SoCS: If I Knew Then…. Does God Roll Her Eyes?

Today‘s prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday is “new/knew.’” Use one, use both, use them any way you like. Bonus points if you use both. Enjoy!

Thanks for the easy bonus points, Linda, since we can use one to say, Happy New Year! and the other some other way. And also a big thanks to Linda for providing so many prompts for so many weeks and years and helping to create communities on wordpress including SoCS, One-Liner Wednesday, and Just Jot it January which I may or may not do. But Stream of Consciousness Saturday has been a good addiction/addition to my week.

If I knew then what I know now, I would have not made the same mistakes. Would I? But then, I would not be the same person. Mistakes give us compassion for others who make mistakes and hopefully, compassion for ourselves which can sometimes be harder. Forgiving the self…. sigh…. is a process, like most forgivings.

If I knew my high school sweetheart would return to me some day, many years later, would I have gotten married to someone else? I suppose so. Otherwise, I would not have become a mother unless I was a single mother, which I was (unexpectedly) for about ten years anyway. But someone knew. God knew. I guess. Wait. What about free will? That’s too complicated to explore right now.

What I know is that when I was 16, the lady I babysat for told me that if David and I were meant to be together, we would be. That really helped my pining heart and allowed me to go on about my life for 39 years until David and I were ready to meet again.

Some things we just don’t know. Sometimes, we have to put one foot in front of the other and hope for the best. But it’s good to know what we know and admit what we don’t.

I know there are a few things I want to do in 2023. Keeping it simple and realistic: Get back to painting with alcohol ink on tile, continuing the de-cluttering process, keep working out, walking, or doing some kind of physical exercise… and love. The word love keeps coming to me. I want to make time for it – romantic, familial, and platonic love. Having reclaimed my inner introvert in retirement, I tend to not seek friends out. With occasional exceptions, I am content to be home with the dog and cat much of the time. I want to listen to my loved ones more and remember that God has a plan for them. I don’t have to try to fix things for them.

A friend on FB shared a quote:

“If you want to make God laugh, tell her your plans.” – Anne Lamott

(Dang! Coulda used that for One-Liner Wednesday. Well, who says I still can’t just because it came along in the stream of consciousness…)

I like to think that when we tell God our plans, God will laugh but also say, “I’ll take it into consideration,” with a smirk or eye roll.

Does God roll her eyes? Is she rolling her eyes at me right now? Does God have eyes? Of course! In some form or other. All seeing eyes.

If my guardian angels knew how much work I would be, especially in my early twenties, would they have signed up? If I get to be someone’s guardian angel after I die, I’ll probably have someone difficult as payback. Oh, but mine haven’t had to work nearly as hard lately! Except when I ask them to look after my grown up children. I can feel my guardian angels rolling their eyes at that.

But here’s the real lesson: If I knew things were going to eventually work out okay, I would not have worried so much. Maybe I’m still learning to trust the timing.

Well, thanks for reading the ramble.

Recent photos from coastal Carolina:

