Posted on by BWThomas

Are we turning our promises and hopes into plans?                  

Painting by Belynda Wilson Thomas

Unless commitment is made, there are only promises and hopes; but no plans. Peter F. Drucker

On April 16, 2019, I wrote about the fire of Notre Dame Cathedral in my blog. It was and still is on our bucket list to see, and this past weekend it reopened. Because it has been rebuilt we can still see it. But, how many things we put off will be things we never do?

My oldest sister had a chance to visit the Holy Land some years ago but didn’t go because of the unrest there; she and her sister-in-law canceled the trip. Another chance never presented itself and how often in life is it now or never to do the things we want to do?

One of the problems many of us have is balancing time and money, when we have time, we don’t have money, and when we have the money, we don’t have the time. We can go through life this way, and I remember Mom and Dad always saying, “This is next year’s country,” as a kid, I didn’t get it, but I do now.

Maybe next year we’ll go to England and Paris, maybe next year business will be better, maybe next year… We can live our lives waiting for next year. What if we figured out what we want and put a plan in place to make it happen? The best-laid plans may go astray, but does that mean planning is not beneficial?

In preparing for battle, I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable. Dwight D. Eisenhower

If we get too set on our plans we can be disappointed because something will come along to derail our plans. But if we don’t plan we won’t know how to adapt to the circumstances of life. Can we be flexible and adapt to changing circumstances while keeping our goals in mind?

Making the most of life by wringing as much enjoyment from it as we can will make our life no matter how long or short the best it can be. This morning, holding my little granddaughter, life is sweet. Spending time with grandkids can be sweeter than traipsing the globe. If we are lucky our choices are between two goods and we can make the best of what life offers us.

We sometimes have hopes, promises, wishes, and dreams but if we want to turn them into reality we will have to turn them into goals and plans, keeping in mind plans may have to change as circumstances do.  

Long-range planning does not deal with the future decisions, but with the future of present decisions. Peter F. Drucker

A goal is not always meant to be reached; it often serves simply as something to aim at. Bruce Lee

There is a time to plan, a time to act, and a time to rest; it is wise to know which is which. Emily Rodda

Thank you for reading this post. Have a blessed day filled with gratitude, joy, and love.

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Siblings are the greatest gift we are given after, life itself.

Painting by Belynda Wilson Thomas

The bond between a sister and a brother is sometimes tightly woven, sometimes loosely held but never broken. Unknown

Today my heart is filled with gratitude. My daughter went into early labor and delivered a healthy baby girl. She’s a tiny five pounds fourteen ounces, Mommy and baby are doing well. When things start happening before term we worry and every precious day is a blessing but she decided she was getting out of there, and came with a force.

Today our grandson will visit his new sister. At two-and-a-half, he is missing his mommy and this morning he asked me to make her coffee. He saved her popcorn the first night, and yesterday he saved her part of a gummy and licorice. He was very stoic yesterday and I thought he was waiting for his Daddy to come home standing at the window, but when I went to see what he was up to he ripped the wallpaper in the office. He did this when he was much younger and ripping it yesterday is a sign of how hard he was trying to be good, but he needed an outlet for his frustration.

I can’t remember when my brother next to me was born, but I think I can remember when my youngest brother was born and Grandma and Grandpa came to visit. How do we process a new baby coming into the family, is it the best gift ever, or do we feel a loss in status we never recover from?

When I had my daughter I saw it from the mother’s point of view, now I am watching it from my grandson’s point of view, and it is interesting to watch and hear what he is saying as he takes in this momentous event.

Sister and brother friendship is the rainbow between two hearts sharing seven colors: feelings, love, sadness, happiness, truth, faith, secrets, and respect. Unknown

The first night he slept alone and when his grandpa asked if he had a good sleep, he said, “No, I miss my mommy.” Last night he woke up not long after going to bed and didn’t want to go back to bed, so when he went back to sleep I stayed with him and all night a little hand reached out to see if I was still there. This morning, Grandpa asked if he slept well, and he said, “Yes, Grandma slept with me.”

