Posted on by BWThomas

Time is moving on, change is coming whether we are ready for it or not.

Painting by Belynda Wilson Thomas

The secret of change is to focus all of your energy not on fighting the old, but on building the new. Socrates

This weekend I harvested my potatoes, picked the last tomatoes, and lifted my Dahlia tubers. Last year the Dahlia tubers looked great and the next time I looked at them they were withered, I planted them without much hope they’d grow, and they didn’t. I purchased new tubers and the blooms were lovely, still not planted in the best spot but next year I’ll find a better spot for them and pick up a couple more varieties.

Creating a beautiful garden is still one of my dreams. The garden has moments but needs much more tender loving care than it gets. This was a bare lot but now the trees have gotten big, and there is a lot more shade than there used to be. We love sitting out in the backyard enveloped by the trees we planted years ago.

Gardens don’t stay the same and our lives don’t stay the same either. We need to edit our lives and edit our gardens as time goes by. We think we’ve planted the perfect tree in the perfect spot, and we love the beautiful blooms but perhaps not the mess from falling leaves and crabapples the rest of the year. What was once a blooming garden below is now in too much shade, and plants that used to come up every year no longer do, it’s time to redesign and replant.

Next year will be better we tell ourselves but of course only if we do the work to make it better. No one is going to force me to do the work to have a beautiful garden, it is up to me.

There are three constants in life… change, choice, and principles. Stephen Covey

No one will force us to read the books, plan the trips, or go to the gym. When we are in the grocery store no one tells us that’s too much ice cream, or are you sure you need those cookies? In the grocery cart yesterday I put in pumpkin spice pecan butter tarts and then took them out, no one else would eat them and do I need eight butter tarts? Here I am the next morning still thinking about them. They might make their way into my cart yet. Baked from scratch the package says, will they taste better in my mind than if I try them?

How much of what we think about is better in our mind than the reality? Is that just an excuse not to do things, to take the chance, to have an experience? They say we regret what we don’t do more than what we do. I’m getting ready to visit Mom before her ninety-ninth birthday. I am fortunate to have the time and opportunity to spend this time with her.

The time we spend with people we love is special. The ordinary moments of our lives we often don’t appreciate until they are gone. Our lives continue on their ordinary path until they don’t, something changes and we long for the ordinariness we had. We will never be ready for some of the changes coming into our lives, even when they are welcome like a new baby, our life changes in ways we didn’t see coming.

Our job is to adapt to the changes and make the best of what comes. Our lives change, the seasons change, and there is beauty in every season if we look for it. Are we looking forward to what is possible in our lives, how we can make our here and now as good as it can be, and planning for the future? We are here, we might have a lot of choices or few, but if we make the best of the choices we have, can we make the best of what is?

We all have big changes in our lives that are more or less a second chance. Harrison Ford

Making a big life change is pretty scary. But know what’s even scarier? Regret. Zig Ziglar

Life is about trusting your feelings, taking chances, finding happiness, learning from the past, and realizing everything changes. Unknown

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Posted on by BWThomas

Make your choices carefully; those choices build your life.

Painting by Belynda Wilson Thomas

Make the most of yourself for that is all there is of you. Ralph Waldo Emerson

Today I am giving my final speech to receive my Distinguished Toastmaster designation. It’s taken me seven years since I last started Toastmasters, and I was away from Toastmasters for thirty years.

There are many lessons I’ve learned from Toastmasters, but they aren’t lessons special to Toastmasters. Toastmasters might only have helped me be more courageous and go after my dreams with more vigor. We can only juggle so many balls at once and Toastmaster has always been a ball I could set down and pick up again, unlike marriage, family, and business. Writing, art, and Toastmasters are back in my life because the heavy lifting of raising children is over.

No matter what we do in life we need to set goals, persevere, and realize that the journey as well as the destination is important. When we reach a pinnacle of achievement we need a new goal because although it feels great to meet our goal it also feels like we’ve lost something. If we don’t replace the goal we just attained with another one we may feel let down which hits us hard because we weren’t expecting that.

