TToT: Where Everybody Knows Your Name and It’s Raining Compassion, #10Thankful #LoIsInDaBl #HisNameIsGeorge

“Nothing was done for us, but the result was that we lived in our imagination.”

–Harper Lee on childhood

I decided to combine my latest TToT with Love Is In Da Blog this week and

SONG LYRIC SUNDAY.

I was asked what my favourite song from childhood was.

Cheers Theme Song

This one came to me as I watched a tribute special to James Burrows, director of such television sitcoms of my childhood and beyond as: Cheers, Frasier, Friends, The Big Bang Theory, Mike & Molly and several others like Taxi and Will & Grace.

I thought back on all the kids songs I loved when I was one and there were many, but not one song in particular came to mind. Then, I thought about how it didn’t necessarily need to be a children’s song.

TEN THINGS OF THANKFUL

I am thankful for my childhood. That’s a bit of a broad over generalization I realize, but listening to “Where Everybody Knows Your Name” made me miss it. I had a good one. Sure, I could very well be idealizing it now, but if it had been unsafe or unkind I wouldn’t be able to say it.

Sure, I had things that were hard, but they were not things that all the love in the world couldn’t help overcome, which is what I did have in abundance.

I hear that theme song from Cheers and I am automatically transformed back to my early childhood, as far back into it as I can recall anyway, with the way my family would all be in the basement and around the TV. That was back when a family really only had one television and we did not have cable, let alone a satellite dish, so our choices were limited and all the family would gather and watch one show, at a time, together. No electronic devices other than the television set. No cell phones or tablets to distract us from being a family. Not even a computer at that time.

I am thankful for the violin.

I may be including this one in my TToT every week from now on, as I learn and practice and, hopefully, improve.

I am thankful for my uncle’s patience and the time he’s giving to showing me the ropes.

He came over this week with “Violin For Dummies” and I was not offended.

🙂

He’s family and he’s not that far off. I’ve got a lot to learn. He’s got me working on a scale, starting with the open G string. Little bit at a time.

I am thankful for another successful Writer’s Circle this week.

The mystery object was a roll of duct tape with peace signs on it. Yeah, you heard me. I’ve heard of duct tape with bacon and with Duck Dynasty on it, but I had to struggle and I still needed the other group members to remind me what a peace sign looks like.

Since I couldn’t really picture it clearly, I decided to just write my story for the evening about the tape and leave the peace for another time.

I received one comment that my story was “cute”. Not sure if that’s exactly a good thing, but I took it and a few other comments that left me satisfied.

I am thankful for how well my brother is doing in his music course.

He shows me his assignments and they are songs he actually had to put together. The teacher gives all the students all the separate parts of a song, each instrument in a separate file, all the vocal tracks, and it’s the student’s job to turn them back into a song. It’s like a giant puzzle, but when he showed me the song and I realized he’d put it together from bits and pieces, (mixing as it’s called) I was so proud. I am so proud.

I am also thankful my brother agreed to come along, to check out what the game of Dungeons & Dragons is all about with me, as it was only my second time and I wasn’t sure yet if it is for me or not.

He knows me so well that I figured he might be able to give me his opinion on how he thought I seemed to fit in.

I am thankful that there have been a few days this week where I could feel spring in the air.

Of course, I enjoy February, bit of a bittersweet bond with this month, but I don’t usually like signs of warmer weather around here when it’s winter still.

I like winter when it’s wintertime, but, a few times when I felt the warmth of the sun and smelled the fresh spring scent on the breeze, I did start to look forward to more of that, I must admit.

I am thankful for

Here are all my posts for #1000Speak since its inception.

https://kkherheadache.wordpress.com/2016/02/19/celebrating-a-year-of-compassion-1000speak-loisindabl-bloglove/

I am thankful my brother talked me into listening to some relaxation/meditation/trance tracks.

I resist often, but I do need any ideas I can take to help me still my thoughts from time to time.

Waisting All These Tears – Cassadee Pope

I am thankful for Harper Lee and the story she created.

I thought about writing a tribute to her here when I heard the news, but I’ve honestly already written so much about her on this blog over the last year, with last summer’s release of Go Set A Watchman, that I felt I had already said it all, as best as I could, in those previous posts.

RIP Ms. Lee. That’s all that’s really left to say.

TToT: Making Winter Great Again – Take It Easy, #10Thankful

“I have decided to stick to love…Hate is too great a burden to bear.”

–Martin Luther King Jr., A Testament of Hope: The Essential Writings and Speeches

There was a tragic school shooting, here in Canada, at a high school in Saskatchewan. The snowstorm to rival all storms hit parts of the US. Sounds like a rough week, right?

As for me, I keep letting social media get to me, but if it weren’t for Facebook I still would have heard the news. The other day there was another birth announcement, in the family, and even though I am incredibly happy for the new parents, I found myself having a moment.

