Oh God, Please Give me a Sign

What’s the most ridiculous idea you can think of?

I’m trying, but my mind is oatmeal.

(I published this post on the 90 Day Millionaire Challenge blog, but decided to repeat it here.)

Pet Rocks—remember those? They came. They went. They made the owner 15 million dollars. It was fun and not so ridiculous.

Okay, I can’t think of anything so I will go into, “What do people want?”

Food.

Sex.

Sex.

Food.

Money.

A lesson on How to Get Rich

They might want a little companionship.

Some want a spiritual understanding.

Children.

If they have children, something to entertain them.

Advice to parents? Well, everyone has their own ideas, and who wants anyone to tell them how to raise their kids anyway.

Well, maybe they will listen to Dr. Phil.

Vampire books.

Horror stories.

Action films. Sports

Food.

Drink.

Sex.

How to be healthy.

How to get healthy.

How to have good eyesight, good hearing, and good bowel movements.

How to avoid the dreaded diseases, such as heart disease, cancer, strokes, Alzheimer’s, dementia.

A book on How to get Everything You Desire, would be nice, but who knows How-to do that?

I got too serious.

Remember gratitude rocks? The story is that an African man visited a friend in the US. When the African got home his son was quite ill. He worried and wrote to his American friend asking for help.  His friend in the US sent him a gratitude rock chosen especially for him. The African held the rock, gave thanks for the health of his son, and his son recovered. He wrote to his friend thanking him and asked for more rocks to sell to his friends.

I think I ought to follow suit and sell gratitude rocks.  One can always get their own gratitude rock, but if a rock is packaged well and comes with a quote as well as suggestions of something to be grateful for—so much the better. It doesn't always have to be the big things we are grateful for. We can be grateful for the tuna fish sandwich we had for lunch.

Rocks harvested from a mountain creek in Oregon would be imbibed with magical snow melt. I’m thinking of such a creek. Each day you could hold your rock and be grateful for one thing--or more. I would bless the rock, too, so you would remember to be grateful every day.

I’m excited about this. After awhile people could write about how the rock helped them, the miracles that happened, and I would happily post stories.

This is a test.

If I sell five rocks here, I will start a site and sell rocks.  Five rocks! This is a “God, please give me a sign,” exercise. 

The other day my daughter began writing “Give me a sign,” and her pen stopped in mid-sentence. “Was that my sign?” she said.

Let’s see, Rocks under two ounces would cost $2.00 to ship. That’s a small rock.

Packaging would be about 50 cents.

If I charged $3.50 I would make a buck.

I’m going to test this concept with my own rock and my own gratitudes. My rock, though, doesn’t count as one of the five.

What do you say?

Want to try it?

Hit the Buy it Now PayPal button that directly follows this post, and we will be on our way. (The button was there, then it wasn't there. I will try again.)

Ta Da. Here's to  miracles!

Joyce

jewellshappytrails@gmail.com

P.S. I won’t guarantee that the rock will be pretty. River rocks tend to look good under water, but when dry, not so pretty.

“Good Lord willin’ and the creek don’t rise”—Tennessee Ernie Ford

What Happens When a Love Affair is Over?

You sit numb and think of the candle light dinners, nights on the beach, days swimming at the Sheraton, snorkeling at #Waikoloa Beach. You remember #Waimea’s rolling hills high above the sea blanketed with such incredible green sparklers of tears sprang to your eyes. You remember the horses of #Waimea and the ride you took, and the sign at the #Panilo stable: Wranglers, you are perfect. Don’t change a thing.

You remember swimming in the bath-tub warm water at the Ponds and the little fishes that nibbled at your feet. You gave a lot to that relationship. You were committed, and then one day you realized you didn’t love her anymore. It was time to leave.

Pele, that great goddess of the volcano, jerked us around that last day, but we did it. We made it off the island, and like the pioneers of old, we moved to California.

Fascinating isn’t it how thoughts roll in like surf against lava rock? Here I am a couple of years off the island and I still can’t help but envy the way a good storm gets everyone’s attention. The storms of Hawaii rolled up against our house and onto the shore of my memory. I remember the rain pouring off the roof and splashing into the funnel that ferried it into the water tank of our catchment system. 