There’s something magical about putting yourself into life. You’ve got to stand up and take responsibility for your own life and you cannot abandon that. Bill Kurtis

Nothing in life lasts forever an old phase ends, and a new one begins. If we set goals for every phase of our life we will continue to grow, but if we begin to think that the best is in the past, why bother to set new goals,  we can become disheartened, and life becomes bleak and colorless.

My cousin is staying with Mom and sent a picture yesterday of Mom knitting. Staying interested in things or getting interested in them again can be a boon to our lives. We might think little goals aren’t important, but little goals lead to bigger goals, and over time a series of small goals we’ve accomplished might lead to more success than we thought possible.

Life is a series of choices and we make choices that affect our lives every day. The better the choices we make the better our lives will be. We might think as we get older we don’t need to set goals but even the goal of going for a walk every day will make a big difference.

I met a lady years ago whose aunt said to her, “It takes a long time to die.” She had been given a prognosis and instead of living until she died, she was waiting to die. It might seem like a subtle difference but we hear about people with a bad prognosis that live with as much gusto as they can manage.

In truth, we all have a bad prognosis, because this life will be over at some point, so we need to make the best of the opportunities and choices we have while we have them.

What do we still want to do, what is still possible, and what is our next step?

The success of any change depends, in large measure, on your attitude about that change. David Cottrell

You can change yourself and you can change the situation but you absolutely cannot change other people. Only they can do that. Joanna Trollope

The key is not to prioritize what’s on your schedule, but to schedule your priorities. Stephen Covey

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To subscribe, comment, and see archives or categories of posts, click on the picture and scroll to the end.

Thank you for reading my books, and a special thank you to those who leave a review on Goodreads and Amazon. If you click on the Amazon link and purchase an item I receive a small percentage of the sale through the Amazon affiliate program.

Posted on by BWThomas

Choices, chances, and changes, we must make a choice to take a chance or our life will never change.

Painting by Belynda Wilson Thomas

Our lives are fashioned by our choices. First we make our choices. Then our choices make us. Anne Frank

Don’t talk; act, don’t say; show, don’t promise; prove, these words are written on the cover of a journal I purchased. It is easy to talk and not so easy to do. Showing, not telling, is the best way to live our lives.

How much are we willing to put ourselves out for someone else? How do we make others feel by our actions because words not followed up with action are empty?

We meant it when we said until death do us part, or did we? We meant it when we looked at our newborn baby and said, “I will always love you,” but children don’t always do what we want them to do, become what we want them to be, and are we still there for them regardless of their choices in life?

Would we have kids on the street if parents didn’t give up on them, or are some of the kids on the street because they’ve given up on themselves and their parents are still there for them?

When are we enabling with our support or being unsupportive when we expect more from people? In every relationship, is the dynamic such that it can be very good or bad? Do we live somewhere on the continuum of being our best or worst, and we are a choice away from either extreme?

What if, when we change the way we look at things, the things we look at change, and our perception colors our life more than we acknowledge? How often have we felt trapped when we look at things one way, but if we look at them from a different perspective opportunities open up?

Life presents many choices, the choices we make determine our future. Catherine Pulsifer

We might be looking at our cup, basket, or life as half empty, but what if we looked at it differently? What if we looked at every challenge as an opportunity, what if we saw the silver lining in every adversity, and what if we realize we are enough, and if we do the most with what we have it will be enough?

As we look toward retirement we are told we haven’t saved enough, we can’t possibly live on less than… Depending on where the information is coming from often we are told we need millions to retire, and yet many people are retiring and living quite well and they don’t have millions in the bank.

One of the things I like about YouTube is real people telling real stories about how they manage to live healthy lives, become adventurers, travel the world or their country, and build a secure retirement with reasonable amounts of money. As I write this I am thinking of Henry Mah, and his books and podcasts on maximizing the TFSA (Tax-Free Savings Account).

Information is available on any subject; we have to find it, digest it, and act on it to see the dividends it might pay in our lives. Life has always been about choices, some of our choices we regret, some we are proud of, and some we still have to make. We can’t do anything about the choices we regret, they are what they are, what we can do something about is the choices we have to make in the days, weeks, and years ahead.

