REALLY quick pic post

The leaves yesterday were almost optimal, they could turn a little more and be perfect for me.  To be completely turned in color is not as interesting in my opinion, as when there is some green as well for contrast.  Next week could be too far into the fall- hard to tell.  Depends on the wind and the rain and all.

Flambeau River

Anyway, I just can't ever leave my last blog post as angst ridden as yesterday.  Yesterday was a day of inner turmoil and I have one really awesome friend or two from a place not to far away from me that helped tremendously.  Anyway, I took quite a few pix last night, but because in spite of turmoil, yesterday was a super busy day and I did not get a chance to download until this morning.  And so I quickly chose a few pix to do a fast edit and post.  I LOVE fall.

So enjoy these pictures and revel in this beautiful weather....  no matter what it is!

River Road

Our house dressed in Autumn

 Find some joy in this amazing time of the year!!

Make the voices just stop now

This is a post not for the casual reader- you've been warned.

You know that even though I LOVE floating through my life like a little autumn leaf on the water- letting the current and the breeze nudge me in any given direction - sometimes when people start pegging stones into the water near me -  intentional or not - I get caught in a teeny little whirlpool and end up dizzy and unsure of where I am going. (I am going to let one of my mad-english teacher friends have editing rights to make sure all my punctuation is correct!)  And to complete my unlikely analogy- this is where the mad-art teacher leaf whips out her tiny little paddles and heads for shore so she can tremble on the edge until she regains her composure and lets the water circles from all the stones subsides.

I am hearing so many voices telling me what to do.  Most of those voices (and these are of the real sort, not the voice in my head sort) (even though the over-riding voice trying to sort out the real ones is pretty loud) have no idea that they are doing this to me.  I have had so many conflicting ideas come into my head that I hardly know what to do.

Let's start with the blogs I follow for my health and well-being....  Ok, so instead of being on the whole restrict calories and exercise until I fall over school of thought, I have made a transition to the let your body tell you what to eat and don't kill yourself exercising building.  (sort of like going from Junior high to highschool)  Now, these are two super different ideas, really, and I am now today wondering if I didn't have to go through the first one before I was ready for the second one.  I am not sure.  I know that the one doesn't play well with the other- trust me- they've been having an argument for sometime in my brain. (NO- that boy likes ME better than you.  If you like him then you are not my friend- I hate you!  Well I hate you, too.) (hee hee) Anyway, I have been slowly eliminating things from my emails and lists and such that are related to 5 easy ways to lose 5 lbs or how to get rid of that stomach and all that easy fix baloney that is like junk food in the reading world.  I don't need that.  And I have been finding all sorts of new blogs and websites that are more in line with the way of thinking I am heading towards.

More voices are being added to my already full chatroom.  And I find myself agreeing with the new voices, and they are really having an effect on me.  But this morning I woke up to multitudes of conflicting thoughts and I practically had a panic attack.  I did a quick mental review of what I want to do today, and realized I don't have time to fit in everything.  I want to go to the gym, for a walk, grocery shop, cook something, spend time with Greg here, clean my sewing room a bit, do photography during the "golden hour", and meanwhile be all things to all people and feed the horse.  My brain did one of those mass rearrangement things and I was so panicked that I had to get up.  I went through the feeling that I have to get all my exercise in that I want today, because you can only be your most fierce self if you spend x amount of time at the gym.  I felt like I need to get a huge walk in because I did not yesterday.  The first school of thought had me gaining back tons of weight because I did not get in my 10 hours of activity needed to become a thin person and the second school of thought had me feeling like I am not living a full life because I want to be thin.  And that second school is also making me feel guilty if I was eating when I was not hungry and that I may have had an emotional eating moment or two or three, and the first school was scolding me for having some cake, with a fork, right out of the pan (Happy Birthday to the MA, btw!)  (God he's getting old!  hehehehe) How can I be a health warrior, a shining example to my friends, a fit person in great health if I never follow anyones' rules?  HOW CAN I BE TRUSTED TO DO THE PERFECT THING AND BE THE PERFECT THINNER PERSON IF I CAN'T FOLLOW THE RULES???

