There is no frigate like a book. To take us lands a way. By Emily Dickenson
Today I am starting an online book club. With a forum (I have yet to create) to discuss the books in as much depth as people want. I even hope to get some interviews with the authors (if possible). We did have an authors evening last fall at my book club, it was fun and informative.
Joining a book club is one of the best things I’ve done in my life. We are a small book club; we’ve met in each other’s homes and coffee shops. I like coffee shops the best. No muss, no fuss and I don’t put on a couple of pounds because I can’t say no to the array of goodies in front of me.
Growing up on a farm, books were my go to for entertainment. They still are. Books are where I find information and understanding of life. Fiction is where I find the truth. Funny isn’t it, I thought nonfiction is where the truth would be.
As a writer I understand why we find the truth in fiction. We can put our deepest, darkest thoughts in a characters mind, we can recreate scenarios that help us understand the motivation behind others actions. Writers ask questions and ferreting out the answers becomes a novel. Novels are the lie that tells the truth, deep truths, uncomfortable truths, and disturbing truths. We know characters in a book better than we know our family members. We use that knowledge to understand our families better.
Novels are not the only books My book shelf is lined with self help books.
I love books. I love the look, the feel, the smell, the touch. Books resonate with us as individuals, what may touch one person deeply may not interest someone else at all. By joining a book club we read books we would not otherwise read. We discuss the book, and chat about the important things in life.
Will an online book club be as good as a book club in person? I don’t know? This is my first online book club. There is a physical limit to how many people can fit in a coffee shop. Online there is no limit, it can be open to anyone who wants to join. Come on this journey with me. We don’t have to live in the same City and be on the same schedule. The biggest problem we have with my book club is getting together.
The book I propose everyone read is 12 Rules For Life by Jordan B. Peterson. This is not a political book, even though the media makes it sound like it is. I don’t think it is controversial but if it is, the discussions will be more interesting. This is a book encouraging us to build a life with purpose and meaning.
In Noah St. John’s book Afformations; he says the most basic human fear is the fear of rejection. Why is this the most basic fear? He says, centuries ago we lived in tribes. If we did something bad it was considered a crime against the tribe. The worst punishment was not death, but banishment, because there was virtually no way we could make it on our own.
How can we develop the habit of taking action in the face of fear? We need to understand almost everyone has the same fear. One of the best things to do is imagine you are rejected for what you want to do. Really feel what it would be like. Guess what, when we accept that we may be rejected we can deal with it.
Everyone is not going to love the painting you spent three months completing. Many times we aren’t as happy with it ourselves as we hoped. Noah St. John doesn’t tell us to tell ourselves we are great, we are powerful, we are going to become rich and famous. He teaches us to ask why. Why are we great, why are we powerful, why will we become rich and famous. Then we have to come up with the how.
Nothing happens until we do something. The problem with positive self-talk is it often doesn’t lead anywhere. We leave out the how. If you want to build a house, first you have a why. You need a place to live, or you know other people need a place to live and if you build it, they will buy it. Once you have your why, you figure out the how. First, you will hire an architect or draw up the plans yourself. Get all the paperwork done to submit for your building permit. You don’t buy the windows before you have your plan.
Failing to plan is planning to fail. I say this as I write my tenth blog post. Do I have a plan? I’m promoting an unpublished novel. Am I putting the cart before the horse? I don’t know and as we go forward in life we never know where something will take us. If we waited until we knew where it would take us we would never do anything. I know more than one person has read my blog. I know most people will never read my blog or my book. I’m okay with that.
When I wrote my first novel; the one that’s in a binder behind my desk, I became a writer. The one, no one has seen but me. It is still one of my proudest achievements? It is writing that convoluted mess of 311 pages that made me believe; I could be a writer because I wrote. By any standard of literature, it is a failure. We have to be willing to fail bigger, fail better if we want success.
If you want to write, paint, quilt, publish a cookbook, record your song, build your house. What’s stopping you? There are a lot of dreams that never reach fruition. It’s a risk we take. I would rather be the dreamer with a dream that fails or doesn’t reach its potential than die with my dream inside me.
You don’t and often can’t know where something will lead. You start, and starting is half done. Take the step, and hope the bridge will be there. What’s the alternative? Don’t take the step and spend your life wondering what if? What if I tried to get that song published? What if I’d published that book? What if I started that business? What if I asked that guy or girl for a date?