Our lives will be the sum of the choices we make, we might think our choices are all behind us, we didn’t start soon enough, and it is true we can’t have what we would have had if we made some choices years ago, but we can have what a good choice will bring us now.

We would be fitter if we started exercising earlier, but what people achieve even when they start fitness programs later in life is amazing. Too often we talk ourselves out of doing something we could do. It will take effort, courage, and faith to embark on a new path, but isn’t that what we are here for, to have the adventure of our lives?

Your life changes the moment you make a new, congruent, and committed decision. Tony Robbins

In the long run, we shape our lives, and we shape ourselves. The process never ends until we die. And the choices we make are ultimately our own responsibility. Eleanor Roosevelt

May your choices reflect your hopes, not your fears. Nelson Mandela

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Thank you for reading my books, and a special thank you to those who leave a review on Goodreads and Amazon. If you click on the Amazon link and purchase an item I receive a small percentage of the sale through the Amazon affiliate program.

Posted on by BWThomas

Life lessons from Suzanne Somers. She’s been a force in my life.

Painting by Belynda Wilson Thomas

As human beings, equipped with marvelous intelligence and the potential for developing a warm heart, each of us can become a force for good. Dalai Lama

Suzanne Somers died last Sunday and I didn’t hear about it until my husband told me. When Three’s Company was on TV my roommate and I were looking for a third roommate. A young man answered the advertisement in the newspaper, and we agreed he could be our new roommate. I was away one of the first weekends after he moved in. The police knocked on our door in the middle of the night and my female roommate was awakened from her sleep. Our male roommate – his words, “Inadvertently tossed the contents of the refrigerator onto the main street.” We lived on the fourteenth floor and luckily no one was hurt. We were again on the hunt for a new roommate and over the next few years I shared the apartment with male and female roommates.

Does everyone remember the thigh master? I remember something called the Gut Buster but can’t find any reference to it. I bought one and was diligently doing sit-ups when the bottom part of the machine separated and hit the wall like a bullet. Someone could have been hurt, and maybe that is why I couldn’t find a reference to this product on the internet.

For many of us exercise gadgets have been part of our life. We were always looking for the perfect exercise aid that would give us results. If a gadget helps us exercise it’s important to know it’s the exercise and not the gadget that made the difference.

Years later Suzanne Somers popped into my life again. I was listening to the radio and she was talking about one of her diet books on food-combining. How separating fat and carbohydrates in our diet keeps us from gaining weight. How many women has she encouraged over the years to take control of our diet and our lives? She maintained a marriage of fifty-five years, fought breast cancer for 23 years, published books, and has remained relevant all these years. She has been a force for good.

I want to be the force which is truly for good. John Coltrane

She became a force for encouraging women to take control of their bodies and their health. Not to be intimidated by the experts, but to question and learn. If we can live until we die that is a goal to aim for, and I think everything I see about Suzanne Somers, she did just that, she was a role model to the end.

We can’t change what we can’t change but perhaps our attitude on how we deal with what life throws at us is what we can control. Living a life with cancer might look quite different from waiting to die of cancer. In the end, the amount of life might be the same but what if it isn’t the amount of years in our life, it is the amount of life in our years that counts.

We are being reminded every day it seems, that if there is something out there we want to do we better get to it. I wonder if Suzanne Somers ever said to herself, who am I, to talk about diet, hormones, and exercising, and then did it anyway. I remember talking about yeast overgrowth to my Doctor and it was a foreign concept at the time, but everyone is talking about gut health now.

We are sharing parts of our lives in podcasts, blogs, books, etc and some of it might be oversharing, but even that might help people learn things they need to know. None of us are getting out of this life alive, but if we share the lessons we’ve learned along the way, even if they are hard lessons, maybe especially if they are hard lessons we might help someone.  Some people are sharing things that don’t put them in the best light, but perhaps they believe they may help someone else make better choices and avoid the mistakes they’ve made.

Life is messy, and they say confession is good for the soul. Perhaps when people can say, “Accept me warts and all, or don’t accept me at all,” they are strong. Strong people aren’t pretending they’ve never made mistakes; they acknowledge their mistakes and go forward better, not bitter.

Are we going forward better, not bitter? Are we learning the lessons others are trying to teach us?

