kids

I case you were wondering about just such a thing—THIS is a Magic Wand farm.

As you know I supply my little slice of Studio City with magic wands. In the beginning, they looked like this:

The sign on the bucket was more creative than the wands themselves—but that’s beside the point.

Then, my sister “out wanded” me with her usual flair and because they were scooped up in less than a day by the hungry masses yearning for wands—I was forced to up my game.

But the wand phenomenon like I suppose all good things do has developed a life of its own. It has its “people” who talk to my “people” (me) voicing their thanks (mostly), opinions (often), and now…requests. This week a group of stroller moms as I call them were rifling through the bucket looking for just the perfect wands for their kids when they caught sight of me getting into my car.

“Oh, hey, are you the Magic Wand lady?” they asked.

“Yes, I am” I answered proudly waiting for the usual parental gushing. Instead, this is what happened:

Mom #1 – “Listen, we love the wands, we really do, but…”
Mom #2 – “The little ones chew on them so could you put more without any paint in the bucket?”
Mom #3 – “Unless you use pesticide, Do you, I mean, use pesticides?”

“Uh, no. No, I don’t” I stammered. I was caught completely off-guard.

Mom #1 – “Are you sure? Have you specifically asked your gardeners not to use any pesticides or even worse… Round Up?”
Mom #3 – “Oh, look, Barbara, she has dandelions everywhere, they don’t use Round up.”
Mom #2 – “You don’t look sure. Are you sure?”

They all looked at me waiting for an answer.  After a minute of biting my tongue I said, “No, I mean, yes, yes, I’m sure. In four years no kids have died from holding or chewing on these Magic Wands. I swear!” 

Mom #1 – “What I really wanted to ask you was, do you make them in any other colors besides purple and gold?”
Mom #2 – “She did. You did, you had blue ones once.”
Mom #3 – “The reason we’re asking is that our sons, well…”
Mom #1 – “Our sons are all nine and ten this summer, they’re getting to be big boys and well, they want a wand…”
Mom #2 – “Just not a pink one.”
Mom #3 – “They’re not really pink, they’re more purple…”
Mom #2 – “Magenta. They’re magenta!”
Mom #1 – “Anyway, they’re too old for pink…”
Mom #3 – “And sparkles. Do you make any wands without the sparkles?”

“The boys hate the sparkles too?” I asked, crestfallen.

Mom #1 – “Not really, it’s just that the sparkles get all over the carpet and…”
Mom #3 – “I’ve found sparkles all over Jimiraquois’ bed!”

They laughed and nodded in unison while the toddlers in the strollers happily chewed on my Magic Wands.

I was clearly outnumbered.

“Do you have a color in mind? Something that both girls and boys would like?” I HAD to ask knowing full well that they did.

All three moms in unison – “Red. Red works.”

So, in closing, you can’t fight progress. Kids get older. And boys don’t like pink. And requests. Some people are very comfortable with big asks, not that this was a particularly big ask, but still, I couldn’t have done it. But maybe that’s just me.

What do you think?

Speaking of moms and their big asks…

Now I don’t feel so bad.

Carry on,
xox

“Oh, the heartbreakingly beautiful tender weight of being human.” ~ Unknown

I’m tender-hearted.

Truly.

I know I may seem pretty cold-hearted sometimes, but I can be brought to tears by a beer commercial with big horses and dogs. And carols. Oh Holy Night or that incredible duet by Celine Dion and Andrea Bocelli —that one slays me.

So, yeah. I cry easy. Especially at Christmas.

A “friend” sent me a story with the video of a Santa who was granting a terminally ill little boy’s wish to talk to him only to have the boy whisper at the end of their visit, “Santa, can you help me?” and then die right there in the bearded mans arms.  The man is undone as he weeps through the telling of the story.

Well! That was the cruelest of Yuletide acts so of course I was forced to rip up her Christmas card and eat the fudge I made her.

