Casting bread

What is that old saying...about casting bread upon the waters....what you give out comes back to you. Your energy, what you do, what you say,  Do liars get lied to? Kindness gets returned? Cheaters get cheated on? I'm hoping a terminal case of "messiness" doesn't mean I get messed with. I began thinking about this when I stumbled upon an interesting story from a person. That person had something they adored almost destroyed by strangers, you could see the heartache from this in the eyes, so painful. "Why aren't others respectful of things that aren't theirs! Why don't people have ethics and good manners! Why don't they follow rules!" were the words said. Interestingly enough a few hours later I heard almost these very words spoken about this person from a friend, with detailed explanations of the actions that had taken place. I was more than a little startled. Perhaps I'll now go and clean up a few things around here so it's not so messy!

Image

Let's say you started a new business in a small town. Let's say that business was about very funky precious items, things everyone would want, things you put together in an interesting way. You've had open houses where you displayed these things...at very good prices, by that I mean you made a very good profit off your creativity in putting things together. And that's a good thing. So one day you decided to have a two day barn sale of things you no longer needed. Here's the day, gloomy, rainy, and here's your sale things strewn about...in the barn, in the yard, in the rain. No protection from the rain, things tossed here in there. Many of those sale things are items you just had in your openings in your house, displayed beautifully, at those good prices. What are people to think? I looked and saw what was one day expensive and promoted a lot, now lying about with the owners running around yelling about the great half price sales. My conclusion is you are selling junk, you don't care about what you are selling...too bad, how sad, I won't be shopping with you anytime soon. Why should I? Be careful with your image, you could damage it badly for a quick buck.

"in this economy"

I have never been a fan of antelope meat. Always had Gerry give away any he shot. Not now. "In this economy", should that be "ITE"...we're eating it all. Gerry shot one today, it's hanging out in our garage, skinned and ready to be cut up tomorrow. Everyone should see where their meat comes from. Meat doesn't suddenly appear in little sterile packages in your grocery store. Something has to die for you to eat it. A crock pot and spices tames the "wild" taste. The blood, the smell, the shock of seeing something dead is quite amazing. Makes you want to thank all the animals who die so we can live. And the majority of them don't live wild and free, they are in feed lots, standing is manure. I would rather eat game.

And sometimes....

Just an extra to my last blog about assumptions....sometimes those assumptions are dead on right. Who knew.

Assumptions

This blog was going to be about love and life but I noticed something about myself last night that I didn't know before. I assume things about people by the way they present themselves to the world. How they dress, their actions, what they say. Sometimes these assumptions can be correct, but many times they are colored by how you see the world. I am quite embarrassed by this revelation, always thought I was quite the open minded person. Starting today I vow to myself not to assume things and to mind my own business. Here's a little side story that illustrates this...My husband used to sell cars at a dealership in Helena. One day an older man came on the lot. He was filthy, wearing torn and tattered clothes. None of the other salesmen wanted to waste their time with him. Gerry went out to talk. This fellow had been up in the hills for a long time prospecting for gold and found a lot of it. He had jars in his pockets filled to the top with gold. He bought a very expensive car and my husband got a nice commission. I heard once "never assume anything, it makes an ass out of u and me".

Surprises

When we lived in Houston, and this was a long time ago, I had a friend who I knew for about three years. Then we moved to Montana. Montana was such a strange place for me, I loved everything about Houston, I felt so out of place in Big Sky Country. I would write this woman letters (1982, way before email) to keep in touch with someone I knew. She just sent me an email wanting to know my mailing address, she had a very old one. She said she found those old letters I had written her and wanted to send them to me. Yesterday a package came in the mail, the old letters. Smelling very musty, like they had been kept in a damp dark place. They were even kept in the order they were received! I was a bit shocked, who does this, keeps letters this long, in order...She said she wanted me to have them as a record of our first years in Montana. I cannot read them for some reason. I tried reading the first one, but put it away after two sentences. These are my words from a different time and place....I don't know, could you read them?

Working hard.

We have worked hard at our little business for quite a while now, 11 years. It's a small used car lot in a small town in Montana. When the economy went south my husband took a job at a big dealership in Missoula to try to keep the lot going, he works 6 days a week. Long hard hours. Our son runs the lot here. All for the dream of this business of ours succeeding. We haven't whined (well, I guess I have a bit), haven't asked for any handouts. If this fails it fails, we know we tried our best. When I first heard about the Occupy Wall Street movement I thought it was good, people gathering together to voice their opinions. But the more I listen to them the more I am becoming opposed to what they are about. In the first place why do they need fame whores like Deepac Chopra and Russel Simmons leading chanting and meditation events? Why are they asking others to feed them, take care of them...and mostly why are they against capitalism! They say it's time to try "something" else. I'm sorry, I can't support this. Get a backbone, get a life...if you want the good things life can give you, work for those things. If things don't turn out the way you want, figure out what you have learned and move on to something else.

Breath

In yoga class today we were exploring breath. How to breathe, when to breathe in poses. I remembered something I had read that said the out breath is very hard for most people because the mind equates that action to death. I suddenly had a flashback to 11 years ago when I had the honor of being with my Mother when she died. We had three days together in the nursing home. I sang to her, read to her, hoping she was listening somewhere. I did get one big smile. The last morning I was sitting by her bed when she suddenly sat up and strongly, perhaps violently, expelled 5 breaths, one right after the other, with no inhale. Then she laid back dead.
I finished rest of the class in tears. Now I understand why the out breath is so difficult for me to do completely. With this insight now I can begin to do it properly.

Love my family!

This is my first blog and I'm going to start with an amusing, well, I think it's amusing, family story.
A little bit ago I bought some frozen apple juice for our Sunday Big Breakfasts. Didn't have a proper pitcher to mix it in so I improvised and used an old, clean glass jar with a lid.
My son was in the kitchen with me the other morning and wanted to know when I was going to dump the stuff in the glass jar....
"Not until your Dad drinks it all" was my reply.
You would not have believed my sons reaction...."DRINK IT, YOU'RE GOING TO MAKE DAD DRINK IT! WHAT'S WRONG WITH YOU? ARE YOU NUTS!"
A bit surprised by this strong reaction I asked what his problem was.
"MY PROBLEM! MY PROBLEM! YOU'RE THE ONE MAKING DAD DRINK HIS OWN PEE!"
When the jar first went into the fridgie he had asked me what it was, thinking I was clever I replied "Dad's pee".
He believed me.
So my son thought I stored pee in the fridgie.
Then he thought I was going make my husband drink it.....
This is so wrong on so many levels.
Excuse me while I go mix up some more apple juice!