The most powerful force ever known on this planet is human cooperation – a force for construction and destruction. Jonathan Haidt

Act as if what you do makes a difference. It does. William James

When you look at the dark side, careful you must be. For the dark side looks back. Yoda

Thank you for reading this post. Please come back and read some more. Have a blessed day filled with gratitude, joy, and love.

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Thank you for reading my books, and a special thank you to those who leave a review on Goodreads and Amazon. If you click on the Amazon link and purchase an item I receive a small percentage of the sale through the Amazon affiliate program.

Posted on by BWThomas

Being alone isn’t always loneliness, and being around people doesn’t mean we can’t be lonely.

Painting by Belynda Wilson Thomas

Loneliness and the feeling of being unwanted is the most terrible poverty. Mother Teresa

Watching “Alone in Alaska” we might wonder how we would fare. I’m not even talking about finding food, I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t be good at that part, but what if our needs were met, so we wouldn’t starve, could we handle being alone? I’ve never spent much time alone and it would be a huge adjustment.

Many of us will spend time alone at some time in our lives. If we have things we can do that make the time pass it might not be too bad. But, if we are only watching a clock tick, and have nothing we can or would like to do, then the time will go by very slowly.

We are connected technologically more than at any age in history and still, the rates of loneliness are increasing. It makes sense we will have to deal with loneliness as we age especially if we end up being the surviving spouse. Even people in nursing homes report moderate loneliness and some report being severely lonely. This shows we can be lonely in a crowd or in a building filled with people just like us.

I’m looking at something I’ve found on the internet, “More than 2 million over 75s live alone in the UK, with over half regularly going for more than one month without conversing with a friend, neighbor, or family member,” this is taken from an article by the Good Care Group.

Wow, that is far worse than I thought it would be. We have to wonder what brings someone to the point where no one calls them, or they have no one to call, visit, or interact with.

I used to think the worst thing in life was to end up all alone. It’s not. The worst thing in life is to end up with people that make you feel all alone. Robin William

Some of it, as in Mom’s case is she’s outlived her siblings, Dad’s siblings, and friends. Making new friends when our peer group is gone would be difficult, maybe heartbreaking, and we might think we are getting close to someone to end up losing them.

We might think putting our loved ones in a home is best for them, we won’t worry about them as much, but what about what is best for them? Aging in place is what Mom wants and what we hope can continue for her.

There aren’t easy answers, we wish there were easy answers and we might make decisions that are easier for us, but not for our loved ones. We all want the best for our loved ones, and to feel we did as much as we could to make their life as good as possible.

There are hard choices that need to be made with aging parents, but as long as our parents can, the choice is up to them. We might not like the choices, we might worry about them being alone, and maybe we can do something so they aren’t alone too much of the time.

What I think we all want is to make the choices that affect our lives to the end, be in control of the decisions about our own lives, and have autonomy until we die.

No one saves us but ourselves. No one can and no one may. We ourselves must walk the path. Buddha

Loneliness is the poverty of self; solitude is the richness of self. May Sarton

The greatest thing in the world is to know how to belong to oneself. Michel de Montaigne

Thank you for reading this post. Please come back and read some more. Have a blessed day filled with gratitude, joy, and love.

To subscribe, comment, and see archives or categories of posts, click on the picture and scroll to the end.

Thank you for reading my books, and a special thank you to those who leave a review on Goodreads and Amazon. If you click on the Amazon link and purchase an item I receive a small percentage of the sale through the Amazon affiliate program.

Posted on by BWThomas

Family is the lasting legacy and the most precious accomplishment of our lives.

Painting by Belynda Wilson Thomas

The greatest legacy one can pass on to one’s children and grandchildren is not money… but rather a legacy of character and faith. Billy Graham

Yesterday was a day to visit with sisters, to share a meal, and to laugh before one drove the other to the airport. We might wish we had more time to be with someone but any time we get to spend with someone is a gift.

The years have rolled by and things we thought we would do we haven’t done; now we are reaching milestones that seemed far, far away not that long ago. We have more life behind us than ahead of us. Our children are now the ones starting out with young families and my oldest sister is going to be a great-grandma again, soon.

