taste and glory in each day

I woke up with ants in my pants and had to get out. Crazy as I’ve been out of the house every day this week, including a sleep-over. So I had a coffee, did up my insane hair, put on a slash of lipstick, and off we went - into town for Pho and a wander through the shopping mall.

We weren’t shopping for anything, it’s just a good place to get steps in when there is no where else to walk. But gosh, our sheets are getting tattered so we took a look-see at the Bay. They had linen cotton blend ones on a huge markdown. Then we passed a store filled with fleece-lined patterned leggings all marked down to $10. Could I pass them by? No. Then a wine aerator also marked down at another store.

We bee-lined it back to the car after that before our wallets were worn out!

In the mall we passed a guy with what looked like a great dane mix with a service dog in training vest - by the looks of it he had a long way to go! No loose leash walking for that dog.

Also in the mall, we were in a cheezie poster store looking at a painting of Jesus with rays of light coming out of his chest. A girl walked by and let us know that she has that painting in her living room and that the rays of light were from his sacred heart. Okay. I first thought she was joking but no - dead serious. 

The day started with glorious sun (which may explain my energy when I got up), but the clouds seemed to appear out of nowhere and obliterated the sun. Grey sky, icy laneway, cold. In other words, winter.

not acting my age

Do you have in your mind a certain way someone should act once they get to a particular age? You know, dress your age, act your age, and my favorite ‘mutton dressed up like a lamb’? I find those ideas repugnant and don’t ever intend on ‘acting my age’, unless it means to be myself and not worry about what others think. 

There is a freedom of spirit once you get past those painful years of self-conscious worry, and a sort of peace in knowing that a mean strangers judgement can’t touch you and doesn’t have to change the way you think and feel about yourself.

I’ve been having a discussion with a few people on the Princess facebook forum about service dogs. They are loath to use facts and instead rely on ‘what they think’... one of them blew me off when I asked her if she had asked the person in question if the small dog was a service dog or a dreaded comfort dog. She was done with the conversation when I suggested that she was making assumptions without fact. I can probably guess who she voted for... you know, facts and all. There are times when this would have really upset me, causing loads of anxiety, but today I am strong. (could it be that I’m channeling Lucielle Ball?)

“I want to taste and glory in each day, and never be afraid to experience pain; and never shut myself up in a numb core of nonfeeling, or stop questioning and criticizing life and take the easy way out. To learn and think: to think and live; to live and learn: this always, with new insight, new understanding, and new love.”

~Sylvia Plath