The joy of being a kid at heart

You remember that TV commercial that goes "I don't wanna grow up, I'm a Toys R Us kid..."? I think that was written for me. :) I am a huge afficianado of video games, and I spend far more time than I'd like to admit playing them (especially now that I'm retired!).

Those who know me know that my #1 game addiction is The Sims 2, an amazingly realistic PC video game in which you design, build and decorate houses and then design simulated people (i.e., Sims) to live in them. Oh yea, and you run their lives for them. It's kind of like the opening to the old Twilight Zone TV show --"We control the vertical...we control the horizontal...". In The Sims, you are in charge of fulfilling the lives of all your peeps--getting them jobs, friends and husbands/wives, having children, the whole tamale. It's the perfect game for a creative, detail-oriented, anal-retentive lazy butt with control issues like myself. :)

Most adults who get Sims Fever lose the thrill after a few weeks or a few months at most; I've been playing The Sims for over 5 years now. I still play pretty much every day. I have filled up several Sim towns with houses and Sims that I designed. My older brother is a builder in Florida. I often think of there being two builders in our family--just that he builds the real ones. Here are a few of my recent creations in The Sims 2:

And here's what the first house looks like INSIDE:

Another of my favorites is Pogo (http://www.pogo.com/). My addictions there change over time. Right now, my favorite game is Golf Solitare (http://www.pogo.com/games/golf-solitaire), a wickedly competitive card game that consists of five rounds. Whomever has the highest score at the end of 5 rounds wins; but, oh, how that scoreboard can change during those 5 rounds! It's always fun to see if I can race to the top and leave the others in my dust, but even as skilled as I've gotten at the game, it all comes down to the luck of the draw. Bad cards can send ya packin'!

So what about you? Are you still a kid at heart? How do you humor the kid inside?

The joy of cooking

If I had a Food Network show, it would be called either “The Lazy Chef” or “The Industrious Chef.” I know those two adjectives seem at odds with one another, but that’s because my cooking is usually at one end or the other of the spectrum—quick & easy or full steam ahead.

I have a bad habit of waiting until I’m hungry to start thinking about what to cook, which means that I end up making whatever is quickest or easiest. That is the realm of The Lazy Chef. To try to counter my Lazy Chef, I often cook multiple servings of one dish on the weekend so I have something healthy and satisfying—but also quick and easy—to reheat during the week. This is where The Industrious Chef enters the picture. Between being a picky eater and a Lazy Chef, I have an aversion to cooking from recipes (at least to using them as written); most of what I cook is either a dish I made up, recreated from a dish I ate in a restaurant or morphed from one or several recipes.

My latest experiment was to recreate my favorite dish at a local Mexican restaurant which they call spicy pulled pork tacos. The pork is shredded, tender and succulent, and spicy without being obnoxious. I’ve had a similar dish at other restaurants where it was called pork carnitas, but I found out that classic pork carnitas are fried in lard and are crispy whereas the pork in the dish I wanted to recreate was slow-roasted and juicy.

After perusing a half dozen or so recipes on the web and choosing ingredients or cooking methods from them that fit my purpose, I created a spice rub of chili powder, cumin, oregano, cinnamon, black pepper, two varieties of Mrs. Dash and a tiny dash of season salt (being hypertensive, I have to watch my salt intake--my preference would be to have added more salt for flavor).

I’d found boneless country style pork ribs on sale, so I used those in case the experiment was a bust. After rubbing the pork with the spice rub, I put it in a heavy, covered roasting pan with about 2/3 bottle of amber beer, a splash of Worchestershire sauce, 2 roasted, peeled and chopped Anaheim peppers and 2 bay leaves. I roasted the pork “low and slow” on 250 for 2 hours. I then pulled some of the pork apart to see if it was cooked through and at the level of tenderness that I desired. It was cooked through, but not as tender as I wanted, so I lowered the heat to 200 and put it back in--about another hour, I think.

