There comes a time in our lives when all of our past pains must be put to rest…mine came at last.
Our phone rang and I didn’t get to it in time, it was from restricted…a few moments later it rang again. Knowing that restricted usually is my daughter upset because I said something she didn’t like on my blog, I worryingly answered it. It was her. Thoughts rushing through my head…oh no, what did I say now that might have upset her…instead she was apologizing and within moments we were talking.
Talking about life, choices, decisions and about our grandson. It was good after six long years of not talking at all. I expressed how proud I was for the woman she has grown into and she thanked me for my part in raising her.
Life doesn’t always go the way we plan, but it always works out eventually if you just let go and allow it to live it’s course. It isn’t always easy but there are moments in our lives that may not go quite the way we wanted them to go, but it always works out in the end just as long as we believe.
Not sure where any of this will take us, but we ended the conversation with hope that we have finally put an end to the anger, the pain and all the terrible words we spoke so many years ago.
We have arrived in Los Angeles to work the AARP Convention at the Los Angeles Convention Center and it wasn’t as bad as I had anticipated it would be maneuvering around the downtown area with the motorhome. We are staying at a hotel while we are here and Maggie is just staying parked.
We will try to update our blog while we are here, but we will be putting in 15+ hour days for the next 5 days so it may not happen. Hope you all have a great week and just remember that miracles do happen…mine happened when that phone rang.
Where we’ve been…All 48 lower…Where we are…Extensively traveling…Working and having a blast!
LIFE IS GRAND!
Monday, September 19, 2011
Wednesday, September 14, 2011
Fear Stifles Everything Good
When we allow the fear to take over and make the decisions, it is never a good choice. It is taking some time to overcome my fear of the weather; even being here in the west has not soothed this savage beast.
We talked about it yesterday and we both wondered when it all began…this obsessive behavior that I am clinging to. We now see that the first tornado in Lakeland, Florida was the changing point for me. Prior to this event, the weather channel was surveyed at times just to see what the high or low was going to be, but now it is connected to me in an obsessed and destructive manner. What makes it worse, the weather forecast changes by the hour, at times by the minute. So, I sit and anticipate the worst case scenario and if it comes then I can say “I told you so”, and when it doesn’t come I can kick myself in the butt and say, “See, all that worrying for nothing.” How and when will this all end? This I am not sure, but we know exactly when it began.
It began that day in Lakeland, I had the weather up on my computer but the storms were supposed to stay north of us, according to the forecast…well this one did not. This storm took a turn and in a moment it was on top of us…no warning! We were running for cover with NO time to spare, we barely made it to safety! It was a tornado, but not the ones you see in the movies, there was not this twirling mass coming at us, it was just cloudy, as it had been all day. This EF1 was inside the clouds and was not noticeable until the winds were smacking us in our faces as we ran for cover.
But, just like with the Indiana State Fair tragedy, the weather stations claim it was predictable. They claim there were warnings all day. To this we totally disagree. What they offered were possibilities, maybes, might happens, could happens, but nothing substantial enough for us to take any sort of cover. Ever since the Lakeland incident, I keep my focus on the weather, switching from one station to another during bad weather and it changes by the hour, sometimes by the minute. What was supposed to be a sunny, mild beautiful day turns into a severe storm approaching and then either nothing happens or it turns into the storm of the century. Then the opposite happens, a stormy day is apparent and they are predicting sunshine all day. But, these are the guys writing articles about how all this devastation could have been avoided if only people would listen to the warnings. And to them, I say, if you guys would stop sending out warnings with every single storm, we may just be more inclined to believe what you are stating at the moment.
Several more weather incidents in the next months that were just plain scary continued to push me off the deep end. During the daytime hours, I am so much better, but the night is the worst. When raindrops begin to hit our tin roof, the sound use to lull me back to sleep or make me get up and pee, either way I was good. Now, the moment those drops hit the roof, I am up out of bed turning on the computer and TV to see what we are in store for…they are hardly ever right. I fear what I can’t see and in the middle of the night, I cannot see the storm clouds and this makes me very anxious. Since there is absolutely no trust anymore in what the weather channels are predicting, it makes for some very sleepless nights.
I am doing everything in my power to let this go and begin living my life once again without all the fear of the weather. But, what was once a wonderful adventure has now turned into such a deep fear that it is hard for me to say exactly when it will stop controlling my life, but I do know that I am working very hard to get this back in some sort of order so not to continue to allow it to rule me.
We talked about it yesterday and we both wondered when it all began…this obsessive behavior that I am clinging to. We now see that the first tornado in Lakeland, Florida was the changing point for me. Prior to this event, the weather channel was surveyed at times just to see what the high or low was going to be, but now it is connected to me in an obsessed and destructive manner. What makes it worse, the weather forecast changes by the hour, at times by the minute. So, I sit and anticipate the worst case scenario and if it comes then I can say “I told you so”, and when it doesn’t come I can kick myself in the butt and say, “See, all that worrying for nothing.” How and when will this all end? This I am not sure, but we know exactly when it began.
