Thank you Thank you Thank you

photo: tifforelie

I was sitting in a fluorescent lit conference room behind a long table watching the Director of our hospice program laugh out loud. Every so often you meet a person who captivates you by the simple fact of their oddity. Our director is an enigma to me, a strange combination of a comedic Jackie Chan and the gentle Dali Lama.

Tall and lean with a little boy hair-cut, he talks fast with a distinct accent and instantly puts people at ease with his jokes about his love of desserts. In a world that is dominated by death, he is a walking advertisement for joy.

On this day he was describing the process of dying at a monthly seminar and despite the ominous white board at the front of the room, filled with the hand-drawn graphs signaling the direction of each of our future deaths, his delivery was one of exuberance.

Honestly, who does this? Who laughs and blurts out things like, “What’s wrong with talking about death?!’

“We should ALLLLL be talking about it!”

And it’s not just his delivery, the guy believes this, in fact, he lives it. He has probably presided at more death beds in his life than I could possibly imagine and on this day, he is explaining the intricate signs that we volunteers should recognize during our visits with our hospice patients.

Since I have already had two patients die I am utterly fascinated by this lecture and yes, there is even a pang of disappointment.

To be completely honest, I had these wonderful visions of helping dying people write their enlightened good-byes when I signed up for this gig. I expected to be a helpful story-teller, to be welcomed by wise old souls who wanted to use me as a vessel to carry their messages.

I was going to be that person who helped them share their poignant last words with family and friends. WRONG.

So far, I had experienced nothing close.

Instead, I had been shocked by the prevalence of dementia I had seen and the absolute inability or desire of any dying patient so far to tell their personal story, or contemplate the saying of real good-byes, despite their physical deterioration.

As I gazed over the four graphs of the death process I felt deflated, even dumb.

“Generally, people die the way they lived,” our Director was saying in response to my question about death bed enlightenment.

He was smiling with twinkling eye as he continued,

“All those dramatic death bed scenes showing people delivering last minute words they never said before, the stuff we see in the movies?  Nah, that’s Hollywood! Most people remain pretty much who they were in their life. Angry in life? Angry at the end. No big changes on the death bed. Not usually.”

I continued to listen and let his words sink in when suddenly I got my answer.

The real reason I went to this lecture on this day.

From the front of the conference room the Director is animated and happily launching into one of his stories. He is talking in a loud, energetic voice about a recent conversation he had with his high school son who is also one of the program volunteers.

His son was complaining about his patient assignment, a patient I assumed from his description might be in the throes of dementia.

“Dad,” he says to our Director. “It’s the same thing every week. I’m doing absolutely nothing for her, all she does the whole hour is say, Thank you Thank you Thank you.”

And the Director—his Dad- responds back,

“What-ya-mean you’re not doing anything?! You’re giving her someone to say, ‘Thank you’ to!”

And laughter fills the room and the last words I really remember were ones about the dignity of each person no matter how they might appear to us, and no matter what our judgments might be about them.

For a second I felt my face flush, jolted by Life’s prim reminder that “Hey—it’s not always about you, ya know.”
And then the nagging thought that, sigh, I know nothing.

Which isn’t bad. Having one of those ‘I know nothing’ moments actually feels refreshing, a reminder to keep my beginner’s mind; and I like to think it's the universe nudging me to beware of that cushy, old self-importance that occasionally sneaks up on me.

I don’t know what you’ll make of all this.

But for me, this felt like an eye-blinking peek at the truth. An afternoon which left me with the idea that maybe life isn’t so complicated after all. In the end –no matter how educated or successful or talented or fancy-pants-important we think we are, and no matter how lofty our life lessons we want to impart on others might be, maybe the truth is as simple as this:

In the end it’s our kindness that really matters.

Day 2 -my one little thing project

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The Scoop #307
Inspire Me Tuesday

Finding your One Little Thing

A few days ago, a yoga friend on my IG shared a provocative little idea about changing your life in the new year.

Her yoga teacher recently wished all of her students the chance to make NEW mistakes in their upcoming year and ever since I heard those words I’ve been smitten. Totally head-over-heels-in-love with this idea. But did you catch that little distinction? It’s not about REPEATING old mistakes. The idea is to make new mistakes because we all know that when we’re making new mistakes we’re treading outside our comfort zone. We’re daring to enter into new—and challenging—territory and inviting struggle and maybe some failure.

Heck yeah, let’s push ourselves toward some new mistakes. How does that sound to you?
Because that’s the part that’s calling my name.

Consider this question, “What’s your one big dream, something you’ll always regret if you never do it?”