The aroma that issued forth from my kitchen was incredible and the depth of flavor was definitely pleasing to the palate. It wasn’t a perfect recreation of the dish I’d had in restaurants, but it was delicious. I pulled the pork apart and let it sit in the cooking liquid (but out of the oven) a while longer so more of the meat surface got flavored. I made some brown rice, threw in some rinsed pinto beans, and used the pork cooking liquid to flavor the beans. I wrapped some of the shredded pork in a tortilla with salsa, served it with the rice and beans, and I was in heaven.

While my pork definitely had a spicy undercurrent, it wasn’t as bold as the dish I was trying to recreate. After having the pulled pork with salsa, I decided that, when I make this again, I will add ½ a jar of salsa to the pan liquids that the pork slow cooks in and reduce the beer by half.

That is an experiment for another day. Right now, the Lazy Chef needs to heat up some spicy pulled pork with rice and beans for her dinner! :)

The joy of helping others

My hat is off to people who are so completely selfless that they will put themselves in any situation, even physical danger, in order to help others. That is not me. However, I do like to help. I have done a smattering of volunteer work here and there over the years while I was working full time, but I was too selfish to give up my precious few evening hours (I worked 10-11 hour days) to volunteering. Hence, I always said that, when I retire, I want to commit much more time to doing more volunteer work.

Within a few weeks of my retirement date, I had already registered my desire to help on four different volunteer projects in my area via Volunteer Match (www.volunteermatch.org). VM is a fabulous website that allows you to tailor your search for volunteer opportunities in your area to just within a certain distance or just in certain subject areas, etc. They will email you an updated list matching your search criteria as often (or as little) as you like. I recommend VM to anyone looking to volunteer (whether a little or a lot).

In the last few years leading up to my retirement, I had these grand visions (okay, fantasies) of the impact I could make through volunteering and how it would work in my life (and enrich it)--however, there were several stark realities that got in the way of my master plan:

1) I knew that there would be fewer volunteer opportunities where I now live as a retiree than where I had been living before; however, I did not realize how substantial an impact this would have on my plans. When I lived in the DC area, the list that resulted from my VM search criteria was overwhelming in terms of trying to decide which of the opportunities on many pages of those offered I may want to try. In Delaware, I have a much smaller list and have to hunt more to find a few things I might want to do.

2) Not only are there less opportunities here, but the distance to drive to what ones there are is greater. For example, animal welfare work was at the top of my list of volunteer projects, but there are no shelters in my town--I have to drive almost 30 minutes (one way) to the county seat just to find an SPCA shelter. With the price of gas what it is, that definitely impacted my decisionmaking. When I lived in the DC area, I could find multiple volunteer opportunities that were 5-10 minutes away where I lived or worked.

3) Volunteer organizations move at their own speed, which can be very frustrating if you are motivated and ready to start helping! :) This I already knew to some extent from my volunteering experience in the DC area. The opportunities I applied for through the county's Retired and Senior Volunteer Program (RSVP) were a piece of cake (this is a national program, by the way, so if you are 55 or older, I urge you to look up your local RSVP office). The RSVP coordinator got back to me very quickly and I had a meeting with her within a week of expressing my interest on Volunteer Match. Other volunteer programs, not so much.

I started my first volunteer "job" in mid-July. It is not remotely like anything that I had conjured up in my "Dream Volunteer Job" fantasies. It is, in fact, a paid job that they can't afford to hire anyone to do. Since 30 years of my Federal career were in a related area, I figured it might be interesting to see the same programs from a completely different angle, so I said I'd help. Because I'd just retired from a 37-year Federal Government career 6 weeks before and this was way too close to the desk job I had just left, I told them I would only work two half-days per week and they agreed.

I am just a voice on the phone to people in need--people who can't pay the rent, can't feed their children, can't pay for child care, don't have medical insurance, etc. I don't actually provide the help they need, but I am a conduit to getting them to it. I am a small cog in a very large wheel that is designed to provide help to those who need it; but even being a small cog feels pretty good. When I feel I have done my best to provide a friendly, understanding voice on the other end of the phone and to give them the information they're seeking, it's great.