WHEW- you guys I am absolutely overwhelmed with all this.  I start feeling in control and something comes along to fuck it up.  Yesterdays was when I was listening to a podcast that was pretty darn awesome.  But unfortunately I didn't get to finish it because of a flurry of activity that involved the kid, the hubs, some wonderful shoppers who went to Bayfield and a pizza dinner.  I stopped at a place that needed resolution, and I will get that today.  But basically this person was talking about weight and body image and that you should learn to accept yourself no matter what the weight it is and then you will make food so unimportant you will have time to live your life as you should be.  And that the "eat when you are hungry thing is indeed a diet and should not necessarily be what anyone should be doing.   You should be eating to live, and you need to live your life not obsess about food.  yeah.

Well the record scratch is this:

No matter what anyone says, I am not ready to cast aside the idea that it doesn't matter if I am thin or not.  I am sure it doesn't.  Intellectually I know it doesn't.  It matters what kind of a character I have and the life I live.  Something that is meaningful to me because ultimately we have to live our lives for us.  And honey I am here to tell you, especially being a visual person, I want to look good.  I sort of don't care what anyone says, I don't care if it is inline right now with our stupid society's whacked out vision of what others should look like. I am here to tell you it is a relief to feel like I am "normal" and not to have people secretly saying to each other how pretty she would be if......  or what have you.  This is a dark secret that I have in my brain.  I care about it.  And now this voice told me I shouldn't care, now what the hell am I going to do.  Part of this podcast is saying that part of the problem is that people FEAR getting heavy or regaining weight.  Well, no shit, sugarbritches. It scares me to death.  Obviously I need to finish that Podcast because half way through was no place to stop.  The lack of resolution is killing me.  Or maybe this internal discussion was a good thing to have, but where do I go from here.

I have this weird need to do things the best that I can and when I can't, I become paralyzed.  I don't know what to do.  I don't want to let people down.  What if I can't not care about my weight, what if I can't accept myself however I am, or that I can't do a FANTASTIC teaching job on all 14 classes that I teach each week, or workout as much as I want to at the gym, or walk the 6 miles I want to, or make the Madrigal costumes that I am going to get paid for and the ones I want to make for someone for free but won't have time to. WHAT if I can't take these autumn pictures during the perfect time of the day, or that I can't find time to upgrade my comp to the latest OS so I can download my last update on aperture- because all the youtubes on how to add filters to my pix on Aperture are for the big update that I can't get.....  How can I make my pictures perfect?  And if I am doing all that stuff, am I living my life?  Do I spend too much time on the computer?  Do I text some people enough and am I texting others too much?  Can I be the best vegetarian if I have to have some burritos for lunch sometimes because I didn't get a chance to make some good fresh meals on Sunday because I was trying to be perfect somewhere else.  And now I understand I am making some people feel like I am being condescending when I use a lighthearted term of affection on facebook, when that was never my intention.

Make the voices just stop.

The weekend in pictures

I had a really busy weekend, but it managed to be relaxing all at the same time!  I like that, it makes me feel like I accomplished something and my inner Debi feels like she got to do what she wanted to, too.  So I did manage to take a few pix, not so much of Saturday, but that's ok!

coffee time

It was a GORGEOUS weekend here, got a little cold at night, but the days were sunny and warm/cool (yes, warm/cool- don't judge me) and the leaves are beginning to  change and so it was a visual treat.  Kind of like I spy- my eyes were always looking for the red and the oranges of autumn.

Lola loves her sunflower background

Butternut Creek

Fall self portrait

Grape jelly

Grape jelly

Ready for a break- almost

Ok, so here are a few glimpses into Saturday-

The breakfast from the Island Cafe in Minocqua was SUBLIME!!  Then while visiting a little bakery over there, I spied a backyard container garden that they must use for their tiny cafe.  So cool.  Plus an old car, and then that night a whole lot of produce had to be dealt with..... freeze warning!

Back to Sunday!

Fall blooms

Old forgotten birdhouse

Lots of different things on my agenda, weeding a flower bed, cleaning out a room a bit, organizing and preparing.....  A productive and awesome weekend!

And of course I found a lot of joy!

Moving right along

This September is going at a whirlwind pace!

The end of this week is MID QUARTER at school!!!  How does this even happen??  I can't possibly be needing to do progress reports already in a week!  I feel like we are just starting to hit our stride, it still feels new.  I shook my head in disbelief when my Mad-English-Teacher friend and I discussed this.  Wowza.

