Daily Joy Log

I don’t know about you but I don’t really like having  lots of stuff.  It doesn’t make me FEEL comfy and cozy like it does for some  people. It makes me FEEL overwhelmed. I FEEL stuck and smothered when there’s clutter everywhere as if I’m drowning in a jar of Velveeta Cheese Spread. Uch-the thought of it.

I imagine I FEEL this way because I lived in a hotel room for fourteen years and was the happiest I’ve ever been. I didn’t own much of anything. I had clothes, band equipment, a wee fry pan, an iron and a mini fridge. It gave me the FEELING of freedom and movement. That’s what we’re all after isn’t it? A FEELING you get from something.

Once we got off  of the road and  bought a house everything changed. I wanted the FEELING of  home and security.  I had to have the kitchen gadgets, the gardening tools, the crystal and china, the furniture, the plants, the dogs, and the doo dads.  How could you possibly live without the very cool lemon squeezer or the ronco slice and dice machine?

I’m not a real collector of junk but somehow over the years we ended up with our fair share.  Ken and I have been talking about purging for the last year because we want that FEELING of freedom and movement again. The other day we took some action.  Ken called a friend who sells items on Ebay and we gave her some old musical equipment to advertise.

I got rid of my spoon collection. Who the heck wants to collect spoons?  What do you do with these things? You can’t eat with them. You look at them once in a while and polish them. That’s exciting.

My mother wanted me to have something to collect when I started singing on the road so she bought me my first spoon in 1975. Every town I performed in I bought a spoon.  Of course  I had to have a spoon rack to put the stupid spoons in. My mother bought me a lovely hand carved spoon rack and up it went on my wall.  Nice.

I hated the spoons.  Believe it or not, I found them the other day in my basement in a baggie.  I was attached for a minute thinking of how many years I had had them and how sweet my mother was.  After my moment of reminiscing I said “Take them away” and gave them to my friend to put on Ebay.  Give them to some other person who thinks they need to collect spoons.

There is joy in clearing away stuff.  I know it runs deeper than just getting rid of things. Emotions are tied up in the stuff and we keep things for many different reasons.

Some people have abandonment issues, some have security issues, some poverty issues.  Sometimes we need to hold on to the life we once knew.  If we want to move on and see a new life for ourselves then we need to change some things. One of the things that helps is getting rid of things that keeps us stuck. We need to look beyond the things and see why we have so much stuff and what it represents. We need to let go so we can move forward.

I just took clothes to Goodwill and we gave old computers to Charlotte Street Computers. They have a recycling center there in case you’re interested. It really FEELS good to get the energy moving again. If you’re a pack rat just try throwing one or two things away and see how it FEELS. If it FEELS good, get rid of a few more things. It makes way for new thought, new ideas, and new energy to come into your life. It really does.

It’s like opening the window and taking a deep breath of fresh air. AHHHH!

Experience  Joy And Pass It On!

Please leave your comment below and tell us what brings you joy.

Vanity.  That’s it.

Why else would women spend three hours in a salon and spend over a hundred dollars on having their hair colored every six weeks?  What are we nuts?

I started this mess long ago and once you’ve joined the club it’s hard to drop out.

I have quite a bit of gray hair mixed in with my dark brown and I’m not ready to do the salt and pepper thing yet.  I’m just not.

What choices do we have?  Color it ourselves or pay to have it done.  I’ve done both and I don’t know which is more painful.  Shelling out that kind of money hurts but doing it yourself  can be a disaster.

The first time I decided to color my hair which was years ago,  I tried a deep wine burgundy color. It looked nice on the cover of the box.  How hard could this be?  What a mess that was.  I only left it on a short time but I turned my hair completely black.  I mean black with a capital “B”,  I looked like a witch.  Even worse,  it was winter time so my skin color was a pale, pastie white.  Against the black hair I wanted to die.  I couldn’t look in the mirror for months.  I swore never again!

Since then I’ve been to several different people and sometimes I’m happy and sometimes I’m not.

The other day I was feeling extra bold and I went and bought a kit with color and highlights included.   I’m going to try this again.  The inner voice said “NOOOOOOO!  Don’t do it!  Don’t you remember the black hair and how horrible it was? Don’t do it!  My confident voice said “Oh shut up! So many people color their own hair and they look  fine,  I can do this.”

I opened the box,  read the directions fifty six times and after a meditation,  deep breathing exercises and a pint of whiskey (kidding) I put my gloves on and schmeared the stuff on my head.  Lord get me through this.

I was so nervous that I only left it in ten minutes and quickly washed it out.  I rinsed and then put the highlights in.  Just pretend like you know what you’re doing.  Attitude is everything.  Dive in just like the hairstylists do.

Done!

The first day I was a little worried about how dark it was but after a few days I was actually ok with it.  I asked a few of my girlfriends what they thought and everyone seemed to honestly like how it looked.  Ken even told me what a great job I did.  YESSSS!

The joy of success!

Experience Joy And Pass It On!

Please leave your comment below and tell us what brings you joy.