Category: Life’s Zilly Things

The Lure of the Chicken

Admit it. You’ve done it.

You’ve bought the chicken. You were minding your business, heading straight for the veggie section and there it was. The cart.

The smell. The warm roasted herbs and spices hit you at exactly the right (or wrong) time when you’re suddenly ravaged with hunger while running errands. The trouble is, it’s kind of an illusion. Not an illusion like McDonald’s where the bright colored flashy menus show thick, high (like 4 inches high) burgers with brightly colored lettuce and fresh pickles; but which are a stark contrast to what you pull out of the brown paper bag. Stuff which has been shown in experiments to last YEARS without biodegrading.

No, this illusion is a real chicken. After the initial cut and bite- thus rewarding those hungry taste buds- the dryness of this impulse buy finally sets in. Yup, the toasted brown bird that sat under the light (for hours) now sits in the fridge for days drying out even more. Maybe if you’re lucky, you’ll get a chicken sandwich for lunch the next day out of the deal, but no one seems to want the chicken after the initial satiation is filled fueled by the delectable AROMA.

We are not alone in the cult-chicken following. Rumor has it that Costco sells 157,000 of these birds A DAY! And that’s just Cosco. Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe everyone else is satisfied with their chickens. Maybe it’s just me.

I rarely intend to buy an already cooked chicken when I go shopping, especially when I KNOW it will dry out quickly. A couple years ago, I went to Kauai to get Married! I didn’t Intend to see chickens there either. But there they were – everywhere!

Even though I didn’t intend to see chickens they were a nice touch to a beautiful island! And my son would always ask them as they stared blankly at him,”What DO you want?” I’m sure their intent was food and maybe attention.

Act as if what you intend to manifest in life is already a reality. Eliminate thoughts of conditions, limitations, or the possibility of it not manifesting. If left undisturbed in your mind and in the mind of intention simultaneously, it will germinate in the physical world.

Wayne Dyer

Deepok says that whatever you intend to do or say or accomplish, you must SAY IT IN WORDS:

Intentions compressed into words enfold magical power.
- Deepak Chopra

So if intention is so important as Wayne Dyer and others always professed, why we’re the unintended things so prevalent? Is it simply because we forgot to set an intention? If my intention at the store was to only buy sustainable food, I would have never bought it.

So here’s the weird thing, despite (or IN SPITE of?) my dry chicken. Everything I’ve intended in the last year, worked out in a completely different way- key word- WORKED OUT. I won’t go so far as to say, everything happens for a reason, but shizz does happen.

Now here’s a strange twist. I’m not a regular Bible reader but I flipped open my dusty Bible tonight and it landed in 2 Samuel: 19 which mentioned INTENT! I googled Samuel 2 to try to find out what it was about and found this reference in another WordPress blog: Mcburnett’s Musings. Weird. Right next door.

Mephibosheth, in the Bible, was a great grandson of King Saul. He was dropped by a nurse when he was 5 while they were fleeing a battle. It left him crippled. He lived in Exile to avoid being slane until the king sent for him. He was nervous, thinking he was surely dead meat now.

His intention was to just stay alive.

“He repeatedly referred to himself as a dead dog – not a worthless dog, not a despicable dog, but as a dead dog”.

But the King (David) welcomed him, like the prodigal son, inviting him to his table. McBurnett summed it up with this:

☩ We are born into the king’s household.
☩ We were created in his image, just a little lower than the angels.
☩ We suffered a fall from which we cannot recover.
☩  We are saddled with human weakness to which we fall victim. Given our human tendencies, we repeatedly fall below our own expectations and intentions. Our heritage and lineage explains our behavior, but it does not excuse it.
☩ We live in exile. Our father intended for us to dwell in the palace, but because of ancestors’ behavior, we have been cast out and must deal with the consequences. David raised the question, “What of Jonathan’s descendants?” and Jesus raised the question “What of Abraham’s descendants?”
☩ We are redeemed by the grace of Jesus/God, as Mephibosheth was redeemed by the grace of David.
☩ We are in hiding. Like Adam, we hide our shame from God. We are afraid of the judgment to come. Meanwhile, God is seeking us like the lost sheep or lost coin.
☩ The king does not want to find us for punishment, but for redemption.
☩ The king wants us to feast at his table forever.- Mcburnetts musings.