I will not post it here because it really is THAT sad, but if you need to see it with your own eyes it is currently doing the rounds on Facebook where I have had to do the equivalent of running past it for the past week lest I cry my eyelashes off.

But you’re not getting off that easy. I saw this video and just had to share it with you guys. It is the epitome of the Christmas spirit and that’s all I’m going to say. Except…

I was shocked.

I was touched.

I cried and then I wondered what Oprah,  I would have done in the same situation at the same age.

https://www.facebook.com/unbelievable.wow/videos/289671704767444/

What do YOU think?

Carry on my people,
xox

The magic is back by popular demand!
And by popular demand, I mean all of the neighborhood daddies pushing babies in strollers who have both demanded, and by both I mean daddy and baby (and the occasional nana), who in no uncertain terms, some covered in goldfish orange-colored drool, have yelled loudly, and in unison, “Where are the magic wands?!”

Calm down everybody! (By the way, babies stained orange yelling about magic—is just adorable.)

I LOVE doing this for the kids, and the Agapanthus (the wands), which have bloomed late this year I’m sure due to the drought, LOVE being wands!

So… yesterday, in the early morning hours, I was forced to sneak up and down the streets around my house, darting in and out of the bushes to hide from cars, clippers in hand, cutting wands.

What I won’t do for a pail full of magic!

Magic is everywhere you guys. It’s the hummingbirds crowded around fragrant flowers in your garden, your babies first tooth, peach pie and an unexpected phone call from a dear friend.

Wands are just a small reminder every summer that we can abracadabra some magic right from our fingertips!

Have a joyful, magical holiday weekend!
xox

I overheard a woman in Trader Joe’s today and I had to stop and pretend I was looking with great interest at the ingredients on the side of the microwave macaroni and cheese.

Trader Joe’s is an eavesdropper’s paradise. Especially after school gets out and always around the microwave comfort food.

She had a seven-year-old girl with her, Sophie, (presumably her daughter), and she was on her cellphone with someone who, after listening for several minutes to her conversation, is a saint.
Literally.
The Vatican has spoken. This person earned it!
I’m guessing a sister, best friend, or telemarketer.

Anyhow, I was riveted to her rant because the nature of it was well, so absurd — and I could totally relate.

She was going on and on about the dangers of camping. Like her kids were Tributes in the Hunger Games.

Hypothermia. “What if it gets below fifty? We don’t have the arctic down bags, only the light down summer bags. I mean, I could bundle the kids up with hoods, socks, and gloves in their bags…oh, yes, they’ll be in a tent…”

Sand fleas, (so, like the Mensa member that I am (not) I surmised a beach campout. “Sam had bites all over his privates last summer.” Ouch. And TMI.

Fire. “Josh is gonna have his hands full. What if Lizzie runs into the fire.”
I’m no expert here, but I think both Josh AND Lizzie have a bigger problem on their hands if she’s running into fire. And yes, camping could turn poor Lizzie into a human s’more. So, I’m with the worried lady, no camping for Lizzie.

Wait. Maybe Lizzy is a dog. Oh, that’s even worse.

Ocean. “I heard there’s gonna be high surf. What happens if the waves are so big the kids can’t go in the water? Then what’ll we do?”

Oh, I don’t know, play cards or board games, build sand castles, run into fire, you know, the normal kid stuff.

OMG Lady, seriously? You are a piece of work! Oh, and can you talk louder? I don’t want to miss a minute!

But by this time, I’d lingered too long. I was skirting the edges of stalker-ville so I moved on. But grudgingly. I was worried about Asbestos Lizzie the fire-walker.

The woman did leave me with a parting worry as I scurried into the cookie aisle.
“Sophie, don’t run with the pretzels in your mouth. What if you fall and choke to death.”

And…scene.

I’m not a worrier by nature but if I do go there if I start with the “what if’s” then I’m on the train, miles down the track before I even realize it.

And it gets even more ridiculous as it goes along. You know what I’m talking about!

