Don't get old...Get older

 No, I am not at all implying that y'all should try to defy or deny the aging system for it cannot be done...well, not entirely. The calendar will tell you down to the day how old you are but how your mind translates that news to your inner being and to your body is what determines if you will simply get old or if you will keep traveling along as each day makes you older. The difference is that old means we stop doing this or that at a certain age or this and that will start to hurt at a certain age...that, my friends, is a false bill of crap that will make you become complacent and to hold back on living your life with all of its capable contentment. Of course, the body changes and evolves into its next phase which is why it is imperative that you tend to your body well so that it is kind to you in later years. It's about prevention...if you stay healthy now then you will help prevent many bodily harms, or lesson their effect on you, if you are already strong when those older years come along. See, I believe in prevention, if possible, about many things in this life of ours. Prevention, just for example, is to make a wise choice of health today so that good health is your friend in tomorrow.

Now, getting older means accepting gracefully another day to continue doing what you have always done, those things that you have always loved doing. It is to keep filling the days with joy and to keep embracing all of the new things in life for no one, of any age, has "seen it all." The body takes its own toll but if you nourish it and feed it daily with positive thoughts and actions then the body will remain steadfast and perhaps only limit some activities instead of being old and telling the body "You just can't do that anymore." Every individual inch of us has its own set of ears and they hear what you think so, in essence, we have the choice to set some limits as we get older, or we have the choice to accept the "just can't do's" as we merely get old. It's a no brainer for me...you will miss so much if you just sit idly by, after the first part of your youth has passed, and watch the days click on while the second part of your youth; with the wise mind, still hungry soul, and a love of life that comes only in growth, gets stifled by some number on a piece of paper called a calendar. Think back, that very same calendar once told us all how much younger and more fearless we were so why not let it tell us now how much wisely older and more bountiful we are? Yes, it is a fact that we all came into this world with a birth date and with an expiration date but, hey since we have no say so on that final date then why not live it up and breathe your life deeply and fully and snatch every moment allowed to you here on this earth with sheer glee. Don't let some number dictate any day of your life. I once heard that, "age is a matter of mind and if you don't mind, then it don't matter." Look at it this way folks, the freshest half of the loaf of bread may be gone but, if you keep it right then the other half will stay fresh too!

Pam's sincere, late-night thoughts...

Mind-Dust...

Let's examine your mind-dust...

Don’t you ever have those thoughts about something, like how terrible broccoli smells when it cooks, and wonder if anyone else thinks of it that way? Haven’t you ever been some place new and yet it just felt so familiar that it seemed you had been there before, to the point, that you begin to question if maybe you had been there in some other time? Or haven't you ever met some perfect stranger somewhere and yet felt as if you had known this stranger for all of your life after ten minutes of conversation and just be awe struck at how you feel sure the two paths must have crossed somewhere? Haven’t you, at least one honest time, hung a rope of hope around that shooting star you made that wish upon and wondered quietly if anyone else did that? Haven't you ever laid down and stared at the blue sky and let your imagination make specific shapes and characters out of the big, fluffy clouds and wondered what someone else thought it looked like?

The answer to most of these is most likely an overwhelming “yes!” We think more alike than we think we do and those floating, flight-full, playful, oddity pondering thoughts are just swirls of mind-dust that we all have…much of it is simple curiosity and most of us have many curiosities about a slew of different things…it’s amazing how common the odd things can be. Let it always swirl and twirl about in your head for if your mind-dust settles then so may your curious questions, your keen observations, and your yearning to wonder settle as well. Keep your mind open with lots of space and freely welcome and entertain your own many whooshes of mind-dust.

Pam's late-night, mind-dusting thoughts...

The "financially less fortunate class..."

