Morada Musings

Archive for the ‘30 Days of Thanks’ Category

I am thankful for humor, for the ability to laugh and appreciate the absurdities of life.  It’s been said that my family members, myself included, have a laugh set on a hair trigger.  Over the years my husband has lovingly teased me about my “runaway giggle”, a phrase he picked up from a favorite comic strip.  Give me any excuse and I’ll run with it!  Life’s too short not to enjoy it at every possible opportunity.

Some of my most favorite memories are of sitting at the dinner table and laughing.  The whole family would be there.  One of my brothers would be doing an impersonation of Bill Cosby, or one of my sisters sharing a story or telling a joke she’d heard.  It wasn’t often me doing the telling, and even less often our eldest sister, but we deeply appreciated them and added to the merriment with our responses.  Sometimes we’d get laughing so hard we couldn’t breathe, let alone finish eating dinner.  Even as we’d begin to get ourselves under control, a sideways glance or whispered words would start us all over again.  (“Was he wearing yella boots?” could still set us to snickering years after our eldest sister told one of her rare jokes.)  We’d giggle or wheeze or snort until my father sternly forbade another sound.  Not that he didn’t enjoy a good laugh, too, but was a staunch advocate of “moderation in all things.”  We never laughed harder than the time my mother accidentally shot him in the face, all the way down the long table, with whipped cream as she struggled to get the cap off and her thumb landed on the nozzle!

After Dad passed suddenly at 42, there was a quiet time as we tried to make sense of our changed world.  But even in the midst of our sorrow, there was always something worthy of a laugh so it wasn’t too long before we started again, and once started, nothing has been able to stop us again.  When Mom passed a few years ago, we sat around that same dining room table – now in my sister’s house – and as we shared our memories, there were as many laughs as tears as we recalled those times and the many others over the years.  Tuesday nights had been bowling night for my mother, sister Deb and, eventually, me as well.   We were grown ups but you’d never know it!  The three of us, and sometimes one of the boys, would start by sharing some amusing anecdote from our day and before we knew it, we’d be gone!  We’d drum our hands on the table, “run” in our chairs, even occasionally one us – usually my mother – would jump up from the table to run to the bathroom!  And more than once the switchboard (Mom ran an answering service in our home) would buzz, and keep buzzing until one of us could stop laughing long enough to at least answer it even if not in a serious voice.  Fortunately for us, our clients and their callers always seemed to appreciate our levity and would ask to be let in on the joke. 

I miss those days but carry their precious treasure in my heart.  I’m grateful for the equilibrium humor has brought into my life, enabling me to laugh easily and often, and at myself as much as anything or anyone else.  If there’s a chuckle or giggle to be found in any situation, I’ll look until I find it.

So, anyone know a good joke?

I am thankful for modern medicine, especially the technology portion.  Today my niece safely birthed her son into this world.  Recalling the difficulties and danger of her daughter’s birth, and two decades earlier my son’s, makes me aware and grateful again for the miracle of ultrasound and refined surgical techniques.  Our children are here and healthy; a century ago they probably would not be and my niece, my sister and me might very well not be either.

To be able to see into the body in such detail, to be able to recognize a problem, foresee dangers, has revolutionized childbirth as well as other life and death situations.  Yesterday’s news included an article about a man who was considered to be in a permanent vegetative state for the past 23 years but, through scanning with new technology, was discovered to be in a “minimally conscious” state – a significant difference.  He has not been unaware as previously thought.  The whole dynamic of his ongoing care will be much altered now, not only because of the realization of his sentience, but because of the advances in working with our human bodies that have occured in those 23 years.  This is truly amazing stuff!

I am also grateful for the plethora of pharmaceuticals we have in our arsenal.  I won’t go into the ramifications of misuse, overuse and other abuses of them by physician and patient alike – that’s a whole different article!  What I am talking about is the huge jump in longevity and quality of life we now enjoy because of the many drugs available to cure illnesses and manage chronic diseases which in the millenia leading up to this century would have been fatal or incapacitating.