Meeting our new sister or brother has to be one of the biggest days in our lives, even if we don’t remember it, as most of us don’t. Does sibling rivalry start now, and if it does, how do we create a supportive sibling relationship instead of the rivalry that sometimes exists?

Having siblings is one of the great joys in life, and those who don’t have siblings might think they know what they are missing but truly they can’t understand the depth of the sibling relationship. Siblings fight, and we pick on each other, but woe to anyone who thinks they can treat our brother or sister unfairly.

If we have siblings we know we have a port in any storm, and is the greatest gift we can give our first child, a brother, or a sister?

Siblings are like branches of a tree. We grow in different directions, yet our roots remain as one. Unknown

Your parents leave you too soon and your kids and spouse come along late, but your siblings know you when you are in your most chaotic form. Unknown

Brothers and sisters are special. They fight. They make up. They laugh. They cry. They’re far from perfect. But when you really need them, they have your back. Unknown

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How high can we go if we work on being better today than yesterday?

Painting by Belynda Wilson Thomas

If we are growing, we’re always going to be out of our comfort zone. John C. Maxwell

Last night I listened to John Maxwell as I painted, he said he was told if he spent five years learning anything he could be a master at it, and he chose leadership. Halfway through his five years, he started seeing progress; people began seeing him as a leader. He changed his question from, “How long will it take, to how far can I go?” That question changed his life, how far can he go? How many more books can he write, and how many more people and organizations can he help?

What if we asked ourselves the same question? How far can we go, how much impact can we have, what difference can we make? Some of us may have a broad reach touching many lives, and some may have a deep reach where we impact fewer people but impact them mightily. We may have little impact outside of our family, but our impact may reverberate, and what seemed small and insignificant may have a wider impact than we think.

The family is the building block of our civilization and we are each part of a family. Do we lift others when we can, encourage them when needed, and help someone get back on course? Are we there in the good times and the bad, with them in glad times and sorrow, can they count on us for an encouraging word and a warm hug?

Success is a continuing thing, it is growth and development. It is achieving one thing and using that as a stepping stone to achieve something else. John C. Maxwell

At the Writers Group on Saturday one of our members wrote what he thought was the perfect book, and he gave it to his editor, who said, “I don’t think there is a market for this.” How great must it be for a writer to think they’ve written a perfect book? He’s written several books and didn’t get into what made that one perfect, but I’m assuming as he wrote each book he tried to make it better than the last until he thought, I don’t know how to improve on this one. It would be a great feeling to develop oneself to that point even if said book never becomes a commercial success.

We don’t know what something will become until we do it; we need to be willing to do something poorly if we ever can do it well. We will make mistakes, fail, and try again to make progress. This is the lesson we can teach our children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren, if at first you don’t succeed, try, try, again. Play on at whatever we do, and start new adventures throughout our lives.

Mom didn’t start quilting until she was in her eighties. Grandma Moses was in her late seventies when arthritis made continuing with her embroidery difficult, it was suggested she start painting instead.  Her last painting “Rainbow” was completed when she was 101.

If there is something we want to do, or something isn’t working for us anymore and we have to find another creative outlet, why not figure out how to make it happen? We may think it will take ten years to become good at it, but what can we accomplish in those ten years?

What is possible for our lives? We won’t know unless we take the steps to make something happen.

Courage isn’t an absence of fear. It’s doing what you are afraid to do. It’s having the power to let go of the familiar and forge ahead into new territory. John C. Maxwell

The only one you should compare yourself to is you. Your mission is to become better today than you were yesterday. John C. Maxwell

The greatest mistake we make is living in constant fear that we will make one. John C. Maxwell

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Access your creativity and live a life that inspires you

Painting by Belynda Wilson Thomas

You can’t use up creativity. The more you use, the more you have. Maya Angelou

On Saturday, I attended the Cranberry Christmas Market hosted by the Mississauga Arts Council. To be part of the creative community is wonderful, and humbling. At the table beside us, a craftsman was selling wooden spoons and forks made using an axe and knives.