After the 1993 Northridge earthquake, I was terrified to be anywhere besides home (preferably under my bed), in the event of an aftershock.
I could “what if” myself into a full-blown panic attack.

What if I’m at the movies? Dark, crowded, scary as shit.
What if I’m in the shower? Naked, wet, embarrassing as shit.

The one that could send me over the edge was:
What if I’m sitting at this light, caught in bumper to bumper traffic, STUCK UNDER A FREEWAY OVERPASS!
Trapped, crushed, flat as shit.

I would go out of my way to avoid an overpass. If it looked like I was going to be stuck underneath I’d gun it and jump over cars like fucking Vin Diesel. I’d lay on my horn and make people move out-of-the-way. I came thisclose to causing accidents and hurting myself. I was Lizzie looking for fire.

Eventually, (like three years later), I realized that all those “what if’s” never happened and I started to lighten up. But even now, if I think about it when I’m sitting there, it makes my butt cheeks clench.

“What if” is imagination gone awry and once you board that train you may as well find the bar-car and liquor up because it’s nearly impossible to slow down a speeding train.

Well, maybe Vin Diesel can, or The Rock, or that little firecracker, Lizzie. Apparently NOTHING scares her!

Are you a “what if” worrier?  What are some of your best “what if”s”?

Carry on,
xox

Shonda Rhimes, creator of TV shows like Grey’s Anatomy, Scandal and the book Year of Yes, speaks at TED2016 on February 15, 2016. Photo: Marla Aufmuth / TED

Okay. So.
I really wanted to write something about this book. As a matter of fact, I was going to VLOG about it. That’s right, this mug, going on and on about how much I LOVED this book — on video.
Sadly, that never came to be. I seemed to run out of hours in the day. My screenplay is playing time-warp games with me and well, I just plain forgot.

So without further ado — Take it away Kate!
xox

“A while ago, I tried an experiment,” says Shonda Rhimes, the “titan” behind Grey’s Anatomy, Scandal and How to Get Away With Murder. “For one year, I would say ‘yes’ to all the things that scared me. Anything that made me nervous or took me out of comfort zone, I’d say ‘yes.'”

Public speaking? Yes. Acting? Yes. “A crazy thing happened — the very act of doing the thing that scared me undid the fear,” she says. “It’s amazing the power of one word.

‘Yes’ changed my life. ‘Yes’ changed me.”

She wants to talk about one particular ‘yes’ that made more difference than any other. “I made a vow that every time one of my children asked me to play, I was going to say ‘yes,’,” she says. “Saying ‘yes’ to playing with my children likely saved my career.”

Rhimes is a television writer, something most people would consider a dream job. And to some extent, that’s true. “But I understand a dream job is not about dreaming — it’s all job, all work, all reality, all blood, all sweat, no tears,” she says.

Each show Rhimes works on costs millions of dollars and creates hundreds of jobs that didn’t exist before. With three shows in production at a time, sometimes four, she’s responsible for 70 hours of TV a season at a price tag of about $350 million. She has to run the business and also carve out time to “gather America around my campfire and tell my stories.”

She isn’t complaining. “I work a lot. Too much — much too much. And I love it,” she says. “When I am hard at work, when I am deep in it, there is no other feeling.”

She has a name for the feeling: the hum. “The hum sounds like an open road and I could drive it forever,” she says. “The hum is a drug, the hum is music, the hum is God’s whisper right in my ear.”

But it’s a trap. The more successful she becomes, she says, “the more balls in the air, the more eyes on me, the more history stares, the more expectations there are … the more I work to be successful, the more I need to work.”

Until Rhimes found herself wondering: “Am I anything besides the hum?” Her hum was broken; all she heard was silence.