From the huge transformation brought about with the discovery of penicillan to the simple relief of seasonal allergies, our modern society reaps the benefits of medical technology in ways both profound and subtle.  With our ever increasing understanding of botanicals and biochemistry, we have eradicated or subdued killers like smallpox and tetnus, manage diabetes and tuberculosus, cure cancers.  Thanks to epinephrine and steroids, my other sister and I survived life threatening allergic reactions.

For all of this awesome, astounding knowledge we’ve been given, these marvelous gifts, I am truly thankful!

I am thankful for technology.  No, really, I am!  And not just because it allows me to work from home, though that’s a really big part of it.  But I love the ways it enables me to do things that were previously hard, tedious or boring and to do them in much less time.  Like bookkeeping – how cool is it that with a few clicks here and there, all my transactions for the month are downloaded into software that remembers what category I consider each one to fall into and files everything just where it ought to be, redundantly so I can find it in any format I need?  Did I ever pay that bill?  A few clicks will tell me.  Tax prep takes a fraction of the time it used to and in a minute or less I can find out how much I spent on business expenses and tax-deductible utilities.  It could even reconcile itself if settings are tweaked just so.

Correspondence is likewise quicker, although sometimes that’s not such a great thing!  While I no longer have to dread making a mistake while typing in triplicate with carbon paper, there’s something to be said for the care it required.  No simple backspace, no highlight and delete.  In those days, a mistake meant several minutes and a few steps to correct it.  Either it involved rolling the sheets up enough to fold back the top sheet and each carbon to erase the error (without over-erasing which could tear the paper) or in later years, very carefully covering up the error with appropriately colored White-Out and waiting for it dry on the sheet before doing the next one.  Then you had to make sure everything was exactly lined up again as you rolled the sheets back down to the line you were on before continuing.  In this time of email, instant messaging and texting, we are in constant communication and do so at such a fast pace that we seldom take the time to edit ourselves.  We write too much, too often or things we shouldn’t, or wouldn’t if we’d stopped long enough to think about it.  So I’m very grateful for software that keeps up with my mind, not to mention a keyboard and mouse which give me three different ways to correct myself!

I love being able to print almost anything in color, any time I want, in any quantity I desire.  Whether it be photographs, brochures or business cards, I can do it day or night on any kind of paper I want and can even do tests in gray scale draft to save on ink.  Combine this with being able to design collateral, cards, even t-shirts through this amazing thing called the world wide web.  We’re so accustomed to doing things “online” and “through the web” that we rarely stop to really think about how utterly astounding this all is!  There’s a video clip being circulated in which a comedian talks about how everything is amazing but no one is happy.  Sadly seems to be true.

I’m grateful to be old enough to remember when the IBM Selectric typewriter with its replaceable type balls was cutting edge because it gives me a deep appreciation for the gifts we have today.

I am thankful for simple pleasures.  Every November, for only a few weeks, cranberry english muffins hit the store shelves and I enjoy one every day until they’re gone from the shelves.  Then I ration the ones I’ve stashed in the freezer to enjoy throughout the winter.

I love being able to watch the birds as I prepare meals and they eat theirs at the feeders in my backyard.  A few weeks ago there were about a dozen wild turkeys scratching around for about an hour; amazing to have them visit after 19 years in this house considering that there’s less woods behind me now than before.  I especially enjoy the antics of the goldfinches as they jockey for position on the 3 foot long spiral thistle feeder.  They’ll “run the spiral” – moving from top to bottom, stopping at each feeding hole and pushing off any other bird perched there.  And it’s always fun to watch the woodpeckers upside down on the suet feeder.  Not only are they a lively show to watch, they remind me that “His eye is on the sparrow and I know He watches me” – one of my favorite hymns.

