Thank You and Things to Love on a Wednesday

It's turning to spring here and the seductive song of warm weather is swinging down the streets. I want to wear this

all summer. I found this on Dustjacket Attic. Have you been there?? Every post of hers I want to inhabit. Not just wear the clothes but be the world. And there's fun music playing every time I visit. Thanks, Melissa, for leading me to the site.

I do think, however, this would be a good suit choice for me (the cute little skirt) since, ladies and gentlemen, yours truly has some packing on to do. I am on a project of gaining 5-7 lbs. You'll hear about this periodically, as it is part of a project to get me into radiant health. I thought I was there, but actually recent developments have shown there's a system of my body that could use some help and guess what? It gets help by me accumulating some more fat cells. I am working on that tonight with the help of Beehive Cheese Company. I tasted their Barely Buzzed cheddar at Whole Foods and I hope the hunk I brought home makes it until my friend Malachi comes over to eat with me. It's a strong buttery cheddar with a rind of coffee and lavender. ! ! ! ! ! . That's right. And you can taste the coffee and taste the lavender and if you told me I would like that I don't know that I'd agree, but the Beehive folks have a winner on their hands (I'm not alone in thinking so. They keep winning awards. I can't wait to try the Seahive which has salt and honey on it). You can order it online too. Uh oh. I'll tell you all about the health stuff soon, I promise. All is good, just making things better. Meanwhile....

I have a dear friend who is an amazing musician. She got asked to play a pretty major gig this week here in LA. Rehearsals for the job have been hard. We traded messages today about it, and I so know that feeling of "I didn't do well enough", "they wish they had hired someone else", "I'm sure this is the last one I'll get--I'm a fraud and everyone is about to find out". Know what I mean? Yet in listening to her all I could think was "you are amazing enough that they asked you to participate", and "PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE let yourself enjoy this". And that's what I want to say: we spend so much time chasing after things and often when we get them, all we do is judge how we're doing in relation to them, or fear they're going away, or decide we should have gone for something different. I do it ALL THE TIME. And it was amazing to hear my friend--who is so talented at what she does--go through it today and be able to hear an outside version of that voice that can show up in my head.

I know and you know we can't fake feeling better. It feels worse than admitting we just feel bad. But there is an age-old cure that doesn't stop working no matter how many people take it out of the closet and put it to use. It's gratitude. Looking around in a moment and feeling (not just thinking) all the things there are to be so thankful for. In a moment of fear or doubt to look at the situation and say Thank You. Thank you for the opportunity, the challenge, the gift, the bonus, the fill-in-the-blank. It is so simple!! And yet aren't the simple things the ones we often ignore and say yeah yeah I know.....But have you tried it recently? It freaking works. The fear goes away. Or at least gets really really tiny like a dust mite you can sweep out the door. My friend agrees---she just needed someone to say it to her like I've needed her to say it to me. And when the fear goes away guess what we can do instead? EnJOY. Find joy in these things we say we want so much and then don't even experience because we're so locked in our scared heads. And didn't we go after them in the first place because we thought they'd be happy experiences? Here's my challenge to you: set a timer and write for 1 minute as many things you're grateful for as you can for that minute. Repeat til your pen runs out of ink:) Get good at being grateful just for the heck of it and watch how the next time you freak out how fast you can recover.

Then go visit this site if you want to make your list public and read lots about why this saying Thank You stuff is really really good for us.

Thank YOU for reading.