Enter one of her daughters, who asked her to play one day as Rhimes was walking out the door. She stopped. And said yes. “There was nothing special about it. We play. We are joined by her sisters. There is a lot of laughing, and dancing and singing. I give a dramatic reading from Everybody Poops. Nothing out of the ordinary, and yet it was extraordinary.” She felt focused, still, good. “Something in me loosens and a door in my brain swings open.,” she says. “A hum creeps back.”

She realized something: “The work hum,” she says, “is just a replacement.” She had to face the hardest of facts about herself: that she, in some ways, liked being at work more than being at home. That she was more comfortable working than playing. But that only in playing did she find that hum.

“The real hum is joy,” she says. “The real hum is love.”

Since then, Rhimes has made an iron-clad rule of saying yes to playing with her kids. “It’s the law, so I don’t have any choice,” she says. “I’m not good at playing. … I itch for my cell phone, always. But it is okay. My tiny humans show me how to live. The hum of the universe fills me up.”

Her point is a simple one, yet one we always need reminding of: “Work doesn’t work without play.” Whether it’s playing with kids, seeing friends, reading books or staring out into space, it is actually important for each of us to take time for the simple joys that make life worthwhile.

http://www.amazon.com/Year-Yes-Dance-Stand-Person/dp/1476777098/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1455670361&sr=8-1&keywords=the+year+of+yes

So, what needs more yes’ from you? What big, fat, fear do you have that would shrivel up and die if you just went ahead and said “yes!” to it?
Carry on

*This is from last summer but they’re baaaaaack. The magic wands are flying outta the bucket!

The most charming and interesting social experiment has been taking place
In. My. Front. Yard.

About three years ago I saw a picture on Facebook I think, of a bucket full of magic wands, made from dried flowers from the garden, which I thought was so clever, I just HAD to borrow the idea, because….

That is SOooooooooo up my alley.
I’d use a magic wand AND I’d wear a tiara every day, even on a Thursday, even with jeans, if I could get away with it.
AND
We really need some magic in the world right now.

So, I cut my Agapanthus in the summer, when they’re done flowering, and I put them in a bucket marked:

FREE
MAGIC WANDS

I live on a tree-lined residential street, where contrary to popular belief, people really do walk in LA.
Neighbors walk their dogs and young families stroll with their kids when things cool down around dusk, so I had me some high hopes about the wand reaction.

The first year…meh. Reaction was tepid.
They just sat there. My wands of magic.
I was very disappointed.
Fine, more magic for me.

Last year, the wands got a little better reaction, but if ten were in the bucket on Monday, five were still there on Friday.
I saw people look at them, AND KEEP WALKING. Can you believe that shit?

Free.

Magic wands.

There for the taking.

I was gobsmacked.

When I put the bucket out a month or so ago, I had to have a little talk with myself.
I had to remind me about the nature of people, and the too cool for school factor, and how some parents don’t want their children to believe in such a thing as magic (or carry around a spiky dead flower.) But I put it out anyhow.

To my delight, this year has been extraordinary!
I can’t keep the bucket filled.

There were eleven in the bucket yesterday morning and when I went out to run an errand at three….gone.

The other night when one of my friends came by, she sat in her car and watched a family, a mom, dad and two small kids, very deliberately and gleefully choose just the right wands.

That makes me want to cry.

I can’t keep the neighborhood stocked in wands!

Magic is rampant here in the City of Angels.

I wore everybody down, until they could resist no more.

“Magic wands for everyone!” cried no one in particular – but, I understand supply and demand, and there’s a run on wands, so I may have to cut some of the neighborhood Agapanthus late at night while they sleep.

I don’t want summer to end, because that signals the end of the wands of magic.. *sniff, *sigh….

Maybe next year I’ll paint them gold or add glitter! (that just made my heart race, seriously)

Love Janet the Good Witch,
Xox

Happy Friday Everyone!

In case you’d rather listen 😉
https://soundcloud.com/jbertolus/spread-your-magic

This is an essay by my friend and fellow Carmel Writing Retreat attendee Denise Damron. Let me just tell you a little bit about her. First of all she missed the first night of introductions at the retreat because she was at a ROCK CONCERT. Don’t you love that!