We had been having drought conditions so water was a priority. The rains came at last, but we were losing half the water as it splashed out of the rain gutter into the funnel that was askew from its down pipe. That pipe carried the water underground and into the above ground storage tank. I wanted to catch every drop, so I climbed the ladder to straighten the catchment funnel. Warm water rained on me and splashed off the gutter wetting me comfortably to the skin.

Next I moved over to the second tank to make sure it was getting its fair share from the opposite side of the roof. The only trouble was my cell phone was in my bra, and it took the same dousing as I did. Its reaction? It refused to work.

Technology helper to the rescue. “Take the phone apart,” he said, “put it in a plastic bag along with some rice, and then leave it for twenty-four hours.”

The next day, we were good to go—or to talk. That phone worked perfectly until we moved to California where I bought a new one. Rather a shame after if served me so well.

So what happens when a love affair is over? 

Time to begin a new one.

Look at the Magic

Okay, I’m awake. It’s 5 a.m. I decide do some editing on my Island book.  I go to my computer, and it’s like grand central station around here. The cats figure a closed door is an invitation to ask someone to open it. Zoom Zoom, traipses across my computer, purring, rubbing against me. For a skittery cat, he is affectionate when nobody else is around. Obi, Nina’s cat, tries to bury a piece of tissue paper on the floor. (He will try to bury my coffee too. He is the cleaner-upper around here.) Peaches, our poodle, wants out. Bear comes into the room, then he wants outside. Well, the sun’s up, and the animals have settled down. Time to pack Neil’s lunch.

Yesterday five-year-old Grandson was sticky so I convinced his to let me spray him off with our shower hose. Reluctantly he got into our tub, then decided that spray was pretty fun, and after he doused me with water, I closed the shower curtain, and was wiping up the floor.

“Ow,” I said.

From behind the curtain: “I’m sorry.”

“Oh, I bumped my head. You didn’t do it.”

“That makes sense,” he said, “Cause I’m not out there.”

On Monday, a good friend commented that if we are skeptically optimistic, the world is magic. And I decided to look at the magic, for I’m tired of reality.

So yesterday I tried to find a quote I remembered from Ray Bradbury. I thought it was this: “The world is a magic place or it should be if we don’t fall asleep on each other.” Maybe it’s his, maybe not, I can’t find it.  I took pleasure, though, in a memory of Bradbury. It was a warm night in San Diego. My husband was going to an Optic Conference. I almost didn’t accompany him as I had some wounds on my face I didn’t want to expose to the public, but they were small, and Ray Bradbury was the keynote speaker—that motivated me, scabs or not.

I don’t remember what he said, except that he always raised his audience to heights of stupendous expectations. Afterward I went up to him and instead of asking for an autograph, I asked to shake his hand. He said, “How about a hug, and gathered me into his arms in a big bear hug.” Gosh I wish some of his magic had rubbed off.

This is how I remember him.

And, what do you think of this? From the wisdom of Bradbury:

If you know how to read, you have a complete education about life, then you know how to vote within a democracy. But if you don’t know how to read, you don’t know how to decide. That’s the great thing about our country—we’re a democracy of readers, and we should keep it that way. –Ray Bradbury

I spent three days a week for 10 years educating myself in the public library, and it’s better than college. People should educate themselves—you can get a complete education for no money. At the end of 10 years, I had read every book in the library and I’d written a thousand stories.

“I have never listened to anyone who criticized my taste in space travel, sideshows or gorillas. When this occurs, I pack up my dinosaurs and leave the room.” 
― Ray Bradbury, Zen in the Art of Writing

“Do you know that books smell like nutmeg or some spice from a foreign land? I loved to smell them when I was a boy. Lord, there were a lot of lovely books once, before we let them go.” 
― Ray Bradbury

And here I am writing an eBook.

And finally, "You must stay drunk on writing so reality cannot destroy you." --Ray Bradbury

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Hit that Publish Button Again

God, I’m so nervous.

I hit publish again for my mother’s letters.

I know I’ve been through this before, don’t know why I’m so anxious this time. Excited maybe. 