I have a passion for popcorn, Pop Secret Homestyle to be exact.  It’s been a lifelong love affair between me and popcorn, starting with the hot buttered kind we made as kids for a treat when we were allowed to watch a special show on TV.  Then we moved on to Jiffy Pop but there was never enough for the 5 of us so the novelty of it didn’t last long and we returned to popping it in a pan on the stove.  We experimented with different flavors – salt & pepper, cheeses, garlic, even trying to make the sweet caramel kind.  When microwave popcorn come on the scene, it was heaven on earth.  I could have it anytime with no clean up!  I could have it at work!  Alas, I could also get fat eating it so often and eventually developed hives every time I ate it.    These days, it’s an infrequent, very special treat I enjoy immensely.

There’s nothing as blissfully snuggly as down comforters on cold nights.  Growing up we each had a patchwork quilt made by our grandmother.  Beautiful but not real warm.  My bedroom in our old New England farmhouse colonial was the one with the door to the walk up attic as well as being the furthest from the furnace so it was cold, sometimes really cold.  I usually had two blankets underneath the quilt and loved the weight of them.  Now, I hate the weight and really appreciate how warm a lofty duvet can be.  We’ve tried several styles, from the traditional ring stitched to the contemporary-looking box stitched, lowest warmth rating to highest.  My vote goes to the modified box stitched version which allows for a good amount of loft without the major shifting you can get with the ring stitched.  Ahhhh…

Another little thing that makes my day – sticky notes.  Those ubiquitous little yellow squares have evolved into a plethora of shapes, sizes, colors and designs.  I use them for many things – color coding stacks of receipts or papers when I’m sorting them, a quick note to myself, instructions for my son, a cover note when I send something off to a client.  From the lovely florals to the bright neons, squares to arrows to funky shapes, I am always on the lookout for a new one to add to my stash.  There is one design I no longer use, though I did when I found them back in the late 70′s.  However, I keep as a reminder of that past life in the Cubicle Nation.  It features Garfield, that wonderfully sarcastic cat who loves lasagna and teasing his owner, Jon.  There are words across the bottom which, sadly, describe what many experience in corporate life:  “It’s your problem now.”  For better or for worse, as a solopreneur, it is my problem now and will remain that way until it’s resolved.

I am thankful for prayer.  My concept of prayer has changed over the years, growing from a child’s pleading to a young adult’s repentance to present continual conversation.  The latest transformation began on 9/11 when the admonition in scripture to pray without ceasing became a reality.  I started that morning and continued all day, all night.  Even as I went about my work, part of my mind was constantly engaged in dialogue with God – pleading for protection for all those in New York, DC, Pennsylvania and around the world, asking for courage for myself and others, strength and stamina for rescue workers, comfort for those who lost, or didn’t yet know the status of, loved ones.  As the day turned into a week, a month, a year, I was still in dialogue.  As I sought to understand, to cope, to move forward, the Lord responded by drawing me closer.  When any one of us has a loved one turn to us in such a time, we hold on to them.  We comfort.  We reassure.  We encourage.  Sometimes we challenge.  But we don’t let go, don’t stop the conversation until that loved one says “Enough.”  I have not said it; it hasn’t yet been enough, and I’m so grateful for that.

These days the dialogue is different, often more of me asking specifically for clarity around purpose or vision, charity in my dealings with others, forgiveness for being so very human.  Always I am seeking.  Always He is responding.  The amazing thing is how differently those responses can show up in my life.  Sometimes it is starkly apparent: “Lord, show me what you want me to do and make it so clear I can’t possibly misunderstand.”  Someone calls in need, or an email shares a struggle, or a series of seemingly unrelated things all point to the same thing/person/concept with increasing focus until I say, “Okay, I get the message, thanks!”

Other times, I am merely offering praise for the magnificent world I inhabit, the beauty of nature, the joy of little pleasures, great friendships, powerful love.  No response is really asked for or needed but one comes anyway, usually in another display of artistry. A bird starts singing, a breeze stirs up the lovely scent of a flower, the sun kisses the horizon with a burst of color.  Or thunder starts a slow rolling rumble far in the distance and I am filled with anticipation for the thrilling display of power that’s coming with the first flash of lightening.

