Category Archives: Living simply and happy

A String of Summer Memories

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“Childhood is the most beautiful of all life’s seasons.” ~Author Unknown 

Yesterday’s blog writing about summertime in Steamboat Springs, Colorado set-off a string of magical childhood memories of growing up in ‘burbs of Baltimore in the 1950s and 60s. When I return to that time and place in my mind,  it is so fulfilling that I enjoy remaining stuck there; not rushing back into present day life. 

Our neighborhood was outside Baltimore City limits, developed as part of the post WWII surburban boom. The community was filled with children to play with. In our family, as was the case in most others, kids were shooed out the door to play and not allowed to spend much of the day in front of the TV. Had we spent the amount of time in front of screens as kids do in this digital age, it would have given our mother apoplexy. Instead of being inside, our summer days were filled with: 

  • Spontaneous BBQs and games of softball with neighborhood families.
  • Running through the neighborhood playing flashlight and catching fireflies (lightning bugs as we called them).
  • Basking in the sun until our skin turned a lovely shade of toast.
  • Playing in the stream that bordered our family’s multi-acre wooded property.
  • Gathering green moss and piecing it together to make moss mattresses, in the woods, resembling patchwork quilts.
  • Doing swan dives, cannonballs and back-ward flips off the diving board in our family pool.
  • Listening to hits of the 1960s on my treasured transistor radio. It came complete with a wrist strap.
  • SummertimeVacation Bible School at the church my Dad built. http://bit.ly/jA0Cpp.  
  • Selling colorful tissue paper flowers, we had made, outside the neighborhood store
  • Taking a drawing class at the YMCA (I was no better at drawing than playing the clarinet). Some things are just not meant to be! 

Childhood times may be gone, but they need not be forgotten! Have you ever considered independently publishing your life story as a “love letter to future generations?”   Begin telling your life’s tale today! Don’t know where to start? There are companies that can help you along the way.  http://www.telling-your-story.com/seminars.htm

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A Glimpse into the Colorado Film Industry

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“Design creates culture. Culture shapes values. Values determine the future.”  ~ Robert L. Peters 

On this Film Friday, let’s look in on the independent film industry in Colorado, once again. It has been about a year since we have visited the filmmaking scene in the State “where the columbines grow.” 

Did you know that there has been a newly formed Colorado Creative Industries Division? The Colorado Council on the Arts and the Art in Public Places programs merged, last July, to form this new division, which is overseen by the Office of Economic Development and International Trade. http://1.usa.gov/jauOKx. 

The mission of this division is to promote and expand an industry that already creates over 54,000 jobs and $20 billion in revenue in Colorado as a result of making feature films, television commercials and shows, still photography, emerging mass media projects and music videos. The Colorado Creative Industries Division hopes to position the State as a leader in providing jobs and revenue through creative enterprises and entrepreneurs. There are incentives available to entice imaginative and innovative filmmakers to the State. For more information on the application process, and funding for film projects here in the State of Colorado, please visit http://www.coloradofilm.org/incentives.html. 

Perhaps  an independent filmmaker here in Colorado should produce a full length, feature film interpreting author Daniel H. Pink’s vision of a world ruled by right brained thinkers. It would make for interesting viewing and a fascinating case study to look back at the film fifty years from now to see if the world is anything like what Pink envisioned. 

What is your opinion of what a right thinking world would be like? Would it be a world filled with free spirits and dreamers not getting much done or can creative spirit set us on a new path toward a fulfilling, vibrant, unique economy in the 21st century? We would like to hear from you!

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Narratives in Medical Curriculum

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“There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.” ~ Maya Angelou 

Writing medical histories through the narrative form is currently being incorporated into curriculums in medical schools in many parts of the country. Medical students are learning how to better assess medical conditions through more intensive listening to the patient, and recording what they hear into narrative forms. The goal is to make healthcare decisions for the patient based not only on statistics and tests but by also “reading” a patient’s unique personal story of how they are feeling and their own symptoms. 

Why is the addition of the narrative form being incorporated into the way medical schools have traditionally taught students to diagnose illness? Empathy for the patient has been missing in this age of highly developed technical medical testing. Listening to a patient’s story leads to a better understanding of the whole picture of a person’s medical situation. A person’s emotions and spirit about the way they are feeling is part of the overall report, too. 

Daniel Pink’s book, A Whole New Mind, http://www.danpink.com/whole-new-mind explains how our society is on the brink of a whole new age of thinking. We have gone from an agricultural age (farmers) through the factory age (industrial), to the information age (business based on knowledge workers) to the emergence of right thinking business people, who are creators and empathizers. Surprisingly, we are moving into an age where more Americans are beginning to work in fields such as arts, entertainment and design than those working left brain fields (accountants, lawyers, insurance adjustors). In order to be accomplished in these growing fields of work, right brained thinking skills must be used and developed. 

Prosperity and abundance has brought a whole new need for fulfilling emotional, aesthetic and spiritual needs. Jobs in the “caring professions” counseling, nursing, healing are surging, too.  They are not jobs that can be decimated by workers overseas who can work faster and cheaper.