What if we say yes to life? What’s the worst that can happen? He or she rejects us, we’ve been rejected before. What if no one reads your book? What if they do? If you don’t write it you know for sure no one will read it, not even you. You don’t know what you can do until you do it. I didn’t know what I would write this morning until I wrote it. We have to get out of our own way and let what is in us come out so we can see it.
Very few of us have original thoughts or will do original things. There is nothing new under the sun. You won’t paint an original painting, but your painting is original, the subject won’t be. The words aren’t original, if they were, you wouldn’t understand me. Everything has been said before, it doesn’t mean we shouldn’t write. Words resonate with us because they are a truth we already know. That is part of their power.
Dare to dream, dare to do. Fail bigger, fail better. You have to risk failure to risk success.
Let food by thy medicine, thy medicine be thy food. Hippocrates.
Food is the answer. If we are what we eat and how can we not be? Then changing what we eat can change our life. I am reading many stories about people who have done exactly that. This means there is hope. If you are not feeling as well as you think you should, or have chronic health problems. You can do something. It may take a lot of detective work, a food journal, cooking, patience, persistence and doing without some of the foods you love most. I find the cravings go away after about two weeks.
I’ve learnt to drink black coffee with half water after drinking it with three creams. It was the change I thought I could not make. The day I accepted my sons “three week vegan challenge” was September 5, 2015, I didn’t tell anyone I was going to make the change, in case I couldn’t. I poured my coffee, sat down at my computer and surprisingly my cup was empty and it wasn’t that bad. I used to love coffee throughout the day, now I have tea and only have a morning coffee.
Cutting out dairy has made a huge difference in my life. I’ve always had what I call “farm girl” arms. They’ve slimmed down. I’m wearing sleeveless tops now, which I haven’t done for years.
I’m reading berries are good for glaucoma. Dr. Michael Greger says, “every glaucoma patient should consume berries every day.” Link to Dr. Greger’s How Not To Die below. I have not been diagnosed with glaucoma but members of my family have been diagnosed with high eye pressure. My thinking is prevention is better than a cure so I’ve started having a bowl of mixed frozen berries daily.
The range of problems associated with diet seems endless. Almost three years ago my son put me onto a book The Starch Solution by Dr. John McDougall – link to book below. He says all long lived, healthy societies lived on starch predominantly. Since September 2015 I have been following his program, I have slowly lost 20 lbs. I have tried ketogenic diets over the years. They are harder to stick to and since I could still have dairy didn’t solve my problem, in fact I ate more cheese and cream than ever. For years I stayed away from potatoes and now potatoes fried in a little olive oil are my go to breakfast. The big thing I stay away from is dairy; when I do indulge the glands under my neck become swollen.
Elimination diets are the way to figure out what foods impact your health negatively. If I eliminate a food from my diet I bring it back on the fourth day to see if I have a reaction. Is it the foods we eat that make us healthy, or the foods we don’t eat that allow our body to repair itself? We need to find the balance, and for each person it is different. Some of us need to stay away from more foods, some of us should bring in more healthy whole foods.
We don’t agree on what a healthy diet looks like. Looking at healthy long lived societies seems like a good place to start. When we quit eating like our ancestors we get fat and sick. What did our ancestors do that we aren’t’ doing? If we don’t cook, it will be hard to eat fresh, natural, wholesome food.
We need to embrace the art of cooking. Because it is a daily task we often forget how taking a few ingredients and creating a healthy, attractive meal is art and chemistry.
Perfection is enemy of the good, comes into play for me. I cannot vow to not eat certain foods every again. If I had to do that, I would not be able to stick with it. Choosing not to eat something seems different than saying I can’t eat that anymore. It’s all in my head but then that’s where everything is. We need to find a way to make the best choice most of the time. Instead of saying well, if I can’t be perfect why bother? Do bother, do choose health. Small changes work, they lead to bigger changes.
What can a healthier you accomplish? We can be the change that changes the world.
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What counts in making a happy marriage is not so much how compatible you are, but how you deal with incompatibility. Leo Tolstoy
Every choice is an opportunity. The secret to anything is to find the balance. This blog has to fit into my life, not become my life. I’m not looking for an obsession but an avenue to explore as a writer.
