A Cheesy Valentine’s Day Card

“You’re the kind of woman
Who could make someone
Hum corny love songs
In a crowded elevator.
You’re the bubbles in champagne.
The sizzle in the afternoon.
You’re the reason
they invented moonlight.”

Lol! Aww!

In CVS, a few days ago my sister and me were looking through all the valentine’s day and birthday cards just because. We had no intention of buying any. It’s just fun to look at all the pretty cards and read the funny, sweet, and sappy messages! 

Even if you don’t have a lover, you can still be the amazing woman who
is
the sizzle in the afternoon,
The bubbles in champagne
the one who inspires people to hum love songs In crowded places, the girl who Moonlight kisses the Earth for! What’s more important than searching for a lover? Searching within to be the best you that you can be in general.
if you find romantic love soon, that’s amazing! If not, that’s amazing Too!
And if you already found your one and only, that’s amazing! Lol

Just as there’s great things about being in a romantic relationship that you don’t have when you’re single, there’s great things about being single that you don’t have when you’re taken.

It’s up to you to find it.

There’s something amazing in every season of life!

And remember, no one completes you. You are already whole just as you are. Friends, family, lovers, kids, Others
all bring out parts Of
you in that way
only they can, coax out the joy reserved for only them in ways no one else can, we all complement each other and bring out different kinds of joy in each other but we don’t complete each other, we are all whole just as we are.

Love yourself, bask in your own beauty, both inside and out, be your own valentine, every day!

If you don’t have a valentine this year and are sad and lonely about it, Aww well then I’ll be your valentine! Even if it’s just in a friendly, platonic way and not the romance you were hoping for. Who is to say Valentine’s Day is all about the romance anyway! All love is important! ❤

You don’t need romantic love to be happy and full of joy! Hugs & kisses to you! Muahhh!! ;-D ❤

And remember you can be your own true love!

😀

Xoxo Kim

A Brilliant Idea! :-D

One of the many things I love is the fact that there are quite a few used stores I know of book/thrift stores that have boxes of free books outside or in the doorway. All kinds of books, memoirs, fiction, educational texts, magazines…everything. And even though the books are thrown into boxes for free, they are often great books! I found a few books on different occasions that I have been wanting to read!

One day, recently, I found a spiral journal in one  of the boxes, I love blank notebooks/journals and assuming it was blank, I took it. But when I got home and opened it, I found it’s written in! 

I was so delighted!

It’s full of inspiring quotes and ideas handwritten by two girls who wrote it as a gift for their best friend, a college girl. They encouraged her to write more words of wisdom in it along with theirs! 

It’s so uplifting to read all the amazing quotes they compiled!

Here are a few:

“Great opportunities to help others seldom come, but small ones surround us everyday.”

“Words harshly spoken are as difficult to retrieve as feathers in a gale.”

“Being kind is more important than being right.” 

“The less time there is to work with, the more things get done.” 

“Love is a fruit in season at all times, and within reach of every hand.”

“The human spirit is stronger than anything that happens to it.” 

“Shared joy is doubled joy, shared sorrow is half sorrow.” 

“What’s important in life is how we treat other people.”

“The greatest gift is a portion of thyself.”

“Happiness is a journey, not a destination.”

“Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.”

“Love is a language which the blind can see and the deaf can hear.”

“Boys are bad news. (Especially those with girlfriends)” 

Lol cute!

And many more like this!

They also chronicled a trip they all took together in 2003!

After reading this, I got a brilliant idea! One I’m sure isn’t very original but still incredible! I thought of buying a journal or notebook, it can be pretty or plain, expensive or you can buy it at a dollar store. You can decorate the cover or leave it as it is.

Fill it with inspiring thoughts, uplifting quotes, anything positive, links to your favorite blogs or websites that may help others, a list of your favorite books that other people may also like, your favorite uplifting songs, things that can apply to or benefit people in general. Whatever you think will help/inspire people!  Your own thoughts and/or the deep wisdom of famous authors and ancient philosophers. You can leave some space so someone else can write in it. Then leave it for a random stranger to find! Imagine finding a book like this! 

