Following your bliss and the fallout from those actions

I learned something about myself today, or yesterday I should say.  But most of last night was a fog, thanks to a couple of glasses of my homemade wine.  I learned that when life hands you lemons if you don't have sugar in your pantry it is really hard to make lemonaid.  I got into a huge fight with a family member last night. We both had different perspectives on how I was living my life and some of the life choices I am making.  I was told that my bliss was interfering with their happiness.  That because of the things I am passionate about I have become indifferent to things they felt should have a priority in my life.  I tried to explain it to them from my perspective but the conversation just continued to escalate until she terminated the conversation by hanging up on me.

Now I may be wrong about this, but the last time I checked I was an adult of consenting age and my father was gone so although I lacked a parent I also don't require a supervisor or approval of my actions from someone else. Now it would be nice to be in agreement with someone else at all times, but life isn't going to let that happen. We each remember things in our own way and we each choose the paths that we choose.  I was told that all I wanted to talk about were my blisses.  Now the way I remember it was I have been attentive and supportive.  I have put things that are important to me on a back burner to listen and be there for this family member but they felt the need to attack me. Accusing me of being insensitive and uncaring for their feelings.

Perhaps I am a tad bit crankier of late and a little less considerate of others, but I have also given up smoking 3 weeks as of tomorrow and the way I see this is they should be far more understanding of my lack of ability to be a nice person while I am going through withdrawal from nicotine.  But according to her this has been an on going event in our shared lives.  She forgets that at one point she made mention of taking her family and relocating far away from her "home" and that might possibly make me a tad bit more over protective of my emotions.

Now you may be asking yourself why am I sharing all of this in my blog. The reason being is that since I didn't get to state my reasoning for my actions or lack of actions I felt these needed to be shared if not with her then with you my readers.  Sometimes following your bliss can cause stress and turmoil in your day to day lives. Sometimes those who cannot or will not follow their own will strike out at you because they feel the time you should be giving to them you are giving to other things. And that perhaps your priorities have shifted.

I can honestly say that this has been a very interesting journey of late.  I am learning more and more about what makes me happy and what I need to do to eliminate certain stresses from my life. If that makes me a selfish egotistical person then so be it.  But I refuse to continue on as a doormat for those in my life who feel they have a right to dictate how I will live my life. Be that by avoiding those who cause me stress or simply finding ways to fill the void left by those who would choose to leave it.

I don't like being a heartless person, I really don't.  I am a passionate loving person who only wants to be happy.  I don't go out of my way to create chaos or unhappiness for others.  I try really hard to be a good person and do the right thing. Often at times at the cost of my own happiness in the transaction. But as of late I have felt the need to no longer stay silent and allow others to rule my life. Be that family or friend, professor or classmate.  We all have things that we have to face in our day to day lives that we really don't feel like or want to do. But many things in life we do have a choice in. how we spend our time is amongst those things.

I may lack people skills or the ability to say what I am trying to get across but I also know that her version of the story was not entirely accurate. I have asked others with memories of the mentioned events and they agreed with my take on the whole issue.  Some days I think people create chaos where there is none.  I have tried hard to look at it from her perspective, I really have.  I have weighed the things going on in her life that I have been made aware of and tried to excuse her bad behavior for stressful circumstance. But I am not the first person in our family she has treated rudely nor sadly will I be the last.

I don't know maybe at some point you have to weigh the pros and cons of allowing people access to your personal life and whether they bring joy or frustration with their presence. Perhaps I just need to walk away for a while and let her sort some things out.  Sometimes in the past when I have had major falling out with people or changes in our life paths I have had to take time to just give it some time and a lot of space and things have a way of either correcting themselves and sometimes you just decide that the stress that accompanies that persons presence in your life just isn't worth the unhappiness it brings.  I have had that happen as well and is why I don't speak with many members of my family now.

I really miss my Dad and am unsure what he would advice regarding this matter. She was way over the line in many of the things she said but at the same time he had a hard rule about family. Even though from time to time he too took time away to cool his jets and think things through.  I love my family, or at least most of my family. Some of them are truly dirty rotten scoundrels but that is a story for another day.  But sometimes those closest to us are the ones that can cause the most damage.  They say things that are best left unsaid feeling that because they are family they have a right to.  No one has a right to say things to another person that are hurtful unless those things truly need to come to light.  Sometimes keeping your opinion to yourself is the wisest move because with time everything looks different.