It began that day in Lakeland, I had the weather up on my computer but the storms were supposed to stay north of us, according to the forecast…well this one did not. This storm took a turn and in a moment it was on top of us…no warning! We were running for cover with NO time to spare, we barely made it to safety! It was a tornado, but not the ones you see in the movies, there was not this twirling mass coming at us, it was just cloudy, as it had been all day. This EF1 was inside the clouds and was not noticeable until the winds were smacking us in our faces as we ran for cover.
But, just like with the Indiana State Fair tragedy, the weather stations claim it was predictable. They claim there were warnings all day. To this we totally disagree. What they offered were possibilities, maybes, might happens, could happens, but nothing substantial enough for us to take any sort of cover. Ever since the Lakeland incident, I keep my focus on the weather, switching from one station to another during bad weather and it changes by the hour, sometimes by the minute. What was supposed to be a sunny, mild beautiful day turns into a severe storm approaching and then either nothing happens or it turns into the storm of the century. Then the opposite happens, a stormy day is apparent and they are predicting sunshine all day. But, these are the guys writing articles about how all this devastation could have been avoided if only people would listen to the warnings. And to them, I say, if you guys would stop sending out warnings with every single storm, we may just be more inclined to believe what you are stating at the moment.
Several more weather incidents in the next months that were just plain scary continued to push me off the deep end. During the daytime hours, I am so much better, but the night is the worst. When raindrops begin to hit our tin roof, the sound use to lull me back to sleep or make me get up and pee, either way I was good. Now, the moment those drops hit the roof, I am up out of bed turning on the computer and TV to see what we are in store for…they are hardly ever right. I fear what I can’t see and in the middle of the night, I cannot see the storm clouds and this makes me very anxious. Since there is absolutely no trust anymore in what the weather channels are predicting, it makes for some very sleepless nights.
I am doing everything in my power to let this go and begin living my life once again without all the fear of the weather. But, what was once a wonderful adventure has now turned into such a deep fear that it is hard for me to say exactly when it will stop controlling my life, but I do know that I am working very hard to get this back in some sort of order so not to continue to allow it to rule me.
Sunday, September 11, 2011
Do You Have A Story?
We all have them…
But the bigger question is…
What are you doing with yours?
We spent so many years being recovered or recovering from this or that…
We spent so much of our time being survivors of this or that…
We had also labeled ourselves as ex of this or that…
So much so that we have become exactly what we have worked so hard to get away from. We have become engulfed in being our past…too afraid to become who we want to be today.
We have been scared to take that next step in our lives because it may just end up being exactly as it was in our past. Fear keeping us from giving it all we got and totally moving on to our next adventures.
Instead, we have been stuck…stuck because we labeled ourselves. Nobody did this to us…we did this to ourselves. We believed that others may look down on us, or not want us to be this way or…well the excuses have been many, always giving our power to others.
We are free spirited and love the freedom that living in the United States of America has given to us, but we have allowed our own stinking thinking to smother our right to live our lives the way we choose to live it.
How often do you label yourself?
Just because you were abused as a child, or used to be a smoker or a drinker or anything else in your past, does not mean that you have to continue being connected to it. By labeling yourself as an ex-smoker, or a recovering alcoholic, or a survivor of child molestation only continues to keep you connected to those things that many of us try to let go of. Just because society and/or the media say it is the thing to do, DOES NOT make it so.
Even good labels have a way of stifling ones true inner self. We labeled ourselves as writers and photographers, which made us feel as if we had to do what others wanted us to do, the way they wanted it done. Well, we are writers, but not the kind that we have become. We do not like to just write about our travels or reviews, our favorite type of writing is about our feelings. This type of writing comes from our inner souls, not from the technical and facts of visiting places. We love sharing our feelings about where we visit, why we chose to visit there and what we learned from it all. We will no longer allow our own feelings and choices to lead us away from what is in our hearts.
It’s time we all take responsibility for our own lives…
Something we learned by going through the tragedy at the Indiana State Fairgrounds. There were 6 lives that ended that day because of the choices they made. Not because of any neglect from the fairgrounds, or the weather stations, or any other person there. We all make our own choices. We choose to stay or to leave a situation and only we can make that choice. Now if we allow others to steer our choices in any one direction, it is still our choice. We are now back on target with making our own choices from our inner guides. We all have them, we just all do not utilize them. We will no longer put our power in anyone else’s hands, we are in complete control of our own destiny. We will speak up and ask for what we want, and we will follow our guts when it comes to every aspect of our lives. We will no longer be followers (that is except for with our blogger friends).