Or

You can do what these sweet girls did and make one up as a gift for someone you know. And you can list all the things you love about the person, memories you may have together, funny things, pictures, quotes, wisdom, any kind of inspiration! Think about it, wouldn’t you just LOVE to receive something like this as a gift by a friend, family member, co-worker…or a stranger!?

It’s uplifting, inspiring, and creative and the perfect idea! And you can even make a habit of it! Create one for multiple people you know or random strangers every now and then.

Leave it at a bus stop, on a seat on a bus, on a park bench, at a cafe, a university/college campus, a doctor’s office, maybe somewhere else you know some struggling person is likely to find it. Mail it anonymously to someone you know may need some extra inspiration or just someone you think is amazing and would love to inspire. Give it as a “just because” gift or a birthday gift or a going away or welcome back gift, a sympathy gift, a get well gift, a congratulations gift, a gift of encouragement, or just an I love you gift, to your friend or lover. Who wouldn’t love a journal like this no matter what stage/season of life the person is in!

It can be as long or as brief as you want, very detailed or just brief quotes or thoughts. You can create one in less than a day or work on it for a while.  The thoughtfulness/concept  will be the same! 

I heard of a thing called “Love Letters to Strangers” or something of that sort where this girl began a project where she wrote something sweet on paper, like a brief, uplifting message, even something as simple as “you’re beautiful” and she chose a random stranger, walked up to that person and handed the letter. I read one story where both the stranger and the person giving the gift to the stranger cried together because it was so heartwarming! 

If you want you can even do that with the journal! That would take some guts though! Lol I would have some serious courage to muster! 

Also, not all people are real sappy or kind or warm, not all are appreciative and while there are some who will be warmed, grateful, kind, and receptive, there are people out there who would be angry, curse you out, be confused and look at you like “what the hell are you doing, what’s this shit all about?” 

Lol

I watched a YouTube video of a young man who wanted to make strangers happy, men and women both, and he walked up to random strangers saying “you’re beautiful.” With some, it did not go over too well. Some cursed him out, even threatened him, some were disgusted, took it the wrong way, and some just couldn’t understand. So it’s best to be careful when approaching strangers even in positive ways, trying to help and inspire them.

I can definitely see why some people get confused or wary or suspicious, it’s not everyday a stranger comes up to us with a gift or being all sappy showering us in compliments. Even if it’s purely platonic, some people will mistake it as a sexual move or as someone merely being a creep.

But if you’re careful, friendly, and approach people in an open, outgoing way, it should go well! Or if you just leave it for someone to find, it may be less creepy. 

Tap into your creativity and wisdom and let it run wild! You can remain anonymous or not. I love the idea of making it anonymous for strangers. And not anonymous for a close friend. But it’s up to you! And maybe the ones you create one for will go on to create them for others! Maybe we can begin an “inspiring journal” pandemic! Lol You can even create one for yourself!

😀

I’m wishing you much love, happiness, & joy!! ❤

Xoxo Kim

Random Inspiration #10 {old memories and what to do with ugly/plain/useless photos you take}

Sometimes I take pictures that turn out not that good, blurry or ugly or boring or plain looking, too dark, too bright, seemingly having no point…I usually have the urge to delete them.

But not so long ago, I got a better idea. 

I can “recycle” them in a way, I guess you can say. Get creative and fix them up and make them pretty or more interesting. 

I can do things with the pictures that will make them look good that would ruin other pictures.

Example:

Look at this terrible picture! Ack! I want to delete it right now! I meant for it to be a lovely view of the Philadelphia skyline at night but it sucks instead. No hope for it…

Unless!

Now it’s pretty, right?!

I think so! But even if you still think it’s just kind of useless or sucks, you still get the picture, right?

You can take a sucky photo and prettify (or creepify) it. Imagine if I took a beautiful picture and then put that heart on it like that? It would ruin it!

But this picture already sucks so the heart can’t ruin it! And you can still see part of the skyline and I think the heart makes it look even better.And the colors pop more The heart is the main thing now but then we catch a glimpse of the buildings and lights in the background! Perfect!

Or you can make a sucky picture look creepy, like with my pic of the door above. That was just a simple pic of a door I took that had no use (the pic had no use, not the door) so I put a weird creep effect on it!

