Thanksgiving Celebration...

It turns out that our Cable company has been having problems with a line which happens to be the one that connects into our area, so the image is all pixelated on and off and they can't find where the fault is. They came, they fixed and they couldn't so while they are fixing their problem which causes us not to have TV when we want it while we are paying for it, they gave us 3 months free of HBO and wouldn't you know HBO works just fine, Hm!

So this morning I'm looking at the  HBO guide and they were showing a Drew Barrymore movie I saw and remembered liking years ago called "Getting in the Car with Boys". I knew the premise and some of the challenges but I really didn't remember the important parts so I kept on coming back to watch. I'm really not one to get hooked on watching TV, rarely turn it on if I'm alone, I rather listen to music or write and TV is a total distractor to that which I love to do.

This movie was different though, as if it was trying to remind me of something I had forgotten. I forgot how incredible it seems to me that we either cannot see the mistakes we are making along our path since we keep making them in different ways at every stage and we always find a way of justifying or we just cannot help ourselves and we are weak or fearful so we have to keep on doing the same things that we already know what the consequences are and handle them at the time, although when that time comes we can't handle the pain and break down, than try something totally new and different and take a chance at a better outcome.

If it's the first one that we are blinded to our own mistakes then I say ouch, because maybe there are a lot of people that chose to remain ignorant and just remain alive however but there are so many others that are intelligent, well read, smart, clever and you're going to tell me they can't see it? they're too afraid? too weak? How does that happen? Why does it happen?

This is a movie about a 15 yr. old girl who got pregnant by her boyfriend. Her dad was a policeman and mom was a loving stay at home mom and she decided to have the baby and winds up marrying the boyfriend who is and ends up always being a heroin addict. You should watch it, it has a good message.

The point here is that when I lived my life in the past before I realized it was I who was allowing all the chaos I remember very well many things I did within that perception and I remember well how I felt when I made certain major decisions, how I behaved, the choices I made, the risks I took and those I was too afraid to undertake and when I remember I actually feel the way I felt then only now I can see it so much better from this angle and let me tell you it's not easy to understand why I made some decisions I made throughout my life but I assure you that will never happen.

Thanksgiving was always and still is my favorite Holiday and one of the few I don't like to see pass without me celebrating it with anyone who happens to be around. In the past few years it has been my husband and I. He cooks these lovely meals for the two of us and I'm just the kitchen helper :) but this year will be different and I will be crossing a line off my "Bucket List!"

My daughter and her boyfriend will be flying in from Los Angeles and my son and his fiance will be coming from home which is just down the freeway and will bring with them their two adorable pekinese that I love and miss so much. I will be sitting around the table spending Thanksgiving with the three most important people in my life and their most important people, laughing, singing, playing guitar, breaking bread together like Poppo used to say, seeing pictures, exchanging ideas, playing board games and most of all being Thankful that we have this new opportunity after all these years to show each other how much love we have. Have the other one feel the love rather than just read about it or hear the words.

In the past it would've been perhaps just another Thanksgiving but I don't see it like that now, now I give thanks every day for everything I've experienced, everything that I Am and moreso for all that's yet to come.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone. Wherever you are may you surround yourselves with Love.

Hugs xoxo
@nit@

"If I Knew Then, What I Know Now!"

                     

There was an article my daughter sent to me January 18, 2011, exactly a year and a half ago, well I was cleaning my e-mails, too much clutter I don’t need in my life right now when I’ve become a minimizer and very little satisfies me very well, so I see this message of hers asking me to please please please read this article and to do it for her and we’d discuss it later.                                                                                                                                                              
   
Now I’m in the habit of reading everything my children take the time and effort to send to me because I love and respect their words and actions. I have learned so much from them, but this article must have gotten pushed down as new e-mails kept arriving and I had to tend to them and 1-1/2 yrs. passed and just when I was truly ready to read what was on this article it found me again, knocked at my door and said to me, “Hey you forgot about Me, remember me now? Are you ready to read me?” 
                      