Along those same lines, we had a big old freeze last night- at least according to the amount of frost on my garage roof.  I did some judicious harvesting of things last night, and I did some freezing of greens and the MA and I made grape juice out of a pile of grapes.  The grapes are our first harvest from the vines that are growing all over the fence and arbor by our garden.  I plan to make jelly out of the juice I think.  I suppose I could freeze the juice, but I don't know.... Whatever.  I had my greens blanched and in bags and the grapes had been lightly cooked to pop the skins and I was ready to use the food mill to extract the juice when the MA came in from outside.  He stood around and offered to "help".  He really wanted to use that food mill thingie.  Lol, so I took advantage of that and cleaned up from the rest of the mess I had made.  So I probably have 8 - 10 cups of juice to deal with today.

With the cold nights comes the inevitable change of seasons and the leaves are starting to really turn now.  They are probably only about 10 - 15 % changed, but this is the time you get some beautiful reds to contrast the green.  With those amazing complimentary color combos (red and green for those of  you non-art people), mother nature is beginning her show.  As much as I dread the winter to come, the fall is my favorite time of the year.

Yesterday was a great day- shopping at a health food store, getting a few clothes for school (SKIRTS! COBALT BLUE TOP! COOL PANTS!  YAY), finding a farmer's market, having a fabulous breakfast in Minocqua, fun little excursion with a good friend.  I will be shopping again soon, as I have been reserved to create a Madrigal costume this fall.  Today I will need to reorganize my sewing room from it's state of construction chaos.  How am I going to shove all this stuff into one day??  Sigh.

I am looking out at a beautiful blue sky with some gorgeous oranges on top of the trees and feeling the bug to get going.  So I will head into my Sunday, with my fall transition almost complete.  Because like it or not, time marches on.  Fall, school, life..... even my food is changing.  Not so much grilling, more indoor cooking.  Football is on the tv. The deer hunters are starting to show up in our woods (relatives!) and the turkeys and smaller birds are gorging on the food that is so abundant right now.  It is sort of a magical time.

Pictures should follow at some point!

Find some joy in your fall weekend, I think today is the first official one!

Body image, maintaining and other confusing ideas...... sort of

I was reviewing my Feedly (blog reader thingie) today and came across a post by gokaleo that caught my eye.  I did a little clicking and came to this post linked here.


I love that the title is Bullying, Body-shaming, and the Unbearable Powerlessness of Douchbaggery.  I have to state first that at initial perusal, I do not allow myself to get bullied.  I am old enough to be over that crap.  I mean seriously, try to bully me and I will tell you to go F yourself.  And I won't say F either.  I fortunately have by now come to terms with the fact that I am what I am and if you don't like it, tough taffy, Tootsie.  Get over yourself.  And that is where my teacher self confidence REALLY is helpful!  hehehe.

However, a part of the bullying that she refers to in this post is the subtle cultural images that we are all exposed to during our life.  The bullying that takes place is the placement of images and ideas in the media that only the thin and young are worthy of viewing.  That older or out of the narrow range of popular culture "norms"people are not good enough, not pretty enough, not thin enough, buff enough, tough enough - just not enough. This needs to stop!  It is screwing with our minds.  I hear it all the time in my teenagers, friends and co-workers. I like to try and make them think about what they have said.  Challenging a "norm" that shouldn't be there at all.

I occasionally get sucked into this whole thing- my body that had been overweight (in an unhealthy way) it's whole life does not conform to the thin waisted, perky butted, skinny legged ideal that is portrayed everywhere.  I have none of those things - in my mind..... It makes me crazy when I realize that it has affected me so deeply.  I was irritated when a dear friend of mine called me a skinny minny yesterday.  I don't feel skinny right now, as I have about 10 lb around my middle that wasn't there at the beginning of the summer. So, I am thinking that just because I am so much smaller than I used to be she is just seeing that and not as I actually am.........................................


RECORD SCRATCH

OK, seriously.  So many things here- I won't go into it, I think you get the drift.  I have lost a lot,  remain in the healthy/normal weight area, I have worked out enough that I am strong and pretty fit (always the qualifiers, I know), so here I learned a mini lesson.

I am seeing some unwanted ideas behind my dissatisfaction with myself right now.  I do not look like the thin young person that might be at the gym next to me.  I might not lift as heavy as the middle age person across the gym.  I do not do the same workouts as my fitness friends elsewhere in the US.  So therefore, I am not doing something well enough.  a **ding ding** moment.  We can pay all the lipservice we want to be stating that we should not compare ourselves to others, but yet, it happens all the time.  Whether it is the slight panic of not being good enough or the slight sense of self satisfaction that we are doing better than someone else.  CRITICAL THINKING is needed here.