I went back to Bookbaby, for they will distribute the eBook on many sites including Page Pusher which means it can be easily read on the computer. No tablets, Kindles, Nooks, etc. required.

This morning I read through the manuscript again, changed a few things, cleaned the letters up a bit, found some typos—again. 

I know writers need an editor for a writer has a hard time seeing their own mistakes. Mistakes bad, but if the grammar or syntax isn’t correct, I’m not going to worry. I wanted the voices to be mother’s and mine.

Strange isn’t it to read words of someone long gone, words of someone you thought you knew intimately. Mom was secretive with me, embarrassed. She never spoke of the Lord in our conversation as she does in these letters, but then she was speaking to a Christian Adoption Agency. I know she opened up more to her next children than she had with me. She had no reason to be embarrassed or uncomfortable with them, and I wish she had not with me…

I never knew I was her pride and joy as she stated in the letters, nor do I remember that she ever said to me, “I love you.”  I accepted it somehow, and it didn’t stop me from telling my children I love them.  I know Mom never resented me, even thought she was sixteen when I was born.  We lived with my grandmother, and I remember she and I at night lying in her bed finding shapes in the tree outside our window.

Mom felt she “had” to get married. I know my father and Grandma got along famously, not so much my mother and him. 

Dad was an artist with a hobby of taxidermy. He built a “can house” behind the house that they said would take dynamite to bring it down.  It was a shop built of cans, large cans like drums, for he worked at a shoe factory and glue and such was delivered in those cans. He filled them with cement, thus the need for dynamite.

Dad befriended a mentally challenged boy next door who liked to draw water from the well, and on hot Illinois days would egg my dad on for a water fight with my mother so he could draw the water. One day, the kid entertained himself without the water fight, and we can home to an empty well. 

It sounded as though my parents had fun, but their marriage ended in divorce. It spun my mother and me into the next portion of her journey, however, and that led to her heart’s desire, more children. She told me that she always wanted a baby in the house, yet for 19 years all she got was me.

The tragedy was that she died 12 years after adopting her second family, and 10 years after having a natural-born son. Then there was the secret she never knew about. I hope by my telling that secret it will forge a legacy for both mother and my sister Jan.

I think of little Jan and how she wandered around the house calling “Jo” when I was gone. My getting married and moving away was like the older sister going away to college and leaving the little ones behind—we had forged a bond, however, that will remain forever.

Once again I am presenting this book, new title, new cover, now titled Mother’s Letters…and mine.

P.S. On an upward swing, want to join me for a 30 day challenge? Check out www.the90daymillionairechallenge.blogspot.com

Friendly Ground

“Hi Jack,” I would call as Jack strode past our kitchen window on his way to our front door.

“Don’t say that to a flyer,” he would call back.

Jack was never hijacked that I know of, but he was the lone survivor of two airplane crashes.

Jack was a navigator in the Second World War. The spot where the navigator sat, so he told me, behind the pilot and before the cargo hold, was the safest place on an aircraft.

Jack’s second crash happened in Germany behind enemy lines. And, as with the first crash, Jack walked away, except this time he was captured.

A German soldier stuck a gun to his back and was pushing him through the forest, while all around ammunition exploded from the fallen aircraft. As he was stumbling through the brambles, Jack tripped, and as he fell he reached into his boot for his pistol. Righting himself, he slid the pistol up the front of his body, laid it on his shoulder, aimed it to his back, and beside his ear he heard a deafening explosion when he pulled the trigger.

He ran like hell, fully expecting any minute to feel a bullet in his back.

No bullet.  Nobody came after him. Apparently, his shot blended in with all the others. No one heard, and he never knew what happened to the German behind him.

Jack escaped.

He hid during the day and was privy to real dogfights that was planes overhead shooting it out with each other. By night he traveled to what he hoped would be safety. By then he had pneumonia, but he happened upon a French farmhouse, where the lady took him in, hid him and cared for him.

She was so poor, he said, that she wore a dress woven out of cellophane, and the garden that sustained them was so overused it produced tasteless food.

One day, to his surprise, GI’s appeared at their front porch. Instead of his escaping past enemy lines, the allied forces came to him. He explained to the GI’s who he was, and how this destitute lady had cared for him. They explained that now they were on friendly ground. 