I like this one. Sometimes I’m in the mood for making my pictures cheery and pretty and colorful while other occasions I want them seeming dark, nostalgic, hazy, blurry, creepy, sad-like, vintage, shadowy…
This one is on the dark side.

Heres’s the original :

And here’s another pic I made fantastic when it was just kind of blah originally:

Original:

I actually like this one too but can see how it’s kind of plain. It’s interesting though. It’s a University of Pennsylvania building. The campus is beautiful. This is the medical examiner’s office, where they do autopsies and examine corpses and stuff.

And here are some more pics of mine that weren’t that good and I fixed them up:

Lol the heater at work. I made it look like I was having some dance party with strobe lights. I only took the pic to test my phone because it wasn’t working correctly. I took the picture last year and just found it in my phone recently.

Library on Temple University campus. I used to go to school here. I took this pic a few nights ago as I was going by.
I love when I see the campus again. I don’t see it frequently and whenever I do so many emotions come flooding back to me.
Both happy and sad ones, feelings of longing and feelings of joy. Nostalgia and happiness and gratitude.
i embrace them all.
It’s so familiar yet so distant now. I know it so well, so intimately, yet I feel as if I would probably get lost walking on there again.
That is so strange to feel.
i am never quite prepared for the feelings I experience when seeing the campus again and reminiscing.
I loved walking all around the campus day or night. When I had breaks in the middle classes

sometimes I would walk around the same buildings over and over and over, loving every single second of it. I would explore the entire campus by myself. And I would get there early just to have breakfast and iced coffee and just to walk around campus in the early morning before class.
It’s there and then that I learned to love my own company. I was always afraid to do things, go places alone, not because of social anxiety but because of my depression and certain painful memories I have. I dreaded long breaks in the middle of classes and it hurt me to see girls alone drinking coffee or eating or reading, it stirred feelings of horror and despair in me because of certain of my own experiences but I took the chance, the risk, and embraced my physical aloneness and came to welcome it and love iit.

Sometimes I still get those old feelings and fear of aloneness but then I remember my strength I found on campus in college.

I loved those early mornings having coffee with just me, reading, walking, exploring.i found it healing and I love the memories now. I cherish them always. This was before my depression was as healed as it is now and that aloneness and embracing it helped heal me so much and instill more joy into me. I’m naturally extroverted, always wanting people around me and it was hard at first to learn to do things like this alone but I accomplished it! 😀

These are steps that lead to nowhere. They are in a neighborhood I used to live, one I lived in since I took my first breath until I turned eleven years old. It’s a small place where everyone knew each other. It’s often called the “ghetto” because it’s a very poor neighborhood and full of trash and falling down houses. And loud people, prostitutes, criminals, and people with drug problems. It wasn’t always as bad as it is now. It started to get worse and that’s why my mom and dad decided to move when I was eleven years old. People were getting murdered on the street corners where I played with my friends. One day I saw one of the murder victims after the homicide occurred.
A young woman who I still think of today. I never saw her before she died
That I know of. I don’t know who she is/was.
she had thick curly long hair and I remember it so vividly. I wonder who she would be if she were allowed to live.
I saw the whole thing, all the gore and all, I saw the emergency paramedics take her body away after covering her with the white sheet. I saw the gruesome aftermath, the things that no one cleaned and remained day after day until the rain washed it away.
She was killed on a man’s pavement and I wondered why he did not clean up his pavement after it occurred.
She was stabbed to death.
I knew it’s horrific but I was too young to completely understand.
i was sad to leave the neighborhood because I loved it there (not the violence and gore and all though)
i knew everyone, I had many friends there.
i never minded the loud people or the prostitutes on the corner.
One of them was even my friend when I saw her around.
she was sweet and friendly and I wondered why people talked about her In an unkind way.

i just saw her for her, not the unfortunate circumstances of her life.
I was very angry at my mom and dad for taking me away and moving me to a bigger place where I knew not as many people. I met a few friends I frequently saw but I still wanted my old ones and wanted to go back “home.”

i used to know a lady who lived on the street where those steps are. Her house is gone now but the broken steps remain.
she was very old, very sweet, very youthful and full of life. Very loving and warm.
She worked or volunteered at the elementary school I went to.
i remember when it was almost Christmas and I was in 4th grade and a little girl in class asked her if she thinks Santa Claus is real and she said “yes because who else brings all the toys?!” 😀

