Archive for July, 2012

THERE’S A BLOG IN YOUR FUTURE

If you found me the first day I put up a blog, then we’ve now shared cookies and hot tea three times. So, I decided you deserve to know what’s coming up here in the future. There is a possibility that I might change the order of things if some surprise pops up in my life, but so far, here are the titles of the blogs in your future.

IT’S A HAPPY DOG DAY
I’VE OWNED SIX FUNNY CATS
DON’T LET YOUR COOKIE CRUMBLE
HOW TO DO NOTHIN’
HERE’S HOW I DO NOTHING
DISASTROUS ADVENTURES IN COOKING
OVER-LAUGHING IS THE GOAL
FIVE HORSE TALES
AN APPLE A DAY HELPS THE KIDDIES PLAY
SEEK AT LEAST A LAUGH A WEEK
WISHES, LIES OR DREAMS?
IDENTIFYING VOICES CAN BE FUN
THINGS THAT MAKE US LAUGH
HOBBIES SHOULD BE FUN
TIDBITS ABOUT BATHROOMS
A TINY HISTORY OF VINTAGE ADVERTISING
COMMUNICATION IS MORE THAN TALKING
CRUISING IN A STORM
SPAIN IS A TRIP
SPAM: EAT OR DELETE?
FAMOUS GROUPS OF WOMEN
I SAW THE 1st ICE FOLLIES SHOW
SOME YARNS ABOUT KNITTING
STEP RIGHT UP
SCREAM FOR ICE CREAM
POSTING AND TROTTING ON FACEBOOK
ARTISTS MOSES, HUNTER, MARTIN AND O’KEEFFE
THE DAYS BEFORE GPS

Since my plan is to blog once a week, that ought to take u into next year.  Please join me and comment.

COMING NEXT:  It’s A Happy Dog Day

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I LOVE TO WATCH KIDS LAUGH

Hi!  I’m so glad you knocked on my internet door again. Yes, the teapot is hot and chocolate chip cookies are, too. Help yourself.

But you are probably eager to say to me, “Who doesn’t like to watch kids laugh?”

My answer is that I think a lot of people who enjoy watching kids have fun don’t really watch how they laugh.  When kids laugh, it literally comes from their toes and every part of their body.

For a half hour, three afternoons a week, I have the extreme pleasure of watching kids laugh as hard as a human is capable.  The kids, mostly boys, come into my classroom after being dropped off by one of the Boys and Girls Club busses.  They arrive in spurts as they come on different busses so as more kids pour in, the more the laughter escalates.

Fortunately, I have empty space where kids can throw around a Nerf ball and play Twister.  Now those games are fun, but when ten first grade boys get together right after being in school all day, you are looking at laughter that’s so intense, they end up rolling and squealing on the floor.  You just want to bottle that joy because you know you could make the whole world happier.

What really interests me is that it takes so little to make the kids laugh.  As grownups, we look at them and think”silly.” They are just being silly.  Yes, they are.

These kids aren’t trying to score a homerun with the Nerf ball or be the winner of the Twister game; they just want to push, shove, roll around on the floor, and generally resemble a litter of little puppies. They are not trying to injure each other; they are trying to interact with their friends in a very primitive way.

How old are we when we begin to lose that spontaneous sense of joy?  What causes us to lose it?  It’s understandable that we need to stop pushing, shoving and rolling on the floor at some point, but why don’t we substitute other ways of experiencing joy more easily?

Do you have ways of finding joy and unbridled laughter in your life?  It’s your turn to talk now that you drank your tea and ate your cookies.  I look forward to hearing from you.  That’s part of my joy.

COMING NEXT:  There’s a Blog In Your Future (Titles of b

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EAT COOKIES, EXERCISE AND KEEP ON LAUGHING

Hello again.  Thanks for coming back.  The hot tea is in the pot and the chocolate chip cookies are on the plate.  So let’s have our second conversation.

 

Getting right to the point–why are all the foods we really enjoy on that list of those Not Good For You?  Of course I am thinking specifically of the cookies right now.

 

The word other than cookies that I mention a lot in my book, “Ticked Off And Tickled About It,” are the words “mother and/or mom.”  And mine fits right into our little chat here about foods that are not on the food triangle or circle or whatever shape the food police have come up with lately.

 

Mom lived to be ninety-eight years old.  She did that in spite of the fact that she loved sweets and ate a lot of them.  She hated vegetables and ate as few of them as she could get away with.  Exercise should only be walking, was her idea, and it should only be conducted if you needed to get from one place to another.  She also liked a glass of wine now and then.  However, what got her in the end was that she smoked up until the last eight years of her life.  So she ended up on oxygen.  The woman was otherwise so healthy that she probably would have lived to at least 100.

 

Anyway, it was most likely that those good ole genes (not the blue ones) kept her alive together with the fact that she nearly always had a very positive outlook.  She also had a great sense of humor.  She couldn’t remember how to tell a joke, but she was always making people laugh without half trying.

 

Since writing my book, I have learned so many interesting facts about laughter.  I knew of course that it has been called “the best medicine” though I don’t know who first said that.  Not only are there websites and blogs and books about how much laughing can keep you healthy, but I even found out that there are many Laughter Clubs connected to Yoga all over the world.

 

Personally, Pilates has always been my exercise choice, besides a daily half hour walk.  When I was in my thirties and forties, I ice and roller skated a lot.

 

The great thing about exercise, if you want to keep your weight down, is that it burns off the calories you gain by treating yourself to a chocolate chip cookie at the end of your workout.  Works for me.

 

Now it’s your time to comment.  I can’t wait to see what you have to tell me.

 

COMING NEXT:  I Love To Watch Kids Laugh

 

 

 

 

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