  Let me begin by saying that I am not much of a political person nor is this intended to be a political post but what I have to say is from the view of a person who cares and will hope others will or do care also. This subject is not rocket science nor does it really take any more than good old plain common sense to, at least partially, see the picture that needs to be painted. I have listened to the talk of what so many governmental talkers have talked about throughout the last too many years and there is one thing that has always troubled me greatly, for no political person or official or any department has ever uttered a single word mentioning this troublesome concern of mine. My concern always lies with that group of hardworking, underpaid, and bill shuffling folks in the system who are all the way down...the lower class as they have been labeled. First of all, let's knock out that label and address them as they are, the financially less fortunate class. 

I hear, and have always heard, about what things will affect the middle-class and/or the upper-class folks. I am afraid that until someone steps forth and acknowledges that we do have a less fortunate class then we may not be giving some of the eager people in the world a chance simply because they go unmentioned and quietly overlooked. Turning heads has never been known to make an issue just up and go away or miraculously fix itself. This is a large, sad, and personal saga of a concern to me for I know full well the plight of the less fortunate class and it is not some new wave group of folks, nope...been here all along. We have so much and yet we solve so little. We have so many homeless, we have so many that go hungry (including children), we have so many with zero health care of any kind. I find it more than a fair question to ask: how can those situations exist when we claim to have so much? Every person out there deserves a chance, deserves to be acknowledged, deserves an out reached hand, deserves to have a voice, and deserves to have that voice heard. To not acknowledge that, perhaps, we should begin building up the less fortunate class first, so that it may boost the middle-class, would be like throwing up a roadblock against prosperity. If you really do the math then you can see that the blood, sweat, and tears has almost always began with the less fortunate class but if harnessed properly and harvested rewardingly it could be the biggest domino effect of one rung on the low part of the ladder pushing the next rung (middle class) up to make room for that lower rung to finally climbed out of the less fortunate class. 

Well, it makes a point to me that it warrants acknowledging this class of folks and to entertain the reality that the less fortunate class is indeed the foundation everything else stands upon...they are the stone and mortar, and they are the spokes of the wheels that keep us inching forward. And please let me close by announcing that the less fortunate class are generally less fortunate financially, but they are some of the richest folks among all in so many fulfilling ways for they cherish dearly the little that they do have and the love of those they share it with. And times are a changing again, the winds are shifting so let them shift so that they swoop up and build up and eliminate this financially less fortunate class...it is time to embrace their important role in the overall success of the big picture of life.

Pam's serious late-night thoughts

What are our Fur-babies thinking?

Our Fur-babies and those looks we get when we talk to them or just kinda catch them looking at us…what are they thinking? Now my BIG boy Bo will sit perfectly so with back straight and head held high and ears cocked and slightly tilt his head from side to side with intent eyes while I ramble on to him. "The Bo Look,” as we all call it, comes in a variety of flavors depending on what I’m talking about. If it’s food, he’s all in already, then when I tell him “Good boy but you have to wait till Pammy is done first” the head begins to tilt first this way then the other like “Wait? Why?” or the ole “yea that’s what you said last time, and I didn’t get any, told me it was all gone gone!” And I love asking him questions because if I look at him very serious and talk to him and ask him what he thinks, the tilting of the head looks more like he’s thinking “I know some of what she said but I can’t get that last part!” It could go on and on because my boy has some looks that you can’t keep a straight face over and he actually gets feet bouncing happy when I get tickled at him. Sometimes I swear he understands every word I’ve said, better than anyone I’ve talked to all day, and that he wants me to know that he knows. We’ve got it like that…the silent understanding. And every once in a while, I think tilting of the head means “she’s nuts! Should I tell her?!” And then there is "The Dreaded Bo Look” when that knock comes at the door and it’s not a scent he recognizes…then it’s all business and his full big boy bark is on! He answers my door…I let him decide who comes in and who doesn’t. But if he totally digs you then just shake his hand, be his friend, and definitely scratch his BIG head! Our Fur-babies are well entertained by us I do believe.

Pam's evening laughs at "The Bo Looks"