Write with TLC

What now? The end of 2022 is upon us. In a few hours, it'll be 2023. How was your 2022? Funny how I haven't heard that question asked much lately. But then again, I've been housebound due to a foot injury for much of the last few months. As I've stated many times over, I don't really get the big deal about the end of the year and the beginning of a new one. Life goes on regardless of what number is on the calendar. That said, I think 2022 has been both good and bad, like most years. On the professional side, I'm rather happy with the progress I made on my poetry. I'm not as happy with the progress I made on the novel I'm working on. I'm happy with the cards and other products I've created on  Zazzle . I'm not as happy that both this blog and my cooking blog, Vegan Cooking with TLC , ended up rather neglected this year. I'm happy I posted more reviews on Reviews with TLC this year and figured out how I want to approach reviews going forwa...

I have left another social media platform, Twitter. I had long considered leaving, but Elon Musk buying the company was the final feather for me.  I archived my data and deactivated my account. It didn't feel as liberating as when I deactivated my Facebook account, but that's probably because I hadn't really used Twitter in a long time. I'd also never used it quite like I did Facebook. I don't think I'll miss Twitter.  Based on what I've seen in the news thus far about how Twitter is now being managed, I'm quite certain I made the right decision. It seems the platform is headed in a direction that's antithetical to the way I live my life and the way I want to move about the world. Inviting hate into my life is unproductive. There comes a time when we have to decide if a company that is antithetical to our values deserves our patronage. I have decided neither Facebook nor Twitter deserve mine. The benefits I get from either one don't outweigh the ...

Earlier this week, Sam Falco blogged about exchanging letters when he was younger in his post, Letters , and it struck a cord with me. I've been thinking about it ever since because I remember having a whole network of friends and family that I exchanged letters with for years just like Sam did. Over time, those letters dwindled to almost zero. I occasionally have the urge to start writing letters again. I'll buy some nice stationery. I'll write a few letters. I'll put the stationery in a drawer and forget about it. Eventually, I'll feel the desire to write another letter. More often than not, I'll buy more stationery, but sometimes, like today, I'll open the drawer and use a sheet of the stationery I'd forgotten all about. Today, as I wrote a short letter to Sam, I thought about how much I enjoy the feel of the pen across the paper, the words taking form into sentences to express an emotion, share a thought, or remember a shared experience. I thou...

As my birthday approaches, I'm thinking about life and death. I'm thinking about love and loss. I'm thinking about memories made and memories to be made. These thoughts aren't new, but they especially poignant right now. I've never minded growing older. I'm one of those people who falls in the "better than the alternative" camp for sure. You either grow older or you die. It's as simple as that. Given the two choices, bring on the aging even with all its challenges. Life isn't perfect, but it's good. I can honestly say that. I spend much of my time focused on work that brings me joy. I'm sheltered, fed, healthy, and happy. Yet, I know that could all end with a few wrong decisions or some event beyond my control. Last week a high school classmate died only a few days after his birthday. He was my age. I felt a strange sense of loss at reading about his death. I hadn't seen him in a really long time, and we no longer had anythi...

Last week I talked about lifelong friendships and I alluded to friendships that don't last. This week I want to focus on those friendships that don't last. A friendship that doesn't last isn't necessarily a bad thing. Sometimes we meet people that we really connect with in the moment and for a time to come, but then circumstances make maintaining that friendship difficult. Perhaps over time we drift apart or our interests change or life takes us in different directions. It doesn't mean we stop feeling fondness for these people, but it might mean that the friendship goes dormant or even ends. Regardless the friendship changes in ways that break the connection. Without the ease with which we connected before, we don't find the way to stay in touch. Of course there are also those times when a friendship ends over a disagreement or a betrayal or some other hurtful event. Those friendships are harder to heal and some never do, as painful as that might be. Ot...

BFAAF. Best friends always and forever. I remember writing BFAAF many times to this friend or that friend when I was in high school and maybe into college. It seemed like such a sweet sentiment because it showed how close my friendships were. Even then I wondered about the idea of always and forever because that's a long time, it's like twice eternity, right? Yet, some friendships last. They aren't the ones who need affirmations like BFA&F even if sometimes we do share the sentiment aloud or in writing. Lifelong friendships often become chosen family. These friends and I can vehemently disagree one minute and toast one another's successes the next. Sometimes we can go for months or even years without talking and then within minutes of reconnecting feel like we've never been apart. But, they are also the friends who are most likely to make the effort to stay connected even if only in a small way. It's the thread that frays, but doesn't unravel, that can...

The view as I return home from a walk. I love to take a walk! Getting outside, feeling the sun, the wind, even the rain on my face lifts my spirits almost every single time. I try to take a walk, even if it's only 10 minutes, at least twice a week. Walking is a simple activity that can do so much for us. There are multiple reasons I take a walk and none of them have a single thing to do with my weight or my appearance. Clear my head. Sometimes when I've been working for hours on multiple projects, a quick walk helps to clear my thoughts. It feels almost like a moving meditation that also gets my heart pumping and my limbs moving. When I'm feeling overwhelmed by everything I need to do in a day, a quick walk often makes that task list seem much less daunting. When I clear my head, it's easier to get back to work. Spend time with a friend. I walk with a friend one day a week, almost every week. After those walks I always feel more connected and more focus...