This woman has her priorities straight.

She is quiet,(meaning she couldn’t get a word in edgewise)but when she did interject something into the conversation it was genuine, wry, dry…and smart. She is wicked smart.

So once I realized she was totally out of my league, I fell in love, like I do, with her and her writing.

Denise is finishing a fiction book about a young girl who realizes she’s descended from a long line of extremely unusual woman with very special magical powers. As I sat that week listening to her read various excerpts from the story, I was amazed at how well she captured a teenage girl’s hopes, dreams and oftentimes snarky personality. After reading this I am almost certain she patterned her heroine after her niece Penelope.

Geesh, these young girls are so much more self-aware and dialed in that I ever was then…or am now for that matter!

I know a lot of you guys have kids and the rest of us are going through huge transitions so I think you’ll be able to relate and even smile.

Take it away Denise:

“In my family we are birthday list-makers. I got the list below from my now nine-year-old soon-to-be ten-year-old niece last night. A sign she is growing up – NO DRESSES PLEASE!!!

It made me think back to when I was 10.

Was I so well-evolved at that age? I mean, look at this list.
This is the list of a girl who knows who she is and is not afraid to list it. She is girly and tough at the same time – note the warrior in her with her Minecraft sword and axe and the feminine in her with the vanilla perfume scent and O-P-I nail polish. She is Xena Warrior Princess in a pair of Louboutins.

I like to think the dark red lipstick is a nod to me, her aunt, since I will not take out the trash without wearing my red lipstick.

At that age I was just beginning to dream of being a famous writer-singer-actress-world traveler. I felt invincible. I was going to break the glass ceiling. I was going to be President of the United States or make sure a woman became president (I was an early feminist).

So what happened to me in the years that transpired since I was 10? Middle school nasty girls, too-much-partying high school, sorority girl Pappagallo shoes and pink Izods in college , first job-first apartment independence, bloom-off-the-rose second, third, fourth, and more, until finally my last job as a director in a Fortune 100 company. Throughout many of those years I wish I would have had a Haters Back Off Miranda Sings shirt to warn away the soul sucking crazies I ran across in my work.

I just had my 54th birthday in April and one year after leaving my corporate job to start my own business and write my novel (both of which I accomplished) I feel like I’ve come full circle back to the girl I once was. Older, yes. Wiser, hope so. But still full of dreams and hopes and wishes for the future. Now, instead of making a list of stuff I want (although I can always use more red lip stick) I take the opportunity to list the things I want to accomplish in the next year.

Here’s my list in no particular order:
• Find an agent to publish my young adult novel
• Finish my PhD dissertation
• Stay close to nature and take more walks with my Siberian Husky Gracie
• Keep my life filled with music by going to more concerts
• Let the voices and pictures in my head out by starting my next novel
• Channel Miranda Sings’ Haters Back Off mantra by being true to myself
• Connect more with positive friends
• Meditate and keep my chakras cleared
• Generate positive, productive, awe-inspiring energy
• Political comment alert: Work on getting Hilary elected
• Stay tuned in/check in on a regular basis with my body, mind, and spirit

Here is my niece’s birthday list:

PENELOPE’S 10TH BIRTHDAY WISHLIST BY:PENELOPE GRACE

• T-Mobile Sim Card
• Justice Dance Bow Graphic Tee
• Justice Zebra Cross Back Leotard
• Nerf Rebelle Agent Bow
• Haters Back Off Miranda Sings Pants
• Haters Back Off Miranda Sings Shirt
• Emoji Pillows
• Bright Red Lipstick
• NO DRESSES PLEASE!!!
• Minecraft Sword
• Minecraft Axe
• Justice Gift Card
• Coconut Perfume Scent
• Vanilla Perfume Scent
• O-P-I Nail Polish
• Crackle Nail Polish
• Dark Red Lipstick”

Carry on my friends,
xox

Here is the link for Denise’s new company:
themarketingimagination.com

Here is the link for the Carmel Retreats:
bookmama.com

(No that is not a picture from the 1930’s Grapes of Wrath, that’s my brother and me, post Camp Fun Time one summer in the 1960’s)

It felt like summer here in LA last week.
With temps in the nineties and clear crisp blue skies, we’ve seemed to have skipped spring and jumped straight into July.