But that’s not the end of the story.

The following day a jeep came laden with provisions for the lady.

This is a true story that ought to be told with more depth that I have explained here, but I told  what I know.  Jack lived to become our friend, and a UFO investigator with my husband. He died years after his harrowing ordeal, at home in his apartment on friendly ground.

Aren’t we lucky?

Fascinating isn’t it, how little we know another human being? “How are you doing?” we ask. “How’s life?” “What’s happening?” We are met with, “Not much,” “Could be worse.” “Mildewing.” “This and that.”

We read novels and there we see the inner workings of a human being. We read their mind droppings, hear their voice. We know their foibles, you know those things we try to hide from our acquaintances, and even our family.

I am not able to tell you how Jack responded to his trauma, if it lingered with him, if it haunted him, or how he rose to the challenge. We can imagine he had a love affair with the woman, but that is only speculation, but he never married, or wasn't when we knew him. One can only imagine, but that’s good too, we can empathize. We can be in awe. We can think, “Whew, thank God it wasn’t me.” “Good for you Jack.” He was a person.

I have endeavored to make my mother a person as well. She was secretive with me, embarrassed, not revealing much and thus I saw more into the woman in her letters than I did in real life. She wrote her letters in private to Grandma Holt.  In the dark of night, alone, sitting at her kitchen table, the children asleep, her husband at work, she could say on paper what she could say in the light of day. She would have been appalled to think her words would ever be made public. Yet I believe they ought to be read.

Her letters will be published again, this time under the title of Mother’s Letters…and mine.

Here is my new cover.  Zinnias for Mom—they remind me if her.

A link will come later. First I have to learn to format for a new publication. You could say I’m a flake and can’t make up my mind, or you could say I persevere until I am satisfied. Choose which.

And Then Came Monday

Yesterday I drove up I-5 while all around me green popped. Green filled the fields beside the freeway. It saturated the fields and splashed up into the hills beyond. It dripped from every possible surface. 

Springtime has come to Oregon.

And there were sheep in the fields all facing the same direction. Does that mean they were facing into the wind or the other way around? Were they aligned to the magnetic field? What is it? Oh, there is always an oddball facing the other way. I'm sure we can relate.

In my drive contemplation, I wondered how much Woolite it would take to restore the sheep’s rain-grayed coats to newborn white. Have you ever seen 4H Club kids wash their lambs? Yes, they use Woolite soap, and then they clip, and brush until their sheep resemble a Serta Mattress commercial.

Yesterday I whined, “I have been blogging for more than five years, and today I have nothing to say.” Could be that the 2 a.m. study of the Corel Paint Program sucked everything else out of my brain.

Then came Monday.

I drove with my husband to his work so I could keep the car, and on the way back home, I saw the most glorious rainbow. Later driving up I-5, another rainbow, straight ahead, I was driving straight into it. I put a CD  in the player and listened to one of my favorite speakers who said, “Before you leave the parking lot write down three things you want today. So, I wrote down three things.

1. I want a great time with my niece.

2. I want a good subject for a picture.

3. I want a topic for my blog.

Everything was magical after that. I exited the freeway too early, but ended up beside where I wanted to be—Powells Bookstore in Portland Oregon. And, more magic, there was a parking place directly across the street.

Upon entering Powells I was overwhelmed—talk about green dripping, books dripped from every available surface. I was salivating. When we were in California I read that even Powell’s Bookstore in Portland, known for its square block of books, had downsized. It looked as big as ever to me, even more so. And people were swarming everywhere, more than the sheep in the fields.

Going up the stairs, I almost ran into my niece. Whew, I found her.

Apparently Powells had closed their technical store down the street—that could account for the downsizing. But this store was being re-modeled. The future of books looks alive and well in Portland Oregon.

I had a great time with my niece. She bought me a birthday coffee—thus my picture.

And here is my blog topic.

I was on a roll that day, the next day at home I rolled into computer programs that work when they take a notion, cat litter boxes that needed changed on a regular basis, my grandson who is adorable and wonderful, but needed some attention, and taxes that screamed at me to DO THEM NOW. 