No matter what we are doing time marches on, and it doesn’t stand still for us. Did we make the calls over the Thanksgiving weekend to friends and family near and far? Are we spending time with those we love? Do the things that feed our souls have a place in our lives or are we waiting until…

There are seasons in our lives and it seems to me that some people miss the season of finding a mate and spend their lives alone. We tend to think that everyone wants what we want, a home, a family, someone to go through life with and share the joys and sorrows. Regardless of what we want out of life it goes by fast and soon we are looking back over what we’ve done, wondering where the time went, because whether we accomplished what we want to or not, time is moving on.

As we reach milestones in our lives it is time to reflect on what has been and think about what is still to come, and what could be if… Is there still time to see the world? Not all of it, but some of it. Can we even explore most of the country we live in?

Carve your name on hearts, not tombstones, a legacy is etched into the minds of others and the stories they share about you. Shannon L. Alder

Travel has always called to me but not quite loud enough. When I was leaving school I wanted to travel but not being adventurous enough to go alone, I didn’t go. I have a friend who wanted to go with me, but somehow it didn’t happen. Life got in the way, we went our separate ways, and here we are. When we get together we joke about the trip we might still take.

Is it better to look back at what we’ve done, or ahead to what we still want to do? No matter what we’ve done we need to be looking ahead because that is where our life is. Mom tells me, “Don’t wait too long,” because the time comes when listening to, or reading about someone else’s adventure is all you can manage.

Facebook can make us feel everyone is having an adventure but us. We need to be inspired by what people are doing but not envious, make plans for the life we want, and know we won’t get everything, we’ve never gotten everything all at the same time, we have to pick and choose, prioritize, and plan.

We only get one life, and some of us have already lived longer and had life better than others. We might have many choices or few, but we have to make the best of the choices we have, to live our best life.

In the evening, I can go to my studio to work on my next children’s book or play with my grandson before bed. My grandson will only be this age once so I spend less time on my book.

If things got in the way of some of the things we wanted to do, but what got in the way was more important, and more fulfilling then we made the right choices, and we would probably make them again. Solitary adventure has its lure, but I wonder if it has the satisfaction that comes from building something with someone, and creating the lasting legacy of family?

The one who plants trees knowing that he or she will never sit in their shade, has at least started to understand the meaning of life. Rabindranath Tacore

Even if I knew that tomorrow the world would go to pieces, I would still plant my apple tree. Martin Luther

The things you do for yourself are gone when you are gone, but the things you do for others remain as your legacy. Kalu Ndukwe Kalu

Thank you for reading this post. I hope you come back and read some more. Have a blessed day filled with gratitude, joy, and love.

To subscribe, comment, and see archives or categories of posts, click on the picture and scroll to the end.

Thank you to those who read my books, and a special thank you to those who leave a review on Goodreads and Amazon. If you click on the Amazon link and purchase an item, I receive a small percentage of the sale through the Amazon affiliate program.

Posted on by BWThomas

Does gratitude unlock the fullness of life, when we are grateful for what we have do we get more?

Painting by Belynda Wilson Thomas

Thanksgiving is a joyous invitation to shower the world with love and gratitude. Amy Leigh Mercree

Today is Thanksgiving Day, the day set aside to be grateful for the bounty and beauty in our lives, good fortune, family, friends, and freedom.

If we are free of want and oppression, and free to build a family with who we choose, we also have to accept the responsibility for that family and that freedom. I remember on the farm being too young to help Mom and Dad finish the grain threshing before friends came for Thanksgiving dinner. Why do some memories stick with us, and others don’t?

Thanksgiving is a harvest holiday and one of the things people looked forward to on the farm was when the fall work was done. There is a quiet satisfaction in completing our tasks and knowing we are ready for the approaching winter and life on the farm in the fall was getting ready for winter. What could be fixed was repaired; the cold cellar was lined with canned fruit, pickles, jams, and jellies. The freezer was full of vegetables from the garden, and once it got colder the unpleasant job of butchering chickens, a pig, and a cow to fill the freezer with meat happened.