At another table, a gentleman was selling hand-made wooden pens and he included the story behind the wood in each pen. I bought one, and it is from a 250-300-year-old black oak that stood beside the rose garden in the Royal Botanical Gardens in Burlington, Ontario. I like the story as much as the pen, but the pen is wonderful to hold and write with. There were hand-crafted items of all sorts, jewelry, soap, hand-dyed yarn, decorative items, knitting, art, and books, and I’m sure I’ve left out some. Choirs entertained us and incredible musicians played chamber music. At our table, we were three authors representing the Mississauga Writers Group.

The craftsmanship in the items on display was amazing; one of the reasons to visit these markets is to get an idea of the array of crafts other people are creating. We might see something we want to purchase, but also items we would like to create. When there is a story behind an item it is more impactful to me, than if it is just the item.

The blankets I knit at Mom’s will be treasured because of the story behind them more than the craftsmanship, but when we make things there is a story behind each one. It might not be a story that would grab someone else, but when we look at the item we will be brought back to what we were doing and our mindset when we made it.

It’s no good being too easily swayed by people’s opinions. You have to believe in yourself. Donatella Versace

Creativity is a gift we give ourselves. I watch my daughter and grandson paint and the object is not what he creates, he loves the doing. Sometimes we think the treasure is the object we create, but the real treasure is what being creative does for us.

On Friday, we had a girls-night at a friend’s house and she showed us slippers she’s knitting for her family. What a lovely thought everyone will be wearing hand-knit slippers, knit by their mom, grandma, sister, or mother-in-law. What a special Christmas this will be, and how precious will those little slippers be as a keep-sake for her twp-and-a-half-year-old grandson? She also showed us a scarf she’s been knitting for her daughter, fine knitting, with beautiful yarn. It is truly a labor of love.

A fellow author at our table crocheted star bookmarks. What a lovely idea and one I might copy. The other author at our table has kept the blankets she made for her children and wishes she’d kept the sweaters knit for them by her mother. Often we are cleaning up, getting rid of what is no longer being worn, and we don’t think of the treasure we put in the bag to be given away or thrown out. We all probably have items we’ve given away or thrown out we’d love to have back, because of the story behind them.

If I’m lucky, I will get to knit more items at Mom’s, and help her finish her last quilt. If Mom hadn’t taught me to crochet on my last visit, I would look at the crocheted bookmarks as a great idea, but not one I would create myself.

Being crafty has pitfalls, we need to find a repository for what we create, or we might become overwhelmed by our creations. The more we create the more we want to create, and I’ve wondered how some authors are so prolific but now I know, they love writing, and when they finish one project they start another one, and over time it adds up.

I’m not sure it matters what we create, what is most important is we find some form of creativity that feeds our soul, and if we end up making a little money at it, so much the better.

If we can’t use creativity up, the more we do, the more we can do, and the more we want to do, are we as creative as we want to be? Is there a creative project we’d love to start, what’s holding us back?

Don’t wait for inspiration. It comes while working. Henri Matisse

The worst enemy to creativity is self-doubt. Sylvia Plath

Creativity is inventing, experimenting, growing, taking risks, breaking rules, making mistakes, and having fun. Mary Lou Cook

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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Books written by members of the Mississauga Writers Group at the event:

Posted on by BWThomas

Born on a Monday? Waiting for glorious news our grandbaby has come into the world.

Painting by Belynda Wilson Thomas

Birth is the epicenter of women’s power. Ani DiFranco

I’m pretty sure our grandbaby will arrive before the day is out. Do we wait for our grandbaby’s arrival with as much or more anticipation as our own children? Every woman who has a baby has a story to tell. The hero’s journey for women is pregnancy and birth. For women in the past, this journey was fraught with much more danger than it is today. It is a journey that tests us, remakes, us, and through which we grow into mothers.

