2020 Finally Delivered!!
Who had chocolate snow for pandemic bingo?
Chocolate snowed down upon Olten, Switzerland covering the town industry a layer of chocolate due to a malfunction with the venting system at a chocolate factory.
That is my kind of malfunction!!!
@lovendures Thank you for this link. I read the article and copied it to my desktop. So many helpful points, including this one:
Picture the recipient before you begin writing. Instead of thinking about yourself and what to say, envision the other person. What do you like about them? Why are you grateful to have them in your life? Have you ever learned anything meaningful from them? -- Jamie Friedlander
It reminds me of something I ask myself when I am scared for someone. I ask, what are their strengths? Or, what am I grateful for about that person? I realize now that the answer I receive is what they also need to remember about themselves to help them through.
@lovendures I absolutely adore this idea!!!! I have always loved reading.. and when I was a little girl.. I used to write my Grandmother ( who was a Guiding Light and Beacon who got me through my very difficult childhood) and when times were tough I would hold them close and "pet them" as I read them in the dark of room under the covers to assure myself I was indeed loved by someone on Earth. I also, in later years, treasured letters from pen pals around the world and of friends that went to Vietnam that counted on those letters from home.
I had actually begun to think of writing various friends that I no longer have physical access to. Thank you for the nudge I needed to think it wasn't silly and old fashioned. I DO have all those stamps I bought to support the USPS :-)
I wasn't sure where to post this. So much is going on these days, it's overwhelming.
I woke up sad and irritable. I turned on the tube and as I drank my mocha java, actually watched a 1/2 hour infomercial of Time Life's Best of the 60's cd/dvd compilation. I was mesmerized, yearning to go back there. I wanted a do-over.
I logged onto my computer and searched Time Life. Instead, the attached video caught my eye.
Watch the first video first. The second explains the purpose behind it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nw5KQMXDiM4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3oPq1KV8524
Remain hopeful, everyone. Love and peace to all of you. ?
Your post grabbed my heart. The image of you under your covers in the dark reading letters of love fro your grandmother-wow. I am sure your grandmother knew you needed those letters. It is a tribute to her that she in fact wrote them.
Yes, you did by those stamps! Time to use them I guess!
Maybe it is time to send Christmas or New Year cards again.
Maybe instead Thanksgiving cards thanking people.
I am so thankful you posted those videos today.
I had seen the first one not long after it was created in the spring. Loved it then and loved watching it again these months later.
Because of your post, I was inspired to see what more recent things have been created by the film maker and discovered this one. It is so appropriate for what our country (and world) is facing, not simply the virus but this election, the environmental crisis and human rights, ...all those things all the things we believe in and hold dear. How the fear of what is now and what might be later is affecting us today.
The video is a light.
@lovendures She did... and.. her love for me and mine for her...was the beacon of Light shining between us and I had my first OBE's traveling to her at night when things were very bad at home.
@lovendures, so funny that you found the Doubts that Creep video today. I also discovered it this afternoon and was planning to post it. Absolutely love it. It brought me to tears, which I've really been needing to feel and express. Thanks.
About writing letters and sending cards -- I've been doing that ever since I was a small child. Something our mother encouraged us to do, and it stayed with me. Even with the convenience of social media, emails and texting, I still prefer sending a handwritten note or letter. I also love purchasing the perfect card for a friend or family member and including a personal note. I'll probably be doing that until the day I pass on. When I was working, I became the designated from-the-group card purchaser because I was told I had a knack for finding the perfect card. I don't know if that was true, but I really enjoyed doing it.
@journeywithme2, thank you for sharing the stories about your grandmother. It really touched my heart. I had a similar bond with an aunt, and cherished her beautiful letters of unconditional love and support.
Well, we must be in harmony with each other. I also had watery eyes watching it. Some inspiring wisdom is shared, it is like a gift to each who watches.
It is so good to see you here right now Dee. Sending you a Big hug!
I feel your hug, dear friend. And with a smile, I'm sending one right back to you.
This made me laugh then i imagined myself trying to scoop up as much as i could gather and all the wonderful comforting cups of hot cocoa it might make especially if it rained sugar next. Then cakes, cupcakes, and brownies flashed through my mind
Then i woke up from that dream into my current world that realized my Covid 15 lbs were suddenly Covid 30. Oh phooey! There went that dream!
I loved this idea of writing letters so much it so filled my heart of days gone by and the special richness of entire decades of communication before computers and smart phones
I used to be a huge letter writer. Loved gifts of fancy stationery, and receiving a "real" fill your own fountain pen with bottles of ink in all of the colors of the rainbow, and yes i even used my own version of paraffin sealing wax!!