It's easy to roll on vacation days. the challenge is to keep on rolling...

Time To Bury The Mule

I have spent the last few blogs on the subject of happiness, and have concluded that I am not going to chase happiness.

I’m going to let it come to me.

 

But I am seeking JOY. As I mentioned in a previous blog, Joy are moments. And I decided I was named Joyce for a good reason. Joy is the first part of my name.

I had an epiphany this morning—that was that each day is a new opportunity. No big surprise there, but you know how it is, a concept can bounce around for years, it grows, it changes, it turns its back on us, it spits in our faces, it loves us, it evolves.

And one day we get it. 

We CAN change the quality of the day. (According to Henry David Thoreau, changing the quality of the day is the highest of the arts.)

Perhaps that is the reason we have nights and slumber. In sleep we wander into the twilight of Neverland, we refresh, we can, if we choose, put a period at the end of yesterday’s sentence.

Although I have a habit of dragging the cares of yesterday, like a dead mule, into the new day.

Time to bury the mule.

 

".... Remember that feeling as a child
When you awoke and morning smiled
It's time its time you felt, felt like that again
Come with me, leave your yesterdays, your yesterdays behind,
and TAKE A GIANT STEP OUTSIDE YOUR MIND!"

---written by Gerry Goffin and Carole King, sung by TAJ MAHAL

 

 

 

Read what Elizabeth Gilman (Eat, Pray Love) says about creating/art on http://www.thebestdamnwritersblogontheblock.blogspot.com

Happiness is the First Egg

February 24, 2014  was an auspicious day. That morning I opened my chicken house door and found a surprise. Our first egg of the season. The first egg from my hen.

This shows the color-- a lovely seafoam green.

This afternoon I decided to give Gertrude and Victoria, the two hens, nice clean hay, deserving chickens that they are.  Hay has a nice sweet aroma, and probably some seeds, while straw is stems only, so, it's hay. Low and behold I found two more eggs. Probably the first one I found was from the day before, since I hadn't checked.  They look white here, but aren't.

 
 
I bought the chickens, on September 5, 2013, they were probably two or three days old when I bought them, and now 7 months later they are grown up laying hens.

The light-colored chick turned out to be a rooster--verboten in town--so he was adopted by a wonderful woman who lives outside the city limits.

She calls him the "Wonder rooster," for his is holding his own with her resident rooster.




This is Gertrude or Victoria, I can't tell which.

Since I had the camera in hand the morning of the found egg, I snapped this daffodil growing by our foundation. Quite a juxtaposition from 2 months ago.

December 6, 2013

 

 

            

                                                                            February 24, 2014

 

That's the news from home this week. For more information, or to click on my other sites kindly scroll to the bottom of the page.

 

Thank you for reading.

Love from our house to yours,

Joyce

jewellshappytrails@gmail.com

 

For a more pithy Joyce check out Granny Shoots from the Hip

 

http://www.grannyshootsfromthehip.weebly.com

 

 

On the Road to Happiness

 

From a Calvin and Hobbs Collection by Bill Watterson, "The Days Are Just Packed"

"I’ve been thinking of the question you posed on your blog, “What Makes You Happy?”.  It is an interesting thought because for a long time when people asked me what I wanted I would reply that I just wanted to be happy.  When I thought about it, it felt like happiness was kind of a fleeting thing so I decided that I just wanted to feel at peace.  That felt good for a while and recently I moved into the idea that I think we all just want to be loved.  I think I will be hanging out there for a long time.  I can’t think of what could be better than that."--Sue

 

Dear Readers,

As you can see, I am back on this blog, thank you for the visit. I'm grateful, too, that you have been thinking, and responding.  I've been blogging other places as well so I feel well blogged. This site, however, is my first love, so let's get going here...

For the last three installments I have asked the question, "What makes You Happy?" and realized that we have been seduced into believing that we ought to be happy. But, we might ask, what is happiness?  I like Abraham's take on it, that it is our natural right to live in JOY.  Joy/Happiness are they any different? It seems to me that JOY is that thrill we feel at sunrises and sunsets, at good music, and good wine,  joyful friends, good conversation, a loving relationship, a spiritual understanding, a run in the park with our dog, hiking in the wilderness, skiing, horseback riding, awe, ecstasy, achievable goals, a purpose, a dream, a few good challenges.  All that adds up to happiness. But being happy all the time. That is too great an expectation.

