Hearth & Home
- Ancient Wisdom, Beliefs & Intentions, Encouragement & Inspiration, Finding Balance, Healing Thoughts, Hearth & Home, Peaceful Living, Quiet Spaces, Relax & Renew, Transform Your Life, Uncategorized
Darkness to Light
My house is quiet as it’s early and everyone else is still asleep. It’s not all that cold this morning, but I decided to use the fireplace as a focal point for meditation. The fire just started talking with its sizzling, crackling, and popping. The little white lights on our holiday tree add to the peaceful feeling. During this Season of Lights, we reflect on the growing darkness as we approach the time of Winter Solstice, the longest night of the year. In about a week, the days will begin to lengthen once again. This ongoing cycle reminds us that darkness is but “for a time.” When the days grow…
- Encouragement & Inspiration, Finding Balance, Health & Wellness, Hearth & Home, Massage, Relax & Renew
What Are You Aware Of?
It seems like every week and month we’re exposed to (or bombarded with?) new Awareness Campaigns. The internet has connected, and educated, us with ever-increasing speed and depth. Because of awareness campaigns we know more about brain injury, the need for clean water (both domestically and throughout the world, the importance of net neutrality, and how to support people with cancer. We can take action and be a part of the causes we care about. This awareness can also be overwhelming. It can be tough to choose which causes to support, and in that deluge of need, we may choose to support nothing. Or we burn ourselves out supporting everything.…
- Beliefs & Intentions, Encouragement & Inspiration, Finding Balance, Health & Wellness, Hearth & Home, Relax & Renew
3 Easy Random Acts of Kindness
February 18 is the start of Random Acts of Kindness Week. Their website is packed with great ideas on how to celebrate, and I especially love the approach of committing a random act of kindness for three different people: Someone you don’t know Someone you know Yourself Someone you don’t know This is pretty simple and can quickly become a habit. (That could be a good thing!) Smile. When you’re in a depressingly long line at the bank, watching a parent deal with their toddler’s public meltdown, or sitting next to another car in traffic. A kind grin goes a long way when you’re feeling a bit hopeless about the…
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5 Tips for Surviving the Holidays
The holidays can be kind of weird. Despite all the ‘Most Wonderful Time of the Year’ jingles, it’s the toughest time of the year for many people. Some people over-commit to family, friends, volunteer tasks … they find themselves over-scheduled and unable to actually enjoy the season. Some of us dread the inevitable, obligatory socializing and the pressure of being ‘on’. Some of us are grieving. Here are a few less-typical Holiday Survival Tips. Some of them are brilliant. Some of them are not. But maybe you’ll find a nugget in here. Ditch obligations Just because you’ve always gone to Aunt Sue’s for Christmas Eve doesn’t mean you always have to.…
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Finding Love in Life
I’ve been divorced for about 10 years now. We were emotionally separated long before that and our relationship was more like that of house mates … not even roommates, because they typically do SOME things together. I’ve dated a couple of people on and off during this time and, for a while, thought I’d connected with someone that I wanted to share my life with. I discovered though that we could spend time together DOING things, but he never wanted to just BE with me. You know, just relaxing at the house and enjoying quiet conversation and each other’s company. I realized we didn’t want the same things out of…
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A Tradition of Healers
Someone asked me the other day if I came from a long line of healers. I took a couple of seconds to answer this, and my answer formed as I was speaking. My first thought was “not really” … but I hesitated; and spirit revealed a truth that had never occurred to me. My mom and my grandmothers were healers in their own way. The were strong, powerful women who took care of themselves and their families. My grandmothers lived through the Great Depression and were of modest means and yet they thrived where others perished. The women of my family have not been afraid to be themselves and share…
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Essential Oil Debate
We use a LOT of essential oils at my house. My mom started using them about 30 years ago but when she passed about 15 years ago, we kind of fell away from it … she was the resident expert and I just didn’t have time to think about it. A few years ago, I got pretty serious about using natural products in my house and for my health. I did tons of research as essential oils were becoming a hot topic. I opted not to use any kind of MLM product … for many reasons. I wanted to provide some information here for folks who may be using them…
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Feeling Protected
Good morning everyone. I was sitting on my front porch a little while ago with my journal and a cup of coffee. Hurricane Irma is hitting south Florida and headed my way. I felt an overwhelming feeling that I need to share with folks who I hope will understand. I truly believe that everything has its own spirit, including our houses and cars and stuff like that. When my family bought our house 5+ years ago, there were a LOT of things on our “must have” list because we are a multi-generational family living under 1 roof. Although this house looked rough, I could see her structure was extremely sound and…
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Topsy Turvy
My last post on “Morning Routine” sat here as a draft for quite a while before I posted it. Things got more than just a little crazy at my house and my sacred ROUTINE wasn’t anywhere in the mix anymore and life became Topsy Turvy (or up-side-down) in a BIG way. Nothing was going right at work or at home and my stress level was through the roof. I’d started a part-time job that took me away from my home office 4 days a week. The job I’d had the past 6+ years ceased to exist as the company closed, and I started taking online classes to finish up the…
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The Denim Shirt
It was early morning and I was in the kitchen waiting for the Keurig to finish brewing my cup of coffee. My daughter and granddaughter live with me, and I knew my daughter was also awake. I caught a glimpse of movement out of the corner of my eye and started talking to my daughter about what we had going on that day. But I didn’t get an answer. I turned and looked for the light blue shirt I’d seen just a minute before. I even looked around the corner of the kitchen into the living room. But there was nothing. I went to my daughter’s room and she was…