Becoming obsessed is easy. When we met the love of our lives often they took over our lives, sometimes to such a degree we lost our self. Children coming into our life compounded things. All things in moderation are my motto. I understand the all-consuming needs of being a new mother, I was there once. Motherhood is where we lose our self the most. As we each do the best we can, it is hard to know if what we are doing is best for our children, our family, our self.
A few years ago I had an epiphany, I wasn’t who I thought I was. In my own mind, I was the good mother. It was a bitter pill to swallow realizing I fell into “the controlling” mother camp. I was busy telling my kids what to think and what to do. When I started to listen and ask questions I became more effective. Now I am listening and asking questions, I hear what I said being repeated to me. I have made an impact.
I read we have to get over “how things are said” and start listening to what is said. “Don’t use that word in my house,” may seem like the right thing to say. After all, we are setting boundaries. Our children’s job is to grow up and separate from us. What they need from us the most is to be heard. What happens when children aren’t heard? I think a lot of our problems come from children who aren’t heard. We put expectations on them they can’t meet, they don’t know how to tell us and when they try it comes out in a way we don’t find acceptable. If we don’t look past the expression to listen to what is expressed, we’ve failed them “again.”
We all want the kid that excels. When you read about how “the pleaser” does in later life perhaps that isn’t what we should want. Some of us knew what we wanted from an early age and went after it. Many of us meandered through life, trying this and that. Is one way better than the other? When our kids don’t have an early straight path we sometimes give up on them. The big sin of parenthood I believe is giving up on kids. That sullen look is a soul hurting. Pretending they don’t care, because here they are, and if they care they have to do something, but they don’t know what to do, so they pretend they don’t care.
They do care, they do want success, they ache for it. Being lost, confused, overwhelmed, discouraged, depressed, ostracized, they are convinced nothing they do will ever be good enough. So why try? When someone shows these kids a way to shine, thrive, and grab hold they often do. We have to try and find that someone that can come into our children’s lives. Sometimes it’s a teacher, coach, minister, family friend, or author.
Look at the effect Jordan B. Peterson author of 12 Rules for Life is having. Some people think he is accessing the worst side of our children, but I don’t think so. He understands young men. As a University Professor, Clinical Psychologist and father he understands our youth. How young men need to find meaning and purpose. They find it through manning up and taking responsibility for a wife and family. I recommend Jordan B. Peterson and Joe Rogan’s podcast 1139 as an introductory video if you want to hear what he has to say.
The most important things a father can do for his children is to love their mother. Theodore Hesburg
Women may find it a bitter pill to swallow that our liberation hasn’t been without a price. The price is many men don’t know where they fit. If you are the mother of a son, you know what I’m talking about. We want an opportunity for our daughters, and we also want it for our sons. No matter what opportunities you find in life, marriage and family is the key for most people to find meaning, purpose, and joy. I believe we can have marriage and families, equality and respect. It is not a zero-sum game; we can build a future with opportunity and choice for all. If you don’t get a choice, it’s not such a great opportunity.
We pay a price for everything we do. If you stay home and raise your children, there’s a price. Going out into the workforce has a price. Starting your own business has a price, working for a huge corporation has a price. What is the price you are willing to pay? What is the choice you want to make? We shouldn’t be thinking everyone should make the same choice, or have the same outcome. We should want everyone to have the opportunity to make the choices, to build their life with passion, purpose, and meaning.
Your priorities aren’t what you say they are. They are revealed by how you live. What does your life say about the value of your family and marriage? Unknown
The Blessing: Giving the Gift of Unconditional Love and AcceptanceKindle Edition
life is all about choice. Yesterday I went to a writers group. It was inspirational and informative. I have a lot to learn and there are people willing to share their experiences. Why haven’t I gone before? I’ve been meaning to, but one month turns into ten. I’ll put it on my calendar and go. Any excuse will do if you’re looking for one.
This isn’t a group that critiques each other’s work and I like that. I find evaluations at Toastmaster helpful. Toastmasters are very careful about evaluations with two positives for every suggestion for improvement. In Toastmasters we don’t evaluate the content of the speech, only the delivery.
Content is trickier to evaluate and critique. We don’t know how hard it was for someone to read the poem, short story or exert from their novel. As writers we are baring our souls. We take baby steps and we can get critiques from editors and chosen readers. At the writers group a supportive non judgmental audience allows us to take our first hesitant steps. I like that at the end of the session they have an open mic and I’ve decided next meeting to do a reading from my novel.