So, if I have gained some weight- a couple things:

Did I get too thin for my body to hang onto that weight? 
 Hmmm, maybe a little.

Am I eating poorly or something?  
Well, I know that I have a few downfalls that I can over indulge in that probably made my intake/output be skewed.  I am going to address the excess of certain things in my diet by cutting them back, but not eliminating things that I truly enjoy.

Is my health being negatively affected?
Um no.  I can still bench 150 on a sore chest and I walked 6.8 miles yesterday and felt great.  Only stiff knees from my session with deadlifts and squats.  I can live with that.

Maintenance is even harder if you allow yourself to be side tracked.  You revert to old eating habits to cope with your feelings of inadequacy.  You self soothe with food when you are stressed out by life and old issues raise their ugly heads.  You sort of have to resolve these things before you can be at peace with yourself. And so I have been thinking about things that affect me and am trying to discover what other little bits of pain are hiding in my brain.  As long as I don't regain that weight- the knee hurting, back wrenching, heart wrecking weight I used to have, I will be a success in my mind.  I will!

Lesson learned here- watch out for these little reactions that have no real basis in reality!!!  Reality is not what the media portrays.  Reality lives in each of us.  Thinking that we are never thin enough, or young enough, or our faces unlined enough or back buff enough is not especially helpful.  Well, the buff back is never enough!  :)  I will strive to become the strongest, fittest, HEALTHIEST, vegetarian Badass that I can be (thank you Nia Shanks)  for my health and for my own strength and quality of life-- but not because the people online or in magazines or on TV tell me to be!  We need to all be healthy and strong- not thin and young.  BIG DIFFERENCE THERE!!!!!

And only then will we all find our joy that is inside us!

September

September rocks because.....

• I can go for a walk whenever I want, not just in the earlier morning or later evening- lack of humidity is the key here
• Sweatshirts to hold all of my walking paraphernalia - camera, kleenex, phone, lip balm....  which is cool because then it doesn't feel like  my pants are always falling down.
• even tho it heralds unfortunate things to come (the W word) the leaves are just beginning to turn- which is my FAVORITE time of year
• so many vegetables you don't know where to turn next.
• a notable lack of mosquitos
• even though I will deny it, school and it's routine are a comfort and a pleasure, mostly.
• more blankets on the bed!
• art teacher convention will be happening- and another cool convention later in the cities
• pumpkins and squash and garden mums and late season flowers

That is a list I came up with without even really thinking, I bet there is more.  But that will be for tomorrow.

Did YOU find your joy today??  

Morning inspiration

GOOD MORNING!!!

I am not sure why, but I woke up full of positivity and good karma this morning. I usually do wake up in a good mood, as long as I don't have to actually speak to anyone right away.  However, it began well.  Maybe because I slept so well after the previous non-sleeping night.

I have been so busy at school, basically I am creating digital presentations for my lessons in the HS as I go, so my mornings are FULL!!  And if only I could get my act together for the elementary- well, part of it is not my fault.  I need an iPad and I don't have one yet, but I am going to do some "old fashioned" Powerpoints until I can get the apps uploaded and ready to go.

Anywho, I check my feedly (blog and website update list) most mornings and Greatist.com had a post of inspirational sayings- and this one struck me today:

So what would you do?

I'll have to think about that one a little!

Meanwhile, I plan to have a great day and find my joy whenever I can!  I hope that I can give a little back to people too, after all, that is what a joy-giver does.  :)

The giant hand is complete!

Lets all give a big round of applause---  hahahaha. Couldn't resist. Get it? Big round of applause for the giant hand??? Anyone??  Never mind.....

You can't even see the extent of the dirt that I was covered with!

The hand is finally finished- I have the second layer of concrete on, plugged up any holes so it doesn't become a giant hornet's nest, and the water from the snow shouldn't get in there  to thaw and freeze and wreak general havoc.  Here is a post that discusses part of the creation of it.  I really should do a recap for my own reference, but we shall see.  that will involve a lot of searching around.

I also, in case you noticed, managed to totally weed the stone fence garden here, which was out of control weedy.  No pic of that, so you will have to take my word for it.  It looks pretty good!!

