Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving to all of our friends in Bloggerville 

from The Captain and me.  May you have a safe, festive

and blessed holiday with your family and friends.

I'm most grateful to have been so blessed to have found

love again . . . we will be celebrating our first Thanksgiving

together as a married couple :)  Happy days!

What are you most grateful for?

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Comfort Zones

A soft place to land is the term used by The Daily Om, describing the comfort zone as the place to "provide us with a safe and comforting refuge in which we can decompress and recover from the day’s stresses."

My little piece of paradise in Florida is my comfort zone . . . outdoor spaces for me are therapeutic.  Our outdoor dining area provides that comfy, cozy spot to unwind, de-stress, take a timeout . . . or just relax.

I've always found that gazing at the sky provides that comforting feeling. There is something about watching the clouds pass by, observing the sun dissolve into the horizon, admiring a full moon with all its magic and twinkling stars on a clear night or experiencing night transforming into day.

My "Happy Place" is in the arms of The Captain, where I feel loved and safe from everything.  It reminds me of the saying "home is where the heart is."

Comfort zones change as our life circumstances change . . .

When I first became a widow, my comfy bedroom recliner in the candlelit room with music playing in the background was my comfort zone, where I could grieve, come to terms with the swift manner in which my life had changed and figure out how to deal with it.

In my working days, the outdoors was my "escape" . . . away from the job stresses and office politics.  As time went on, that comfort zone made it tolerable to stay at the job and not go completely insane.

A bad habit I'm happy to say I've conquered is finding the comfort zone in a rum and coke or a bottle of wine . . . not a happy place!

It is important to know when to retreat to the comfort zone to momentarily shift from the outside world back to the needs of our inner self.

What are some of your comfort zones?

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Happy Veterans Day

In Flanders field the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

~Major John McCrae, May 1915~

 

  The poem "In Flanders Fields" was written by a Canadian Doctor, while looking out over a field of graves.   Some of the bloodiest battles of World War I took place in the areas of northern France and southwest Belgium known as Flanders and Picardy.  Red poppies grew on the graves of dead soldiers in the fields of northern Europe.  Poppy seeds will lie underground for years and bloom if they are plowed up.  The tradition of honoring our dead by wearing Poppies spread from England to Canada and the U.S.  

We still wear red paper Poppies today to honor our fallen heroes.

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Just Do It

"You don't have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step."

Martin Luther King, Jr.

"If you want to make an easy job seem mighty hard, just keep putting off doing it."

Olin Miller

 

"Putting off an easy thing makes it hard. Putting off a hard thing makes it impossible."

George Claude Lorimer

"Nothing is so fatiguing as the eternal hanging on of an uncompleted task"

William James

Taking the first step was very difficult!

We got the hardest thing done first . . . moving the large pieces of furniture in the living room.

I've written about my problem with procrastination many times.  It is like a curse that plagues me.  Actually, it is pure and simple overwhelm.  We just sat down and talked about the big picture of what we want to accomplish . . . then broke it down into the task that we would make the biggest leap into getting it going.

The plan was made to start the next day . . . just the one task . . . and how to tackle it with the promise to each other that we would JUST DO IT and not put it off any longer.

Even though it was a small step to the big picture, the good news is that it has started the forward motion of consistently working on it every day.  Accomplishment feels good and calls for more as improvement is made.  Fall cleaning and rearranging the house continues!

Getting things done is a great feeling!

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