These are some of my darker pictures. The ones that don’t resonate with everyone. My mom and sister don’t care for them. Some pictures are universally pleasing like, most people would probably like them or agree that they are pleasant, pretty, uplifting…such as flowers, a bowl of fruit, cute animals, sunsets and sunrises, babies…and I love all those too. but there are certain kinds
of 
artistic things that only certain others will understand or appreciate like this stuff. I never used to like black & white or sepia pictures but now I love them. Only for certain things though, usually not for people or
Nature, definitely not for the sky usually. I think those things are meant to let their colors fly. But for buildings and things I like b&w and sepia as well as color.

This concept can be applied to many things. Some things are probably better off being tossed. But some things can be given new life, used in a different way. Old clothes, old mail, things which no longer serve their original purpose well can be creatively made into something else. Even ourselves! 

You can use useless mail for an arts and crafts project, clothes too.

This can probably be good for the environment too! Recycling is important!

And we can even rebuild ourselves into something new, grow, evolve, expand…

I wish you much love, happiness, health, joy, and creativity!

😀

Xoxo Kim

P.s. This post is not in good condition, like the format because I posted it directly onto the app on my phone instead of how I usually do. The app is not compatible with my phone for posting directly onto it, I can’t correct mistakes easily and other stuff. I did this like this because I got confused with the locations of the pictures in my phone and that part was easier to just use the app directly for. Most of my posts won’t be this much
Of
a wreck though. Lol ;-D toodleloo lolz

Baby It’s Cold Outside

Beautiful!

Simple Pleasures

“It is the life of the crystal,
the architect of the flake,
the fire of the frost,
the soul of the sunbeam.
This crisp winter air is full of it.”

John Burroughs, “Winter Sunshine”

View original post

Random Inspiration #9 {Beauty (and mystery) in the Mundane}

Adventure is great, holidays, celebrations, weddings, buying new things, shopping sprees, vacations, new jobs, promotions, and new experiences! Those are great things to experience and pursue if we’re into those things. But we don’t always get the chances to do those and we don’t need them anyway to be happy and have fun, thrilling lives! There’s so much beauty in the mundane, extraordinary in the ordinary, simple joys in everyday.  Let’s cherish, savor, and deeply appreciate them!

Check out my post in the Page section on the menu:

“Small Things Forgotten”

https://inspirationalgem.wordpress.com/small-things-forgotten/

This page explains my goal of reclaiming and shedding light on the simple, often abandoned things, the mundane aspects of our lives like the colors, the textures, the hues and simple conversations, lines and edges and our favorite books and knick knacks and the sounds in the streets, the wetness on bottles of drinks, the fragrance of cookies baking or food being cooked, our kitchen table or dresser even if it’s plain and just getting old or boring now, the rooms in our house, the streets we walk each day, the ground we walk upon, the hills, buildings, and trees we pass by on our way to work…and how they are beautiful even when they’re not, merely because they make up our lives each day, every single day and they are part of us. They are no less important than the big celebrations and vacations and holidays and weddings, all the “big” things many of us often wait for, search for, hope for, and sometimes feel incomplete, jealous, depressed or low without, either because we want them and don’t have them or because society as a whole says we should have them and if we don’t, we can feel like outcasts or less than successful.   

I love to take pictures of “ordinary” or “boring/plain” objects making them look beautiful, mysterious, obscure, nostalgic, or difficult to detect what they are.

Like this one:

Can you tell what it is?!

I can’t either! Lol And it’s my own picture I took at work of something we see/use everyday! I remember taking the picture of whatever it is and trying to obscure it, mystify it. And it worked a little too well because now I can’t figure out for the life of me what it is. To me, it looks like packages that come in the mail but I’m nearly certain it’s not! 