 I was actually quite excited to have found it and confessed to my daughter what had happened with it and she said, "well good that you found it, you must read it slowly and take it all in, this is the right time for you to read it", so I did and it just blew me away because I recognized so much of me in it, the good part is that even though all this information is pretty new to me, a lot to take in at once, my intuition has been telling me what to do. or maybe I've just been paying attention to what it says and how it feels and seems that finally, in my older age, I’m beginning to do the right thing intuitively. 
                      
 it only took me 50+ yrs. to get it see? so I can’t possibly not do the right thing now that I know cause I am NOT willing to go through any more discomfort than absolutely necessary or waste one more second of my life, once I’ve gotten over to the other side of the river, nothing is keeping me from moving forward with the fulfillment of my dreams, as many as I can, otherwise it’s like we’ve always done, all of us, looking back and saying “If only I knew then what I know now, then I’d do it different to get better results” but that’s always hind-side, that doesn’t even count, since there is no hind-side, what’s important to remember is that NOW I KNOW BETTER, so if I ignore what I know from my own experiences, then don’t you think I deserve to get the pain and all that comes along with it? If you know now why do we keep on making the same mistakes over and over again, don’t you wonder? Here is a link to the article she sent to me, see how much of it if any, you can identify with.

Do you Love to be needed, or need to be Loved?

As with everything that I write, to whomever takes the time to read I send each and every one my Love. I receive quite a few anonymous comments, thank you for taking the time to do that, but if you ever want me to reply you must leave me your e-mail address. 

Hugs xoxo

@nit@

The Mother of the Beautiful Model

I wanted to share with all of you a letter I just wrote to my daughter, because this small exchange illustrates very well the type of open, simple and fun relationship that we proudly experience with each other, sometimes we laugh so hard that our bellies hurt.

Hey dalin, you must remember about a year ago I asked you for an autographed photo of yourself dedicated to my friend Luis, a spaniard whom I met and really really liked as a human being back in Israel when he came to take the Security Course that I helped organize. Well here he wrote to me again reminding me and I wanted to see if I still have enough pull as "The Mother of the Beautiful Model" to get an autographed photo of you to send directly to him cause I know that would make him very very happy and you know your mother not only loves to make people happy!!!! but she is also the VERY PROUD MOTHER OF THE BEAUTIFUL MODEL!!!!!

He is a father of teenagers and a good husband to his wife, so no danger there for ya, just a little infatuation with a beauty like you perhaps, hey I myself would LOVE an autographed picture or George Clooney wouldn't I? not like I think he'd ever want to have one of me the fool!!!! jajajaja  His name is Luis..... and his e mail address is .............................

So anyhow my love if you have a minute help me make a good friend smile!!! Thanks much in advance xoxoxo

Luvs ya like nothin else xoxox

The Mother of the Beautiful Model ♥´´¯`•.¸¸.☆ ★´¯`☆

When Lanny comes marching home again hurrah, hurrah!!!

So about a month ago I’m talking to my daughter on the phone and she was asking me what my life was like in San Miguel, when I realize that what I’m describing to her is ‘Magical’; I must have sounded very convincing because 24 hrs. later she had made arrangements to put together some free time to come visit me, had found herself an inexpensive flight from Boston to Mexico City, and right now I’m on the bus on my way to DF to pick her up and begin a new adventure with one of the two most important people in my life.

It’s been almost a year since we last hugged each other, the phone is great and we stay in touch daily, but there is no substitute for wrapping your arms around your children.

Yesterday I was shockingly reminded of the frailty of our lives with the untimely and tragic death by a freak accident of a woman still full of life and dreams of the future. She left behind a loving family, and amongst them two daughters, who like my Lanny and I, also happened to be best friends. So how do you cope with the loss of your mother, mostly when it was so totally unexpected?

I recently lost my mother, she was only 77 yrs. old, and just before she died, what she wanted more than anything was to see me happy, Although we had been preparing for that dreadful day for sometime because her body was too ill and she was in constant pain, when that day came. what I grieved about the most was that I couldn’t give her what she wanted, because my load in life at the time was rather heavy.

It’s been almost 3 yrs. since the day I lost her, but she will live in me forever, so I needed to make sure and give her what she wanted, and now that I am in a happy place in my life, and make every moment count, I can celebrate her life instead of mourning her death.

So Lanny and I have fantastic plans for the next two weeks. We will tour DF and various cities nearby, visit ruins, museums, go to the hot springs, get a spa treatment, take long walks with Diego, go horsebackriding, etc. but most of all we will create a stronger bond and lifetime memories. I’ll have to get back into scrapbooking because this trip promises to give us enough material to create a great album.

I can’t wait to hug you my child!