To read more about this movement toward the new conceptual age and right brain thinking that Pink claims will change the world, pick up A Whole New Mind.  Many libraries have it and it is a Business Week best selling book. It’s a fascinating read.

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I Am a Lucky Gal!

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“Fatherhood is pretending the present you love most is soap-on-a-rope.”
– Bill Cosby

Dear Dad, 

Happy Father’s Day! On this day, I would like to say thank you for the way you raised us four kids. It was not until I had a child of my own, did I come to fully understand and appreciate some of the things you said and did for “my own good.” 

  • Thanks for making me do things, whether I wanted to or not.
  • Thanks for not always giving me what I wanted but always fulfilling my real needs.
  • Thanks for making me accountable for my own actions and not always taking up for me.
  • Thanks for your quiet, steady presence in my life.
  • Thanks for being the “king of rig.” There were many things we had because you “rigged things” your way, with your building skills.
  • Thanks for not letting us whine (well……not too much).
  • When we whined….. thanks for not listening!
  • Thanks for doing your best at keeping me centered and balanced– my husband, your son-in-law, appreciates that.
  • Thanks for the love you have given to your eight grandchildren and teaching them the lessons that their parents forgot.
  • Thanks for giving me security in knowing that you would always be there for me, no matter what. 

We are grateful that you have lived to a healthy, ripe age. Your eight grandchildren are as crazy about you as your four children are!  Happy Father’s Day, Dad ~ You are in my thoughts on this day! 

 Love, Your Elder Twin Daughter    

      Grandfather & Grandson together last year.

 Wonder where that 22 yr old got his  genes for extremely premature gray hair?

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What is Your Currency?

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“Live out your imagination, not your history.” ~ Stephen Covey 

Creative economy has been the buzzword here in Colorado and in pockets all over the United States. It is about making a living artfully through our passions and living with purpose in all that we do. 

More and more, people are realizing that there is great personal value in fulfilling our lives with what we love to do, rather than just existing to make the almighty buck. Individuals are beginning to realize that the vicious circle of working lots of hours just to have, to spend, to accumulate and keep up with the Joneses does not necessarily make sense. It is not a sustainable way to live. It is hard to enjoy and live healthy lifestyles when we are stuck on the treadmill of working more hours just to be able spend more. 

Relationships, community, volunteerism, thinking beyond our selves and our material needs are beginning to take priority in people’s lives, as this slow economy has forced us to see that there are other ways of being. And that is not a bad thing! I love hearing stories of people who are successfully recreating themselves and their businesses in these times of economic hardships. 

There was a story this week in the Steamboat Today newspaper about an artist who decided to act upon his longstanding interest in the fabric arts. Now, he is winning international acclaim for his creativity and artistic talent in making quilts. To read his story, please visit http://bit.ly/l58Ad0. For those who are unable to travel to see David Taylor’s quilts, I hope some day he will independently publish a book and sell it on the world-wide-web, with images of his fabric creations and his thoughts about using his creative talents for personal fulfillment. 

Do you have creative currency that has been dormant? Believe in yourself and dare to expend energy on making a new life for yourself through your passions. Write it, publish it, sew it, knit it, cook it, paint it, mold it, build and grow it – what ever IT is!

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You are Audible. I Can Hear You!

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“To listen well, is as powerful a means of influence as to talk well, and is as essential to all true conversation.” ~ Chinese Proverb 

June is Audio Book Month!  Right here, right now, lest we forget, we need to acknowledge the folks who bring enlightenment, entertainment and enjoyment to our lives all through audio books. During those laboriously long 8- 12 hour trips in the car what did we ever do with ourselves before the days of “books on tape”? 

This spring on All Things Fulfilling, we have celebrated the IPPYS, the EVVYs and the Ben Franklin Awards. But “What about the AUDIES?” I can hear the fans of “books on tape” screaming, lofty and loud! 

Books in 28 categories were nominated for the 2011 AUDIE Awards.  The list of all those in contention for the prize is lengthy, so we will name just a few of the outstanding award winners: 

There are many, many more prize-winning selections. To see the entire list of 2011 AUDIE award winners, please visit

http://www.theaudies.com/ 

Uh, oh! ….Who is that I hear now? It’s RITA! She wants her award winners mentioned too! I don’t know, though. Her awards aren’t really focused on independent writers. But, you know RITA, she is the drama queen. When she doesn’t get her own way, she can get pretty melodramatic, fiery and steamed-up. We will see what we can do…. maybe some other day when you are all ready to listen.

 

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New Matrimonial Movie on Film Friday

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“In the opinion of the world, marriage ends all, as it does in a comedy.  The truth is precisely the opposite:  it begins all. “         ~Anne Sophie Swetchine

Magazine publishers are determined not to let us forget about the wedding of the Century between the Brits, William and Kate. “Collector’s Issues” of magazines featuring the Royal Wedding now line the racks of drugstores, grocery stores and news stands everywhere. 