The biggest benefit of this "job" is that it reminds me every week how blessed I am. I own my own home, I can pay my mortgage and bills, I have medical insurance and I can buy groceries. I am not wealthy by any means and there may be times that finances are tight (especially now that I am living on a pension) but, compared to someone who can't feed their children, is being evicted from their home or is sitting in the dark because they had to make a choice between the rent and the electric bill, I am doing just fine. While it is disheartening to hear so many sad stories, it brings the news stories about the economy to a much more personal level.

I have plans to get into more areas of volunteering. I attended a meeting today for an organization that is dedicated to teaching people how to manage their pets during a disaster. I still have the SPCA on my "maybe/likely" list. I've also contacted an organization that is building a no-kill animal sanctuary in the area. In the long term, I'd also like to get involved in the area of literacy--anything from reading to pre-school children to tutoring school-age children to teaching children or adults to read.

Helping others helps me feel like I am connected to humanity and to my community. If you're not already volunteering, I encourage you to check out Volunteer Match and see how you could use your talents to help others. It may take a village (to quote Hillary Clinton), but one person can still make a big difference to someone in need.

The joy of...laziness? :)

I took a week off from blogging. It was not a happy week. Nothing serious, just was not in a good mental space--and it's kinda hard to write about joy when you're not feeling it, ya know?

I give myself a hard time sometimes about just vegging out--being a couch potato--or, in Sheri lingo, being a lazy butt. I really took lazy buttedness to a new art form last week. Talk about unproductive. Sheesh. But, ya know, maybe that's just what I needed. It's not SO bad to just lounge around sometimes. I'll keep reminding myself of that. Meanwhile, it seems I've come out of my funk and I hope to be back to writing regularly again.

So, I'm still here. Are you? I hope SOMEONE is reading this. LOL

If you are, please hit the comment button and let me hear ya!

The joy of sleep

I'm a VERY heavy sleeper. I have slept through a fire alarm going off right outside my apartment door (and a fire in my next-door-neighbor's apartment), lightning striking a transformer outside my bedroom window, and many storms that would awaken most folks. I lived most of my life across the street from either a train station or a train yard and was rarely ever bothered by the noise.

There will no doubt be some people who will read that and be envious of my ability to sleep so soundly. However, *I* have always been envious of people who can wake up at the desired time without an alarm--who could just say to themselves "I need to be up at 6 a.m." and then magically awake at 6 a.m. That is miraculous to me. Even WITH a alarm clock (with 2 alarms on it), I was lucky to make it to work on time many days (one of the downsides to living alone is that there's no one to kick your behind out of bed if, in a sleep-induced stupor, you accidentally turn off the alarm and go back to sleep). I hate waking to an alarm--or even the radio. At least with the advent of clocks fitted with CD players and nature sounds, I managed to awake less jarringly in the past several years.

For 37 years, I awoke to an alarm clock at least the 4-5 days per week that I worked--and sometimes even the days that I didn't, in order to go to the gym, doctor appointments, etc. For the last 5 years before my retirement a few months ago, I was chronically sleep deprived because I decided that the only way I could consistently exercise was to do so before work in the morning. I'm one of those people who needs a pretty solid 7 1/2 to 8 hours of sleep a night. I went to bed at a reasonable time on work nights--between 10:15 and 10:30 p.m.--but would read a while and then still often could not fall asleep right away. My alarm went off at 5:15 a.m. on workdays for my workout and then it was into the shower, the whole hair and makeup routine, finding the right outfit, and off to work by 7:15.

I'm finding that one of the greatest joys of retirement is sleeping...and sleeping in. I don't wake to an alarm anymore except for two mornings per week that I volunteer. It is wonderful to just sleep until I awake--whenever that is. Most days, I'm still up by 7-7:30 a.m. and fall asleep much more easily at night than I used to. Because of the heat, I tend to be out the door for my walk--if it's a walking day--by 7 a.m. so that I can enjoy my walk instead of being uncomfortably broiled by the sun.