Neighbor’s Camillias

December 13 ~ Hanging on

Christmas Morning

Christmas Morning Ice

May your new year be filled with peace, love, joy, and blessings!

~~~

For more streams and rules about SoCS:

visit our wonderful host, Linda Hill,

by clicking HERE.

SoCS: When There’s Too Much Pepper in the Soup

Here’s are prompt: ….. for Stream of Consciousness Saturday is “oop.” Find a word with the “oop” sound in it and use it in your post. Enjoy!

Oops. scoop. goop. soup. I like soup. Vegetarian, please. I like to experiment in cooking. Over time there are fewer, oopses, in cooking at least. We bought some cumin that is exceptionally strong and can only use like an eighth of a teaspoon, a pinch at most. Even if a recipe calls for a half a teaspoon, that’s too much of this particularly powerful batch of cumin. We learned this from experience.

Every mistake teaches us something. It was a big mistake to date a creep after my divorce. It was an even bigger mistake to keep on dating him for a year. But I learned more about codependency and how low I cold go. It brought me to my knees even more than the divorce. It gave me compassion for people who stay in unhealthy or abusive relationships. When it finally ended, it was like waking up from a bad dream. Where had I been? I had lost myself for a while there. Now, I appreciate being in a healthy relationship.

But first, I had to appreciate me. I had to learn to love myself again. Was that rebound from hell really a mistake? Could I have learned to love me without it? I don’t know. I wish I had not done it. I regret that rebound. But God can take a messy mistake and turn it into something good.

It’s like if we put too much cumin, or pepper, in the soup. God can put in other spices, other healthy vegetables, sweet nourishment, to counteract the mistake. The soup becomes rich and hearty.

Do we need to make mistakes in order to learn? Or to appreciate the good things in life?

Let’s hope we learn enough to not make more big ones.

Let’s hope we can heal the mess we’ve made of the planet, mend relationships, bridge the divide.

God help us. I know imagine you’re tired of our mess and want us to learn on our own.

Maybe we will. But could you just give certain people a nudge. You know, the ones who put too much pepper in the soup. Help them, help us, help me, be careful with the pepper – my irritability and critical thoughts….

Add some sweet corn, sweet peas, sweet potato, maybe even some mango. Nudge us to use a dash of compassion, a spoonful of empathy, a cup of kindness.

…

Stream of Consciousness Saturday is hosted by Linda Hill. For more streams and rules, visit:

The Friday Reminder and Prompt for #SoCS April 24, 2021 | (lindaghill.com)

When Someone Says You Can’t Do Something, There Still Might Be a Way

Today’s SoCS prompt is, “oh.”

Oh, great. I wrote my post last night, and now it’s gone. Not in the trash, not already published. Oh, well. I get to start over. Seems like whenever I get a win, I also get something for humility. Or the balancing phenomenon can be good – the good thing after the bad – like in my 20s when my car would break down right before I got my income tax refund. This week the balance is in the realm of technology.

Maybe a month ago, I discovered I’d made a typo in the domain name for my art website. This discovery happened after I developed the website, published some posts, and had cards made up copying and pasting the incorrect domain name on the business cards. It was just one letter off. Instead of angelsmermaidsandwoodwork, I had angelsmermaidsandwordwork.  Word Work. Kinda funny actually. I shared my horror on Facebook. (I felt horrible about it. Why didn’t I catch that mistake? How could I have missed it?, etc. etc.) A couple of people suggested I buy the correct domain and re-direct. Let me back up a minute. I had first shared my horror with the support chat person for the hosting entity. He (his name sounded masculine to me) was polite, but not that supportive. He said/chatted that the domain name could not be changed. My stomach fell into the bog of misery. He didn’t offer any suggestions. To be fair, I had first asked him another question, so this was the second problem of that chat. So when FB friends had a remedy, I felt a ray of hope. But I was still bummed out and didn’t want to face another chat session.

After a couple weeks I looked into it wondering if I could do this re-directing thing myself. I bought the correct domain name, but got confused when it came to redirecting or maybe transferring? So I took a break. Then yesterday, I mustered up the courage to chat again with a support person for the host (which is not exactly WP but uses WP.) Guess what! She (the name sounded feminine) chatted that we could just change the name on the website to the new domain. What? The other guy said that could not be done.

I asked for clarification a couple of times. She made it sound simple and that she could do it in a click or two. Schedule it anyway.  What a relief after all that angst and misery about my little mistake. Well, that might be an exaggeration, but not much. I have to check it again to make sure it’s really correct. I held my breath before it came up. http://www.angelsmermaidsandwoodwork.com/  Plus I keep checking for typos. Guess I need to trust the process and take a deep breath. Not to mention putting more content on there. I’m thankful it worked out and that I have an ultra fine point marker to change the r to o on the business cards. Oh, well. The biggest lesson, besides balance happens, is that just because someone says it can’t be done, doesn’t mean it’s true. I was trying to find that quote about being annoyed by people telling you something is impossible while you’re doing it, but the quotes I did find about making mistakes made me realize that the first chat support person just made a mistake. That’s all. Oh well. I  guess everything works out eventually.