Sometimes I just sit, quiet, open, waiting – my mind free of any agenda, maybe drifting from one thing to another but mostly focused only on the dark gray canvas of my closed eyelids.  Thoughts start to gather around a central idea or image.  They don’t drift off again, but solidify, and I know that I am to examine them more closely.  As I do so, the conversation becomes verbal again – maybe seeking, maybe repenting, maybe praising.

And so it goes on…

I am thankful for tea, one of my simple pleasures.  I’ve always been a tea drinker (I think coffee smells glorious but tastes vile, unless I’m really hot then it’s Dunkins’ iced half decaf/half hazelnut, 1 Splenda & milk please).  Over the years I’ve tried quite a few varieties of tea from your grocery store standards like Lipton (ick) and Salada (what I grew up on) to slightly flavored ones such as Earl Grey (after an initial thumbs down, I’ve learned to appreciate certain brands of it) to the many types of herbal (mostly no, unless they’re spiced). My mother collected tea cups and passed that along to me, having flower filled ones delivered for birthdays when I lived far away. I scoured flea markets and yard sales looking for the unusual. My best find was a truly lovely cup and saucer set made in occupied Japan with translucent diamond shapes in the cup between delicately painted flowers.

Growing up my family taught me that a “proper cup of tea” had to be strongly brewed in a china or ceramic pot, using water brought to a rolling boil, sweetened and served with milk.  Unless it was iced, then it had to be strong, sweetened and served with lemon.  I might have gone on that way the rest of my life but for Sandy, a neighbor who introduced me to Constant Comment, and Rebecka, my roommate turned sister-in-law.

Rebecka’s midwesterner’s version of tea was more of a “blessing of the water” – pour the boiling water over the tea, dunk once then immediately remove the bag (or infuser) and drink it plain.  Herbal teas, especially fruity ones, were favored over the stronger black teas.  In the time we shared an apartment, I learned to really like some flavored teas and even tried many of her herbal fruity ones as well.  So while I never appreciated the green or grassy ones like chamomile, my horizons had been widened; I was willing to give any one of them a try as long as I could brew them stronger and sweeten them to taste.

Then I discovered the hearty Indian and middle-eastern spice teas like chai.  They became my nightly brews when caffeine was out of the question but I still wanted a strong flavor.  And I learned to drink them with less sugar, eventually without milk as well.  The purists in my family declared that these weren’t really even tea so I enjoyed them alone.

My mother eventually got on the green tea bandwagon and shared her favorite one with me.  It lacked the bitterness, especially when served hot, that I had come to associate with green teas.   With that revelation, I started trying other brands, various ways of sweetening it and eventually tried it cold.  And when I discovered Arizona’s blueberry green tea, I was hooked!  No other cold tea is as refreshing on a hot day so during the short season it is available, I’ll stock up in hopes of making it through to next year’s batch.  My son now shares my love of it and gave me a tin of it so I can brew my own.  Good, but not good enough.

I thought I had it all as good as it could be.  Then I watched a segment of Alton Brown’s  tv show, Good Eats.  For those of you who don’t know him, he’s the Bill Nye the Science Guy of food – explaining the chemistry and background of food in wacky and fun ways.  In this one, he shared his quest for perfectly brewed teas and had discovered that more than anything else, the water temperature was key.  It should never reach a roiling boil but be removed from the heat just as it’s about to start bubbling.  Then let it sit for 1 minute for traditional black and pekoe teas (for green teas, wait for it to cool down to 165 degrees) before pouring it over the leaves to avoid bitterness.  And give the leaves plenty of room as oxygen is the other critical component to brewed nirvana.  Slightly agitating the water, or repeated dunking if you’re using teabags, helps bring out the most flavor quickly; never let the tea steep for more than 3 minutes – again to avoid the bitter tannins being released from the leaves into your tea.  At first I was thinking he sounded like my aunt, a lovely but sometimes persnickety woman who had very particular ideas of how things should be.  But I’d tried several of his other suggestions and found them to be quite good so I gave it a try.  He was absolutely right and my morning tea went from really good to sublime.  I’m no longer scared to drink green tea hot and the spiced teas (which are made with just spices and no black teas) are smooth enough to drink any time, without milk and often without any sweetening.