My youngest son recently asked me those exact words and I was surprised at how self-conscious I got. His blunt question caught me off guard and I found myself fumbling my answer.

“Oh, I don’t know. Probably write that book I wanna write.”

And then he called me out on it. He followed up by asking me how much time I’m working on it every day. And honestly? I felt sheepish when I heard myself rattling off all the other priorities that were taking up my valuable time each day. Only it’s not that these other priorities were optional.

But do you want to know the truth?  No one person or priority has been keeping me from writing my book.
Not really, I am the one in charge of how I allocate my time.

And this is what I do know. Our daily habits tell the world about our values, what we care about, and the direction of our life. And on any given day it’s our own actions—not our words- showing us what we are choosing to prioritize. I’m talking about once our life obligations are taken care of. What are we doing with our time? Really?

Because we all know people that accomplish big goals while they juggle a complex job and a web of responsibilities. They do it by getting up an hour early, or staying up extra late after the kids are in bed, but somehow, they choose to create that chunk of time in their life because it’s worth it to them. They have found a passion or dream and they have the willingness to work hard to achieve it.

This topic of time management has been on my mind lately and it’s why I jokingly said to my husband that my new mantra is going to be, “no more words—only action.”  

For me this means, no more talk and wispy dreams and vague ideas about writing.

It means start writing now. Write something today and every single day to become a better writer and eventually gain the confidence to write that book.

Why might this be my new mistake?

Well, to be perfectly honest writing is not an easy process for me; I am not a smooth, proficient writer in fact, I’m a terribly slow writer. It takes me forever to get a post out whether it’s a creative design post accompanied with photos, or me simply writing on one of my random topics. Either way I’m slow. Not to mention my own worst critic.

So, the idea of writing every day isn’t a problem if it’s just me journaling, however, committing myself to posting one little thing each day feels like the equivalent of standing at the bottom of Mount Everest and looking up. I literally cannot imagine being able to do that. Blame my perfection. Blame my annoying habit of constant re-writes. Blame my fear of failure. Who knows.

I’ve never even tried this before. Writing one little thing each day… ? Yet for me, thinking of it as something little each day feels more accessible and habit forming than a lot of grand resolutions. And posting it for the world to see?

Well…that sounds like I may be heading into “new mistake” territory, with a public humiliation to boot, which will certainly not be a boring repetition of same-ness right?

In order to make this new habit more successful for me –especially with my new work schedule--I've decided to lower my expectations, and this means setting clear parameters for myself.
Because adding original photos to any post adds so much more time I will make this writing project a photo-optional one. Some days there might be an accompanied picture, some days not, no pressure.

Also, as grateful as I am for the dialogue that happens via the comments, I'm aware that responding to comments adds an extraordinary amount of extra time (I’m such a slow composer of my thoughts) and since comments also have a subtle way of making me self-conscious about how I’m writing, I think it will be easier for me to view this project as an open-one-way journal. My goal is to practice my writing, hone my writing voice, and most importantly, deal with that nagging Little Miss Perfect whisper in my head that never wants to hit the publish button until everything feels “just right.”

Hitting the publish button is a way to keep me accountable.

So here’s a summation of what I plan to do.

Write One Little Thing Every Day Project:

No limitation on topics

It should be unedited version of my thoughts

Photos are optional

Response to comments optional

Well that’s it friends.

I plan on counting my regular posts as a writing day to keep it simple. And I'll re-evaluate this after each month.

But wait---before you go, this entire post is supposed to get you thinking too.

Consider this question:

What is your one little thing you can do every day that could change the direction of your life?

Christmas Cottage Tour 2017--and Life behind the pretty pictures

Hello friends and welcome to my little Christmas home tour.

I know-I know... in the blogger world— I’m light years behind all the wonderful home tours that have come and gone, but did I tell you? I’m living my design life out in dog years, so my holiday decorating now happens several years behind the blog world—and it’s working out pretty well for me.

Are you in the mood for some Christmas pictures from around here?

Wonderful!! I wish I could hand you a glass of wine through the computer screen, but we’ll just have to pretend about that part.

 I do however want to welcome you into my home with one caveat: you should know that behind each of these pretty photos is a lot of messiness. And I’m not talking dirty-dishes-in-the-sink-messiness I’m talking real life messy stuff that’s been a large part my 2017.

I’m talking about the stressful family dynamics that were happening not only in my little family, but also in my extended family as well.  

And I mention this because I’m sensitive to the power of images, and how easy it is to post a bunch of pristine looking photos for everyone to see--- that might give the impression that because my house might look spotless or stylish when I snapped the picture, my life must somehow resemble these ‘perfect looking’ images.