One of the participants said authors need to get used to giving readings. It is a necessary part of self promotion. Becoming a writer with no readers is not our goal. We want people to stumble upon our writing and find the golden nugget they were looking for. The highest praise we get is “your words speak to me.” If our words will have an impact for somebody we have achieved our goal. In truth those words already impacted someone, us, and self expression is the gift, the reward. When I write something I can understand what I’m feeling.
It is easy to get published; self publishing is no longer frowned upon. Just because you can get your work out there doesn’t mean people know how to find it. I’m not sure if being read is as important as people think. It gives us validation, but those of us who keep a journal do not share it. Yet, keeping a journal enriches our lives in immeasurable ways.
Maybe as I continue my journey I will understand where readers come into play. What if I learn that one of the reasons so many artists are starving is when you bring money into the mix we start to censor our self. Our art is not as true, free flowing, or honest. What if that is the choice? We will toil, sweat, and put endless hours into our paintings, carvings, quilting, and writing when it is for the love of it. When we start doing it for money and put a dollar value on those hours of blood, sweat and tears it doesn’t seem worth it.
I never thought about it until right now. If I monetize this blog and learn in six months I have $10.00 coming from Amazon will that put the worth of my blog at $10.00? When it’s free, it’s priceless. Somehow in my own mind, priceless is a lot more than $10.00.
My daughter is away this weekend, having her bachelorette with her bridesmaids. It is a year of my daughter being the star. All eyes are on her and everyone is giving her and her fiance a lot of support.
Why then are so many young people not bothering with the wedding? If they don’t get married, they don’t get their time in the spotlight. They make a big deal for their friends, but don’t let their friends do the same for them.
I encouraged my daughter to make a decision, go forward and build a life. Not to fall into what I think has become the living together trap. You haven’t made a decision and the wedding isn’t behind you, so what are your goals? Many weddings are extravagant but they don’t need to be. I wonder how many couples who live together after a few years wish they’d just done the wedding and moved on? A question I’m not brave enough to ask them?
One of the things I’ve tried to do in my life is live a life with few regrets. There are always ways to feel dissatisfied with your life especially if you compare the worst of your life with the best of someone else’s.
Yesterday after the Writers Group I was talking with another newcomer. We were talking about being late bloomers. Would we like to be established authors? What in our lives would we give up to be established authors? I’ve learned you can’t have it “all”, all at the same time. Something has to give. This morning I came into the den to write, leaving my husband with his coffee at the kitchen table. I made a decision, coffee with my husband, or write this blog. Choosing writing too often won’t be good. Always choosing him won’t be good for my writing. Life is all about choice. We don’t know where our choices will take us going forward, only looking back.
In one of John Gray’s books he talks about people having love tanks they need to fill. He said, if you have a love tank that is empty because children no longer need you. You can fill that tank by getting a pet. What you can’t do is keep getting pets to fill other love tanks. I don’t know if creativity counts as a love tank, but I do know creativity feeds my soul. This makes everything in my life better.
As a person who has always been critical of my accomplishments. I find myself in the position of needing to become a shameless self promoter. This is a difficult roll for me. As a writer looking for readers to read my soon to be published book, my blog, and viewers to view my art, I realized I have to tell them I’ve written a book, painted a painting and written a blog. It seems like self aggrandizement when someone says “what’s up with you?” and I start telling them I’ve written a novel and I’ve started a blog. In the beginning I didn’t tell people I was a writer because I didn’t want to be a “wanna be writer” who only talked and didn’t do.
I read about a writer who said she had so much fun talking about her novel she never wrote it. I found when I did talk about it, some of the drive and inspiration was gone. As if it was already accomplished. The double edge to that sword is since I didn’t talk about it, no one knew I was doing it. Now I’m getting close to needing readers and publicity I’m starting from scratch instead of having already built a network waiting for my creation to be birthed.
I love hearing other people’s accomplishments. Why would I think it is different when I have something good to share? Is it failing or succeeding I fear more? Why should I fear any of it? I should be living my life, it’s the only one I have. Wringing as much meaning and joy out of it as I can. I think I am. Then, why am I second guessing myself every time I have the opportunity to answer the question, what’s up with you? Why don’t I tell them about my accomplishment of stringing 90,000 words into a coherent novel? Or starting a blog? I’m learning to get over myself.