Why does it happen for some and not others? How will I be okay if it never happens to me?

I need to keep writing it down, reasons why I am grateful, and marking the little things that are infused with beauty and sweetness. That’s why I am here, to find the good in life when sometimes, well sometimes it just sucks.

TEN THINGS OF THANKFUL

For finally getting to live in such a hip country.

The New York Times Gives Backhanded Compliment, Describes Canada as “Suddenly…HIP?”

Finally!!!

Trudeau praises Waterloo’s brilliant, innovative minds on world stage

Thanks for making us hip Justin.

🙂

Okay, so I’m aloud to begin with a bit of a sarcastic thankful once and a while, aren’t I? Can I still count it?

For snow, even when it’s cold, which it always is.

🙂

(Just a little something for any of the US bloggers who read the TToT, to maybe cheer them up, if the storm didn’t knock out power that is.)

Hashtags: #AwwHellSnow

I don’t know why, but I include snow in this list. Perhaps it’s one of those hip Canadian things.

🙂

For perspective, as shown by this photo, and which connects nicely with my next thankful.

Both Sides of the Story – Phil Collins

For forgiveness and the chance to explore my thoughts on the concept.

Both Sides of the Forgiveness Story, #1000Speak

Getting a little perspective on a situation often leads to a better chance for forgiveness.

For rejection.

I can’t believe I am saying this. I sure didn’t feel it in the moment, but I am trying to let each rejection of my writing give me more and more of the determination to keep working at it.

It was painful, just like one of those first rejections I received, almost exactly this time, on another cold January day a few years back.

I don’t know yet if I believe all that stuff about not giving up, letting rejections fuel you, but I know it’s true deep down, somewhere. Even the biggest writers have been rejected at one time. Not every place is going to love or want your writing. I am just thankful I have found the nerve necessary to share, to try, and to get back up and try again.

For an unexpected reminder of what colours look like, something I miss everyday, and from the beautiful mind of a child.

If I Were a Crayon

I apologize for all the pingbacks Lisa.

🙂

For a successful vidchat with blogger friends.

It took a couple weeks to get back to it, but I’m glad it worked out for so many.

There they all were, and there I was, communicating through my phone.

That technology really is pretty cool. Speaking of technology…

For past, present, and future.

As I wrote out some homework of sorts for the writing workshop I was attending in the morning, I thought about days of homework past.

I needed to be able to just read out loud in class, so I pulled out my old, heavy duty Perkins machine. I had forgotten how hard on the arms it can be to jam away at those keys.

The next morning, at the workshop, I brought my Braille Sense, instead of my laptop this time. A Braille Sense is an electronic typewriter of sorts. I could write braille, like with an old broiler. There are three advantages: not so heavy a machine to carry, easier on my arms, and much quieter in class. My old schoolmates know what I mean and only wish I had today’s technology back then.

😉

Technology is always improving, bigtime since I was growing up, and a full tactile/braille tablet is up next. I can’t wait to get me one of these.

For the second of three Saturday morning writing workshops I’ve been attending with a wonderful instructor and for the one who made sure I didn’t miss out. Thanks for the ride. Thank you both for giving me the chance to do what I love.

In the creative writing workshop I am doing at the moment the writer/instructor is helping us appreciate moments, as we write, small things in life.

This is kind of what Lizzi is speaking of here:

In Small Moments

It’s what Carrie was speaking of, to one of the mothers in the group, that the special things and the funny things and the wise things come and go and come again, but some things are over and gone. Small moments. Then Lisa found a way to capture one of them, a snapshot of what her own child is thinking and how she sees the world at a young age. The world will never get something quite like that again. Now it’s caught in writing.

For some new friends showing me a new experience.

I don’t know how many of you know anything at all about Dungeons & Dragons, but I knew only what The Big Bang Theory showed of the game.

I didn’t want to go in with too many preconceived notions. I did not want to judge until I saw for myself.

I guess what I was thankful for about it was the chance to not be myself, not really, but instead to become whatever else I wanted, for a few hours. I was a neutral sorcerer. I wasn’t Kerry for a while and that break from the harsh realities of life was the welcomed part, that and laughing with some interesting people.

The Eagles – Take It Easy

“Take it easy. Take it easy. Don’t let the sound of your own wheels drive you crazy. We may loose and we may win, but we may never be here again.”

We say goodbye to Glenn Frey, another rock musician, but these words calmed me down this week when I needed to hear them.

“Life is terribly deficient in form. Its catastrophes happen in the wrong way and to the wrong people. There is a grotesque horror about its comedies, and its tragedies seem to culminate in farce. One is always wounded when one approaches it. Things either last too long or not long enough.”

–Oscar Wilde