I’ve noticed that summer or anything resembling summer, does something to my molecules.
It makes them…dance. The longer days, the warm nights, all conspire to make me…restless.
And …happy.

Why? What does summer mean to me?

The feelings run deep, stemming all the way back to my childhood, which got me to thinking…

Summer is visceral, it’s cellular memory, and as a kid in the San Fernando Valley in the sixties summer meant:

Lemonade stands;

Sleepovers;

Looking for lady bugs armed with my bug jar and figuring out just the right leaf to ladybug ratio for their survival;

Walking all the way to the dime store for an Abba Zabba;

Bare feet so dirty we had to wash them before bed;

Flip flops (always blue) and ice cream cones (rocky road) from Thrifty’s;

Zinc Oxide on my pug nose (sunscreen hadn’t been invented);

Watermelon;

The street lights coming on after seven;

Hosing down the cement walkway to make it slick enough for our own homemade Slip N Slide;

Running thru the sprinklers and the smell of wet grass;

Collecting and then spending hours wetting and pasting green stamps in book after book in order to get ourselves a kiddy pool;

Short pink cotton pjs;

Root beer floats at the Drive In;

Red Vines at the weekly kids matinees at the band new multiplex in Panorama City where I saw my first movie made from a book I had read and LOVED, Islands of the Blue Dolphins
(totally radical concept for me at the time);

Staying up late,(sneak eating Red Vines) and reading the latest Nancy Drew by the dim light of my little desk lamp so my sister with whom I shared a room, could sleep. (I just saw some of the same old editions I used to read at a little neighborhood second-hand store and I teared up. Those are some gooooood memories.)

Charcoal and lighter fluid barbecues;

How different the classrooms and the entire school for that matter felt during summer school;

Culottes and tanned legs so skinny they look like pipe cleaners;

Camp Funtime (war-paint, beaded necklaces, and lanyard see the picture above);

Frozen grape Kool Aid Popsicles;

Selma’s (our neighbor’s aunt) beautiful built-in swimming pool;

The long drive to the beach with a car full of kids and then shlepping all our shit down to the water’s edge.

Egg salad sandwiches at the beach;

The hum of air conditioners;

Dodger baseball games on the radio At ALL TIMES (the voice of Vin Scully);

So when the weather gets into the nineties like it did last week and it releases all these great childhood cellular memories, I’m suddenly reminded that summer is my favorite season.

Until I think of Christmastime…

What triggers your spring or summer fever? What’s your favorite season and why?

Carry on’
xox

I believe with every fiber of my being that we ALL have a superpower. The thing or things that we are better at than almost ANYONE else.

Mine is my memory. I remember every word you said, the shoes you wore, and the song that was playing on the radio when you dumped me.
And then there’s my ability to weave that into a story.
Ouch. Oh relax, I’m only joking…sort of.

I have a friend that can make a box of Girl Scout Thin Mint Cookies last for more than three days — I know — UNBELIEVABLE. Yet, I have seen it with my own eyes.

My mom, and for that matter most mothers, are able to hear the spoken and often un-spoken mischievous musings, whispered plans and naughty plots of their children clear across the house; sometimes from out in the backyard with a cocktail while listening to the Dodger game; or even from the neighbor kid’s treehouse.

“No, you most certainly are NOT going to rig that old clothesline and beat up beach chair into a neighborhood zip line!”

Is she kidding? Could she have cracked our code? How did she know that was our plan? She’s making baloney sandwiches — in a house —down the block.

