The Porch Postscript

Are you a societal failure?  WOW!  Did I just opened a big can of worms, didn't I?  Yep.  Get your coffee and let's talk about this. I'm a societal failure!  I don't fit the mold on so many levels.  What's more, I'm proud of it!  How have I failed in the eyes of society?  I don't have a degree, I got married later, I don't have kids and I'm an artist. Let's start with NO COLLEGE DEGREE.  That's right, I don't have a degree.  What's more, I don't want one.  Now, let's put things on the table right now.  I'm not against college.  I work with college-bound students five days a week.  However, college isn't for everyone and it shouldn't be forced on anyone, let alone someone who is still trying to figure out what they're interests are. We start asking children what they want to be when they grow up once they're  old enough to talk.  They tout things that don't always fit in the box society has built

Good Morning.  Have you started to settle back into your daily routines?  Or are you still sorting it all out? I'm happily getting back into my everyday groove.  Loved being on vacation and celebrating the holidays, but I'm a creature of habit.  Having a routine helps me stay grounded.  There's a quote I pulled out of something I read a while back that is so very fitting of my nature. Highly sensitive people, having daily rituals in their lives can help them feel at one with their world, instead of just being overwhelmed by it most of the time.   I love my mornings.  They are slow and filled with daily rituals, or habits if you will.  I read blogs, sip coffee, post on Facebook & Instagram, write, enjoy breakfast with my Hubby and work through a yoga routine.  I'm blessed with a part-time job that allows me these luxuries. This year I'm considering adding an art journal to my mornings.  I've been thinking about this for quite a while and late last

Happy New Year!  It's time to get back to reality.  Are you ready?  I'm not sure I am, but I have to go there anyway.  Back to work, time to start the Spring Semester.  Working for an educational consortium comes with so many perks and rewards, but starting a new semester isn't one of them.  Things will be a little bit of a madhouse for the next couple of weeks, but I digress.  Today's post isn't about going back to work, and quite honestly is a little raw and may not be a read for everyone. I started my morning with this yoga video , let's just say I'm a bit off my game.  I let my daily practice laps a bit over the last three weeks.  It's time to get back to it.  Yoga has helped me in so many ways.  The movement and stretching are what it's about for me.  I don't follow a yoga practice for spiritual or meditational guidance.  This practice started as a way to heal my back, and increase movement in my very sedentary lifestyle.  Where am I going

Good morning.  This is it, the last day of 2016.  Over the last week, I've read a lot about goal setting, resolutions, and saying goodbye to 2016. Just a few days ago I was asked about my goals for 2017.  It's always fascinating to me how so many people are always so gun-hoe about "making a fresh start" with the ringing in of the new year, then as the year goes on many of those "fresh starts" are lost along the way.  Why do you need a new year to make a "fresh start" or to set new goals?  But I digress. I confess I don't set goals and I don't make resolutions.  When I was in my 20's I used to fall victim to the resolution trap, only to fail by the end of January or at best late February.  Then I felt terrible for days and beat myself up about the failure.  Then one year I stopped.  I stopped setting myself up for the failures.  Since then I've figured out the connection between the world of goals/resolutions and me.  I feel very

Where have you been?  Oh, wait.  You're probably asking me that, aren't you?  Well, I ran away to paradise for a couple of weeks.  I've been on an island, soaking up the vitamin D, and enjoying 10 hours of daylight.  Did you just read that and think "What?  Who talks like this?"  If you aren't from Alaska and have never lived here then this might sound like some fresh brand of crazy talk, but it's not.  Okay, fine I'll explain. When you live in the Interior of Alaska, you experience the shortest day of the year, known as "Winter Solstice," in a totally different way.  On this day our area has only about four hours of daylight.  No, don't adjust your glasses or your computer screen.  You read that right.  FOUR FREAKING HOURS - that's it!!  You view this day as a right of passage and begin counting the minutes that will become hours of daylight.  You've survived the darkness.  With the lack of light, comes a lack of vitamin D.  

The flu!  Is there anything worse?  Yeah, I can't think of anything either.  I got sick over the weekend, spent most of two days in bed.  I finally feel human again, after three days!  The only upside, I lost 3.6 pounds.  It's a hell of a way to lose weight.  I'll spare the details, but this little bug sucked.  I'm thrilled it was just a few days of hell.  I'm not a good sick person, not that anyone is a good sick person, but I'm a terrible sick person.  I'm whiny, hard to be around, and unable to make decisions about anything.  I also spend a lot of time apologizing for things that I really can't control.  These are all things that are not a part of my natural personality, but we'll save that discussion for another day. So, now that the flu is over where do I go from here?  Moving past the flu, I've added a couple of new blogs to my reading list: Against All Grain - really inspiring to me, as of late I've been giving a lot of thought t

Winter storm warning, it's started snowing since 5:30 am yesterday morning.  It's more of the fine, dry snow.  The kind that limits visibility when a car passes you on the road.  The temp has risen to five below zero.  Regular heat wave here in the Interior.  I'm guessing when I say we got about four to five inches. I've officially reached an age where the cold bothers me.  This is the first winter where cold has really bothered my hands, as in my hands hurt and I'm still looking for the right gloves kind of hurt. Up until now, I've always been loyal to Isotoner gloves.  I love them.  They were the perfect gloves, warm enough, yet still great for functionality.  I own a pair of what I'll call ski gloves for lack of a better description, they're the big bulky kind.  Super warm, but totally dysfunctional for handling anything but ski poles.  Currently, I'm wearing a pair of Hubby's mittens with the flip-top, that exposes fingerless mitts.  Wh