When I was in college my friends and I often consoled each other when a relationship would end by saying "He (or she if it was a female friend) didn't deserve your love anyway."  As I thought back on this defense mechanism, I started thinking about how often in life we apply this idea that someone doesn't deserve love because of a or b or c . Is this true? Or is love the thing that just might change a or b or c ? I ask myself these questions often and have since I started trying to live from a place of love. If you want to put more love into the world, you can't base your worldview on hatred or on searching for people who "deserve" love. When love is used as a reward and the removal of love is used as a punishment, we create a world lacking consistency and heavy on insecurity. I know I don't always "deserve" love and some of the love that has been most impactful in my life has come when I didn't "deserve" it. It ha...

I had a different post planned for today, but  this morning I read an email from  My Intent  promoting a  14 Day Self-Love Journey  that intrigued me enough to see what they were doing. The day one journal prompt was "What is love to you? What is your intention with this self-love journey?" The more I thought about it, the more I felt compelled to blog about the first question... "What is love to you?" "What is love to me?" "What is love?" For much of my life, I subconsciously equated love with possession and jealousy. Love was a weapon. Love was scary. Love was vulnerability. I also thought love was only love if it was reciprocated. Love was an emotion. Love was dreamy and romantic and giving and kind...  Love was something I had to earn.  Love was the reward I'd get for achieving perfection. Love was always... out there, just beyond my reach.  A few years ago I decided to live from a foundation of love. I wanted a more solid fo...

Friendship... Yesterday, today, tomorrow, forever... or not...  I recently read I Know How You Feel: The Joy and Heartbreak of Friendship in Women's Lives by F. Diane Barth. It struck a few nerves, well, more than a few. As I r ead about other women's experiences with friendship I couldn't help but remember friendships throughout my life - friendships with similar circumstances to those discussed in the book and ones that didn't come close to matching those circumstances.   I started thinking about  friendships that last and those that are fleeting as I discussed in a previous blog post,   Friendship: Forever or For Today? .  When I weighed the joy my friendships brought me against the heartbreak my friendships have brought me, there was more heartbreak than I expected. I've lost far more friends than I've kept over the years, which I suppose also means I've had more friendships than I initially realized. Some of those friends and I drifted apart as ci...

Glass Heart I made. Always reminds me of the veins of friendship... Friendship... We often take it for granted. Our good friends are there. We know where to find them. We feel confident they'll understand our absences from their lives. We ignore them because we get too busy... have too much going on... feel too stressed out... are too tired... have family stuff... have work stuff... and on and on and on. The day comes when we realize we haven't talked to this friend or that friend for weeks, then months, then years... okay, maybe we don't often let it go to years, but sometimes we do. We excuse our lack of effort by checking what they're posting on social media or perhaps asking someone else how they're doing. When we get back in touch, we pull out the too busy excuse knowing full well our friends know we've made time for other friends, just not the friend before us. Perhaps the friend smiles and says all is forgiven - maybe even offers a lame ...

Kentucky Horse Park - May 2012 Recently in the course of a conversation with a friend, we were discussing anger and I mentioned how much easier I find facing life's challenges since I've let go of anger. I went on to explain that it felt like letting go of anger invited opportunities to anger me into my life. In illustrating how I recently faced a moment of anger that lead to a moment of hate that inspired my blog post, Humbled by a Moment of Hate , I mentioned, in a very cliched moment, that the moment of hate "knocked me off my high horse" to which my friend interrupted with something along the lines of "So you know you get on your high horse." much to my surprise. But perhaps I shouldn't have been surprised. All I could think in the moment, though, was that we all have moments when we climb on our high horses... Still, over the next week or so, my thoughts went back to the comment multiple times. To the point, I Googled the phrase just to verify...

I've been thinking about the idea of filling one's life with like minded people. I understand the temptation. When we surround ourselves with people who think just like us, we never have to question our beliefs or thoughts or ideas. We never have to expand outside our safety zones. We can reinforce whatever we want to believe regardless of facts or the picture beyond our front doors. We never have to find out we're wrong about anything because what a travesty it is to learn one is wrong. I don't know about you, but this would begin to bore me. Besides how do we find solutions to problems or figure out how to improve situations or even find fulfillment in life if no one ever challenges us? I have friends with myriad backgrounds. My circle includes people of a multitude of religions or lack thereof, people from around the world who expose me to various cultures, people with varying degrees of political awareness and involvement, pacifists, activists, those in the mi...

Yesterday morning I logged on to Facebook and was disturbed by a friend's status post.  She pondered ". . . wants to know why we expect those who hurt to ask for help? When you're in that hurt, reaching out is often the last thing you think to do." - Pari Noskin Taichert , author I felt like someone hit me right smack dab in my heart. It took my breath away in an instant. I stared at the screen and blinked back a tear. Okay, they're simple words, but sometimes simple words are the most effective. Yeah, I know I've said that before. Still true and bears repeating. I thought about the many times I've seen a pained look on a friend's face or a cheerful smile belied by the pain in someone's eyes, and kept silent. All the times I didn't ask the simple questions "Are you okay?" or "Is something wrong?" or "Is there anything I can do?" just to let the person know I noticed. I thought about all the times I've read ...

Three friends. Three meals. Three seperate groups of memories. Three consecutive years of my college life respresented. Three times the excitement. I'm a woman who values friendship to a very high degree - maybe not more than anything but it's definitely way up there on my list of things important to me. Friendship means so much to me that I find it hard to define. Yes, I know how to look it up in the dictionary, but that's not what I mean. In my opinion, the dictionary definition of friendship doesn't even come close to defining what true friendship is. As I was working on an earlier draft of this post, Keira Kroft posted "Who is your best friend?" as her daily get to know you question. I responded that I don't do best friends. I have way too many awesome friends to even go there. My friends are all special to me for who they are. There are certain things I value in friendship that create common threads, but each friend I have brings something a lit...