To the whole Barbieri family, my most heartfelt sympathy, that comes from a place of understanding and love. May you all find peace in the wonderful memories of a life well lived, and may you continue to find happiness in your own lives, the best way to honor hers.

I want to take a moment to thank all of you who take time to read my words. I write mostly for myself because its through my writings that I manage to view my life from a distance, but like a friend of mine once told me,

"If a tree falls in the forest and no one is around to hear it does it make a sound? " and nothing makes me happier than to know that I made a difference in someone's life, even those of you I don't know and most likely will never get to meet, you all matter to me, so I cherish your comments.

Thank y'all!

Hugs everyone

@nit@

Everyday is a Do Over...

Thank you Ken Grimwood ~ RIP
By @nit@

I am here for a purpose and that purpose is to grow into a mountain, not to shrink to a grain of sand. Henceforth will I apply all my efforts to become the highest mountain of all and I will strain my potential until it cries for mercy. ~ Og Mandino
Many years ago at my husband’s very wise suggestion I read a book from an author I knew nothing about. I hadn’t done a lot of reading for quite some time; I think I was just too busy raising kids, being a good wife and trying to be a good daughter on this “Sandwich Generation” as we’ve been called. http://www.sandwichgeneration.com/.

I had often wondered what would happen if only I could go back and do my life over again, what would I change in order to have a better outcome; but hard as I wanted to go back and relive it, I knew I just couldn’t do that, it was IMPOSSIBLE!!!

This book answered many questions for me, but the most important lesson I got from it was that even if I had been given that chance to go back and do it over, knowing then what I know now, there are no guarantees that the outcome would be a better one, different, no doubt, but better, who knows? Now I know what I should have known then, so I have to take responsibility for the choices I make to have a greater chance at the outcome I want to have.

I just know that right now I am living the best part of my life, I have a multitude of dreams, goals, a very clear vision of what I want to do, have, and most of all what I want to be! And it might take more than this lifetime to do it all, but at least I know I will never run out of things to strive for.

I now approach my life as an "Adventure", with the good and the bad, and that allows me to always hear the “Music in the Background”.
Start your lives TODAY! Start your lives EVERYDAY!

Thank you Ken Grimwood ~ RIP
@nit@

Replay
By Ken Grimwood

Jeff Winston, forty-three, didn't know he was a replayer until he died and woke up twenty-five years younger in his college dorm room; he lived another life. And died again. And lived again and died again -- in a continuous twenty-five-year cycle -- each time starting from scratch at the age of eighteen to reclaim lost loves, remedy past mistakes, or make a fortune in the stock market. A novel of gripping adventure, romance, and fascinating speculation on the nature of time, Replay asks the question: "What if you could live your life over again?"

Linear descriptions of Replay do not convey the book's rich philosophical and spiritual underlying themes. Critic Daniel D. Shade outlined the book's buried messages when he reviewed the novel in 2001:“Yet in spite of all the pain and anguish we go through as we follow Jeff through his search for an understanding of why he is replaying his life, the book has some important things to say to the reader. First, life is full of endless happenings that we have little control over. We should live our lives with our eyes set upon the horizon and never look back, controlling those things we can and giving no second thought to those events out of our hands. Second, given that we only have one life to live (Jeff is never sure he will replay again with each heart attack) we should live it to the fullest extent possible and with the least regret for our actions. Everybody makes mistakes; the point is not to dwell on them but to pick ourselves up and keep on going. Keep moving ahead. Third, choices must be made—we cannot avoid them. The only failure is to live a life without risks. In fact, I believe Jeff Winston would advise risking everything for those you love and for the life you want for them and with them. To not experience risk is to fail. And what does Replay have to say to a poor, old man like me who is still going though his mid-life crisis? Just this—that every year will be new. Every day a new chance to begin again. There can be no mid-life crisis when we are living each day to the fullest extent possible. From what Jeff Winston has taught me, I would define mid-life crisis as a period of selfishness when we turn inward and think only of ourselves. Jeff inspires us to look outward toward others and think less of ourselves.—————————————————————————————————
Kenneth Milton Grimwood (February 27, 1944 - June 6, 2003) was an American author of fantasy fiction combining themes of life-affirmation and hope with metaphysical concepts, themes found in his best-known novel, the highly popular Replay.
Born in Dothan, Alabama, later growing up in Pensacola, Florida, Grimwood took an interest in EC Comics and radio journalism while growing up in Pensacola. In the early to mid-1960s, he worked in news at WLAK in Lakeland, Florida. Heading north, he studied psychology at Bard College in Annandale-on-Hudson, New York, where he contributed short fiction to Bard's student publication, Observer in 1969.
Some of his early novels were written while he was the news director at KNX 10.70 Newsradio in Los Angeles, but the success of Replay enabled him to leave KNX for full-time writing. He wrote under both his own name and several pseudonyms. As Alan Cochran, he wrote Two Plus Two (Doubleday, 1980).
At age 59, Grimwood died of a heart attack in his home in Santa Barbara, California. At the time of his death, he was writing a sequel to Replay. His works are included in the Santa Barbara Authors and Publishers Special Collection at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