I know this because it happens to me.

 I can be busily blog-hopping through some crazy-beautiful Christmas tours and suddenly my eyes zero-in on all the negative parts of my own home with its dated kitchen and ugly master bathroom.

Please be aware 0f this sneaky kind of dissatisfaction. Because it robs you of gratitude for the most ordinary little details of your day and it confuses you into thinking that you don’t have ‘enough’ to be happy right this minute.
And have you noticed how comparing ourselves with others  creates invisible wedges between us? It happens when we assume that someone else is living a ‘perfect’ life or that their life is problem-free, and because we know our life is NOT, a subtle distance happens. Even if we're admiring them there's a sense that "well that's not me." And so we might miss seeing who they really are or most importantly, we miss the chance to relate to them with compassion.

A few weeks back I was talking with my Mom about a touchy family situation among my siblings and she seemed most upset about the timing. She actually said something like, “I just wish (this situation) would’ve waited until after Christmas.”

And although I have a lot of empathy for my Mom because of her painful childhood, and I can understand she has an image of how she wants the holidays to go, I also realize that having this “ideal” image of the holidays can really set us up for disappointment. To my Mom’s credit, this year she was more flexible than ever before.

But hers was a conversation I kept having throughout my holiday season. Whether I found myself in a wildly, loud Karaoke bar in Long Beach, or at a fancy-schmazy dinner with dear friends and regardless of any special date on the calendar, I kept hearing about real life struggles. The ugly aftermath of a divorce. Depressed feelings. Struggles with addiction. Having these raw, open-hearted talks with friends or family against the backdrop of white, twinkling lights, loud music and clanking glasses was a powerful reminder that behind every perfect image is a real person with real problems. And it’s these open wounds and human-ness that we share with each other that truly connect us.

When I’m able to talk about my personal struggles- or listen to someone else’s pain, I feel a warm connection with them. And after these recent conversations I was reminded of this distorted belief so many of us grapple with: that struggling is somehow NOT OK. Or that to be struggling emotionally, mentally, or physically either is wrong or bad or something to be ashamed of, especially during the holidays.

And it’s this judgment about what we’re experiencing or what we’re feeling that makes things so much worse. If this is something you do, please know that you’re not alone. And please know that you have absolutely nothing to be self-conscious about, nothing to hide. Seriously. You're doing great. 

Being Ok with where you are today is so important. Let’s not wait for all the stars to line up the way we want before we relish the beautiful parts of our lives. 

Whatever happened in 2017 is over. And I hope you join me in welcoming whatever Life brings to us with curiosity and humility. Instead of resistance or worry…. let’s ask this question instead:

“What can this experience teach me? 

How can I grow from this struggle?”

 

I hope you enjoyed seeing some of my pictures around here.

But as you leave my home I also hope you walk away feeling aware of your own specialness. I hope you pause to remember that no matter what your house looks like on any given day, it doesn’t say anything about the inner strength you’ve gained from your own life struggles along the way. And your house while lovely, certainly doesn’t tell the story of your unique brand of wisdom and the forging of your identity over the years.

As 2017 winds down, I do hope you think deeply about what really matters to you so that this coming year can truly be the year that you tap into your purpose in life.
Let’s stay in touch and encourage each other along the way.

Thank you so much for being the best part of my blogging.

Merry Christmas and Happy 2018!

Namaste,

Leslie

I'm sharing this post here:

Feathered Nest Friday

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Look what I copied from a magazine cover

I know this looks like another DIY post about a wooden Christmas tree box that turned out pretty well, but it's also a post about my Dad.

this summer with my boys

My Dad is 76 years old and for those of you who've followed me for awhile you know when it comes to construction, he can do almost anything. He hung drywall for 40 years and if you've ever tried to hold a piece of drywall over your head with one arm you'll know something about his robust view on life. Lucky for me, my Dad has been my DIY teacher around my fixer-upper these past years and I enjoy sharing what I learn from him---with you all.

Like this little project.

So I'm wandering through a antique store when I see this cover of a 2015 Country Living magazine, and I became instantly smitten with the rustic Christmas Tree box on it.

For a buck I bought it and thought, "I gotta make this!"

Well at least I planned to.

But the last weeks in November were so hectic that I ended up showing the magazine to my Dad when I was home for Thanksgiving and gosh, it was so darn nice to just sit back and watch him make this.

Here's the final project:

(you can see more pictures on my Instagram)

If you look my magazine picture you'll see that the wood looks dry and old.

So we used basic 6 inch Redwood fence pieces from Home Depot.

After Dad measured the standard size of a tree stand he decided to make the "box" 24 inches around and we both decided to skip the extra step of adding a bottom.