I even searched the place all day one day looking for it and to no avail! I think the point of this photo Activity

of de-focusing or obscuring objects is to have others guessing, not our own selves but oh well! I guess that just goes to show my madd skills! ;-D

Here are some links if you are interested about photography and photographing everyday objects and tips to taking pictures with a smartphone.

http://digital-photography-school.com/the-16-most-photogenic-everyday-objects/

http://thephotographerwithin.com/2014/01/make-everyday-objects-look-amazing/

http://www.digitalcameraworld.com/2013/08/07/close-up-photography-creative-ideas-for-photographing-everyday-objects/

(Caution: this website uses cookies and they can store them or access them on your device so if that’s not ok with you, you may not want to click it)  It’s about taking pictures of everyday objects such as a strap on a shoulder bag, a lemon slice in a drink…and making them beautiful in pictures or de-focusing them to make them more interesting and not being able to tell what they arE

How
fascinating! 

http://digital-photography-school.com/5-ways-to-take-better-smartphone-photos/

Even if you aren’t interested in photography there are other ways to appreciate and express gratitude or joy for the simple gifts of living like writing/poetry, drawing or painting, or just basking in the beauty, soaking it all up with as many senses as you have!

😀

Here are some of my pictures of simple, everyday things and inspiring quotes I have come across that convey, in some way, the message of how every “ordinary” day is beautiful.

Can you tell what this one is?!

If you can’t tell, why should I?! Lol
;-D

“You can be in love with one thousand views and skylines and souls and minds at once. Don’t apologize for your burn, your passion, or your enthusiasm. Enthusiasm propels the world.” – Victoria Erickson

Hmmm….;-p

“If you look the right way, you can see that the whole world is a garden.” ~ 
Frances Hodgson Burnett

“To me, photography is an art of observation. It’s about finding something interesting in an ordinary place… I’ve found it has little to do with the things you see and everything to do with the way you see them.” ~ Elliott Erwitt

“Your ordinary acts of love and hope point to the extraordinary promise that every human life is of inestimable value.” ~ 
Desmond Tutu

“Literature is the art of discovering something extraordinary about ordinary people, and saying with ordinary words something extraordinary.” ~ 
Boris Pasternak

What in the world? An x-ray pic of a spinal cord?!?! Or maybe it’s just a weird pic of a Center City Philadelphia building. I sent it to my mom in a text and said guess what it is and she couldn’t so I said it’s a spinal cord and she screamed “Eww oh my god Eww!!” and deleted it instantly. Lol 😀 She believed me.

“I have loved the stars too fondly
to be fearful of the night.” ~ Sarah Williams

Light graffiti!

“Creativity is piercing the mundane to find the marvelous.” ~ 
Bill Moyers

“As a matter of fact, I deliberately look for the mundane, because I feel these stories are ignored. The most influential things that happen to virtually all of us are the things that happen on a daily basis. Not the traumas.” ~ 
Harvey Pekar 

This looks like cold hard cash. That’s because it is! It’s someone’s penny collection. I don’t know whose though.

The perfect snack. No mystery here. MmmMmmm

“What I like about The Sims is that I don’t have a normal life at all, so I play this game where these people have these really boring, mundane lives. It’s fun.” ~ 
Gerard Way

Lol Remember this quote the next day you crave a more adventurous life! Some people would give anything for a bit of simplicity. ;-D

One of those containers to keep coins in with a toy camera effect on the pic.

“Actually I think Art lies in both directions – the broad strokes, big picture but on the other hand the minute examination of the apparently mundane. Seeing the whole world in a grain of sand, that kind of thing.” ~ 
Peter Hammill

Busstop.

“The heart of the theater is the play itself, how it dramatizes life to make it meaningful entertainment. To achieve depth and universality, the playwright must subject himself to intense critique, to know human character and behavior, and finally to construct art from the most mundane of human experience.” ~
F. Sionil Jose

” Bus stop, wet day, she’s there, I say
Please share my umbrella
Bus stop, bus goes, she stays, love grows
Under my umbrella
All that summer we enjoyed it
Wind and rain and shine
That umbrella, we employed it
By August, she was mine” ~ The Hollies

And this is???

The rim of a

glass soda bottle (or a photo of one) dressed up in a leaky toy camera effect!

“I think you can find all the elements that you can find in great literature in mundane experiences.”
Harvey Pekar

Can you guess this one?

.
.
.
.

It’s raindrops on my dad’s car window! With a street light in the distance.