However, here is further input:

On The Road to Happiness: Don’t Worry, Stress Can be Good for You

We have all heard that stress is bad for our health. Well, it can be. According to Kelly McGonigal a Stanford psychologist, her eight years study of the high stress group showed that at the end of eight years 43% died.

But, and this is the key point: Only those who BELIEVED that stress was harmful to their health.

The high-stress subjects who didn’t believe stress was harmful had the lowest risk of dying of all the subjects.

Here is how it works. When you’re stressed, your heart pounds. Your breathing increases. You might even break into a sweat. Typically, we look at these responses as signs of anxiety.

Instead, Dr. McGonigal suggests you look at the typical stress responses as signs that your body is being energized. The pounding heart is preparing you for action. Faster breathing increases oxygen to your brain. Your body is preparing for the challenge ahead.

From a health standpoint, when you view stress as a health risk, your blood vessels constrict. It’s this constriction of blood vessels that can lead to heart disease. But when you take a positive perspective on stress, your blood vessels don’t constrict. They stay open.

Live long, stay healthy, prosper,
Joyce

What Makes You Happy?

The Ice Tree over our back fence.

 

 

 

 

 

Look-it here, every branch is totally encased in ice.

 

 

 

Even  Kermit the Frog who rides on our car aerial, found himself in an ice bubble--still has a smile on his face though. From California to Oregon, the poor fellow must have had quite a shock.

 

 

 

What Makes Me Happy?
by Theda

What makes me happy?  

 

Why do most of us have such difficulty answering this question?  My guess is it's because our happiness changes as we change.  What brings joy seems to be very much dependent upon our perception at the moment.  That must be why we often see people thriving in conditions we might find deplorable - children playing ball among the rubble of a war zone and giggling joyously, a poverty-stricken family ecstatic over their first snowman, destitute lovers delighting in the simple gift of embrace.   

 

What is happiness really?  Pleasure, contentment, cheerfulness, ecstasy?  Surely my happiness today wouldn't hold the same ingredients or arise from the same circumstances as those that made me happy as a child, or when I was twenty, or even fifty.  Could the formula for happiness be as simple as dark chocolate?  For some of us that might just be the answer! 

 

So what is it honestly, right now this very moment, that makes me happy?  The amazing and brilliant gift of being alive in a body on this planet at this time and place.  However incredible it might seem, my present exuberant state of appreciation was born out of great suffering and loss.  

 

Losing my husband was like losing music - all harmony ceased - notes became noise, warping tones into a dizzying buzz around my head.  Suddenly everything beautiful safe and familiar, disappeared.  There was nothing left to grab ahold of.  My world had shattered into tiny pieces, color and sound sucked away, leaving a world of grays, devoid of meaning color or fragrance.  In one instance my entire reality melted into a confusing fog of despair so great I lost all will to go on living.  I truly felt as if I would never be happy again. 

 

Then the miracle . . . little by little, seemingly out of nowhere, the magic began to return, my sight restored.  The sunbeam glistening through the open window became a personal message from the divine, the breeze rustling through the tree became the whisper of my beloved, the bird perched on my windowsill signaled the perfection of my individual existence.  

 

One by one the signs materialized, each demonstrating and corroborating my own sacred connection.  The more I trusted, the more enchanting my world became.  Music returned.  The sky was never bluer, colors never brighter, melodies never sweeter than in this hallowed "now" moment.  I was a puppy romping on the beach, a child watching snow for the first time.  The world around me was transformed into a wise benevolent friend.  

 

True happiness reappeared as I recognized the hidden gift in every circumstance, the good in every experience.  Joy came with the awareness that everything is perfect as it is - all is exactly as it should be.  Just imagine, no matter what the universe chooses to place in our pathway, we have the opportunity to perceive it in any way we choose.  We can focus on the negative aspects or the positive.  We can turn each circumstance into a tragedy or a godsend.  It's all up to us.  

 

So what makes me happy?  Life!