Yes, that went deep quickly. That wasn’t where I was going to go with this post. I feel like I was led around the pasture by the reins. Maybe someone needed to hear it. My takeaway is that sometimes our intentions aren’t God’s intentions for us. I know beyond truth, that my intentions for how I wanted my life to go, didn’t work out and I’m grateful for that! My intention yesterday, when I walked into the store, was not to lose my wallet, but I did. When I realized it had fallen out, I quickly turned around the corner and saw my shopping list bouncing away. My wallet was nowhere to be found. It was never turned in at all. After canceling all the cards and mourning the injustice of it, today I had the freedom and the money (on another credit card that I didn’t have to cancel yesterday) to buy a new wallet. It’s not the same as my loss- then stolen wallet, which I LOVED the design and have kept for over 4 years, but I was able to do it.

Blessings.

Tonight, I’m sitting at the King’s table- ya know- my husband’s; with my oven-roasted chicken in a plastic-covered case, looking vat my Kauai chicken mug, and I couldn’t be more grateful that all is well for the moment. 🐔🐓🐔🐓

The Magazine Rack

Over the last decade or so, we’ve heard all the things the smartphone has replaced.

  • Calculator
  • Camera
  • Rolodex
  • Pager
  • Mp3 player
  • Boom box
  • Computer
  • Typewriter

But what you never hear about is the bathroom magazine holder. For as long as I’ve “played house” which is about 38 years now; I’ve had a basket 🧺 of ‘reading material’ by each toilet.

I can almost say with complete certainty that in the last 10 years, not one book or magazine has been pulled out and looked at except by me to clean the greasy dust of them.

So why do we hold onto completely useless things? Because of tradition? Or habit. I heard an organizer on the l radio say that you don’t need a pile of washcloths in your bathroom by the shower if you never use one. 

That was HUGE for me!

I tend to keep things- just in case someone needs them.

Although I rarely have house guests, there’s always that ‘chance’.

As I looked around at what my attempt of ‘just in case’ was costing me, I noticed the endless half (or less) empty shampoo bottles that I keep because I don’t want to “waste the money”, yet I’ve outgrown the desire to use that brand.

How much is your time/space/clarity/simplification/order/dust-free items/TIME? Worth?

Amazon has it all figured out in this article. But im more interested in what psychological effect the clutter of these items has on a day-to-day basis. Every single thing in our houses has to be

*Looked at*

*Cleaned*

*Moved*

*Stored*

And before all these things- the mental energy has to be conjured up to do each one. This may not seem like a big deal to some, but we really do only have so much mental energy and time. If there is one stressful thing sucking up that time and energy, it pulls it in even tighter.

I guess you could call it Fall cleaning instead of spring cleaning. Practical Perfection has a great fall cleaning checklist.

THE ULTIMATE FALL CLEANING CHECKLIST 

So today is purge day. I got rid of my toilet 🧺 basket! Now I’m working on unused washcloths.

The Lure of the Chicken

Admit it. You’ve done it.

You’ve bought the chicken. You were minding your business, heading straight for the veggie section and there it was. The cart.

The smell. The warm roasted herbs and spices hit you at exactly the right (or wrong) time when you’re suddenly ravaged with hunger while running errands. The trouble is, it’s kind of an illusion. Not an illusion like McDonald’s where the bright colored flashy menus show thick, high (like 4 inches high) burgers with brightly colored lettuce and fresh pickles; but which are a stark contrast to what you pull out of the brown paper bag. Stuff which has been shown in experiments to last YEARS without biodegrading.

No, this illusion is a real chicken. After the initial cut and bite- thus rewarding those hungry taste buds- the dryness of this impulse buy finally sets in. Yup, the toasted brown bird that sat under the light (for hours) now sits in the fridge for days drying out even more. Maybe if you’re lucky, you’ll get a chicken sandwich for lunch the next day out of the deal, but no one seems to want the chicken after the initial satiation is filled fueled by the delectable AROMA.

We are not alone in the cult-chicken following. Rumor has it that Costco sells 157,000 of these birds A DAY! And that’s just Cosco. Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe everyone else is satisfied with their chickens. Maybe it’s just me.

I rarely intend to buy an already cooked chicken when I go shopping, especially when I KNOW it will dry out quickly. A couple years ago, I went to Kauai to get Married! I didn’t Intend to see chickens there either. But there they were – everywhere!

Even though I didn’t intend to see chickens they were a nice touch to a beautiful island! And my son would always ask them as they stared blankly at him,”What DO you want?” I’m sure their intent was food and maybe attention.

Act as if what you intend to manifest in life is already a reality. Eliminate thoughts of conditions, limitations, or the possibility of it not manifesting. If left undisturbed in your mind and in the mind of intention simultaneously, it will germinate in the physical world.

