER

Hi, My name is Nancy, and I’m going to be the best Mother in Law ever.

My daughter got married last September!  The day was a blur of fabulosity and fun, but what I remember most fondly is what her then fiance did.

See the weather was iffy, ok it was actually raining at certain points, and the wedding was supposed to be outside, in this lovely brick paved courtyard area.  My son, husband, nephew, niece and her husband stubbornly decorated the area, even though the hotel strongly encouraged us to move it inside.   Team K did a beautiful job bringing my cock-a-mamey idea to life.  

I could go on and on about it all, but I’ll skip to the important part.

As the rain threatened yet again, and the guests were afraid of getting damp, a decision had to be made, move it in, or have the ceremony outside…NOW.   The planner asked the groom, and he calmly said:  K wants it outside.   So here it is, beautiful, right?

I forgot to tell the planner that K is half Irish, that a little rain is kinda like sunshine to us, and that her nickname was the “Rainbow Princess” so in fact a little drizzle was to be expected.  PSIL understood that none of that was really necessary to explain, the fact was K wanted it outside, and for her wedding day, she would have the day she wanted.  Pure and Simple.

I decided anyone who loved my daughter as much as he did would forever be PSIL: Perfect Son In Law.

Now before you think I’m totally round-the-bend crazy, I know he is not perfect, and I know he knows that I know that he isn’t perfect.  Two things:  He truly cherishes my daughter and her crazy border collie dog, and he tries his best to be a partner, provider, and dog-parent.

So how do you find out how not to do all the mistakes MILs (Mother in laws) have been doing for years?  The answer?  Mother in law jokes!

Behind every successful man stands a devoted wife and a surprised mother-in-law.

Overheard in a restaurant: SHE:  This wine is described as full bodied and imposing with a nutty base, a sharp bite, and a bitter aftertaste. HE:  Are you describing the wine or your mother?

My mother-in-law was so mean she blinded herself just to get a free dog.

A woman woke her husband in the middle of the night and told him “there is a burglar downstairs in the kitchen and he is eating the cake that my mother made for us.”

The husband said, “who shall I call, the police or an ambulance?”

“I haven’t spoken to my mother-in-law for eighteen months. I don’t like to interrupt her.”

I have never made a fool of my mother-in-law,
I just leave her to display her natural talents herself.

My mother-in-law said to me, "If you were my husband I'd put poison in your coffee" I replied, "If I were your husband, I'd drink it!!"

What is the difference between mother-in-law and a terrorist? You can sometimes make an agreement with a terrorist.

How many mothers-in-law's does it take to change a light bulb?
One. She just holds it up there and waits for the world to revolve around her.

And my favorite, because I’m a gal who loves her accessories:

I used to not get along with my mother-in-law, but over the last few months I've developed quite an attachment for her. It goes over her head and a strap comes down under her chin to keep her mouth shut.

So what am I Treasuring and Tossing my friends?  I know, you thought I forgot all about that.

I’m Tossing butting in, Talking too much (OMG this will be hard), and poisoning coffee :-), being mean, oh and getting too fat.

I’m going to Treasure my PSIL, support the success and happiness of their marriage, let H (Hubby) do most of the cooking when they come over…

And torture PSIL because he won’t be able to participate in Mother-In-Law jokes!  HA!

What are you Treasuring and Tossing in this brand new year?  I wish you Well!

In the Moment

Hi, my name is Nancy, and I’m trying really hard to learn to Be in the Moment.

You see, I’m a rusher.  I’m always looking toward the next thing.  As I’m getting ready to go somewhere, I’m thinking about the event.  While I’m at the event, I’m thinking about the stories I will tell my friends about the event, and how am I getting home.  

Reading, I often skim the first line of paragraphs to get the “gist” of what’s going on, delving deeper if it seems to be important, or scintillatingly juicy (in the trashy novel genre).

Working on a project, I’m thinking about lunch.  Eating lunch, I’m thinking about what I have to do on the project after.

Funny story, I was writing this in my head this morning while I was putting on my makeup, and stabbed myself right in the eye with my mascara wand.  Karma, right?  You get the gist.