Memories from childhood go with us wherever we go, and they color who we become.  Being a farm girl from Saskatchewan has colored my life. The lessons learned on the farm I could have learned no other way, it was a wonderful way to grow up and I loved it, but I also wanted to leave and knew I was leaving from the age of thirteen. Is it strange to love something so much, and yet not want it for oneself?

Perhaps I thought there was an easier more fun life out there. One of the things I’ve learned is there is no easy, and there is no free. We get what we put into life and it is the easy choices we fall into that often lead to a hard life and the hard choices where we delay gratification that leads to an easy and happy life.

What if today, we were just grateful for everything? Charlie Brown

When we look at people in mid-life and envy them for where they are, what were we doing when they were doing the work that would lead them to this point? If we quit in the middle of something we don’t reap the rewards. If we didn’t take the chance to build something it didn’t get built, and it takes longer to build something than many people think. Overnight success takes about fifteen years, and most of the time someone slogged away for years before becoming successful at…

We won’t reap what we didn’t sow, and even if we think we are doing all the right things the market might not be right for what we are producing, or everyone might be producing the same thing, and some people die before their work becomes recognized. If we can be a hero to our children, an example of a life well lived with perseverance, good cheer, and character, isn’t that what we should work toward?

Death in the end will come to all of us, and we will leave behind memories in the hearts and minds of those who loved us. If our children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren look back on the time they spent with us fondly, and some of their treasured memories are time spent with us we will have a well-lived life even if we never accomplish all we set out to accomplish.

The memories we make now will live on in the hearts and minds of those we love. It is worth the effort to create memories sitting around the Thanksgiving table. The loud and boisterous laughter will reverberate throughout our lives, and we never know when it might be the last time someone is sitting at our table. We need to take advantage of the opportunities to celebrate with people we love while we can. 

Can we share a meal, make a call, and spend time with those we love? Happy Thanksgiving!

Be consistent in your dedication to showing your gratitude to others. Gratitude is a fuel, a medicine, and spiritual and emotional nourishment. Steve Maraboli

I am grateful for what I am and have. My thanksgiving is perpetual. Henry David Thoreau

Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. Melody Beattie

Thank you for reading this post. Please come back and read some more. Have a blessed day filled with gratitude, joy, and love.

To subscribe, comment, and see archives or categories of posts click on the picture and scroll to the end.

Thank you to those who read my books, and a special thanks to those who leave a review on Goodreads and Amazon. If you click on the Amazon link and purchase and item I receive a small percentage of the sale through the Amazon affiliate program.

Posted on by BWThomas

Choosing what’s important. How we spend our days, is how we spend our lives.

Painting by Belynda Wilson Thomas

In every single thing you do, you are choosing a direction. Your life is a product of choices. Dr. Kathleen Hall

Would the girl or boy we were, be happy with the man or woman we’ve become? Wherever we are in life, what would we still like to do, what adventures would we still like to have, and what is still possible?

I see through Facebook that lots of people are having adventures, traveling the world, and living life to the fullest. Average people can do things that were beyond all but the rich in days gone by. We live our lives in peace and plenty; we have technology that makes it easy to share our adventures.

Telling our stories has never been easier and we are interested in different stories at different times in our lives. My daughter is watching women on YouTube sharing their stories of motherhood, potty training, and homemaking. My husband and I are watching RV’ers document their travels and lessons learned along the way. Do we want to find fitness experts, financial gurus, artists, and many others who will inspire us with what they are doing, and help us make decisions about what we want out of life?

We’ve always had choices but sometimes we thought there was something special about the people doing some of the things we’ve always wanted to do. What’s special about them is they are doers, and we are doers, we just have to decide what we want to do and then do it. Nothing happens until we change something we do every day.

Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom. Victor E. Frankl

For years I wanted to write, I’ve always wanted to write, I even wrote it down in my journal when I was fifteen. Why did it take me this long to become a writer? Because, it wasn’t until October 9, 2000, that I started writing as a daily practice and kept it up. I documented how many words I wrote in the beginning, this helped me create a writing habit, and I still document how much I write each day. It’s a way to keep myself accountable but also I know when I wrote or edited that part of a novel.