One of my favorite moments of the day is when I first awake. I lay there and I decide--do I feel like getting up now? If the answer is no because I still feel groggy, I turn over and go back to sleep. What luxury! I have a ceiling fan in my bedroom and I love the feel of moving air on my skin and in my hair as I awake. Sometimes I just lay there snuggled in my high-thread-count sheets and smile like a crazy person with joy.

When I say that I take joy in small things, I am not kidding. :) Taking joy in small things helps me stay in touch with how blessed I am...and staying in touch with how blessed I am helps me to be a more positive person...and being a more positive person makes me a happier and more contented person--both inside myself and with other people. See how that works? :)

The joy of a good book

I have loved reading for as long as I can remember, but I have probably read more in the past 12 years than at most times of my life. I had two inspirations for not only increasing the amount of reading I did, but for pushing me outside the realm of genre fiction, where I had been stuck for many years. They were:

The Oprah Book Club: Back in 1996, when Oprah first started her book club, I read most of the books she recommended in the first year and loved nearly all of them. This was the first time since perhaps high school that I read what I would call "literary fiction," so it really opened my eyes to the quality of fiction that was available. After the first year, I grew tired of the heavy depressive stories Oprah was recommending and stopped reading them.

Bookaccino: Not long after my "year of Oprah," I discovered an AOL chat room called Bookaccino. They were the most well-read people I had ever "met," and chatting with them was always interesting (and usually hilarious)--not to mention that they were a pot of gold in terms of reading recommendations. During the years I was active there, I had scraps of paper taped around the edges of my computer containing lists of book titles that had been recommended to me. Like my first year with the Oprah Book Club, through Bookaccino I discovered authors I'd never heard of and read some amazingly high-quality work.

These days, I mostly split my reading time between nonfiction, mystery thriller fiction and literary fiction. Here are the books I am currently reading:

• The Book of the Dead by Douglas Preston & Lincoln Child. (mystery/thriller) A page turner about the re-opening of an allegedly cursed ancient Egyptian tomb in a NY museum, it requires much suspension of disbelief, but has proved to be highly enjoyable thus far. I would have probably never bought this book if I picked it up in the bookstore, but I saw it on a "borrowing rack" where I volunteer and asked if I could read it.

• The World Below by Sue Miller. (literary fiction) This was passed on to me at my retirement party, with a huge recommendation, by a former coworker. It is a nice, quiet story about a woman who inherits her grandmother's house; upon moving there, she finds and reads her grandmother's diaries and comes to understand more about her. This is a very well-written book and a lovely story but, unlike the above, it is not (for me) an exciting read. Just right for a few pages every night at bedtime.

I just recently finished reading two books at very different ends of the likability spectrum:

• Waiter Rant by The Waiter (aka Steve Dublanica). (nonfiction) Steve tells stories about being a waiter in a high-end NY restaurant--from crazy chefs & owners to addiction-prone waitstaff and annoying customers. He also provides do's and don'ts for restaurant patrons and outlines tipping ettiquette. This was not only a thoroughly enjoyable read (the guy definitely has writing talent), but included some very helpful information as well.
  
  
• Blind Speed by Josh Harkan. (fiction) I have never been so glad NOT to have paid for a book in my life. Like The Waiter, Mr. Harkan seems like he may have writing talent--it's just not displayed in this book. It is a wacky tale of a sad-sack guy who gets a reading from a psychic telling of terrible things to come. Both of his brothers are hugely successful, which only puts a bigger spotlight on what a loser he is. This is 1 of only 2 or 3 books I've ever thrown against the wall when I finished it. The only reason I finished it is that I had an obligation to provide a review of it and didn't feel I could fairly review it without finishing. It was a slow, painful slog, let me tell you.

You can find my reviews of the above two books and many others on Amazon at http://www.amazon.com/gp/cdp/member-reviews/A3JCWGHCVC2ZNF?sort_by=MostRecentReview&display=public&x=8&y=9

Feel free to use the comment link at the bottom of this post to let me know what you're reading these days!