Being released in just in time for the busiest month of the year for weddings, is the latest movie about marriage called “Bridesmaids.” It is opening in theatres today! From the sound of it, June brides may want to take time from putting the finishing touches on their plans for the big day, to go see it. It may put what seems like abnormal strain and stresses of planning and carrying off a wedding, into prospective. To watch a trailer of “Bridesmaids” or to listen to film critic Richard Roeper’s review of this new cinema release, please visit http://bit.ly/kJaobE. 

Matrimony is a very serious commitment, yet hilarious and unexpected circumstances do sometimes occur even though every minute by minute detail has been organized and planned. Wedding day bloopers and blunders are the basis of many funny film parodies about this day of celebration. 

On this Film Friday, let’s mention a few other films about marriage that are popular picks:

      • Seven Brides for Seven Brothers
      • Princess Bride
      • My Big Fat Greek Wedding
      • Father of the Bride (Spencer Tracy)
      • Father of the Bride (Steve Martin)
      • The Bride of Frankenstein
      • The Wedding Planner 

      Have a fun weekend! Put your feet up and watch a movie about what is a very fulfilling “institution”, as long as the relationship turns out to be right!

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Clearly, Worth it!

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“I’m touched  by the idea that when we do things that are useful and helpful…that we may be helping to bring about a healing.” ~Leonard Nemoy

Discovery is a wonderful thing! Yesterday I experienced THE best way to get relief from mental clog (aka writer’s cramp) induced by writing blog after blog after blog. I decided to take advantage of a complimentary hot oil scalp massage treatment that I had won in a raffle at a WIN Steamboat http://bit.ly/jSsNQF (Women in Networking) event. After all, I had hit my goal of reaching 10,000 readers through All Things Fulfilling. It was time to celebrate!

I arrived at the doors of Kneading Hands Massage not knowing quite what to anticipate, but I felt I would be in good hands. Ali, the therapist, was voted as one of the top three massage therapists in the “Best of the Boat.” www.kneadinghandstherapy.gmail.com.

Within a very few minutes I knew that the hot oil scalp massage would be beneficial for treating my dry scalp and hair and it would be a panacea for other things too. As Ali began to work her magic on my neck, I could feel the tension begin to melt away – crack, went my neck! As she began to apply the hot oil and massage it deep into my scalp, I could feel the warm liquid begin to ooze and penetrate. The gentle stroke of her hands and the balm (the essential oils) began to facilitate an awakening of energy in my head. The oils began to reach into the deeper recesses of my being and I could sense my brain matter becoming more pliable. The tension began to ease and the mental block began to give way to clarity.

Once out of my position of repose, I had a very lucid thought. I had reached a lofty blogging goal I had set for myself and now it is time to put into place a new set of goals. Clearly, I had proven to myself that “what you think about, you bring about.”  All my efforts at blogging have indeed been worthwhile. For tips on blogging success, please visit http://bit.ly/gDGQN8.

Before I conclude this blog writing, I owe a thank you to Ali at Kneading Hands Massage. She is clearly a master in her trade of the healing arts and has been well schooled in this field. If my writer’s block returns once again, I know exactly where to seek help.

As to what my next goal in life is – that is for me to know and for you to find out! And you will. Discovery is a wonderful thing!

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Living the Royal Life

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“The roots of all goodness lie in the soil of appreciation for goodness.”
Dalai Lama

There is tremendous media coverage these days on the upcoming nuptials of Prince William and Kate Middleton. Over the Easter weekend, we talked with our son about all the preparations that are being made at Reelz Channel www.reelzchannel.com  for the broadcast of the Royal Wedding.  Don’t miss the brilliant airing of this very special live event. It is bound to be the Bees Knees. 

Admittedly, I am a groupie of Britain’s Royal Family. I watch every TV special I come across on the history of the monarchy and the family of the Queen of England. I love seeing it all:

  • The carriages
  • The royal garb
  • The swords
  • The royal etiquette
  • The pageantry 

We all know that it doesn’t take being a royal family member to have some of finest things in life. Our own mindset can make the difference between feeling as if we live a life of privilege or not. By recognizing what basics are really important to us in life, and living according to what is true and right within our souls, we can feel as if were given the birth right of a dynasty. The most fulfilling moments come in our lives, when we focus on appreciating the little things. Many of us already have the greatest wealth available without even recognizing it. We are greatly endowed if we have: 

  • Good health
  • Satisfying relationships with family and friends. Non-feuding, I might add!
  • Clean air to breathe
  • Enough food and water to nourish and sustain us
  • Decent shelter over our heads
  • An appreciation of nature and the other gifts the Universe provides. 

If we have common sense enough to know that  happiness is independent of great material ‘ things”, then we are very rich.  Yes,  we can still live a life of  prosperity without great monetary accumulation, indeed!   

My personal invitation for Prince William and Kate Middleton’s wedding has not yet arrived from the royal family. But, thanks to modern day broadcasting, it will be aired so each one of us can attend www.reelzchannel.com. We, in America, can have front row seats from the comfort of our homes. Get up extra early, fix yourself a proper cup of tea, a scone, a biscuit or some kippers, toast and eggs and enjoy! Remember – the key to your dynasty of personal fulfillment is to always treat yourself and others like royalty!!

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