My current morning favorite is Teatley British Blend, though Barry’s Gold is also quite good.  Some days I’ll go for Twining’s Irish Breakfast tea, which is more robust and earthy than the English Breakfast variety.  During the day it’s decaf – Stash’s Earl Grey, Trader Joe’s Organic Ruby Red Chai or Celestial Seasonings’ Bengal Spice (hard to find but oh so good!)  Now that the medical community is flooding the news with reports of how good tea is for you, I’m enjoying even more.

So here’s to you – hot tea in a bone china cup, pinky raised in proper English form!  Enjoy!

I am thankful for Sunday Sabbath.  Sabbath: from Latin sabbatum, from Greek sabbaton, from Hebrew sabbat, to cease, rest.

I’m so grateful that one day in seven was declared by God just for rest (Gen 2:3, Ex. 20:9, 31:13 ) and reaffirmed by Jesus  (Mark 2:27  “The sabbath was made to benefit people, and not people to benefit the sabbath.”)   There are many articles out there, especially in the sports training area, which emphatically talk about the need for days of rest to allow muscles to recuperate and thus be ready for further training.  Doctors advise us that not having proper rest and relaxation damages our immune systems by causing an over abundance of stress hormones like cortisol to flood our bodies which in turn leads to illness.  Mental health professionals urge us to be intentional in taking a day’s break from the pressures of work and the stresses that accompany it to allow creativity and inspiration to flow while also helping us to be more productive.

I love spending the morning at church, learning, worshiping, praying, chatting with friends new and old.  Then it’s home for a simple lunch, curling up on the couch or propped up in bed reading for pleasure, watching TV shows I’ve recorded, talking with my closest friend while our guys watch football or some other sports show.  Sometimes I snooze, sometimes not;  the thing of it is just being instead of doing. My mind is free to wander where it will and I don’t feel obliged to yank it back to the task at hand; free association reigns and creative ideas are birthed.

By suppertime it’s back to doing – cooking and dinner with my guys, preparing for the coming week, sometimes two hours of driving to collect my son from his girlfriend’s college if he hopped on the train on Friday (weekend transit schedules would mean a 5 hour return trip!)   But I’m refreshed, body and  mind, from my down time, soul-centered by my worship time.

I am thankful that I have learned how to really disconnect from the daily world routines and reconnect to the health restoring one that observing the Sabbath brings to my life and that of my family.

I am thankful for my son.  I was going to wait until the date which is his favorite number but decided I really need to express my gratefulness without further delay.  My son is an only child, not by choice.  That in itself makes him a gift but he was also conceived on Christmas so that means he’s a heavenly gift to us as well.  But it goes so much further than that.

I thought I knew how much I would love him and what that would feel like.  I missed it by a mile.  There’s no way to accurately anticipate the fierceness of maternal love, it is so far outside of any other relational dynamic as to defy description.  This is no cherub-floating-on-fluffy-clouds-as-mother-sighs sort of pastel picture.  On the contrary, this is a vibrant, jewel-toned, tigress defending her cub to the death kind of reality.   I can still feel the sick fear I experienced when he was born too early and spent his first month in the hospital with tubes and wires, monitors suddenly beeping when his heart rate would slow dangerously, or beat excessively fast.  The depths of anger I could feel when he was taunted by a neighborhood bully, as often happened, scared the living daylights out of me.  And when at a year old he fell and put his tooth through his lip, having to hold him down – along with two nurses – as he screamed while they put a stitch in it nearly undid me.   Whoa!  This motherhood thing was a whole lot more dramatic and demanding than I thought going in.