For more photos, check out our Picasa Web Albums.
But the bigger question is…
What are you doing with yours?
We spent so many years being recovered or recovering from this or that…
We spent so much of our time being survivors of this or that…
We had also labeled ourselves as ex of this or that…
So much so that we have become exactly what we have worked so hard to get away from. We have become engulfed in being our past…too afraid to become who we want to be today.
We have been scared to take that next step in our lives because it may just end up being exactly as it was in our past. Fear keeping us from giving it all we got and totally moving on to our next adventures.
Instead, we have been stuck…stuck because we labeled ourselves. Nobody did this to us…we did this to ourselves. We believed that others may look down on us, or not want us to be this way or…well the excuses have been many, always giving our power to others.
We are free spirited and love the freedom that living in the United States of America has given to us, but we have allowed our own stinking thinking to smother our right to live our lives the way we choose to live it.
How often do you label yourself?
Just because you were abused as a child, or used to be a smoker or a drinker or anything else in your past, does not mean that you have to continue being connected to it. By labeling yourself as an ex-smoker, or a recovering alcoholic, or a survivor of child molestation only continues to keep you connected to those things that many of us try to let go of. Just because society and/or the media say it is the thing to do, DOES NOT make it so.
Even good labels have a way of stifling ones true inner self. We labeled ourselves as writers and photographers, which made us feel as if we had to do what others wanted us to do, the way they wanted it done. Well, we are writers, but not the kind that we have become. We do not like to just write about our travels or reviews, our favorite type of writing is about our feelings. This type of writing comes from our inner souls, not from the technical and facts of visiting places. We love sharing our feelings about where we visit, why we chose to visit there and what we learned from it all. We will no longer allow our own feelings and choices to lead us away from what is in our hearts.
It’s time we all take responsibility for our own lives…
Something we learned by going through the tragedy at the Indiana State Fairgrounds. There were 6 lives that ended that day because of the choices they made. Not because of any neglect from the fairgrounds, or the weather stations, or any other person there. We all make our own choices. We choose to stay or to leave a situation and only we can make that choice. Now if we allow others to steer our choices in any one direction, it is still our choice. We are now back on target with making our own choices from our inner guides. We all have them, we just all do not utilize them. We will no longer put our power in anyone else’s hands, we are in complete control of our own destiny. We will speak up and ask for what we want, and we will follow our guts when it comes to every aspect of our lives. We will no longer be followers (that is except for with our blogger friends).
For more photos, check out our Picasa Web Albums.
Saturday, September 10, 2011
The Clean-Up Begins
Being out West wakes up certain areas in our minds, bodies and souls and this trip back is no exception. Maggie has endured so much abuse in the past 8 months since we first headed east, way back in January. The humidity was terrible, the bugs were nasty and of course the weather was dreadful which only made it worse on us so we found ourselves with no time, or no energy to do anything but the normal cleaning. We accumulated stuff again…how does that always occur? We thought we were rid of our accumulating things, but it seems to never end.
We have noticed a few areas on Maggie that need some attention…not sure how we will go about it. Possibly a complete overall or since there are some areas that the repairs will be quite costly…a new rig may be in our future. Something we have not considered since we love and have been so happy with how dependable and reliable Maggie has been. At this point, we are still just tossing this around.
We have gone through and reorganized things and the one thing that we finally were able to let go of was all the paperwork. Being writers, we found ourselves saving all the brochures, the information and our comments written down and filed. Well…no more…hundreds of pounds of papers in the dumpster!
We are letting go of all the things that keep us stuck…the old photos…the memories of long ago! We still had stuff from our grandson. It has been 6 years since we lost him and our daughter and we know we will never have them in our lives again, so it was time to let them go. Yes, there were tears, but they were cleansing tears. We are finally ready to move forward in our lives and not dwell on what was or what could have been. Life is too short for us to continue holding onto things that no longer fit into our lives.
Another area in our lives that we had a hard time letting go is our website; well we are finally ready to let it go. We will probably continue blogging but just for fun, no longer for profit. We made a decision to overhaul our blog…no more advertisement…no more writing what others want us to write…no more pressure of meeting deadlines…just sharing our thoughts and ideas of our true selves. Who we truly are, not who we want others to believe we are, but who we are deep inside ourselves. All the good, the bad and the ugly…just the way we are, take us or leave us…we will still survive and thrive with or without you, this much we have learned.
We have encountered way too many near death experiences this past year and with each one, we learned something more profound than the last. This along with the fact that we are not getting any younger and it is about time we begin living our lives the way we were meant to be living it, not for others but for ourselves. We have a tendency to always watch what we say, we do not want to hurt or offend anyone…well…rubbish!