We can’t go through traumatic experiences without changing and growing and pregnancy and birth are one of, if not the ultimate experience. My daughter will now have her war story. Her moment of thinking I can’t do this; it’s too much for me. A dark night of the soul takes us from one phase of life into another. Becoming a mother surely fits the definition of a deeper perception of life and growth into a new state of being.

Most women get through the birth process with the object of their desire, a beautiful baby to hold, and a feeling of lightness in their body again. They can walk more easily, and be able to see their feet.

The moment a child is born, the mother is also born. She never existed before. Osho

I’ve been thinking of the old nursery rhyme.

Monday’s child is fair of face. Tuesday’s child is full of grace. Wednesday’s child is full of woe. Thursday’s child has far to go. Friday’s child is loving and giving. Saturday’s child works hard for a living, and the child born on the Sabbath day is bonny and blithe, and good and gay.

Here is another one:

Monday for health, Tuesday for wealth, Wednesday best day of all, Thursday for crosses, Friday for losses, Saturday no luck at all. He who is born on the day of rest in health and fortune has the best.

My husband and I were Sunday babies, my daughter a Tuesday baby, and her husband a Friday baby. We often seem concerned with the future instead of letting things unfold as they will. We know the sex of the baby because we have the technology to tell us such things.

We can’t visit them at the hospital but we can talk on the phone and get pictures instantly. They don’t usually stay in the hospital long so I can hold him in my arms soon. I have my phone beside me waiting for the call that he has arrived.

I would have loved to be with my daughter during this process but at least her husband is able to be with her. There is no experience like bringing new life into the world, and there is nothing as promising as a new life with all that lies before it.

There is a power that comes to women when they give birth. They don’t ask for it, it simply invades them. Accumulates like clouds on the horizon and passes through, carrying the child with it. Sheryl Feldman

A woman in birth is at once her most powerful, and most vulnerable. But any woman who has birthed unhindered understands that we are stronger than we know. Marcie Macari

Giving birth and being born brings us into the essence of creation, where the human spirit is courageous and bold and the body, a miracle of wisdom. Harriette Hartigan

Thank you to everyone that reads my post. I hope you enjoyed it. I hope you will come back and read some more. Have a blessed day filled with gratitude, joy, and love.

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

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

When Can We Get A Puppy by Belynda Wilson Thomas
Secrets and Sorrow by Belynda Wilson Thomas
Secrets and Silence by Belynda Wilson Thomas
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Happy New Year with all the promise it brings. Have you found your passion in life? Do you trust the magic of beginnings?

Have you found your passion in life? Do you trust the magic of new beginnings? Happy New Year with all the promise it brings.

Painting by Belynda Wilson Thomas

The best time for new beginnings, is now. Unknown

Yesterday my husband and I were watching an uplifting TV show. One woman built a cupcake business with the last five dollars she had, and the order for cupcakes from her neighbor across the street.

A woman lost 200 lbs in eighteen months and became fit and active after living her entire life overweight.

A man at seventy was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease and started painting fourteen years ago. He wanted to be an artist but his dean told him anybody could spit on a canvas and call it modern art. He calls himself The Parkinson Painter and his work sells upwards of $20,000. He’s also written a book, “Spit on A Canvas: The Journey of a Parkinson’s Painter,” by Norman Greenstein. He got a new lease on life when he took up painting. He could have thought what can I do, I have Parkinson’s. Instead, he says, “I only have Parkinson’s.” His message is simple: don’t give up – do what you can, and then do more.

There are inspiring stories everywhere of people taking their life in their hands and doing what they can. There are so many heartbreaking stories out there but aren’t we all inspired when people turn heartbreak into something good. They turn their scars into stars, what could keep them down they find a way to use to boost themselves up.