The joy of a long walk

When I lived in the Washington, DC area, my walks averaged around an hour. My favorite walking route there was through an upscale neighborhood where all the lawns were professionally landscaped and the streets were tree-lined. This route was part flat/part steep hill and part sun/part shade. In the warmer weather, it allowed me to escape the sun/heat and do the most taxing part of my walk in some shade. The steep hill in this neighborhood was also a GREAT cardiovascular workout (and not bad for the legs and fanny either!).

When I moved to Delaware in January 2008, I was physically and emotionally spent from the stress of preparing to move plus the move itself. In the weeks just before and after the move, I was getting plenty of exercise unpacking, going up and down the ladder, hefting boxes, etc., so I didn't worry about working out. I got very ill within a few weeks of moving, which further delayed my return to regular exercise. As so often happens, days turned into weeks and then months that I did not return to my exercise routine other than occasional short walks as the weather allowed. Like many good habits, exercise can be a hard habit to get into but a frustratingly easy one to get out of.

When I retired at the end of May, I pledged to get back to my routine of exercising 5 days per week. My first goal was to work out 3 times a week. I have now made it back to where I am pretty regularly hitting 4 or 5 workouts per week. However, my walks here are still shorter. Part of that is because of the heat and the fact that I am just working my way back into fitness after 5 months of inactivity, and part of it is because where I'm living now is a very different landscape--there are almost no trees/shade where I live and what trees there are are not in a place where I could walk. It's also VERY flat, so it can be boring mentally and unchallenging physically.

I went down to the boardwalk this morning with the goal of a longer walk. It was in the upper 60s and the sun was shining blindingly over the ocean. I walked from one end of the boardwalk to the other (a mile) and back (all but a block) and then cut over to nearby Lake Gerar and walked one loop around the pond and back over to the boardwalk where my car was parked. With stretches, it was just at 1 hour. It felt great to go back to a longer walk and I know that, once we get into the consistently cooler weather, I will go back to doing my long walks again. I will just have to put more energy into finding more interesting/fun walking routes here and getting motivated to drive to them vs. taking the easy way of walking near home.















The boardwalk was teaming with life this morning--joggers, bikers, walkers and tourists. There are LOADS of people taking that last summer vacation before school starts. It is easy to get annoyed at people who don't watch where they're going, want to take over the whole sidewalk/boardwalk, etc. Instead, I remind myself of my blessings...I can walk on the boardwalk anytime...I have my mobility...I can walk for an hour if I want! :)

(Picture taken just north of the end of the boardwalk where I start & end my walks and where I come to cool down after I finish.)

The joy of a quiet moment and a cool breeze.

I bought my first home, a 2-BR/2-BA condo, the day after I turned 55--I know, late bloomer much? How many people can say that the first home they owned was their retirement home?!? I LOVE my place and I have had so much fun decorating it. One of my favorite spots is the veranda. It wraps around the back of my place in a big L shape, with sliding glass doors into the master bedroom, livingroom and dining room. When the weather is nice, as it has been this past week, I can open all the veranda windows and sliders and get an incredible breeze through most of the condo. To go a week without air conditioning in August is some kind of miracle for me! My place in the DC area had no cross ventilation so the AC was nearly always on in summer.

I've recently taken to sitting in a comfy chair in the back corner of my veranda in the late afternoon/early evening to read. Yesterday afternoon, I sat out there re-reading The Secret (something I've been meaning to do for a while) and highlighting passages that particularly resonated with me. I have a tiny little stereo out there and listened to Keali'i Reichel, a Hawaiian singer I discovered on my first trip to Hawai'i in 1997. His voice is so clear and pure--it always puts me in a relaxed and serene state--and, of course, because many of his songs are sung in his native language, listening to him reminds me of Hawai'i.