There is a fine line and we do not intend to cross it and become rude, like some folks we encounter, but we plan to begin to speak our minds in kind but factual ways. Life is way too short for us to be anything but ourselves, enjoy who we are and have fun! We are not going to try to please everyone else, the important person to please is us! When we are happy, everyone around us is happy! We will live life to the fullest and give it all we got!
We are free spirited individuals who love who we are today. We are not survivors, we are not ex this or that, we are true to ourselves and thrive when we live our lives by living in this moment without any strings attached to our pasts or futures.
We have been affected by several things lately that has taken our lives into an entirely different direction, we accept that and we will continue living our lives the best we know how and when we learn more, we will most certainly live more!
Thank you to all of our readers who have contacted us and was concerned about us. This concern allowed us to take a look at what we are doing and we are now taking an entirely different approach on our blogging. We found ourselves in situations where we were not being ourselves, we were worried about what and how to write our blog so that we would not offend anyone, or say things that might lose our followers…it was all about the numbers, which in turn lost our mojo.
Well, we have it back and we are now looking at it as just a writing release and not our work, or our lifetime calling. We do not want to be professional writers or photographers, we want to continue doing it because it is fun for us and not turn into a forced issue for us. Being perfectionists, we found ourselves doing it out of feeling as if we must do it, but now it is back to doing it because it is something we love. So you may find that everything is not perfect…well…that will be because WE are not perfect. We are just two people, very much in love, traveling the country together, finding work to get us to our next adventure and somewhere in the meantime finding ourselves!
We have noticed a few areas on Maggie that need some attention…not sure how we will go about it. Possibly a complete overall or since there are some areas that the repairs will be quite costly…a new rig may be in our future. Something we have not considered since we love and have been so happy with how dependable and reliable Maggie has been. At this point, we are still just tossing this around.
We have gone through and reorganized things and the one thing that we finally were able to let go of was all the paperwork. Being writers, we found ourselves saving all the brochures, the information and our comments written down and filed. Well…no more…hundreds of pounds of papers in the dumpster!
We are letting go of all the things that keep us stuck…the old photos…the memories of long ago! We still had stuff from our grandson. It has been 6 years since we lost him and our daughter and we know we will never have them in our lives again, so it was time to let them go. Yes, there were tears, but they were cleansing tears. We are finally ready to move forward in our lives and not dwell on what was or what could have been. Life is too short for us to continue holding onto things that no longer fit into our lives.
Another area in our lives that we had a hard time letting go is our website; well we are finally ready to let it go. We will probably continue blogging but just for fun, no longer for profit. We made a decision to overhaul our blog…no more advertisement…no more writing what others want us to write…no more pressure of meeting deadlines…just sharing our thoughts and ideas of our true selves. Who we truly are, not who we want others to believe we are, but who we are deep inside ourselves. All the good, the bad and the ugly…just the way we are, take us or leave us…we will still survive and thrive with or without you, this much we have learned.
We have encountered way too many near death experiences this past year and with each one, we learned something more profound than the last. This along with the fact that we are not getting any younger and it is about time we begin living our lives the way we were meant to be living it, not for others but for ourselves. We have a tendency to always watch what we say, we do not want to hurt or offend anyone…well…rubbish!
There is a fine line and we do not intend to cross it and become rude, like some folks we encounter, but we plan to begin to speak our minds in kind but factual ways. Life is way too short for us to be anything but ourselves, enjoy who we are and have fun! We are not going to try to please everyone else, the important person to please is us! When we are happy, everyone around us is happy! We will live life to the fullest and give it all we got!
We are free spirited individuals who love who we are today. We are not survivors, we are not ex this or that, we are true to ourselves and thrive when we live our lives by living in this moment without any strings attached to our pasts or futures.
We have been affected by several things lately that has taken our lives into an entirely different direction, we accept that and we will continue living our lives the best we know how and when we learn more, we will most certainly live more!
Thank you to all of our readers who have contacted us and was concerned about us. This concern allowed us to take a look at what we are doing and we are now taking an entirely different approach on our blogging. We found ourselves in situations where we were not being ourselves, we were worried about what and how to write our blog so that we would not offend anyone, or say things that might lose our followers…it was all about the numbers, which in turn lost our mojo.
Well, we have it back and we are now looking at it as just a writing release and not our work, or our lifetime calling. We do not want to be professional writers or photographers, we want to continue doing it because it is fun for us and not turn into a forced issue for us. Being perfectionists, we found ourselves doing it out of feeling as if we must do it, but now it is back to doing it because it is something we love. So you may find that everything is not perfect…well…that will be because WE are not perfect. We are just two people, very much in love, traveling the country together, finding work to get us to our next adventure and somewhere in the meantime finding ourselves!
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