I stood around talking and watching him and I'm glad I did because of the little things I keep learning.

He basically made 4 panels (here's two of them).

The height of each was easy, he just stacked the three 6 inch redwood pieces together.

In addition he cut these little pieces (8) to fit on both sides of two of the four panels.

He used wood glue and his nail gun to connect the sides. Here you can see how he fit the three wood pieces into one finished panel. When I saw this step I understood the purpose of those strips of wood.

Here's a picture of the last panel being connected:

About this time I took a video of my Dad working and I asked him, "Have you made one of these before Dad?

and I have him on video giving a classic answer,

"Oh come on, ...it's just a box."

That pretty much explains why I'm a DIYer. I usually begin each project not having a clue how it's going to turn out but my Dad has a way of making everything seem totally do-able. No matter how complicated it might look to me.

Ok. As I mentioned before that we chose not to put a bottom on this box to make it easier to handle--plus this was the day after Thanksgiving and we were short on time.

The last step was adding these metal strips on the sides.

I followed my Dad to his backyard shed and he showed me the different screws I could use on the strips. I still have no idea how to find the right ones in a Home Depot, but at least I now know that there are metal screws that exist. :)

Once home I hand-painted the letters Holly Tree Farm on the front and decided I didn't any stain for this wood.

This would age nicely in our attic and the best part of this project is the time I spent hanging out in the patio with my Dad... while he made this.

Well, I sure hope you enjoyed this little tutorial.

Thank you friends for stopping by.

xo
Leslie

How to Create Meaningful Moments for Everyone on Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving has always been a big deal in our house.

It's the one holiday that's always hosted at the cozy, little home my parents have lived in for over fifty years. And each year my Mom starts thinking about her Thanksgiving table weeks ahead. The color theme, the flowers, the table settings and yes, games too because Mom is a "game person." 

 As the only daughter, I'm considered my Mom's personal stylist/floral designer and we always plan her pretty table details together. It's been like this since I was in high school.

But one thing has never changed.

Over the years my Mom has always insisted on including a  fun activity that gets everyone interacting. No stuffing your face and instant snoring on her day--at least not until everyone joins in for "one of Mimi's games".

Over the years we've had trivia games (using holiday theme words)  modified game shows or a version of Charades. There are always teams--(usually girls vs. guys) and my Mom has little prizes. And because we're a loud, competitive bunch--it ends up being one hilarious expose of our quirky personalities. 

Yep, it's true we've got our share of bizarre political views, the 'crazy uncle,' and the tipsy relative...but somehow everything gets put aside when you're laughing together.
Have you noticed this too?

In other words my Mom's focus on 'doing something together' helps us bond.

 The Gratitude Question

This year we're trying something new and it's an idea I'm love with because its a chance to be a little real with each other.

Enclosed inside each glassine envelope is a single question about gratitude. But here's what's different; it's not a question asking for your general thoughts about gratitude... no, it's a question that is focused on the people sitting around the table. Right there in front of you.

If you opened one of these envelopes you might find:

•  A question that asks you to share a favorite (or funny) memory of someone across from you.
•  A question that asks you to share something you appreciate about the person on your right. 
• A question that asks you to name a quality you appreciate in the person on your left

Here's the point of these little questions.

Intellectually we know Thanksgiving is a holiday about gratitude, in fact it's become quite a trendy word in our culture today. We see everywhere. But the challenge for us is, how do we transform these lofty concepts into something that feels meaningful and personal  to us?

The answer is....well, we get personal. 

And we do this with the very people in front of us at this moment.

Isn't this why we spend so many hours decorating our tables, pouring over recipes, waiting in grocery lines, and cooking our favorite dishes?

It's about the people.

Even if it's only a few genuine words, a spontaneous story or a unexpected compliment, these are the kind of moments that we remember long after the dishes are put away.

This is how we experience the true meaning of Thanksgiving.

When I get to my Mom's house we'll set the table and decide where we'll put these little envelopes. It's easy to tuck a sprig of fresh rosemary or pressed leaf into the string at the last minute.

In the meantime I decided to set a quick table to show you how pretty these envelopes look. Right now we're thinking we'll open them once everyone is finished eating but still sitting at the table, maybe before dessert and coffee.

And later we'll be trying our first "white elephant" game too.

 Well, I sure hope I gave you something to think about today.

Whatever you've got planned for your holiday--I know it will be wonderful because you will be part of it.

Happy Thanksgiving to all my friends who are reading this post right now. Please know, I am incredibly grateful for every visitor to my little blog. ..I consider you one of my special blessings.

xo

Leslie

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