I am reaching an age that if I don’t do it now, when? This is the impetus for progress. It is my time to accomplish a few things other than feed kids, work with my husband and keep body and soul together. Time to be creative, feed my soul and leave a legacy of writing and art.
This is why I joined Toastmasters. To improve myself I became part of a community of people improving themselves and growing their accomplishments. It has helped me immensely, the more I talk, the more I have to say. As I sit and write the words flow. When I take a break for a few days the flow dries up and I have to prime the pump again.
I feel compelled to write, thoughts I need to express. My youngest sister gave me a journal when I was sixteen, I have continued to journal all these years. When I read my journals I wrote about things I can’t remember. Things, I thought would have a bigger impact. Through journaling I have learned we think we were who we are now. I know exactly how I was thinking because I wrote it down. Even from day to day you may not see things the same, let alone looking back over years and decades. I don’t believe it is possible to write the truth looking back, only at the time it is happening. It is funny to look back in my journals and see what I thought important at the time, not what history thought was important.
My advice to everyone is, find what feeds your soul. Own your accomplishments. Life is more than paying the rent or mortgage and getting your children to adulthood. It may be all you can handle at the time, it was for me. Those busy days pass in a flash and you start to have a little time. Years went by when I did not read fiction. I had no time. I do not regret that my family, business and home were most important. Now I have the luxury of time to read, write, reflect, and paint. Life is full of meaning and beauty in every stage, in every decade, in every season. Look for the beauty, and find the hidden treasures.
We were looking for opportunities when my husband and I got married. We thought we had all the time in the world. That time has flown by fast. We were holding babies and now we’ll soon walk our daughter down the aisle.
Years go by in a flash. There is so much to do and so little time. Looking back on it so much of our life was just taking the next step. During those busy years of raising children our lives consisted of work and kids. All we could do was get the work out, and get our children where they needed to go.
In those years many of us lose ourselves. It’s important to carve out bits of time for yourself, each other, hobbies, interests, and friends. If you lose yourself, each other, your interests, your friends, you wake up on the other side with grown children and a huge hole in your life you don’t know how to fill.
My mother was fond of saying whoever said life begins at forty wasn’t forty. I think I know where the saying came from. Someone raised their kids and was free to pursue their own interests. Raising two families, Mom wasn’t done at forty.
Embracing the empty nest years is the next stage, for some a difficult stage, for others a welcome stage. It can and should be an enjoyable stage, when we are young enough, healthy enough, and brave enough to pursue the opportunities out there.
By embracing every stage of our life, there is always something to look forward to. You aren’t and probably shouldn’t be doing the same things at sixty as you were at twenty. You can enjoy different things just as much. I had a dream as a kid to back pack across Europe. It never happened, I had no one to go with, and I was living on my own with no extra money to pursue such an adventure. Once I met my husband we were planning and building a life.
I will probably never back pack across Europe. I still hope to see it one day. It won’t be a lesser experience because I stay in hotels instead of hostels.
We don’t know what life has in store for us. It is still true we shouldn’t put off till tomorrow what we can do today. If we are lucky we still have dreams, aspirations, opportunities, places to go, and things to see. Life is a grand adventure if we are willing to play the cards we are dealt, and keep a sense of humor about life. We can find a new goal, a new dream, a new adventure, a new challenge, there is always one more mountain to climb. Dream it, dare it, do it.
Create a good habit by starting small. Good habits are the secret to a great life. I’ve always told my kids, “continue to develop good habits.”
Exercising first thing in the morning is a good habit. I started it, because it has done so much for my mother, who at 93 still does morning exercises before she gets up. She still goes for a walk most mornings, cooks her own food, cleans her own house, looks after her plants, reads and quilts. She stays in touch with my late father’s family and knows all the news. She is engaged in life.
To create a habit start small. As I reflect on my writing it is a habit, and that habit enabled me to complete a novel. One word on top of another word added up. It is that simple and that difficult to master most things we want in life.
Starting is half done and don’t quit. One simple habit that I think starts the day off right is making our bed in the morning. No matter how your day goes, you’ve accomplished one thing. On a bad day if nothing else you crawl into an inviting, made bed.