Those were the days! I had a pen pal in Oregon who came to Alaska for one year when her Army major father was transferred to a different command position in Juneau as a division leader.
We lived in the same town and yet we wrote and delivered hand written letters to one another! It was creative artistry combined with our 6th grader sense of "elegant" imagination living in a 1960 town with one grocery store and our very first "five and dime" corner store when 5 cents bought a candle for pretend sealing wax and a dime TWO large candy bars--one to eat and one to share.
We reconnected 50 years later when she treated me to a nice lunch and a glass of wine in Oregon. We reminisced for 4 solid hours about being in the 6th grade. When we each shared what we remembered most about each other she remembered how smart i was (haha blush blush-- it was sixth grade!) and i remembered our non-stop 3 month long Monopoly game that lasted ALL summer and her beautiful pens, inks and stationery that she shared so generously as we practiced fancy cursive on pastel stationery. 25 cents for a big thick notepad and another 25 for a pack of envelopes.
Even after she moved away the very next year, we wrote letters back and forth for a decades though our bottles of ink had long dried up and I lost my treasured fountain pen in college. Memories of a lifetime, friendship, fun and a love of creativity combined.
I found quite a few letters, cards, and even notes during my big Covid-19 attic cleanout from family and friends that the flood of memories had me in such tears that on many days cards, letters, news clippings brought me into the love and beauty and memories so strongly it was as if i was right there in every treasured event all over again. Births, deaths, marriages, and celebrations of even the tiniest of things.
I still treasure the much rarer "real' mail, greeting and note cards. During good times and challenging ones they touch my heart and fill my soul.
@deetoo Thank you. It’s so lovely to listen to rhyming in his calm and soothing voice. A counter to the vitriol on Twitter. Take care.
Beautiful, beautiful video. We were up in the Santiam Wildfires area helping family who'd had repercussions or exterior damagea from the high winds, smoke and ashes and and as usual, I was the canary in the coal mine.
Even with an N-95 mask and finally, finally some beautiful sunshine peeking through the smoky skies I reacted to the smoke long before we were even close to the area. Itchy, swollen eyes, sneezing and coughing from the intensity of---well just about everything there both physical and emotional.
The energy of those often huge losses and yet the invincible fortitude to rebuild. The energy of what is truly already PTSD from the weeks of forest fires, evacuation, staying at others homes garages, at state evacuation spots like Fairgrounds or big event centers, big parking lots, or in hotels, or in their cars, was still very scary challenging or downright devastating on all of them.
Now there's still that but there is also a strong spirit of resilient spirit as so many others help with getting things cleaned up, picked up, put back, or help with plans abd creating a spirit of hope by creating an energy or community togetherness as many, many entire communities face the unbelievable challenges of even how to begin to begin to start all over again.
Sdeetoo the sunshine, the busy activity of our family and the absolute good cheer of little children so matches this enchanting YouTube story reading video of a dad and his own little ones which so amazingly explains why the challenges of the coronavirus pandemic has led to so many good things blossoming forth after our many shared challenges.
I see it in the amazing people and the generosity of others created a similar response in the Canyon Strong people of the massive Santiam Canyon fires.
Brings tears to my eyes and a strong surge in the energies of my heart to know that we will get through all things together.
It may take years and years for rebuilding but bit by bit we'll also make it through however long it takes to learn to deal with the coronavirus and/or all of these current political reper-cussions of one symbolic "concussion " after another hits our people and our land.
Bless you @deetoovfor the wonderful story video and @Lovendures for the wonderful energies of your letter writing post and linking article.
We are the richer and the wiser for your contributions and love
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@pikake, so great to hear from you. Yes, Tomos Roberts has such a beautifully calming voice. He’s published a children's book, The Great Realization, with that same message in his video.
@michele-b, have you checked out the other video from that same gentleman? It's called "Doubts that Creep." Lovendures attached it to her 9/20 4:13pm post, above. I thought of you and your loved ones as I watched it. It brought me to tears.
I did. Both were phenomenal! And yes, this us how we all are getting through-- well, pretty much every thing in all of our lives. Eventually that resilience builds up and while another terrible thing happens we somehow not only all keep going but we reach out to help others keep going too. We are all little tribes and bigger and bigger tribes too. In the end we're just One. One big tribe.
But during all of that we don't have to like our terrible things or even like the beliefs, actions, opinions or choices of our extended bigger tribes!
I like to always revert to my balance point of being a character in a movie, book or comic book and nothing bad that is happening is real only the good i feel in all of our highest ? s. ?
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