Wayne Dyer

Deepok says that whatever you intend to do or say or accomplish, you must SAY IT IN WORDS:

Intentions compressed into words enfold magical power.
- Deepak Chopra

So if intention is so important as Wayne Dyer and others always professed, why we’re the unintended things so prevalent? Is it simply because we forgot to set an intention? If my intention at the store was to only buy sustainable food, I would have never bought it.

So here’s the weird thing, despite (or IN SPITE of?) my dry chicken. Everything I’ve intended in the last year, worked out in a completely different way- key word- WORKED OUT. I won’t go so far as to say, everything happens for a reason, but shizz does happen.

Now here’s a strange twist. I’m not a regular Bible reader but I flipped open my dusty Bible tonight and it landed in 2 Samuel: 19 which mentioned INTENT! I googled Samuel 2 to try to find out what it was about and found this reference in another WordPress blog: Mcburnett’s Musings. Weird. Right next door.

Mephibosheth, in the Bible, was a great grandson of King Saul. He was dropped by a nurse when he was 5 while they were fleeing a battle. It left him crippled. He lived in Exile to avoid being slane until the king sent for him. He was nervous, thinking he was surely dead meat now.

His intention was to just stay alive.

“He repeatedly referred to himself as a dead dog – not a worthless dog, not a despicable dog, but as a dead dog”.

But the King (David) welcomed him, like the prodigal son, inviting him to his table. McBurnett summed it up with this:

☩ We are born into the king’s household.
☩ We were created in his image, just a little lower than the angels.
☩ We suffered a fall from which we cannot recover.
☩  We are saddled with human weakness to which we fall victim. Given our human tendencies, we repeatedly fall below our own expectations and intentions. Our heritage and lineage explains our behavior, but it does not excuse it.
☩ We live in exile. Our father intended for us to dwell in the palace, but because of ancestors’ behavior, we have been cast out and must deal with the consequences. David raised the question, “What of Jonathan’s descendants?” and Jesus raised the question “What of Abraham’s descendants?”
☩ We are redeemed by the grace of Jesus/God, as Mephibosheth was redeemed by the grace of David.
☩ We are in hiding. Like Adam, we hide our shame from God. We are afraid of the judgment to come. Meanwhile, God is seeking us like the lost sheep or lost coin.
☩ The king does not want to find us for punishment, but for redemption.
☩ The king wants us to feast at his table forever.- Mcburnetts musings.

Yes, that went deep quickly. That wasn’t where I was going to go with this post. I feel like I was led around the pasture by the reins. Maybe someone needed to hear it. My takeaway is that sometimes our intentions aren’t God’s intentions for us. I know beyond truth, that my intentions for how I wanted my life to go, didn’t work out and I’m grateful for that! My intention yesterday, when I walked into the store, was not to lose my wallet, but I did. When I realized it had fallen out, I quickly turned around the corner and saw my shopping list bouncing away. My wallet was nowhere to be found. It was never turned in at all. After canceling all the cards and mourning the injustice of it, today I had the freedom and the money (on another credit card that I didn’t have to cancel yesterday) to buy a new wallet. It’s not the same as my loss- then stolen wallet, which I LOVED the design and have kept for over 4 years, but I was able to do it.

Blessings.

Tonight, I’m sitting at the King’s table- ya know- my husband’s; with my oven-roasted chicken in a plastic-covered case, looking vat my Kauai chicken mug, and I couldn’t be more grateful that all is well for the moment. 🐔🐓🐔🐓

The Magazine Rack

Over the last decade or so, we’ve heard all the things the smartphone has replaced.

  • Calculator
  • Camera
  • Rolodex
  • Pager
  • Mp3 player
  • Boom box
  • Computer
  • Typewriter

But what you never hear about is the bathroom magazine holder. For as long as I’ve “played house” which is about 38 years now; I’ve had a basket 🧺 of ‘reading material’ by each toilet.

I can almost say with complete certainty that in the last 10 years, not one book or magazine has been pulled out and looked at except by me to clean the greasy dust of them.

So why do we hold onto completely useless things? Because of tradition? Or habit. I heard an organizer on the l radio say that you don’t need a pile of washcloths in your bathroom by the shower if you never use one. 

That was HUGE for me!

I tend to keep things- just in case someone needs them.

Although I rarely have house guests, there’s always that ‘chance’.

As I looked around at what my attempt of ‘just in case’ was costing me, I noticed the endless half (or less) empty shampoo bottles that I keep because I don’t want to “waste the money”, yet I’ve outgrown the desire to use that brand.