So at some point I will be making something to go in/with the hand.  THIS is so cool, as I have been discussing/agonizing/boring/driving my friends and family crazy with the creating of this thing for about 4 years.  whew!  AND YAY now I get to plant some rock garden things around it.....  LOVE my rock garden.

Raw materials- concrete, sand, water, hoe, wheel barrow- and gloves

completed hand ready to cover and cure

Crawling under this this was interesting!  

The next morning, curing is ongoing.

THIS will  give me a lot of joy in years to come

The lunatic fringe weighs in...

or the hidden reason why I didn't do the bench press contest today.... and how I am changing my way of eating.

Ok, kids, if you don't want to delve into the inner workings of my mind, I suggest you find another blog to read today.  This is something that will be totally uninteresting to some (I would say that it would be to almost everyone, but what do I know?) and yet I have  been told that these types of posts are very inspiring/thought-provoking/helpful.....  ok.  You've been warned.

As many of you  know, I hit my goal weight of a random (this is right- random) sort back in December.  It was an even number of some sort, I am not sure what one.  If it was 75 pounds from my highest weight or some such thing, so really there was no good reason for it.  OH, it may have been the number that would have put me into "normal" on the BMI charts, which I have come to discover are a blatant lie and should be disregarded.  If you have any sort of muscle tone, they say you are in the over weight category, when clearly you are not.  And if you are messing with the mind of a person desperately trying to be normal after lifetime of being heavy, well, those sorts of number just rule your world.  And a thinnish person is not "overweight" at all but thinks they still are, but try telling them that.

So since then I have been in maintenance and if anyone ever tells you this is the easy part, don't believe them.  BUT people for GOD SAKES don't tell anyone they will just gain it back or regale them with tales of how your second cousin once removed lost 124.2 pounds and then gained it back 2 years later...  not helpful and very destructive.  Quit that- really.  

One would think that over the summer one would drop weight so easily that people would accuse you of not eating- but that is not the life that I lived this summer.  The life I lived, while was full of activity and weight training also included good food, Margaritas in Bayfield and unabashed treating of myself and plenty of mindless eating and that is where I got myself into trouble.  Well sort of.  Ah yes it was a wonderful summer.....

School begins and I can't help but notice that I have snugger pants than I had 6 months ago, which is not what I had wanted to happen obviously.  sigh.  I haven't been on the scale for a long time, as I have been trying so hard to adopt a different way of thinking. (And I seriously didn't want to know) I have been reading the blog of NiaShanks who believes, as I have come to believe, that you should really just stop following the psycho rules that have emerged around the diet and exercise industry.  Basically, eat what you like, as long as it is clean and healthy and get in the gym, workout and get out.  (AND I want to be a beautiful badass!!  :) ) No need to spend your whole life in the gym or on the elliptical or treadmill or even running/walking endlessly.  There is a whole bunch of aspects to this and I like it.  I like the idea of not having to fret and stress over food- not making food a good or bad thing, but something you eat!  I know this is obvious, but seriously, how many of you have that simple of a relationship with food?  

I know there are some- the "naturally thin" people who for whatever reason can stop eating when they are full and eat when they are hungry.  Many of us know that such things are indeed logical, but are not what happens.  Throw in that old friend stress or emotional eating and you have a monkey wrench in the works.  Cut to another random internet stroll and I found another website where the person actually discusses emotional eating!  Basically, this one says that the reason one has emotional eating issues is that you have unaddressed emotional issues.  Hmmmm, well duh that makes sense!!  And so she goes on to say that if you do have emotional eating, you need to address those issues.  Well honey, that is not all that easy either.  So, that was rolling around with this other stuff and I had a bit of an aha moment.

