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PHOTO PROMPT © Jan Wayne Fields

Dr. Porter entered the exam room and stopped short in mid greeting and looked in astonishment at his patient after skimming the chart in his hand.

“Is something wrong?” David asked

“Your blood pressure”

“What about it?”

“It’s the lowest I’ve ever seen it. In fact, it’s lower than mine and I’m twenty years younger and I workout. What have you been doing?”

David smiled

“I gave myself a radical stressectomy and quit my corporate job. Now instead of selling insurance, I sell these.

He showed the Dr. a photo of his flower cart.

“Are you hiring?”

The beautiful sounds of silence

One of my least favorite things to hear someone say (sometimes) is “We need to get some tunes goin’ ” This is most generally when I’m in a room alone with absolutely no music, television, or audio stimulation of any kind. Just silence. And then someone walks in and makes the above declaration thereby making the decisios for both of us not only is quiet time over, but in some way unaccepatble. *grr* Let’s break that down to the cellular level shall we? There is a tremendous differnce between a need and a want. Humankind’s three basic NEEDS are food(which includes water), shelter, and clothing. Everything else really is a want. When I was younger I never would have entertained the notion of sitting in silence while I read, crocheted, knitted or anything else. The first thing I did in the morning (pre social media) was to turn on the TV while I was getting ready for work and on the weekends it stayed on until I went to bed. Background noise. I gotta have background noise. Don’t get me wrong most times I do like to have music or an audio playing while I work or if I’m doing a craft. Sometimes, I will put on a favorite movie and “watch” it. I say watch in quotes because honestly I’m paying precious little attention (If any at all ) It is mostly just keeping me company.

Finally curiosty got the better of me and I did some digging to see if there are actually some proven health benefits to being in silence. And whaddaya know? There actually are. Someday soon I hope to be able to make it to the countryside or the beach and let nature get its tunes goin’ These days I more often than not would much prefer to hear that as opposed to some depressing/disturbing, and repetative news cast or jarring music.

https://www.healthline.com/health/mind-body/physical-and-mental-health-benefits-of-silence

Setting a Wrong Thing Right

Edgar looked up from his book when the bell on the door rang.

“May…I help you?”

Rocking back and forth on a creaky floorboard the man replied

“Yep, burglar alarm’s still here”

“Excuse me?”

“That creaky board. Best burglar alarm there ever was”

“How did you…how may I help you?”

“By accepting my apology”

Edgar frowned. With his cane the man gestured toward the door.

“Sixty two years ago I owned this shop. But the instead of ‘Welcome’, the sign on the door said ‘Whites Only’ and I wanted to say I’m sorry.

With that the man turned and left.

TONIGHT I DID A THING

Self care is not selfish

So tonight I did a thing. I cleaned up my Instagram account and eliminated some people who basically, for lack of a better phrase, stuck it to me and left me high and dry in a foreign country. I was stranded overseas having lost my cell phone, and having been pick pocketed (there is a possibility I dropped my wallet but I doubt it). So I essentially had no efficient means of communicating with the US and absolutely NO cash. Although with their mouths the people back in the States said they were sorry to hear it, their actions said sucks to be you. These were people who very well could have and in my opinion should have offered to help me but chose not to. All is well and I am back in the US. But, it was kind of hairy there for a few days. Ever since then, I had been wanting to unload them for months but kept thinking well nooo, I don’t want to hurt their feelings. I don’t want them to be mad at me. Then it dawned on me. They hung me out to dry nearly 4000 miles from home without giving me a second thought. So why in the world would I give two rips about how my unloading them would make them feel? In all likely hood they will never notice and if they do I can guarantee you they will not care. I am finally coming to realize, It’s not selfish to take care of yourself. I’m not sure I can get with the concept of do unto others before they do unto to you, or as they do unto you. I still think we should treat others the way we would want to be treated. I am however also, a firm believer that Karma is a bitch and that what goes around comes around. That in NO WAY means I am hoping something bad happens to the people. Because I promise you I don’t. I unloaded them and guarantee you will forget they exist. I wish them no harm. But, it does make me wonder if someday this will come back to bite them in the ass and hard. I’m working on not allowing people to mistreat me and or manipulate me. I think there are times when it can be difficult to tell the difference between someone being abusive or mistreating us and setting a healthy boundary. I also wonder if I will ever cross paths with these individuals again. I highly doubt it. I guess only time will tell.

About me and this blog.

Hi, my name is Andrea annnnd I have absolutely NO CLUE what I am doing when it comes to blogging. This is my first time doing this. I was waiting until THE perfect time and today I decided I would never get started if I did that. There I said it, I got it out of the way, and now we move on. There is a very disticnt reason I chose the title I did. It is because all my life people have told me I was weird, different, I never have fit in, not really. And it used to bug me. Why couldn’t I just be ‘normal’? Note I said it USED to bug me. When one day I realized I’m not weird, I just decorate my pumpkins differently. Let me explain. When I was about five years old my mom took my sister and me to a Halloween party at our local mall. Two of the presenters were a duo from a local children’s show, Dr. Max and Mombo. Every day after school, like many other kids in Northeastern Iowa, my sister and I would come home and watch their show. There was always some little life lesson about how to be kind, or honest and such, as well as several cartoons, magic tricks and all sorts of kid friendly entertainment. So when I found out we were going to the mall to see them I was SO excited! The party was loads of fun with games and treats. Okay true confessions it’s not a clear memory, remember I was only five. But, the thing that sticks out so vividly in my mind was the fact there was a pumpkin decorating contest. Each child was given a pumpkin and permenant marker and told to decorate it for Halloween. Well they never said HOW they wanted it decorated, they just said decorate it. So decorate it I did. I drew a cat on a fence and a witch on a broom flying through the air with a full moon back ground. When I got done I looked around at all the other pumpkins and saw everyone else had drawn some sort of a jack-o-lantern. I remember that being one of the first times I felt like I had done it wrong. I was feeling pretty crummy until they announced I won! I beat out all those other kids, most of them older and no doubt more artistically gifted than a five year old. But, nonetheless I won! And it was all because I chose to decorate my pumpkin differently. I do remember one of the presenters stating it was because of my creativity. I’m quite certain those other kids were none to happy but, I have never forgotten how I felt winning the prize just because I was different. So there you have it. I’m not the best on punctuation and sentence structure but, I can pretty much hold my own on grammar (not always). If any of those things bug you, it’s likely not the blog for you. But if you want to hang out with me as I post about everything from daily life to health and wellness, with a generous sprinkling of creative writing sprinkled in, I am happy to have you. 🌻