Though this tendency has enabled me to be crowned the “Queen of good enough”, as with other things, I’m no longer sure this is “good enough”.

So I’ve been trying the last couple of weeks to check in now and then.  To say to myself “stop, be in this moment” and to actually do it.  I didn’t mention this earlier because I didn’t want you guys to hold me accountable if it was too hard to do.  :-)

You read about “being in the moment”.  It’s the holy grail of Happiness, Weight Loss, Inner Peace and Stress Reduction.  So when I engaged in this, I pictured moments like in the scene from the Twilight series where Edward sparkles in the filtered sunlight, with the Gospel Choir from the Chrysler commercial providing background music.  And guess what?  The first couple of times I consciously did it, the moment was wonderful.  I was in awe, and wondered why didn’t I do this before?  Look at all I was missing!  That color is so rich, that laugh so bubbly, this tastes incredible, has the sky always been that blue? Just look at the amazing people I’m with!

Then along came a moment, and without thinking I decided to actually look at it, and lets just say….it sucked.   I could see it clearly, in great detail, like in triple HD.  The colors were so sharp, the vise around my heart so tight and unrelenting, I tasted bile in my throat, and the sun was behind a dark foreboding cloud.  Starkly apparent were the people that were missing and would never be physically present again.  All the hype for “being in the moment” didn’t mention: what do you do when the moments suck?

One benefit of rushing means you don’t take a good look at anything, so though you don’t get the full effect of the beauty, you also don’t get the full effect of the bad stuff.   Picture Sheldon from the Big Bang Theory in the episode where he believes he is the flash.  Lots of “Bazinga” but nothing really touched him.  This technique has gotten me through some tough times “good enough”.

But as in painting, only doing “good enough” often means you have to go back and fix something, and perhaps back again, and again, until you finally have it right. 

We helped my daughter and PSIL (Perfect Son In Law) with their new house (I’m so freakin proud of them!) this weekend.  I was promoted from “totally banned from painting even primer unless the primer matches the ceiling paint” to “is allowed to paint with adult supervision”.   Know how?  I was in the moment.  I paid attention, I looked at what I was doing, I focused on how the color covered the old paint, I tried very hard (sometimes failed) to go slow so that things would feather in nicely, and the ceiling would remain mostly white.   There was very little that needed to be touched up when I was done.  ( I can provide references if you don’t believe me).

Someone posted the following on facebook a few weeks ago:

                “Nothing ever goes away until it teaches us what we need to know – Pema Chodron”

I don’t know about you, but I have a list of things I wished would just go away, now, please.  It occurred to me that maybe this was like painting, that because in the original moment, and any of the trigger moments (you know those that hit you upside the head unawares and make you sob like a crazy person in the middle of the Christmas Tree Shop?), I didn’t pay attention.  I wasn’t in the moment, I rushed away onto the next very important thing I had to do, so there were “holidays” or more probably whole “walls” that needed to be touched up.  OK, there are a few emotional rooms that only have a foot square sample painted on the wall.

What do you do when you are in the moment, and the moment sucks?  Another of my favorite quotes is “If you feel like you’re going through hell, keep moving!”.  You breathe.  Inhale, Exhale.  You fill all your senses with as much of it as you can take, and then let it go.  It’s kind of like going through labor, and like labor, does not last forever.  And if you can only take some of it today, then good job for doing what you could!  But know, there will be more to do on another day.  But that’s OK.

So, my friends, I declare for me that 2013, I’m tossing “rushing” so much.  I’m going to treasure Being In The Moment more, even when it sucks.  I believe that filling myself with the Beautiful moments, will give me the reserves I need to deal with the Ugly ones, and truly looking at the Ugly ones, will help me appreciate the Beautiful ones even more.

And may I ditch the title “Queen of good enough”.  Wish me luck! 

Stepping Back and The Clean Plate Club

In karate class, one of the first things we teach brandy new white belts is to Step Back.

