Category: Uncategorized

As a minimalist, if an order comes to evacuate, it takes five minutes to gather what you have already deemed is important to you.

For us it would be our electronics, our medicines, and a change of clothes. All our important documents are already saved in the cloud but we would grab the box of hard copies from my desk if we had time. We would not mourn the loss of any other physical possessions as we no longer deem them important enough to mourn. Yes, we would miss some of them, but we do not NEED them.

In fact, we do not need to save all our electronics since they could be easily replaced as long as we have our backup drives and the things we store in the cloud. And we could fairly easily get more meds from our pharmacy. But, we’d rather not spend our money replacing them nor fighting with insurance companies for reimbursements.

Our reality is, as long as we get the two of us out, we’d be fine.

TTYL,

Linda

A minimalist can have lots of stuff. A minimalist can have a busy looking living room with lots of art on the wall and throws everywhere. A minimalist is simply someone who uses and enjoys everything they own.

A minimalist couple may own lots of wine. Because they truly enjoy drinking wine. But they will have only one corkscrew–the one that works best for them whether it was cheap or expensive to acquire.

A minimalist may have several photo albums. Because they enjoy reviewing them frequently to experience again they joys of the days pictured.

A minimalist may have lots of camping equipment but it will be only those things they use regularly when they go camping.

A minimalist may have lots of dishes because hosting gatherings is a favorite thing to do.

There is no right or wrong number of things a minimalist owns as long as those things are ones they use and enjoy regularly.

TTYL,

Linda

When we look in a mirror we should see a reflection of ourselves. But we don’t.

Some of us avoid looking in a mirror because we don’t want to acknowledge what we see reflected there.

Some of us look in a mirror only to attack ourselves. Saying things like: “What a loser! “Do you really think you can accomplish that?” “What a mess.” and so on.

Yesterday I watched a video where the author of High Five Habit talked about how we see ourselves and how we can change that vision.

She asked us what we are thinking when we high five someone. Things like, “You’ve got this” “Way to go!” “I’m proud of you”.

She suggested that each morning you look in the mirror and give yourself a high five.

Without actually saying anything.

So I did.

And saw the biggest smile on my face that I have seen in a long while.

And every time I think of it I smile again.

Even when not facing a mirror.

And I feel empowered.

Try it.

TTYL,

Linda

I am old. I rarely start anything new. Should I be doing more?

While wonder about that I started making a list of the roles I have played in my 74 years of living. That list currently has 46 items on it.

Some of the roles were all at the same time like wife, mother, and bookkeeper. The first two have been taking place for more than 50 years and some, like sister, have been all my life.

But all of them have lasted at least a few weeks.

So, I looked at that list and found myself thinking if each of them had been the only one at the time, and if each of them lasted six months, I would still not have to start anything new until I am 90 years old.

So, I am now, once again, content to do nothing much.

TTYL,

Linda

Copied from a friend:

Last night I was in a debate about these new abortion laws being passed in red states. My son stepped in with this comment which was a show stopper. One of the best explanations I have read:

“Reasonable people can disagree about when a zygote becomes a “human life”–that’s a philosophical question. However, regardless of whether or not one believes a fetus is ethically equivalent to an adult, it doesn’t obligate a mother to sacrifice her body autonomy for another, innocent or not. Body autonomy is a critical component of the right to privacy protected by the Constitution, as decided in Griswold v. Connecticut (1965), McFall v. Shimp (1978), and of course Roe v. Wade (1973).

Consider a scenario where you are a perfect bone marrow match for a child with severe aplastic anemia; no other person on earth is a close enough match to save the child’s life, and the child will certainly die without a bone marrow transplant from you. If you decided that you did not want to donate your marrow to save the child, for whatever reason, the state cannot demand the use of any part of your body for something to which you do not consent. It doesn’t matter if the procedure required to complete the donation is trivial, or if the rationale for refusing is flimsy and arbitrary, or if the procedure is the only hope the child has to survive, or if the child is a genius or a saint or anything else—the decision to donate must be voluntary to be constitutional.

This right is even extended to a person’s body after they die, if they did not voluntarily commit to donate their organs while alive, their organs can not be harvested after death, regardless of how useless those organs are to the deceased or how many lives they would save. That’s the law.

Use of a woman’s uterus to save a life is no different from use of her bone marrow to save a life—it must be offered voluntarily. By all means, profess your belief that providing one’s uterus to save a life is morally just, and refusing is morally wrong. That is a defensible philosophical position, regardless of who agrees and who disagrees. But legally, it must be a woman’s choice to carry out the pregnancy. She may choose to carry the baby to term. She may choose not to. Either decision could be made for all the right reasons, all the wrong reasons, or anything in between. But it must be her choice, and protecting the right of body autonomy means the law is on her side.

Supporting that precedent is what being pro-choice means.”