In the category of emotional issues that aren't addressed, I have a hard time with that. What am I stressed about when i see the jar of peanut butter in the cupboard and I WANT IT NOW??  WHO the hell knows.....   I do know one reason I get stressed is not having things at school be as prepared as I would like.  So the problem there is that I need to get to the gym- so the time crunch kills me.  I KNOW how ironic this all is when you reflect on my previous statements regarding the website, but I have to spend time on me.  I also have some real self esteem things that have been present  my entire life- but how long can an adult go on blaming their problems (this is not an exhaustive list- just an example) on not feeling like you were loved equally by a parent??  Look at the facts, the parent shows their love to different children in different ways and sometimes I imagine that one child or another might have a personality that works better with  yours.  Idk, I have always enjoyed my children for what they are, but who knows if that is how they saw it.  Kids are weird and perceive things in a weird way, and if you think back to any incidents in your own childhood that were suddenly clear to you because you looked at them as an adult, you know what I mean.  We all have our things, and there are more that I will not be going into here, and most of them I just can't deal with myself right now.  One thing at a time I guess.  Oh and there is that whole-- I have been heavy my whole life and I still have a hard time believing I will stay looking like this-- thing.  There is a lot of that in the soup, that's for sure.

Which leads me to the benchpress contest that I referenced at the beginning of this tale.  I had seen a sign up for the Triple B bench press contest that was held today a while ago, but had sort of forgotten about it, since I had it in my mind that when I hit benching 170 I would be "ready" to join that team. So it was something I didn't think too much about.  Also, seriously, I never expect to compete in anything so, you know....  Even though that carrot is out there and I really do want to do that.  So about a week ago, a few people started asking me if I was doing it.  Well to me that was a bit late, I wasn't trained for it, I wasn't psyched for it and I didn't think that I was really good enough.  AND-- **newsflash-this just in**-- PEOPLE!!  I DIDN'T WANT TO WEIGH MYSELF!!!!!! If you refer up to the above paragraphs, you will notice that I was in de-nial- or at least in notwanttoknow-nial.

So yeah, moment of self awareness happens (I honestly bounce along through life not know what the hell I am doing or why often.  SO OFTEN) and I decide that inspite of the fact that I am fully dressed and fed and coffeed I got on the scale and I also decided that I wasn't going to let it ruin my f-ing day.  I said that to myself too.  I curse a lot to myself.  Sorta helps. Try not to let it slip out too much!  :)

Well it didn't ruin my day and it wasn't as bad as I thought.  So that is good but it isn't good.  It was pointed out to me by a very awesome person that this 11 pounds (omg) isn't that bad and it can be gone in about 11 weeks. (are you sure??)  That was a good way to look at it really.  AND I will not be gaining any more weight again.  So, my next step was to buck up and post a gain on loseit and of course in its infinite wisdom it dropped me down to weight loss mode, which I am not going to do again.  I can't take the stress and the hunger and the battle.  I understand that the battle is with myself everyday- and a battle it is.  BUT I am not going to have this website sidetrack me from my new attitude.  So I promptly deleted all those notifications and all and changed my goal to my present weight and I will proceed from here.  I will use it to keep track of my food and exercise, but I am not going to worry about what the bar graph is saying.  I want to change my focus.  I want to not have to think about my food and exericse every single second of the day.  There are other things to think about and do.  Like go for a walk or a bike ride or do some art or blog something......  HEAVEN knows that I have a lot of plans.

The trick here is to deal with this mind change I am trying to have.  You do  not judge yourself worth by a number on a scale (we should be repeating this stuff out loud), you do not vilify a food or yourself because you ate it, you should have that chocolate if you want it- 1 piece- and then be done with it.  But damn it, have that chocolate if you want it.  WHO CARES??  And then be done with it.  You do not feel like a failure because you did not walk for 2 hours and then do pushups and situps at home and then garden and clean house and stay active every minute of the day.....  A very hard change to be honoring what your body needs and not what you mind wants.  I am going to train and eat for the body I want, not because I hate the body I have.  Now isn't that a good idea!!??!!

So what is the lesson, the take away, the - oh that is what she was getting at!!! ? I want to wake up and eat something and not think much about it again until I notice I am hungry, and then eat something.  Rinse and repeat.  And those foods I do want to enhance my muscle development because I want to be in a few benchpress competitions, so I am going to train for that.  I will worry more about the number on the bar and WAY less about the number on the scale.  Because if i do what I am planning to here, I won't have to worry about the scale at all. But old Debi and  her issues will not go away quietly.  And perhaps it is unrealistic to imagine that that would be possible.  I don't want the essence of Debi to change, I just want to quit obsessing about what I am eating. I think I am a pretty good person to know.  I like bouncing through life unaware of what is propelling me forward- it suits me.  Like joy giving.  smiling. sunshine. and all that jazz- oh and don't forget the clouds and rain, we kinda need those too.  They give us some kick ass sunrises.  And that is always a joy!