How much is your time/space/clarity/simplification/order/dust-free items/TIME? Worth?

Amazon has it all figured out in this article. But im more interested in what psychological effect the clutter of these items has on a day-to-day basis. Every single thing in our houses has to be

*Looked at*

*Cleaned*

*Moved*

*Stored*

And before all these things- the mental energy has to be conjured up to do each one. This may not seem like a big deal to some, but we really do only have so much mental energy and time. If there is one stressful thing sucking up that time and energy, it pulls it in even tighter.

I guess you could call it Fall cleaning instead of spring cleaning. Practical Perfection has a great fall cleaning checklist.

THE ULTIMATE FALL CLEANING CHECKLIST 

So today is purge day. I got rid of my toilet 🧺 basket! Now I’m working on unused washcloths.

Opinions Are Like…..Pools….

There’s one in every backyard and they’re full of…….leaves..

Life Lessons from the Pool

I had the entire pool to myself tonight doing laps, enjoying my solo aqua time- as usual, when a tall thin Chinese Olympic swimmer came in with her colorful braided hand woven chindi tote bag. As she stylishly pulled her swimming cap over her shiny dark pixie-cut hair; she placed her “eyewear” onto her delicate eyes to protect them from the savage chlorine and chemicals. I knew for sure that she was an Olympic swimmer, which is why I can confidently state- after the fact. – because she grunted every time she bobbed her head up between perfectly timed strokes.

So I did what any insecure middle age overweight person would do and stopped my pathetic slow motion strokes I had been doing (more like flabby arm belly flops) and took my pink floaty & went in the deep end and did scissors! Yes! My legs were my best quality so I’ll show her how precise my leg splits are 🏊🏅🏋. I was enjoying my dives down under until I got mixed up between the air and water locations and took a breath of water when I shouldn’t have.

As I tried to silently cough and sputter my way back to life; choking out water, chlorine and who knows what other chemicals, along with enough DNA to match 10 evidence tests; Miss Precise walked elegantly and choke-lessly into the hot tub & did a water aerobic tai chi ensemble.

Tired of my own ego- antics, I laid on my back and watched my belly float in the water as I contemplated the meaning of life. 

Who was I? 
What was my purpose?

Just the day before I had been told I’m a doormat by a co-worker. I was also told-THE VERY SAME DAY that I’m an amazing woman and an inspiration. So which do you think I focused on? Who do I Believe? Which words did I ruminate on as I lie in bed trying to sleep?

I don’t deny or discount any one persons opinion of me. They have a right to their perspective based on what they know OF me.
But I also don’t feel the need to explain my story and my struggles to someone in order to change their opinion of me.

Yet, here I am today feeling the same depreciating thoughts of not being enough as I explored in this post.

I have to remember that not everyone gets me or cares to, nor do they have the time for my shenanigans and that’s ok.
I can relish in the beautiful souls that compliment mine.

And, as Max Lucato says: 

Proverbs 16:5 says, “The Lord despises pride.” So, get over yourself!

An elementary boy came home from tryouts for the school play. “Mommy, mommy” he announced, “I got a part. I’ve been chosen to sit in the audience and clap and cheer.” When you have a chance to clap and cheer, do you take it? If you do, your head is starting to fit your hat size.

Demanding respect is like chasing a butterfly. Chase it, and you’ll never catch it. Sit still, and it may light on your shoulder. The Bible says in Proverbs 27:2, “Don’t praise yourself. Let someone else do it.” Does your self-esteem need attention? You need only pause at the base of the cross and be reminded of this: The maker of the stars would rather die for you than live without you. And that’s a fact!

From Traveling Light- Max Lucado

It’s ok to not be the star, or the Olympic swimmer. It’s ok to be Ordinary.


Life’s a balance..

Kinda like trying to float on a pink floaty and not face flop into the water 💦

RBF

That’s right.

Those of you who know what this means probably have it yourself.

Maybe not.

These are questions to ask yourself if you want to know if you have it.

  • Have you ever been asked what’s wrong when nothing is wrong?
  • Have you ever been told you look soooooo tired?
  • Have you ever sat in the hairdressers chair and looked at that person in the mirror not even recognizing the face?
  • Have you ever turned on your phone camera and saw a giant, sad, scary face staring back?
  • How many times can you count the instances where someone asked what you were p’d off at?

Resting Bitch Face.

It’s a thing. Wikipedia even recognizes it saying it goes back to the King of France in 1654 who knew?