An Age for Celebration

An Age for Celebration
written by my daughter at age 17
Brighton Gardens was a beautiful peach building with an enormous green landscape centered in one of the wealthiest communities of Southern California. The retirement home not only attended to Senior Citizens but to High School teens that sought volunteer hours. It wasn’t long before I joined in and added “Bingo Caller” to my resume. B32 I would call out dully, just to hear quiet murmurs and shuffles of old and discolored bingo chips. I would hear snickers from the Queen Bees, talking about how naïve Olga was to put mustard on her sandwich. Didn’t she know how bad mustard was for her cholesterol? Not only was gossiping a commonality, but complaining was quite routine as well. It was always too hot or too cold, there was just no winning with them.

First, there was Doris who’d sit at the living room’s plastic fluorescent couch everyday at the very same time. If someone had “her chair” occupied, there would be a beheading. Then there was Richard, the bachelor, who strolled around in his walker nodding to the attractive women who still had a head full of hair and a mouth full of teeth, dentures that is. Howard played checkers every Wednesday, and every Wednesday he’d forget he was to play checkers. Then there was Mae. She was the most vibrant, hilarious, and childish out of all of them. Oh, she was also the oldest, 103. I never heard a complete sentence from her without a pun to it or a chuckle that anyone who knew her could identify. It was loud and obnoxious, as was she. While I would watch the majority of the inhabitants sitting lifelessly and waiting to die, I would turn and see Mae swinging on by, cackling with her groupies. Her smile could light up any dark alley way, any night in absence of a full moon, any person in need of a bit of happiness. Here I was subjected to all these elderly people who were bitter and angry at life, and there she was making a joke about it. Along with what I used to call a burden, volunteering bestowed insight, appreciation, and clarity upon me, the clouds had finally made room for the sun. Despite the age, a certain maturity is never met and a certain immaturity is never left.

While I used to drag my feet to make it inside Brighton Gardens, I was now walking, fast that is, to get there. I’d stumble through the door first thing after school in search for Mae. I didn’t want to turn out like the rest of them, holding grudges, spewing anger, detaining regrets. I didn’t want to drag my feet anymore, anywhere. For the last 17 years I had been rushing my life; now I wanted to pull the reigns tight. I didn’t want to get old and sit in a chair and stare at the wall! I wanted to go play on the swings, scrape my knees, and get into childish trouble. I was young, I was healthy, and I hadn’t been satisfied with my being. I had been too preoccupied with the latest Hollywood trends and the gorgeous boys with the baby blues, that I hadn’t even appreciated my existence, my youth. I had always been worried about something, but I didn’t want to be worried anymore, I wanted to be Mae.

That was my turning point in life. My perspective and my attitude, changed. I discovered a difference in me, a positive one. I had a bounce to my step and an optimistic touch in my soul. I had never been so passionate about being who I was! I let go of my regrets, forgave the guilty, and just smiled. I had been at Brighton Gardens for seven months, and every hour I spent there was a blessing, for it opened my eyes to more than anyone could ever imagine. I walked in one day, with that little bounce, and searched for Mae’s presence. She wasn’t at bingo, she wasn’t in the living room or the dining hall, Mae was no where. As I learned, she passed away the night before. The receptionist told me stories about how she had difficulty breathing. While she was being reeled out with an oxygen mask attached to her face, she was laughing and hitting on the firemen, calling them “Cuties” and “Sugar Muffins.” I was told she proclaimed that if it was her time to go, at least she was going out with a set of good looking men. I will never mourn her death, but celebrate her life, as I now do with my own. Thank you, Mae!