He didn’t start painting thinking he could sell his paintings for $20,000.00 he might not have thought any would ever sell. The woman with the cupcakes didn’t know the order from her neighbor was the beginning of an empire. The woman who lost 200 pounds didn’t know where her journey would take her and is looking forward to what the future brings.

The beginning of a New Year is a great time to start something new and set some goals. Often big accomplishments don’t start with a big goal; they start with a small decision and making a change in a new direction. Small steps lead to big things. We don’t need to know if picking up a paintbrush, lacing up our runners, or singing in a choir will take us somewhere. If we have something we have longed to do, something calling our name, some adventure we want to take, we can start where we are, take small steps, and see where it leads.

And suddenly you know: It’s time to start something new and trust the magic of beginnings. Meister Eckhart

When we see someone trying something maybe we can place one of the first orders that boost them toward success. It isn’t about selling a painting for $20,000.00 although that is nice, it’s about painting and finding the joy in life. We are now hearing about Norman Greenstein and his success but he’s been painting for fourteen years. The cupcake business has been going for thirteen years. Where can we be if we put ten, fifteen, or twenty years into something?

And now we welcome the new year, full of things that have never been. Rainer Maria Rilke

Change can be scary, but you know what’s scarier? Allowing fear to stop you from growing, evolving, and progressing. Mandy Hale

Man is never alone. Acknowledged or unacknowledged, that which dreams through him is always there to support him from within. Laurens van des Post

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

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Thank you to everyone that reads my books. 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 from the Amazon affiliate program.

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The moment of epiphany when you know things will never be the same again.

Painting by Belynda Wilson Thomas

I always liked those moments of epiphany, when you have the next destination. Brad Pitt

Do epiphanies happen in your life? Is there a moment that turned your life around? Mine happened October 9th of 2000 when my husband brought home an old laptop and I put it on the kitchen table and started to write. I’d started writing at various times before. I’d always wanted to write and felt compelled to write. But, that time I turned writing into a habit and after I put the kids to bed was my time to write. I would bring the laptop out and put it on the kitchen table. I wrote down the time I started and the time I finished and how many words I wrote, and I haven’t quit writing since.

There have been times when computers quit, my files were held for ransom (thank goodness for backups). I have had years that I look back on and wonder what did I write, but the habit and the reality of being a writer occurred on October 9th, 2000.

Our lives can change in an instant. When I finished grade 12 I was driving in my car with a girlfriend when a lightning bolt flashed in my head I was going to Toronto. I’m reading a book, “The Holy Shit Moment” by James Fell. He says he can teach us how to harness the power of epiphany – those moments of sudden insight that can happen at any time.

I am open to these moments but I wonder do we get them in negative ways as well. If we have an epiphany about a person that is not positive, even if what we think we know is not true, can we see that person in a positive light again? Would that make the relationship unredeemable?

Could it be reckless to end marriages and change jobs even when a change in our lives needs to happen – should it always be a drastic change? The secret to a long marriage is time and I wonder if some people looking back wish they’d handled their epiphanies differently, made changes to improve their lives but kept their marriage.

Believe in your epiphanies. Believe in yourself. Take action, and watch the world conspire to support you. Elise Ballard

There are four elements to epiphanies, listening, belief, action, and serendipity. To listen we have to be open to the message. We need to believe the epiphany and what it means to us. Of course, nothing happens if we don’t take action and set everything in motion. Serendipity is when the second step is revealed, then the third step, and finally the fourth step and things keep falling into place.

There are times in our lives when we may feel we are on the right track, doing the right thing. Other times we are drifting, waiting, and we might not even know what we are waiting for. Perhaps we are waiting for an epiphany, a tap on the shoulder, a lightning bolt, or a book that speaks to us, someone that says something that changes the way we look at things. Something that will happen that opens up our eyes to a new path, opportunity, or way of being.