So often we want to make big changes, but if we start small they can become big changes over time. You want to bring exercise into your life. Start with two push ups per day. If you haven’t done them before you get into bed, you can probably muster the energy for two push ups. Once you start you might not stop at two, but two is all you have to do to complete that goal. It sounds silly to set your goal at two push ups but try it. You will change your life if you keep it up.
My goal when I started writing on October 9th, 2000 was to keep a writing journal. I wrote down the time I started, the time I finished and the number of words I wrote. By making that entry in my journal my writing session was a success. I didn’t know it at the time but I was creating the habit of writing. It has added up to something, a soon to be published novel, now a blog. My art is the same; I always try to have a painting on the go. I am not a fast painter but conceptualizing a new painting as the old one is close to finished keeps me going forward.
Start small, but start, because starting is half done. I watched a video on blogs and one piece of advice stood out. Don’t wait until you have your about me page perfect before posting. So I didn’t, my son set up my blog and the next day with trembling hands I pushed publish. Then I relaxed, for better or worse my blog was out in the world. Just do it! Then do it again until you have a long line of accomplishments. It is mostly true, it is never too late to start, to be the person you know you should be. Perfection is enemy of the good. Too many of us have never done the things we dreamed of because something wasn’t perfect. It will never be perfect and maybe it shouldn’t be perfect, maybe it should be just like you and just like me, perfectly imperfect.
Marriage and motherhood are the two biggest accomplishments in my life. As I sit here a day before my wedding anniversary and a few weeks after my daughter’s bridal shower. I am reflecting on the joy I’ve felt as a mother. Tears spring to my eyes as I think of the wonderful daughter I was blessed with. Any of us who are blessed with a daughter I imagine have these same thoughts. Bringing a life into the world at times seems like the smallest and biggest accomplishment.
As mothers we felt if we worked outside the home we neglected our children. If we stayed inside the home we sometimes felt we neglected our self. We let down the sisterhood who fought for emancipation and women’s rights. At my vantage point I believe the fight was for choice.
In my mother’s time, she left a husband with two children and found she couldn’t support herself and two children. At twenty five widowed with two children and a new baby she was told to give up the baby and build a life. She said, “my children are my life.” This, the truest statement of motherhood is still true today.
Once our children are grown I believe we appreciate them even more. I watched a makeup artist give a makeup tutorial to my daughter. It is lovely seeing the support my daughter and her fiance are getting for their wedding. We rally around as another family is formed. I smile at the hope and joy shining from the faces of brides and grooms at their weddings. I say a silent prayer hoping that love will still be shining in the years to come. It’s never about the day, no matter how extravagant and beautiful. It is always about the relationship. It is about bringing your best self to the marriage, and bringing out the best in someone else.
The magic of marriage is it transforms two people into a couple. If it is a positive marriage all of society benefits, the chemistry and compatibility evident over the years. Freud said, “It’s a cornerstone of our humanity; only love protects us enough to grow and change.” Love is a verb. If love is something we do instead of something we find, or fall into. Will it have a better chance of standing the test of time? The challenge is to build a life that has meaning. Laugh at life’s challenges, and be willing to get through the tough times knowing this too shall pass. It’s a wild ride. Marriage is both beautiful, and the biggest growth opportunity of your life.
Marriage is I believe the cornerstone of society. It would have been harder bringing up our two children without my husband’s love and support. As a shared goal raising children is one of the best, but not a goal that will fix a marriage. Raising children is a stressful endeavor. The accomplishment like any difficult challenge is rewarding. Watching our children take their place in the world we know their accomplishments aren’t ours, but we feel pride.
Kalil Gibran said, “Your children are not your children. They are the sons and daughters of life’s longing for itself. They come through you but not from you, and thought they are with you, yet they belong not to you.”
The advice I’ve written in wedding cards over the years is; marry the right person and be the right person. If we want our marriage to work we need to look for the best in each other. If we look for our partners short comings, we will find them. Looking for their good points we will find them also. The lens we look through makes all the difference. It is as easy to recount our partner’s good points as their bad. Expecting better instead of worse often gives us better. We get what we expect.
Nobody knows what goes on in someone else’s marriage. Sometimes we don’t even know what is going on in our own. The reason is because we aren’t always straight forward in our communication. Kalil Gibran said, “between what is said and not meant, and what is meant and not said, all love is lost.”