I also thought that, being a very patient woman, I would be June Cleaver and Donna Reed all in one.  My house would be neat, my child curious but compliant and well mannered.  But from a very young age, my son’s strong spirit and very busy mind and body quickly showed me that I had to find reserves I didn’t know existed if he was to survive to adulthood.  Thankfully, I did and he has , now being a college freshman.

He has challenged my self perception in other ways, too.  As he began talking, it became apparent that there was much more going on in his mind than the books and experts led me to believe there would be at each given age.  He has a very bright mind, brilliant even, which works differently than many people’s does, including my own.  At 20 months, he pronounced Bonnie Raitt’s bluesy Love Me Like A Man to be “really great music, Mom” and at 3 he was doing simple addition, which he picked up more or less on his own.  To keep him stimulated – oh heck, just to keep him occupied for a few minutes! – required that I always think further ahead than I normally would, planning 5 or 6 more things to do once he tired of his present occupation.  And I had to try to consider things from his perspective even if I didn’t really understand what that looked it.  I was stretched, and stretched some more.

And do you know what I discovered through parenting him?  I’m smarter than I believed, more resilient than I thought, more passionate than I had ever perceived I could be.  That I should trust my instincts more than experts because I know him and, for all of their education, they don’t.  And that tag-team parenting with my husband is infinitely better than doing it solo as I did when he was working 3-11:30 p.m and building his consulting business during the day.   I also realize that I am a better mother than I thought I was when he was young and I was exhausted.  He tapped my creativity, brought out my whimsy, as I discovered that he heard me best if I sang my words, or framed things within a story in which he was the prince.  He helped us teach him empathy by example that all people deserve respect and compassion because we will seldom know what their lives are like beyond the surfaces we see.  Those who know the challenges we’ve faced together marvel at how wonderfully well he’s turned out.  Those who don’t know simply think he’s a charming, intelligent, polite, caring and sensitive young man who loves basketball and out-of-the-mainstream music and is the one in his group of friends to whom they turn when they need advice or support.

I am eternally grateful for the gift of him in our family.  Now, if only he would clean his room…

I am thankful for my clients, old and new.  I love that I am an integral part of their businesses, that we work together in such synergy and shared sense of purpose.  Within their goals and dreams, I find some of my own – sometimes as a reflection, other times as a new and exciting one I adopt.

I am grateful for the opportunities for learning which come with each new client or an existing client’s expanding vision.  Perennially curious, I just have a blast digging into the unknown, whether it be technology or a different marketplace, to see what is there and where it can take us.

I treasure the friendships that develop over the years as we work through challenges and celebrate victories.  And yes, it is over years because I work in long-term collaborative relationships.  I get to know each one’s thoughts and ways of doing things which naturally leads to being able to finish their sentences and speak in their voice, whether that be in marketing materials or interactions with their clients and vendors.

I am blessed to be doing this from a home office, and not just for the relief of not having a commute and being able to dress as comfortably as I choose on any given day.  I take joy in being surrounded by furnishings that are lovely – restful warm colors expressed in contemporary florals, meaningful photographs, variable lighting – as well as those which are wonderfully practical like my wireless headset that allows me to be anywhere in the house, on the deck, in the yard.

Yes, I am soooo thankful for this wonderful new life after saying goodbye to the Cubicle Nation for good!

I am thankful for wind.  I have always had an affinity for it but only in recent years have I thought about why that might be.

Perhaps it’s the sense of change – sweeping away the dead leaves of life to leave a fresh canvas.

Or maybe it speaks to my sense of adventure – imagining myself as one of those leaves being lifted up and sailing away to see new people, new places.

Then again, it may just be as simple as the freshening of the air I’m breathing giving me a clearer mind and renewed energy.Likely it is a combination of all of these things.  I just love windy days, especially the ones of fall when I can feel and smell and sense change in the very air I breathe.  Summer is gone.  Winter is coming.  Everything is in transition and all things are possible.