The combination of enjoyable reading, calming songs, strong breeze and the sounds of nature (birdsong, crickets and cicadas) made for a joyous moment of quiet reflection. I know that not everyone has the joy of solitude that I do. Many people are afraid to be alone with themselves and fill up every moment with family, friends and activities. But sitting there, alone, reading and taking in all of those sensations--that is pure joy to me. In fact, I had to force myself to not get in TOO relaxed a position while reading because I've fallen asleep out there a few times! After living in a place for 30 years that made it difficult to get much of a fresh breeze inside, I am finding that just sitting and revelling in the feel of a cool breeze on my skin is a joy in itself. It is like that sort of lazy stupor you get after you've spent the day at the beach--the combination of exertion, fresh air and sunshine.

If you'd like to check out Keali'i Reichel's work, try this link:
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_m?url=search-alias%3Dpopular&field-keywords=Reichel

The CDs of his I own are all outstanding:
Kawaipunahele
Melelana
Lei Hali'a

The joy of a guilty pleasure

Have you ever liked a song, book, movie or TV show that you might have been a little (or maybe more than a little!) embarrassed to admit to others was a favorite of yours? That's a guilty pleasure. There is a large spectrum in guilty pleasures, of course--some pleasures are just barely guilty and shared by many others (though your friends and family may not be among them) and some are deliciously guilty (i.e., you rarely tell others that you're into them).

One of my favorite guilty pleasures is reality TV. Oh sure, reality TV is HUGE (especially in the summer, when there is nothing else to watch) and some of the hottest shows on television are reality shows. But here, too, there is a spectrum. You have your mainstream reality shows like American Idol, which has many millions of fans from little kids up to grandmas. Then you have gems like Living with the Lohans, Celebrity Fit Club, and some of those rock and rap star ones that I don't even know the names of (competing for Flav-a-Flav? yikes). My favorite night of reality TV right now is Wednesday night.

I start Wednesday evenings with Greatest American Dog which, when you get right down to it, isn't that great a show--but, hey, it has cute dogs doing tricks (go Bill & Star!)!

Next is one of my favorites, Project Runway on Bravo. Every season, I get the bug to sew when the PR hits the air. You get a sewing class, a fashion show and the drama of a bunch of creative and slightly crazy people pushed to their limit all on one show. Fab! I adore Tim Gunn, who is sort of a designer den daddy. He has the unenviable job of telling a designer when they are going down the wrong path with one of their outfits. As a designer, you never want to hear Tim Gunn say the words "I'm concerned." Especially when you have 2 hours before the deadline when a model will parade your fashion down a runway in front of some of the most critical judges on television (Elle editor Nina Garcia is straightforward with her painful remarks, while designer Michael Kors is often more hurtful by the jokes he makes about your outfit).

To close out the night, there is Shear Genius--Project Runway for hairdressers. Talk about embarrassment. How about cockily walking around the first few days of the show telling your fellow contestants that you've won an Emmy for hairstyling--and then being the first voted off? Ouch. This show borders on embarrassment more than most of the reality TV I watch. Some of these people are truly talented, no doubt about it, but some of them? Lord have mercy.

Reality show producers are really talented at casting people who will hate each other or at casting big personalities that the audience will love to hate. That's what makes the drama, which often makes for the best ratings. However, my tolerance for bitching and screaming only goes so far. This season of Big Brother, for example, has gone too far on a few occasions--descending into a finger-pointing, in-your-face, screaming throwdown. That is not why watch reality TV.

So why DO I watch reality TV? I love to watch total strangers (usually) of disparate lifestyles and personalities learn how to cope with one another and with the pressure of competition. Many contestants leave reality shows saying that it's been one of the best experiences of their lives--and I think that, in part, is because it often forces them see themselves from a different perspective and challenges them to step outside their comfort zone.

The joy of exceeding one's own expectations

Like many people, I am not particularly enamored with exercising but, for reasons of health and weight control, I do my best to make peace with it. I usually exercise 4-5 times per week and vary between aerobic, toning and weight training workouts.