You’d think that was obvious, even common-sense-ical:  if someone is coming at you, what do you do? Get out of the way - Duh! (Said in my best Napoleon Dynamite voice).

What we are actually trying to teach them is to get a good look at the situation, and be in a stable place to take the action you choose to take in response to the attack.  (Of course, you need to do this in approximately 2 seconds – not a problem, right? )

This concept is one of the hardest for them to learn.  I’ve tried restating it in different ways, making them repeat it over and over again like a bunch of gi-wearing parrots, and beating them with a pink pool noodle.  As soon as you add in anything more to the drill, the whole “Get out of Dodge” of it all is the first to go.  Big John is the only one that can get them to move; I guess when the fist is the size of your face, your instincts take over.

Stay with me here, I'll connect it in a moment.

Many of us are about to celebrate Thanksgiving – a time set aside to remember, and to be grateful for all of our Blessings.  Norman Rockwell painted us a beautiful rendition of what Thanksgiving looks like: plenty of wholesome homemade food, angelic children,  adults with a twinkle in their eye, sunshine, rainbows, unicorns…etc.

What it really ends up looking like is a large group of people crowding into a tight space eating too much food, and sometimes drinking too many delicious beverages.  Add to that Football and apple pie, and tell me: why do we expect it to just go well?   Why are we surprised that we get slammed by the "Holiday" of it all if we just stand there, and let it hit us?

If you are blessed with any family other than mine (HI GUYS) then there just may be a reason you don’t see these people more often.  Blood alone is not enough to give you something in common to talk about, and self-imposed drama makes me want to bathe in hand sanitizer.   People may have a different opinion than you, and, horror of horrors, may actually voice it.  Rising sugar levels in our blood stream, followed by the inevitable crash, and sleep-inducing Turkey would make anyone turn into a cranky toddler – and I’m usually the first to my blankie.

Just because you are invited to a situation, does not mean you have to engage.   Sometimes the wiser choice is to take a step back, take a look at it from a different perspective, before deciding what action to take.  If crazy Uncle Norman truly believes that we should all stock up our Bunkers in anticipation of the end of the world, do you really think you’re going to convince him he’s wrong in the time between the turkey and dessert?    How about taking a step back, and asking him what supplies does he feel you should start with?  Or even better, take him out for a cup of coffee several times during the year, and listen.  Just because David farts and then giggles (and yes, he is an adult) why do you have to stand there and smell it?  How about trying to find common ground, and sharing stories that can be handed down (did you hear the one about Uncle Norman and the Bunker?) like our grandparents did for us?  Let's Step Back, and see what makes us Family, what connections we can make, or repair, what Blessings we can add for next year.

As for a different type of Stepping Back: I was brought up a card bearing member of the “Clean your plate” club.  In fact, we had to repeat a poem from my Grandfather’s Primary Reader, if we didn’t want to finish something on our plate:

You must not throw upon the floor the crust you cannot eat

For many a little hungry ones would think it quite a treat.

Your parents labor hard, to give you wholesome food

And you must never waste a bit that would do others goooood. (rhymes with “food”)

For willful waste makes woeful want and you might live to say:
“How I wish I had the Lima beans/squash/mushrooms  (GROSS) that once I threw away”.

And then we still had to finish it.

 

We can apply our theory with this too:  perhaps we need to Step Back from our plate.  Just because we are invited to have mashed potatoes, and gravy, and roasted potatoes, and stuffing, and squash, and bean casserole, and dinner rolls, and pumpkin pie, and apple pie, and ginger bread, and cranberry sauce, and oh yes some Turkey, does not mean we have to say yes to it all - or to seconds.  Sometimes it’s better to take a step back, choose those special dishes you really love that you don’t get any other time, and fully and blissfully enjoy those.

So what am I Treasuring this week?  My fabulous wonderful family, that grew larger by one and smaller by one this year.  Oh, and stepping back, looking for “common” and “helpful” and “funny” - while avoiding David's farts.

What am I Tossing? My membership to the Clean Plate Club.  And to appease my grandfather, the food will not be wasted – that’s why I have two dogs :-)

Happy Thanksgiving!