I was convinced as a child that her pink plastic hair rollers were some kind of sound enhancing devices.

Or how about this other widely demonstrated talent — the eyes in the back of her head trick.

“I see you…give your baby sister her cookie back. NOW!”

How is that possible…she’s driving?

Maternal Superpowers — used mostly in the service of good rather than evil; although as a child, that point was debatable.

My little sister is a kind of Culinary Wonder Woman. She can put together an event or party at the drop of a hint and I can guarantee you — it will be SPECTACULAR.

If you want to feed 6 or 60, it doesn’t matter call Sue.

She’ll cater it herself with eight to fifteen different appetizers, each more delicious than the next. Then she’ll serve a roast turkey AND a Prime rib, AND a smoked ham AND a goat; all lovingly prepared and garnished to perfection — with thirty-five gourmet side dishes — half of them using kale. That’s a talent.

Oh, and you’d better leave room for dessert. They’ll be seventeen pies, ten cakes, donuts, pastries and fountains of chocolate, both dark and white.

All of them homemade. In her spare time.

Every inch of her home will be decorated for the affair. Gorgeous fresh flowers (grown, picked and arranged by her own loving hands), tablecloths and centerpieces with white twinkle lights hung by Tinkerbelle herself.

You’ll receive a keepsake memento as you enter, and another as you leave (after she gets to know you better). They will be thoughtful and touching things that are personally selected for you and you alone. Things that will make you cry; items you will treasure for years to come. (We haven’t yet figured out how she does that; as far as we can guess she has a team of people who go through your drawers while you’re at the party, then shop, gift wrap and return before you’re ever the wiser.)

If you’re one of the lucky ones she may have put together a slide show of long forgotten but favorite photographs which will play on an endless loop — with a tear-jerking soundtrack.

Her parties are so inventive and fabulous that Martha Stewart has installed a top-secret party cam just to swipe ideas.

At Christmas, the elves at the North Pole have a Pinterest page of several years of her winter wonderland home and decoration ideas, which they present to Santa as their own — tiny lying slackers.

Susan’s undeniable superpower? — Making people happy with delicious food, beautiful ambiance and her over-the-top thoughtfulness.

My husband has the good fortune to have been blessed, as many of you have, with two superpowers.

He has his MacGyver Superpower and his Sparkle*.
Our friends and I tease him about it…but if you’ve ever been on the receiving end, they are both equally indispensable.

He can build you a house out of eleven Popsicle sticks, a random shard of glass, nine paperclips, one stick of Black Jack gum, and a sweat sock.
With those same exact items he can also fabricate a life raft, patch a blown tire, signal a rescue helicopter, fix a motorcycle, design a prom dress, start a signal fire, and end world hunger.

You want him on your team when the Zombie’s attack.

As for the Sparkle*(ting)…well, those that have been caught in its spell have given us the best table at a packed restaurant, upgraded us to First Class at no charge, overlooking the fact that our three bags each were over the weight limit, and found us front row tickets to a sold out concert.

Men, women, it doesn’t matter, his superpowers don’t discriminate.

Does it only work for he and I? Nope, whole groups of friends have benefited from his equal opportunity Sparkle*.

If he switched to the darkside…the man could rule the world. Seriously.

We all have ‘em these Superpowers; have you figured out what yours is?

Carry on,
xox

Mindfulness is “the intentional, accepting and non-judgemental focus of one’s attention on the emotions, thoughts and sensations occurring in the present moment”, which can be trained by meditational practices derived from Buddhist anapanasati.

So let me get this straight, these little kids have figured out what has taken me YEARS to grasp?

I want to feel bad about myself…that late bloomer thing and all…but I can’t get past the exhilaration.

What an incredible future lies in store for the world if this catches on.

What amazing students they’ll be;

What incredible employees and business owners;

Imagine the children they’ll raise!

You guys, this is getting so good.

Carry on — mindfully,

xox