I just don't know and since the passing of my Dad I really don't have an older wiser voice to advise me.  For some odd reason I have very few people in my life that I trust enough to actually listen to.  I have been ill advised in the past by those who may lack the experiences I have had or the time on this planet I have survived.  I am really sorry for the depressing blog today but wanted to give others some food for thought. Be wary of hurting those closest to you. For tomorrow is not guaranteed.  If something were to happen to either of us the survivor would bear the memories of wasting those few remaining moments in anger.

With that I close my blog for today.  Am going to work on my photography and try to get some things worked out in my head regarding where I go from here.  Life has definitely been interesting since Dad passed.  And many times I have needed his sound advice and his loving shoulder.  Right now is truly one of those days.

Until next time blog buddies, stay safe, stay sane and be happy.

 

 

Trying to loose myself in the things that make me happy. Took this shot today may not be the most exciting shot of my photography passion but love how the water literally stops in midair.  Am learning all I can about my camera ranging from how to do lunar shots to fire shots and how to do water shots for different effects. These day I take my happiness where I can find it.

 

 

 

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You Bliss and a Healthy Mental Status

Sometimes you wake up feeling crappy. No matter how happy your life may be there are just some times that your health lets you down. Having something to focus your energy on may help you get past those days. This morning I awoke with a migraine from hell.  Light, sound and movement hurt. As I stumbled around my home trying to get accomplished the things that could not wait like feeding our animals and walking our dogs I covered my eyes in the darkest glasses I could find, a knit cap pulled down over my ears to deaden the sound and kept having to stop and just breath until the nausea passed.  But my determination to get through it kept me going.  I stopped focusing on the pain and started focusing on what needed to get done today.

Today is my husbands birthday and not a good day for being sick.  Way to many things to get accomplished and way to much counting on my ability to do what needed to be done.  By focusing on those things I was able to beat back the pain and make it more manageable, well that and pain killers via my doctor.  Am not found of prescriptions but am less found of pain.

Today is all about getting all of my work done so I can spend the weekend enjoying and celebrating his birthday.  It is about working towards my goal of having a garden large enough to provide my family with healthy food over the summer and into the winter months.  It is about getting things on my bliss list lined up and baby steps taken towards my long term goals.

They say that happy people are far less likely to suffer as many illnesses as those who are unhappy with the lives they are leading.  But even as someone who enjoys her life even I become sick on occasion.  I live with a constant ongoing battle with sinus infections.  They start above my eyes and spread throughout my face, teeth and even throat and lungs on occasion.  Yesterday I got up feeling a little off, not feeling sick but not quiet feeling well either.  Today I opened my eyes to pain and agony and wishing I could crawl back under the cover and go back to sleep. But life continues on whether you feel like living it or not.  So I pulled myself out of bed, put on my clothes, tried hard to remember that my dogs were waiting patiently to be walked and my darling husband was counting on me to be on my game today because he is pulling mandatory overtime and cannot miss a day of work simply because I am feeling under the weather.

I am finding happiness in the things I can do something about today. Focusing my energy and attention on the important things in life, like my seedlings that are beginning to get their second leaves and the lettuce that I just yesterday got into their summer containers.  Trying to stay in the dark as much as possible and keeping the sound level in my home on a lower level.  I am beginning to feel much better thanks to some home remedies and a very low dosage of pain killers from my doctor, but I feel that by focusing on things that make me happy and bring joy into my world I am able to get past the pain and hopefully get something accomplished with my day.

I know that many feel that following your bliss is a waste of time, that there are not enough hours in their days to get done what they have to in order to survive much less be happy.  I find that if I am not moving towards my long term goals I feel I have wasted a day of my life.  As I battle the constant flow of paperwork for returning to school the beginning of next month for the next stretch of my educational goals, and trying to get our garden in order on a very limited budget.  I am also battling a wave of bad luck on our finances but am still positive in my thoughts because I know that tough times don't last but tough people do.  Knowing that this is just a speed bump in our lives because I have lived long enough to see the big picture and I know in my heart of hearts that these issues will get resolved.

My stove caught fire yesterday, it was already on the list of things that needed to be replaced but that was a wake up call that moved it up on the list of things we needed to invest in.  I would love to go on a romantic weekend with my dear husband for our anniversary in April and I have things I am trying to get accomplished for friends and family that cannot wait until finances improve or I am feeling better.  So I continue on with the battle well fought. I find new ways to trim our budget and stretch our dollar just a little bit further. I get inventive on ways to save money and still follow my bliss with gardening and continue to shop for the lowest price possible for my new camera.