At this stage in life, I am open to epiphanies but not ones that turn my whole world upside down. I am committed to commitments I have made and within the confines of those commitments am open to opportunity, adventure, and excitement.

The world does not have tidy endings. The world does not have neat connections. It is not filled with epiphanies that work perfectly at the moment that you need them. Dennis Lehane

Don’t ever put your happiness in someone else’s hands. They’ll drop it. They’ll drop it every time. Christopher Barzak

It is not a lack of love, but a lack of friendship that makes unhappy marriages. Friedrich Nietzsche

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Autodidact means self-taught. Self-taught people have done a lot for the world.

Self-taught people have done a lot for the world. Autodidact means self-taught.

Painting by Belynda Wilson Thomas

Many who are self-taught far excel the doctors, masters, and bachelors of the most renowned universities. Ludwig von Mises

Have you ever done something and come back to it later and wondered how did I do that? It happened to me yesterday in Canva, a free program for making book covers, posters, etc. It’s a great tool you can upload your own photos, or you can use stock photos. The problem with beautiful stock photos is other people think they are beautiful too, and they may end up on someone else’s project, and not just yours.

When I watched a short tutorial they taught me for the second time what I’d learned the first. There are so many tools out there to help us create, videos to watch, techniques to learn. It is easier than ever to become an autodidact. Susanne Somers was called this and had to look up what it meant, it means self-taught. Autodidacts are people who have a passion for lifelong learning and question the limits of formal education. Common characteristics of an autodidact are having the drive to know more than what is on the surface, and having a need for unrefined knowledge. Autodidacts come to their own conclusions about topics and gain perspective by hearing from multiple sources on a matter.

Many people have risen to great heights being self-taught. Benjamin Franklin, Anthony Robbins, Vincent Van Gogh, Mark Twain, Leonardo Da Vinci, The Wright brothers, Abraham Lincoln the list goes on and on. Much of our education is credentialing. Education gives us the credentials to pursue what we want.

Some things we need credentials for and some things we don’t. All the credentials in the world won’t make us able to write a more compelling novel or paint like Vincent Van Gogh.

Who can be self-taught? We all are to some degree. Everyone who learned something new had to be self-taught because there was no one to teach them what they didn’t know. All progress comes from someone saying why not, what if? Is there a better way?

If you continue to do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get, what you’ve always got. Unknown

One of the characteristics of a self-taught person is they apply the knowledge they’ve gained in real-life situations. Self-taught individuals can choose any subject they find fascinating and learn more about it. One of the key characteristics of a great life is to continue learning and challenging ourselves to do better.

We will have to develop the discipline to be self-taught. No one will ask us if we did our homework, how we did on an exam, did we pass the course? We will focus on the aspects that interest us or are important in reaching our goal. There may be holes in our learning that the classically trained don’t have, but we may make up for it in passion.

Some say one of the great things about being self-taught is there is no cost of failure, there is always a cost of failure, but there are benefits as well. We learn to fail bigger, fail better.

Being self-taught often means we give ourselves a chance to do what we want in our spare time. We aren’t dependent on our learning for our livelihood.

As a self-taught person, we are autonomous students. Thinking for ourselves is important. We may look at things one way and when we learn something more, we look at things differently. This is growth. Often we remain more open and flexible in our thinking because we don’t know the answers.

Julian Assange is a self-taught computer genius. He didn’t know where his interest in computers would lead him. Most people don’t know where their lives will lead them but traditional education puts us on a path, and we follow the yellow brick road to a job, career, or calling. Self-taught people are often people in the wilderness, they don’t know what they want to do, and they are often round pegs, in square holes.

Something catches their interest and they focus on becoming very good at it. Sometimes they are financially rewarded for it, sometimes not. It doesn’t really matter because when we do something or learn something because we are interested in it, money is secondary.

Are you, or would you like to be an autodidact? Is it ever too late to learn something?