We can’t do everything, we have to pick and choose how to spend our time and prioritize what is important by what we spend our time on. Writing in the morning works because often no one else is up, so it isn’t taking time away from anyone. We don’t want to be so efficient and productive that we don’t have time for those we love.

Success that comes at the expense of those we love will be empty. That said, if we spend all our time with those we love we might never get done what needs to be done and that won’t work well either. Balance is needed and it isn’t as easy as it seems to find balance in our lives fitting everything we want to fit in. It always seems something has to give; one of the balls we are trying to juggle must be put down to make way for something else.

Family is always the ball we must not put down, drop, or ignore. It is what gives our lives meaning, and purpose, and is the legacy we leave behind. When we are ninety-eight if we are lucky to live that long, family will be what is still left of all we have accomplished. If we have a grandson or granddaughter, or great-grandson or great-granddaughter that will visit us, kiss us on our cheek, tell us about their adventures, and how we helped them along the way, isn’t that what we want, what will make it all worthwhile, and give us peace? If a niece will come and spend time with us because we made time for them and they are making time for us.

If someone pops in with flowers because they are passing through, won’t that make our day? We all have choices until we don’t, are we making them count?

When people are not accepting toward themselves they are often obsessed with acceptance by others. Nathaniel Branden

Nonacceptance is always suffering, no matter what you are not accepting. Acceptance is always freedom, no matter what you are accepting. Cheri Huber

Marrying, founding a family, accepting all the children that come, supporting them in this insecure world, and perhaps even guiding them a little, is I am convinced, the utmost a human being can succeed in doing at all. Franz Kafka

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Posted on by BWThomas

Adventure is a state of mind, are we always looking for an adventure?

Painting by Belynda Wilson Thomas

Traveling – it leaves you speechless, then turns you into a storyteller. Ibn Battuta

Have you ever thought a simplified life sounds appealing? What would a simplified life look like? Where does one start when considering it? Does going on the road with a campervan and like a turtle taking your home with you have its appeal? Have you ever wondered how small of a space you could live in comfortably and what the necessities of life are? We can have a library on our smartphones, so as much as I would hate to give up my books, I could carry them in a digital version. Digital offices make it so some people can make a living on the road.

One of the surprising things I’m seeing on YouTube is how many single women are traveling in an RV. Single women are traveling around the world and having adventures, and why not, we might be single because of choice or circumstance but we still have a life to live, and watching single women live it with gusto is encouraging. Some people find love on the road while traveling the highways and byways. It looks like a community is out there looking out for each other like any other community that forms around shared interests.

The most difficult thing is the decision to act, the rest is merely tenacity. Amelia Earhart

My husband and I are discussing dipping our toe in the water by renting a small RV and taking a cross-country trip next year. We’ve done road trips over the years and slept in our car, but we were on our way to a destination and time was of the essence, so we didn’t have time to stop in campgrounds and stay a few days to explore the scenery along the way. We might be dreaming we’ll have the time for a leisurely trip, but we will have a place to sleep where we can lie down and that will be a big blessing.

When we are carrying our home with us, how big is too big, and how small is too small? Is there a Goldilocks size that is just right, and is that different for each of us? One of the things we get to choose in life is what our adventures look like, and by renting we can try a few RV’s on for size without making a big commitment.

The toilet issue seems to me to be the biggest concern. What kind is best, the black water tank, composing, or cassette toilet? Choices, choices, choices, and every choice will have its pros and cons. Planning a trip is always part of the fun, and we will change our minds a few times while we plan this one, but in the end, it will be an adventure we will share and talk about over the years, and maybe lead to bigger and better adventures.

Adventure isn’t hanging off a rope on the side of a mountain or living among lions. Adventure is an attitude to experience everyday things. John Amatt

Don’t ask for security, ask for adventure. Jim Rohn

Investment in travel is investment in yourself. Matthew Karsten

Thank you for reading this post. Please come back and read some more. Have a blessed day filled with gratitude, joy, and love.

To subscribe, comment, and see archives or categories of posts, click on the picture and scroll to the end.

Thank you for reading my books, and a special thank you to those who leave a review on Goodreads and Amazon. If you click on the Amazon link and purchase an item, I receive a small percentage of the sale through the Amazon affiliate program.