I do not allow my dark moments to interfere with my bliss or my long term goals. Anything worth having is worth working on, and worth waiting until the time is right to accomplish them.  It is a matter of weighing those dark times with the much brighter ones and remembering that this too shall pass.  That although I may have to find the money in our very tight budget for a new stove that once it is replaced I will have something bigger and better for making homemade goodies in and on.  That the one I have had for almost a decade now has served me well and that you get what you pay for (It was purchased as a single mom raised three kids with no help from their sperm donor).  That many happy family meals have been prepared on it and that although I will hate paying to replace it I can take comfort in the knowledge that my daughters learned to cook for their own families on this old electronic friend.  That I have shared breads, and cookies, and canned goods straight from my garden and from my kitchen with those I hold my dear in my heart and in my life.

My kitchen table also died this week. One of the legs were loose and my dogs got to excited about last walk of the day and bumped the leg which ripped it from its precarious position and caused it to come crashing to the floor.  In the process of sorting through all the paperwork and objects that had come to rest upon it, I found many things that I had been searching for but not found in the last couple of weeks.  My kitchen table often becomes the dead zone for things in our house. My gloves and hat were buried at the bottom as well as the books I had purchased for wine and cheese making.  Instead of morning the fact that I am going to have to replace that as well I try hard to remember all the wonderful times my family has spent around that table. The many meals we have shared with family and friends to celebrate both happy times and find solace in the darker times.

The many cups of coffee shared amongst friends talking about the woes and throws of our lives.  The homework done sitting at it with my children and the many family projects completed on its surface.  I would never have considered myself to be an optimist. I like to think of myself as a realist.  Plan for the worst, hope for the best and accept what comes in my life with dignity and respect.  So instead of being bummed out over loosing my antique kitchen table (It was my grandmothers) I have come to the realization that its fragile state is not suitable for our busy household.  That we need to downsize and get something more suited to house filled with laughter and great food.  Something that is both mine and my husbands (the table predates our marriage and relationship).  That the loss of it is just one more thing that will no longer just be mine but the replacement will be ours. A reflection of our taste together as a couple and key component in our lives.

My first batch of beer was ready to drink this week. It didn't turn out as well as I had hoped.  There is a lot of sediment in it and unsuitable for drinking.  But instead of being bummed out about all the time and money invested in that project I simply found another way to utilize it and still found a happy way to enjoy it. I found a super simple recipe for beer bread that turned that nasty tasting beer into something incredible and that is enjoyed by all in our household.  The recipe is simple and will share it in  my blog today as well as pictures of the finished product.

Beer Bread

3 cups plain flour
1/4 cup sugar
1 tbsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
1/2 cup butter (Melted)
12 oz beer room temperature

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.  Mix all but butter together in bowl, grease two mini loaf pans with butter, pour batter into the buttered loaf pans.  Melt butter and pour over the top of the batter in the pans.  This recipe makes 2 and they normally come in packages of 5 so you could double the recipe and make some to share as well.  Place pans in pan with sides (The butter may run off as the batter rises).  I let mine sit on the stove as it preheats to help speed up the yeast process.  Cook for one hour, allow to cool then flip out onto wire rack and allow to finish cooling.  Makes a great snack, side dish, you can also reheat slices of the bread using your oven and top with bruscheta or sweet sausage red sauce for a special treat. Did that last night for dinner and served with spaghetti makes an awesome appetizer for an evening of Italian cuisine.  It retains a little of beer taste without the alcohol content which burns off in the heat of the oven.  It has a crusty outer crust and moist dense center.  For bruschetta I slice mine and then reheat and pour fresh chopped tomatoes with herbs and seasonings over the top.

As you can tell cooking is also one of my many blissful activities.  I love finding new recipes and trying out new things and just enjoying life to the fullest regardless of whatever may be going on in my world I always take comfort in good food especially if it is shared with those I love.

I hope that whatever may be going on in your life, no matter how dark your day may be, that you find some comfort in my words today.  That although things may be tough and you may hate the life you are living right this second, you also realize that bad times are not permanent unless you allow them to become that way.  That if you focus on the positives in your life and are constantly moving towards things that make you happy, that you refocus your energy and make your dreams and goals a reality. Nothing is out of your reach if you keep reaching long enough for it.  Sometimes you just have to hear No 100 times before someone will tell you yes.  Never give up and never give in, and fight for what makes you happy.  Take your happy moments where you can find them. Never allow the discouraging words of others or the bad things going on right this second to allow you to give up your own hope or dreams.  Do what makes you happy and the rest will fall into place on its own.

Until next time Blog buddies, be safe, be sane, and be happy.