For more streams of consciousness, visit our wonderful host, Linda G. Hill at:

https://lindaghill.com/2019/10/18/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-oct-19-19/

Here are the rules:

1. Your post must be stream of consciousness writing, meaning no editing (typos can be fixed), and minimal planning on what you’re going to write.

2. Your post can be as long or as short as you want it to be. One sentence – one thousand words. Fact, fiction, poetry – it doesn’t matter. Just let the words carry you along until you’re ready to stop.

3. I will post the prompt here on my blog every Friday, along with a reminder for you to join in. The prompt will be one random thing, but it will not be a subject. For instance, I will not say “Write about dogs”; the prompt will be more like, “Make your first sentence a question,” “Begin with the word ‘The,’” or will simply be a single word to get you started.

4. Ping back! It’s important, so that I and other people can come and read your post! For example, in your post you can write “This post is part of SoCS:” and then copy and paste the URL found in your address bar at the top of this post into yours. Your link will show up in my comments for everyone to see. The most recent pingbacks will be found at the top. NOTE: Pingbacks only work from WordPress sites. If you’re self-hosted or are participating from another host, such as Blogger, please leave a link to your post in the comments below.

5. Read at least one other person’s blog who has linked back their post. Even better, read all of them! If you’re the first person to link back, you can check back later or go to the previous week by following my category, “Stream of Consciousness Saturday,” which you’ll find below the “Like” button on my post.

6. Copy and paste the rules (if you’d like to) in your post. The more people who join in, the more new bloggers you’ll meet and the bigger your community will get!

7. As a suggestion, tag your post “SoCS” and/or “#SoCS” for more exposure and more views.

8. Have fun!

Remembering the Lessons

Today’s Stream of Consciousness Saturday Post Prompt is: Memory.

My memory isn’t what it used to be. It makes me worry a little about that illness that old people get that starts with an A. But I’m not going to worry too much about that. Memory is a funny thing. We can remember some things so well: the long term memories or those big mistakes we want to forget, but then we get to focus on remembering the LESSONS from those mistakes.

I do want to remember how lonely I was a few years ago when I wanted a partner, but not the wrong partner. Lots of bad memories about the wrong partners. But were they really wrong at the time? Or did they teach me things I needed to learn to appreciate the partner I have now? First,  I learned how to be alone and love myself. Now I’m learning how to be in a healthy relationship.

Memories are such fleeting, fuzzy things sometimes. In writing our memoir, we keep getting the feedback to add more detail. Somethings we remember very clearly even from out high school romance in the early 70s. But many things are fuzzy. Dang, I already used the word fuzzy. This is Stream of Consciousness, it’s okay. Where was I? So, in writing a memoir, sometimes you have to re-create the details and dialogue. We’re keeping honest with the feelings and moods we do remember. But how much detail can anyone remember from conversations that took place 40 years ago?

I do love refreshing these memories. I love knowing that even though there have been some really sad memories, things have worked out. There have been so many challenges that I saw no way out of, but I got through them. We all do. That is the value of memories. Even if we make the same mistake more than once, we learn. We get better.

 

If you’d like to be part of the Saturday Stream of Consciousness prompt, visit

http://lindaghill.com/2014/10/31/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-november-114/

It’s fun and easy!

Here are the rules:

1. Your post must be stream of consciousness writing, meaning no editing, (typos can be fixed) and minimal planning on what you’re going to write.

2. Your post can be as long or as short as you want it to be. One sentence – one thousand words. Fact, fiction, poetry – it doesn’t matter. Just let the words carry you along until you’re ready to stop.

3. There will be a prompt every week. I will post the prompt here on my blog on Friday, along with a reminder for you to join in. The prompt will be one random thing, but it will not be a subject. For instance, I will not say “Write about dogs”; the prompt will be more like, “Make your first sentence a question,” or “Begin with the word ‘The’.”

4. Ping back! It’s important, so that I and other people can come and read your post! For example, in your post you can write “This post is part of SoCS:” and then copy and paste the URL found in your address bar at the top of this post into yours.  Your link will show up in my comments, for everyone to see. The most recent pingbacks will be found at the top.

5. Read at least one other person’s blog who has linked back their post. Even better, read everyone’s! If you’re the first person to link back, you can check back later, or go to the previous week, by following my category, “Stream of Consciousness Saturday,” which you’ll find right below the “Like” button on my post.

6. Copy and paste the rules (if you’d like to) in your post. The more people who join in, the more new bloggers you’ll meet and the bigger your community will get!

7. Have fun!