Glitter’s Gift

Before you can lip the words “are you kidding”, hear me out…

Ok, I know its August 7th and there are 139 days until Christmas.  Labor Day, Halloween, Thanksgiving and National Peanut Day have not even entered our frontal lobes, but yet Christmas décor has snuck into the aisles of a store near you.  I know, I know it’s near 90⁰ out and how in the world can you be expected to think about a winter holiday especially as the memory of the 2013 snowstorms still linger in your minds.

But I’d like to offer some positive thoughts on the glitter found in the aisles this August.

• This is the time of year designers shop for their clients when all the ‘great’ decorations are still available, you should go find some unique items and store them away!
• If we start now to think of the perfect gifts for family and friends, we won’t pick the last things on the shelves two days before Christmas. You have time to find out what they’ve always wanted or observe what they really need.  Shopping now means we can spend less cash on more meaning…
• During the holidays people are always nicer, kinder, more generous, and they smile more. So thinking about Christmas should make you smile – even in August.
• If we calmly start planning for gifts, trips, parties, and visits with family and friends, we won’t lose our minds as we scramble* to squeeze everything into the four calendar weeks we are perceived to have after Thanksgiving.

*scram·ble — [ skrámb’l ] verb

1.a. to move with urgency or panic;

3.b. to get or gather something with difficulty or in irregular ways

• If you start planning now you can eliminate the humiliation of being laughed at 3 weeks before Christmas as you call around to find that special hockey jersey, cabbage patch doll (dating myself) or Nintendo games, been there, done that.
• Homemade gifts or creating on-line treasures are less rushed when starting 4 months ahead.
• It’s fun to keep the secret of wrapped gifts in the house!

We are SO occupied with the shopping, decorating, planning, baking, worrying of the holidays it becomes almost IMPOSSIBLE to enjoy ANY of the magic of the season.  We set ourselves up for an anti-climactic hangover if we pack all the excitement into one day and don’t enjoy the journey to the actual celebration.

So as we walk through those aisles and whisper to ourselves ‘are you kidding’ when we see ornaments, lighting, wreaths and glitter, remember to SMILE!  Take those colorful reminders as a gift — that instead of 4 weeks to do all the things on your Christmas list, you’ve got 4 months!!!

Grateful for you (and Glitter)…

Sheree

Chicago

On my annual trip back to the Midwest, after visiting with one of my older sisters, I headed down to Chicago to spend the night with my best friend.  The river, the lake, the buildings were still breathtaking, even if I had seen them a thousand times before, I’d still be in love.  The food was delicious as always, and the sights engaging, but in this place where people claim, you can get lead poisoning because of all the bullets in the air, I noticed the other side of this fast-paced city. A door held by a stranger, a seat offered to an older woman in the hotel lobby, the smiles on the kayakers paddling down the river and the beauty of the buildings (ok that one was being pointed out to me by the guide on the architecture tour, but I always knew it…).  Even though this city has beauty, kindness and gastronomical delights, it also has a never-ending, can’t stop pace.

After I got my fill of urbanism, I set out for ‘my’ hometown.  I always tell people Chicago, just easier, but in reality it’s Algonquin – such a fun name – located 40 miles NW of Chicago on the Fox River.  What is it about the place we are raised?  Perhaps the dirt I played in, still resides in my bloodstream because the smells of alfalfa being cut, the river and maple tree sightings brought back memories of lying under oak trees and wading in the river.  A slower time came flooding back, one where walking down to the Ben Franklin seemed like a day trip!  But my own little town had something new waiting for me – a bypass to alleviate the congestion of the two main highways in town. To be clear, there are ONLY two highways that cross in downtown and they’re really more like large streets.

As I walked down the main street with my younger sister, I wondered how were the breakfast shop located in the doctor’s office of our childhood or the hot yoga class inhabiting the old insurance building going to make it with a bypass?  There were art galleries and day spas residing in the beautiful two story houses that were built in the late 1800’s.  Who were going to patronize these businesses, or even be aware they existed if they didn’t drive by them?

After some thought I wondered, had the town council unknowingly created an escape from the ‘hurry here, see this, do that and always being connected’ that I had just left in the city?  Was this Algonquin’s way of creating a sanctuary, a place to slow down, reconnect, and enjoy a slower pace – even for an evening?  A place off the “heavily travelled” roads where one could enjoy a nice restaurant, walk to a gallery, stop in for ice cream and yet be just a block away from those highways where we spend way too much of our lives.  They may not have imagined this refuge while trying to solve the congestion nightmare in a small river town, but they may just be on the edge of a revolution.