And WHO KNEW men, including Eminem could get it? Even Kings! Lol

When I wrote this article regarding how I like wearing masks due to covering up my emotions; I failed to mention the benefits of having my RBF hidden too.

As long as I can remember, I’ve been mistaken as grouchy. So the question comes up: which came first, the chicken or the egg?

Hmm. Maybe the chicken came first.

Regardless, I spent my life as a peacemaker, always trying to get those around me to feel good or “differently”, which would eventually come back to haunt me.

I learned that it’s ok to feel anyway you want. Just like it’s ok to look anyway you want. If others have issues with it, I learned to slyly (and possibly passive aggressively), rebound the ball back to them.

When my co-worker asked me why I don’t talk more, I asked him how much talking would make him feel ok about me? He seemed taken aback.

So how much of a resting bitch face would I NOT NEED to make me popular?  Most people would say it’s all in the first impressions. If you can pull off coming across as friendly instead of standoffish, that’s a plus. 

So imagine my surprise when I found out there’s a cure. Vanessa Van Edwards gives the following suggestions in Her Article. 

  • When you are looking at someone, look up at them. This makes your eyes more open and less downcast.
  • Use makeup to reshape your downcast eyes.
  • Replace your neutral frown with a small smile. …
  • Own it.

I tried for alot of years to replace my downturned mouth for a fake plastic one, but I just couldn’t maintain it. So I guess I’ll just have to own it.

I have plenty of celebrities to keep me company, including my husband’s favorite Anna Kendrick. Lol

Besides, there are worse things……

BaNaNaS

Taken by me, this morning, in my kitchen

What an odd thing to write about, right? But every single time my bananas start to look like this, it takes me back 20 years.

I had this thing with bananas. They were touted as soooo nutritious, which led me to buy them a̲l̲l̲ t̲h̲e̲ t̲i̲m̲e̲. I mean ALL THE TIME.

Even though……

They always ended up looking like this….or worse

Banana past it’s time

I know, I don’t understand it. I think they were liked ok by my family.

I mean it’s not like anyone ever said, “I hate bananas.”

So I just kept buying them.

Vacations were the worst. I’d pack the car with treats, never forgetting bananas. I would see them every time we stopped and I would ask one of my kidlets..

“Do you want a banana?”

“No Mom”

“Why not?”

“Because i just don’t”

“Don’t you like them?”

“Yes, I do, I just don’t want one.”

And that conversation was repeated over and over for some 20 years.

And I’m still buying bananas…..

However, after posting this insanity quote, I realized the correlation to “bananas” & “crazy.”

As an advocate for mentally illness as it relates to drug use; I thought..I can’t be posting this…..

I decided to look it up.

Here’s what I found on the site The Real Dope- no less🙀

It’s crazy! I mean……it’s very interesting.

The story of bananas is a lot shorter and more mysterious than one would think.. Here the Oxford English dictionary can reliably get us back only to 1968, when a University of South Dakota publication called Current Slang reported that Kentucky college students (of “both sexes”) were using bananas to mean “excited and upset; ‘wild.’

In addition, (orange you glad I didn’t say addiction?) a 1935 glossary of criminals’ patois called The Underworld Speaks, “He’s bananas” is said to mean “He’s sexually perverted; a degenerate.” Here the connection to “crazy” is all too plausible, considering that at the time homosexuality was still widely understood to be a mental disorder.

Meanwhile, in what may have been an unrelated trend, by the 1850s or so another slang meaning for nut was “a person’s head” (no real stretch there), and “off one’s nut” meant “crazy.”

How the times change to upgrade on slang words to better fit sociatial standards. . There’s even a new dictionary on the block for slang words. The Urban Dictionary.

The old comedies were the best to depict slang words

But all joking aside, we were watching a preview of Eddie Murphy’s “Norbit” from 2007 and realized that movie would NEVER be allowed nowadays. As with many others like Archie Bunker.

The kids can say these slang words for 2020 such as periodt, boomer, slay, shook & yeet; but we can’t make fun of adults in a movie anymore, or someone will be offended.

I mean I get it. I don’t think he should have called Edith a dingbat. Or Rob Reiner “Meathead” but at the time, I laughed. My parents laughed. Did they know that was emotional abuse? Probably not. There was no internet to tell them. 😜🤪

Including me. For my cause, I hate the word “junkie” or “addict.” The correct term is person with a substance use disorder.

Same thing when mentally retarded became politically incorrect. The Federal registry, a journal of the federal government changed it to “Intellectual Disability.”

Anyway…. That’s my banana post for the day. 🍌.