It can be as hard to take back unsaid things as said things. If we truly want better communication sometimes we have to say it. I don’t think you understand what I meant, or what I said. Please accept my apologize for not being a better communicator. I love you, value you, and even though I don’t understand you, I appreciate you. We are on this journey together. I’m in it for the long haul, the ups, the downs, the good, the bad, the funny, and the sad.
In a marriage the two of you may not have the same dreams and aspirations. Everything that is good for one of you should be good for both of you. It may be time for the wife to shine; sometimes it may be time for the husband to shine. If you have each other’s backs and give each other enduring support and encouragement then you feel lifted up. As Dr. Phil says marriage is a safe place to fall. Relaxing in our husband’s or wife’s arms after a good or bad day feels better than being alone in our joy or sorrow.
Some people talk about chemistry as though sex is the most important part of marriage. If you have good sex it’s five percent of the marriage. If you have little or no sex it might become ninety percent of the marriage. So as nike says, “just do it.” Then you can get on with building a marriage.
After thirty two years of marriage I believe it is not lack of love, but lack of friendship that makes an unhappy marriage. After all we spend more time talking and being together than anything else. Ask your husband or wife out for coffee and put the cell phone down. My advice is; if you want a better marriage have more coffee or tea dates. We focus on the big things, but we should enjoy the little things. That’s where the magic is. I said to my husband the other day over coffee. If we travel the world it’s still the two of us, whether in Milan, Paris, or the coffee shop down the street
Where ever you go there you are. If it isn’t good between you does it matter if it’s a place on your bucket list or Tim Horton’s down the street?
Sometimes I think we forget what marriage is. It’s just two people sharing a life. It’s better when it’s a happy life, but that is where the choice lies. You can be happy or you can be unhappy that is your decision. To make happiness your goal is a good way to be unhappy. If we make meaning our choice it is much easier to pursue meaning than to pursue happiness. You might not be happy putting your children’s needs ahead of your own, but it’s meaningful and something you will be proud of over the years. Every day we can move forward in pleasure and purpose. There is a lot to savor, food, conversation, laughter, sex, companionship.
My first recommended book is by Jordan B. Peterson a University of Toronto Professor, his book 12 Rules For Life had a huge impact on me. My son highly recommended it. His first book Maps of Meaning as well as 12 Rules For Life I’ve provided links below. One of the goals of this blog is to recommend books that I have read that resonate with me. Books have been where I found the answers, sometimes to questions I didn’t know I was asking.
Jordan B. Peterson’s 12 Rules For Life is a hand book on how to live a better life filled with meaning and purpose.
If you are looking for a book to help your son or daughter navigate the world as they step out as young adults. This is the book.
With rules like:
Stand up straight with your shoulders back.
Treat yourself like someone you are responsible for helping.
Make friends with people who want the best for you.
Compare yourself to who you were yesterday, not to who someone is today.
Do not let your children do anything that makes you dislike them.
Set your house in perfect order before you criticize the world.
Pursue what is meaningful (not what is expedient.)
Tell the truth – or at least don’t lie.
Assume that the person you are listening to might know something you don’t.
Be precise in your speech.
Do not bother children when they are skateboarding.
Pet a cat when you encounter one on the street.
Read it, and pass it on. This is a book whose time has come. People will tell you to beware of this book. Read it for yourself and I believe you will find the wisdom within will enhance your life. Anyone who follows Jordan B. Peterson’s advice in my opinion cannot help but live a better life.
I listened to this book on audible and I loved it so much I bought the hard copy.
Audiobook 
![The Blessing: Giving the Gift of Unconditional Love and Acceptance by [Trent, John, Smalley, Gary, Stageberg, Kari Trent]](https://i0.wp.com/images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/41eYA8MaXLL.jpg?w=227&ssl=1)
Marriage and motherhood are the two biggest accomplishments in my life. As I sit here a day before my wedding anniversary and a few weeks after my daughter’s bridal shower. I am reflecting on the joy I’ve felt as a mother. Tears spring to my eyes as I think of the wonderful daughter I was blessed with. Any of us who are blessed with a daughter I imagine have these same thoughts. Bringing a life into the world at times seems like the smallest and biggest accomplishment.