Being self-taught is no disgrace, but being self-certified is another matter. Hugh Nibley

Many people who excel are self-taught. Herb Ritts

Formal education will make you a living; self-education will make you a fortune. Jim Rohn

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We are all on the journey of life. What we choose to do on our journey is our choice. Are we happy with our choices? Are there changes we can and should make?

What we choose to do on our journey is our choice. Are we happy with our choices? Are there changes we can and should make? We are all on the journey of life.

Painting by Belynda Wilson Thomas

If you follow someone else’s way, you are not going to realize your potential. Joseph Campbell

Last night I was the Chair at our Toastmasters meeting after taking a month off. It is hard to believe how rusty one becomes so quickly. Names that should have been on the tip of my tongue eluded me. Thoughts seemed harder to put together as I stood at the podium.

We rest on our laurels at our peril. We think it won’t matter if we take time off, but we get out of practice easily and quickly. When I don’t go to the gym for a while it is harder to do exercises that I found easy. I haven’t taken a yoga class in a few years; it would probably be brutal getting into some of those poses.

The Table Topics Master asked thought-provoking questions. What is the one thing we would change in our life if we could? What product would we develop with our name on it? What superpower would we choose?

The speakers were thought-provoking talking about the emotional leader, shrugging off our problems and using them as stepping stones to our goals, staying motivated, and time management is life management.  It is for ideas like these I love Toastmasters. We never know who will inspire us, touch us, and make us think something, or look at things differently.

We are such a varied group in life experience, everyone’s stories are different. I was listening to the radio the other day and the radio personality was saying all of our photos can be categorized into twenty categories. We’ve all taken these twenty categories of pictures with different people in them. We went through the same experiences and milestones. When we bring people together everyone has a different story, their lives unfolded and they learned lessons along the way. Their hero’s journey had different obstacles, the story took place or started somewhere we aren’t familiar with, and we are intrigued.

Everyone has a story and at Toastmasters we get bits and pieces of someone’s story over time. We may feel if we miss one of their speeches we missed a chapter. Rejoining Toastmasters after a thirty-year hiatus was one of the best things I’ve done. It’s true we can’t go back, but we can rejoin groups, or rekindle interests we had in earlier times, and we may even enjoy them more the second time around.

A ship in a harbor is safe but that’s not what ships are built for. Unknown

My art is like that, I dabbled as a kid, and I dabble as an adult. It feeds my soul. It is about expressing what is inside of us. Sometimes words cannot express what is inside us. As they say a picture’s worth a thousand words.

I was reading something on closure and one of the author’s clients was having trouble dealing with the after-effects of her husband’s affair even though it was long over and they were in a good place in their marriage. After discussing a way to find closure she said she could paint. She painted a picture in rough loud strokes of intensity and passion, then she shot holes in the canvas with not one gun but two, and slashed the canvas with a knife. She brought her painting to her therapist and it hangs in his office. After emptying all her emotional energy regarding the affair on the canvas, she had closure.

The question I want to ask is what did her husband think when she got out the guns? Sometimes if we don’t want to put things into words a picture tells the story. I was listening to someone on YouTube who said his young daughter drew pictures of him with short arms when she was sad. When everything was good she drew her father with long arms because those long arms were the hugging arms. Makes you want to go back and look at your children’s artwork.

As we continue on our hero’s journey the dragons we slay are our own fears, insecurities, outgrown beliefs, behavior patterns, and life situations. Most of us have never thought we were attractive enough, smart enough, good enough, or whatever inadequacy we feel enough. We are who we are, we need to embrace ourselves and our journey, and we need to risk failure to risk success. If we don’t accept the challenge to change, grow, develop, and take risks who will do it for us?

What do we teach our children when we claim authorship of our story? Unknown

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

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Wouldn’t Take Nothing for My Journey Now Paperback – Oct 1 1994

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When we choose our food, we choose our health. We are what we eat.

