Day #499 Thanks for the help

Thank you to Petie and Billy Ogg, who contacted me with suggestions about WiFi/DSL and such. Yesterday I went to the AT&T booth in the Mall of Georgia and spoke with the manager, who set me up for an installation appointment on March 3^rd. The bottom line will save me about $40 each month. Hopefully, this will work.

In the meantime, I’ll muddle my way through each day, trying to get this blog posted. It’s worked so far, but I’m looking forward to letting go of the daily WiFi struggle. “Push the easy button,” to quote you-know-who.

And another thank-you to my dear friend from High School, Ellen Norton, who sent me a tall graceful bottle of pomegranate vinegar that she made herself. How delightful a taste, Ellen. 

And, by the way, while I'm cleaning up loose ends, when I told you on Tuesday about Jeanette Meierhofer and her life coaching, I neglected to give you her contact information.

All of her work is done by phone, unless someone lives in central Atlanta, in which case a face-to-face appointment can be scheduled. So, if you’re interested in experiencing Jeanette’s special way of helping you focus your thinking, you can contact her at froofie@bellsouth.net. 

The bees are beginning to explore, looking for nectar and pollen. For next year I absolutely HAVE to plant more early-blooming shrubs.

BEEattitude for Day #499:

       Blessed are those who liven up their yards with food for us bees, for they shall have the beauty of flowers and the deliciousness of honey.

Day #497 Life Coaching

As I’ve told you before, this year is turning out to be one of major soul-searching on my part, and major changes in the way I approach life.

I’ve shared with you my attempts to overcome my fear of horses, my journey into the worlds of technology, my Silver Sneakers exercise program.

Another bugaboo has reared its head. I signed up for a life-coaching phone session with Jeanette Meierhofer, someone I met years ago at the Shakespeare Tavern. I made the appointment on something of a whim, but the results of it surprised me.

What I hadn’t consciously recognized is that I’m afraid of dying. I never, ever thought of myself as dreading the final reaper. I’ve shared with you how peaceful my father’s death was, and how I wanted to choose a death like his, for he showed me that dying could be a conscious, loving choice. 

I’ve always scorned Dylan Thomas and his insistence that one “not go gentle into that good night--rage, rage against the dying of the light.” 

But, that was when I was in my thirties, forties, fifties. Now that I’m halfway through my sixties, I’m beginning to realize that I might not have as long ahead of me as I thought I’d have.

And I don’t wanna go. I want to rage against it.

There are still too many books to be read, too many books to be written, too many places to visit. There are grandchildren to watch grow up, friends to laugh with, songs to sing. Thank goodness I talked with Jeanette about my fears. When we started, she asked me where, on a scale of 1 to 10, my fears lay. I felt like a basket case. My fear was up around a 7 at least. She listened compassionately, asked intelligent questions, and left me with a couple of assignments (should I choose to do them). By the time the appointment was over, my fear level had dropped to a 5. That felt like a big change to me.

And then I watched the movie The Children of Chabannes, a documentary about people who were rescued as children from concentration camps and taken to a school at Chateau Chabannes, in France. These people, the ones still living, were in their seventies, eighties, and nineties, and were still going strong, still living productive lives. What wonderful role models. “Jeanette was right,” I told myself. “I don’t have to shrivel up. I can keep right on living a productive life.”

Once I slept on it, I was down to a 3 or 4.

So now, all I have to do … is … do it!

BEEattitude for Day #497:

       Blessed are those who serve as role models and show the rest of the bees how to live, for they shall leave the hive a better place.