Small Town Life

We need to bring the small towns back, the little boutiques, toy stores, book stores, independent restaurants, and ice cream shops.  We need a place to escape; leaving the malls to the days of mindless shopping and the chain restaurants to those who have yet to experience a chef who truly loves their calling.  My love affair with Chicago will never end, but the pull of my home town and its eccentricities will forever be indelibly etched in my heart.  It will always be a place to rest, recover and reload my spirit.

With that said I’m saddened that I missed the Class of 73’s birthday party for all of us who turned 59 this year.  What other town does this kind of stuff??  I’ll be there next year my friends, next year!

Grateful for you…

Sheree

Confessions – Things you might need to know about me…

• In yoga class, where everyone’s practice is their own and where no one judges your ability – I always want to be the best, at least in my row.
• When driving through the mountains or long stretches of freeways that have “specified passing lanes”, I take it as a challenge and pass everyone, even if they weren’t slowing me up. If they’re in that right lane, I MUST pass them.
• I take my daughter’s cat, which we are cat-sitting, for walks on a leash. (I am now the cat lady in the neighborhood.)
• I still write hand-written thank-you notes.
• I believe doctors should treat you as a whole person, physically, emotionally, and mentally.
• I love spending time in book stores, touching the books, reading the insights and being surrounded by all those words.
• I could live in Staples, yep the office supply store, I’d be so organized.
• In my closet, I hang my clothes in color order within type… (It could be the designer in me or a bit ADD, but I think it’s just easier to find them.)
• I have two tattoos: One of two open hearts which represents a bond between my daughter and I and the other that says Gratitude in Chinese – which just happens to be located above the home of my long-gone tumor, coincidence… I think not.
  

  LOVE

• If I’m your friend, I will be a friend forever…
• I love the essence of Chicago, also the Blackhawks, the Bears, the (in my lifetime I’d like to see it happen) Cubs and the Bulls, if I liked basketball.
• I love to watch soccer, not because both my children played it since they were five and one received a college scholarship out of it…
• I am not perfect, I am not perfect, I am not perfect.
• I am an artist.
• I don’t attend a church, but do believe in God and Angels who hang out with me all the time.
• Sometimes when I meditate, I try but just can’t help thinking about what we should cook for dinner.
• I believe the dinosaurs in Jurassic Park ARE REAL.
• A few movies I love: Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, Star Wars, Transformers (which are also REAL),Under the Tuscan Sun, A Walk in the Clouds (love the cinematography), Remember the Titans, Eat Pray Love and Jurassic Park.
• Santa Claus IS real and if you don’t believe you don’t get gifts.
• The actions of paying it forward are better than talking about paying it forward.
• I believe thunderstorms are God’s way of saying I’m in charge (and I hope someday to live in an area where it actually rains).
• I’m sad I don’t have a bucket list… yet.
• I keep a martini glass in the freezer, just in case.
• I cry at most Budweiser commercials – who doesn’t?
• I never want to stop learning, which is apparent to me daily.
• I count my blessings throughout the day for family and friends and being…

Grateful for you…

Sheree

I need to Believe

I’ve got to believe that the person who cut me off on the freeway, again, is on their way to the hospital….

I need to believe that the rude person, who was hurtful to the lady working at the post office, just received bad news about a loved one…

I want to understand that the checkout clerks who are complaining about their jobs instead of doing their jobs, are dealing with other problems in their lives…

I’ve got to believe that the very intelligent person, who hacked into our ‘savings’ account, could not find a job in the computer industry and it was the only way they could feed their children….

I need to believe that learned behaviors, which have somehow become part of people’s DNA, can be changed.  That the taking of lives for land or money or power, will stop.

So, with gritted teeth I send loving thoughts to those who cut me off, are rude or uncaring, and who steal from others. I send prayers of change to the millions who have known nothing but war and sadness and feel there is no other way.  And to all the families who lose loved ones daily because of it, I send you peace.

I hope the sadness in those who cause such pain is lifted, and they will be able to see, one day, what sadness they’ve created in the lives of others.

Grateful for you,

Sheree

~~ In memory of the lives lost on Malaysia Airlines 17 ~~