We are what we eat. When we choose our food, we choose our health.

Painting by Belynda Wilson Thomas

Let food by thy medicine, thy medicine shall be thy food. Hippocrates

Yesterday when trying to edit the photo for my blog a comment that said I needed to reload the photo popped up. After three tries I was locked out of my Word press account. Panicking a little, although it is not life or death if a post gets out or not. I went into admin and after proving I wasn’t a robot got into my WordPress account but still couldn’t edit my photo. I chose one that was right side up and posted.

The upside is, my son showed me a better way to access and edit my photos, so even though I still have the problem with Word press I will have a better method of editing my photos. We don’t know when a problem presents itself that we may learn something from, we wouldn’t have learned without the problem.

This can happen in all areas of our life. When a heart surgeon Dr. Steven R. Gundry feels he can help more people through nutrition than surgery I’m willing to experiment with what he says and figure out if it works for me. He thought he was eating a healthy diet, running and weight training but when he tweaked his diet he got healthier. Since starting Plant-Based Whole Food (most of the time) in 2015, I am healthier.

Leaky gut is what he promises this diet will heal. Leaky gut is something I’m sure I’m dealing with. This is the reason I am tweaking my diet.

Today is the start of my daughter’s and my three day Plant Paradox kick start. Because I spent yesterday with my sister, we aren’t ready. My daughter had to leave for work by six thirty. She said she didn’t know what to take for lunch so she grabbed something from the fridge.

Certain members of the family are looking at us like “Why are we doing this”? As an experimenter of food, and perhaps now a commenter on it, it is an important part of my journey. We are what we eat, and certain foods affect us in certain ways. The Plant Paradox is a plan to help us figure out what plants may contribute to certain problems we have. By listening to our body we can nourish it and remove what is not nourishing to it. This is a continuation of the experiment with food I have been conducting for years.

When we look at the robustly healthy older adults in their eighties and nineties we wonder how they got that old, that healthy. They aren’t always people who never had a health problem. They are often people who have taken their health in hand and worked with their body instead of against it.

Those who have no time for healthy eating will sooner or later have to have time for illness. Edward Stanley

Mom didn’t eat much fat because of a gall bladder problem for forty years. She watched what she ate instead of having her gall bladder removed. When she ended up with high cholesterol and my Dad didn’t, she started eating more fat.

It isn’t just luck that Mom is as healthy as she is. Part of it is how she has managed when she’s had problems. She’s eliminated foods from her diet that bother her. She has gone whole weeks on cream-of-wheat porridge while she figured out what the offending foods were. She didn’t go to the Doctor for a pill, she figured out what her problem was and fixed it. You can’t do that for everything but a lot of our lifestyle diseases are caused by what we eat, and they won’t be fixed until we change our way of eating. Everyone’s body is different, what works for one may not work for all.

Mom can’t eat canola oil, hazelnuts, or cherries. Spinach is a healthy food that can cause problems for people prone to gout. These are all healthy foods. We can be working hard at getting healthier but if the foods we are eating to make us healthier aren’t ones that agree with our body we may be going in the wrong direction.

This is not a one size fits all. Our ancestors figured a lot of stuff out so our ancestral diet will likely work for us, but often there are certain diseases accompanying certain ways of eating. Many of us are no longer of one ancestry; we may have more to figure out or less.

If we start from the premise we should be healthy, and if we aren’t there is a reason, and if we look for it we can find it, we might be on the road to health. We have a place to start. Will we live to a healthy hundred if we do this, not necessarily? If we can live till we die as healthy as possible that’s good enough for me.

Is nutrition the answer to everything, probably not? Can we make our food work for us instead of against us? Can we figure out what those foods are?

Your diet is a bank account. Good food choices are good investments. Bethenny Frankel

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

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

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The Plant Paradox Quick and Easy: The 30-Day Plan to Lose Weight, Feel Great, and Live Lectin-Free Paperback – Jan 8 2019