Power walking is my favorite exercise. As noted in my profile, I am a newbie to the music revolution that is iPod. A few months ago, I bought an iPod Nano, and an armband designed for it, so that I could have better musical motivation for walking. I have been downloading music from iTunes and creating different kinds of playlists for walking--the current tunes walk, the classic tunes walk, the I-don't-feel-like-walking-today easy walk and the I-am-woman-hear-me-roar kickass power walk.

Last week, I downloaded two tunes that were beyond the bpm (beats per minute) that I usually walk. One is a faster workout remix of Gwen Stefani's Cool and the other is One Two Three Go by Belanova (iTunes Store links to both are provided at the end of this post). The next day, I walked to the new playlist I'd created which included both songs as the pinnacle of the high energy part of the walk. Cool started and I tried to increase my walking tempo to match the beat. Within 30 seconds, I was thinking "OH MY GAWD! This is too hard! I can't do it!" and shortly thereafter skipped to the next song. I did walk through 1-2-3 Go but at a slower tempo. I was feeling a little defeated, which is never a happy feeling, much less after a workout.

This morning, I tried the same program again. This time, instead of walking in the narrow no-sidewalked neighborhood roads where I often trek, I went out on the open road and walked the bike trail on the shoulder. I am not a big fan of walking while traffic is going by me at 40-50 MPH, but I do it now and then when I want a change of scenery. When Cool started, my brain immediately sent out the "You can't do this, remember?" signal, but I was feeling spunkier today so I said "SHUT UP!" and engaged the I-am-woman-hear-me-roar power walker within.

I was busting ass down this highway, all (nearly) 4'6" of me chugging like a freight train and, the next thing I knew, I had it--I found the rhythm and kept up with it. I made it the whole way through Cool and about halfway through 1-2-3 Go before I had to take my speed back down. When I went back to what I had been walking to before Cool, it feel like cooldown music! WOW, what a great feeling. Even more, I think, than the joy of accomplishing that was the joy of beating back that voice that says "You can't do this."--to keep going...to not give in and give up...to persevere.

Joy is saying "Yes, I can!" when your brain tells you "You can't."

http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewAlbum?id=270550688&s=143441

http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewAlbum?id=285990712&s=143441

The joy of a fantastic burger.

Don't tell my doctor this but, while I have substantially reformed my eating over the past 5 years to keep my cholesterol and triglycerides in check (because I didn't want to go on cholesterol-lowering medication to do so), I do still take occasional trips to the "dark side."

Today, on my way home from volunteeering, I decided to stop in to one of my new favorite casual places for lunch--the Greene Turtle. It's a sports bar and I am not one who usually enjoys sports bars (not to mention sports), but I really like the food there and service is usually pretty good. Today, I had what they call "The Pigskin"--a burger with ham & cheese on top. Instead of the little tub of mayo that comes with it, I asked for some spicy BBQ sauce.

I can tell you where I found my joy today, people--at the Greene Turtle, with BBQ sauce smeared all over my face and a really good burger in my belly. That was one spicy slice of joy right there. Yummo! as Rachael Ray would say.

So here I sit, back at home, on my ample backside typing about it and wishing I had followed my own damage-reduction rule of eating only HALF the burger--but oh, it was good. Let's just say the Devil made me do it. Everything in moderation, after all. :)

Welcome inside my joy.

I was sitting on the veranda the other day with all the windows open, enjoying the unseasonably marvelous weather we were having. I was trying to finish a book for which I owed a review, but was restless, so I picked up a journal that was laying nearby and read some old entries. It reminded me that I've wanted to try blogging but worried that I wouldn't be able to keep up with it. Now that I'm retired (wheee!), I guess it's as good as time as any to give it a try.

Retirement has been good to me--even though it has only been 2 1/2 months. I feel lighter, happier, and more blessed than ever--hence the name of this blog. It sounds so cliched, but I read "The Secret" last year and have really tried to incorporate positivity and the law of attraction into my life. It has worked splendidly so far, so I can't argue! :)

So this blog will be (mostly) positive thoughts on life, retirement, and finding joy in the little things that happen to us every day.

I look forward to hearing from you and about how and where you find joy.
Sheri