Boundaries and The Cape

Hi, my name is Nancy, and I hate it when people touch my hair.

It feels like a mixture of “fingernails down a blackboard” and when someone passes through you – that horrible, creepy chill.  My friends think this is very odd.  Most of them equate someone running their fingers through their hair more like 50 shades of Grey than Amityville Horror.  It goes without saying (but I’ll say it anyways), if you are a hair stylist that I have returned to, consider that a very big complement (Hi Miss M!).

What it boils down to is: Boundaries.  My whackadoodle boss (we’ll call her Big H which is funny because she’s smaller than me in every way) loaned me a book on Boundaries - I think that crossed one of mine.  I felt like I couldn’t say “No” without her looking down her nose at me and thinking “Oh, she doesn’t want to fix that…..”  But after reading 37% of it according to my Kindle, I think I have a handle on it.  Let me clarify: I did not have a traumatic childhood.  For me, I feel people discount my “No”. 

 
According to http://www.merriam-webster.com: the Definition of NO is: an act or instance of refusing or denying by the use of the word no : denial <received a firm no in reply>

In case that isn’t clear:

Synonyms: never, none, nothing, noway Jose, Nope, Nuh-uh

Just so that you know, I’m not really a freak (at least in this case LOL).  What would happen if you ran up to a strange dog, and decided to pat it and cuddle it, and ruffle its ears?  If it did not run away in fright, it would probably bite you.  So why is it so hard to understand that people have boundaries, and you should take as much care with them as with a strange Irish Wolfhound?

I have been studying karate for years, and I have no boundary issues at the dojo.   I remember working with a boy who was in high school with my daughter.  (He is now all grown up, and is a stand-up comedian – Hi MeatRack!).  He looked up at me from the floor where I had dumped him and said, “You know, it occurred to me that my friends might think it weird that I’m grappling with K’s mother”.  The reason I have no issues there is:  Permission.    Stepping on that floor, I give permission.  Before working with anyone, we bow, giving each other permission.  And at any time, I can say no, and have it backed up by people who can dismember you and make it look like an accident.  (Oops, they tripped and their arms and legs fell off!).  The dojo is my safe place: if there is ever a zombie invasion that’s where you will find me.

The other day my Daughter was explaining to me what she wanted to do with her hair.   “Don’t freak,” she said, “I’m going to touch your hair.  This is what I want to do, then, don’t freak, underneath here I’ll change it like so, and then, don’t freak, over here, like that.”   It was really kind of funny because I could not see what she was doing at all - she was showing me on the back of my head. 

But it did show that A) she respected my boundaries and B) she gave me the opportunity to say No, even though C) I shouldn’t have boundaries with my daughter and D) she thinks I’m crazy.  (I know you will all look forward to my post on how “should” was outlawed back in 2005.)

A few people have tried to fix me.  They believe that I would get over this silliness if they just wore me down.   Then there are those that believe it’s not real, that I’m just doing it to support some devious hidden agenda.  So they sneak up on me to prove it’s not really a knee-jerk reaction.  It is a funny phrase “knee-jerk reaction”, right?  It is so accurate though - because at just those times I feel like kneeing the jerk.

However, if my friend has an issue I consider silly/illogical/not good for them, I usually swoop in wearing my super woman cape and my underwear outside my tights to save the day.  You see I have this fabulous power that enables me to look at your life, and see exactly what you are doing wrong, and how best to fix it!  I get frustrated when people choose not to listen to me, and even more so when they knee me…..oh wait.

Boundaries go both ways.  So if I want people to respect mine, then I guess I need to respect theirs?  No matter how silly?  No matter if they are missing out on 50 shades?

So this week, I’m choosing to Treasure my boundaries, and the friends who honor them, especially those who do even though they don’t get it, and I will do my best to honor theirs.  As for the cape, I’m Tossing it ……well, maybe I’ll just put it away in cedar chest for safe keeping, in case anyone is looking for a super hero someday.  The underwear outside the tights – well that’s a topic for another day.