“every time we go out into the world we can choose to be alert to see what we’ve not seen before. a trip to the corner store can contain a multitude of universes. it only requires a conscious decision to “tune in” and activate all the senses to be open to what we don’t know yet” ~ Keri Smith 

And we can look at things we see everyday in a different way than we usually do! 

The picture on the left was taken after 10:00 at night! Right when a lightening bolt ventured across the sky! And I took the pic on the right just a few seconds later after the lightening disappeared! Isn’t it amazing?! A lightening bolt lights up the whole sky like that but it happens so quickly we don’t realize.

What a beautiful lesson to us! When we’re completely in the dark, we can find just one sliver of light or spark of hope, joy, or beauty that can light up our world.

Purple rain.

Rainy night in my dad’s car under the blue, blue Moon. That’s my dad’s Kindle lit up in the window.

I read a book called “a new adventure everyday 541 simple ways to live with pizzazz” by David Silberkleit.

The book is about how we don’t have to travel to be adventurous, we don’t have to bungee jump or climb a mountain, we don’t have to take big risks and don’t even have to leave our houses to have a thrilling adventure. Those things are fantastic and I definitely would love to and hope to engage in some of those one day but as I have said, they are not necessary to be adventurous. 

And the author of this book IS an adventurous person in the sense I mention above. He has traveled to various places and tried new things, took risks, and engaged in big thrilling activities such as rock climbing, sailboat racing, scuba diving, motorcycling, visiting other countries…..he believed that was the only way to be adventurous and have a thrill. Then after forty years he realized that being adventurous can be more simple but still as rewarding, it can mean “discovery of a unique new color of silver reflected in a cloud after sunset or a conversation with the person sitting next to me on a New York subway, just to see if maybe we have something in common.” He also lists: asking his father what he remembers about being his age and telling his best friend something he would have never told anyone before.

In his book he lists many simple, inexpensive activities we can do every single day to bring some adventure into our lives without traveling the world or jumping out of an airplane. I hope anyone who wants to travel and rockclimb and go sailboat racing will! That sounds like a lot of fun! But many, probably most of us cannot do that often but we CAN explore and engage in mini but still thrilling little adventures each day. 
Some suggestions the author gives are: admire the small businesses – introducing yourself to the owners and having a look around even if the products or services offered are something you would never use, greeting everyone you see that day without waiting for them to say hello first (I’m so shy so this is definitely a thrilling adventure for me that takes guts!), go on a scary ride at a theme park, pay attention to the name tags of employees in the stores you go to, write down all the things you need to forgive yourself for then burn or bury it or float it down a river, make a compromise with someone, take a whole day and do not criticize yourself, draw self portraits in different ways including two using only your left hand. 

The possibilities are infinite!

The point is NOT to avoid big adventures like traveling and sky diving if that’s what we want but to also cherish the simple forgotten things all of us always have access to. 

Let’s not overlook all that we currently have no matter how simple! 😀 And let’s use our creativity and imagination and see what we can do with all the things we have every day to make them even more thrilling!
I wish you much love and passion and thrilling adventures whatever you choose to do! ❤

Xoxo Kim  😀

Winter

Today is the first real snow day this Winter! It has been snowing all day and the snow is landing! A Winter wonderland! Yay! 

Of all the beautiful four seasons, I am most inspired in Winter usually. Inspired to create and take pictures and also just feeling inspired. All the seasons are inspiring but there’s just something about Winter….

Something about the gray, the cold, the barrenness, the sometimes somberness, the bare tree branches, the glistening white, the footprints and paw prints in the snow, cat, dog, and bird paws! 

Something about dreary, dreamy landscapes and the warm, cozy feeling. The idea of firesides and soup brewing on the stove. A steaming cup of hot tea, frozen sunsets, Frigid sunrises, and Winter pj’s….

Something deeply inspiring!

I love the feel of warmth that flows through my entire body when I hold a steaming cup of hot tea or hot cocoa in my hands! The feeling of towels and hoodies just out of a dryer.

For the last few days I have been suffering devastating headaches related to my chronic pain disorder. These headaches are migraine- like headaches, not as bad as the cluster-like headaches I can get where I can’t lay down or be still and sometimes scream through the night til my throat is raw. But still absolutely devastating.
Just devastating.
Sickly headaches on the one side usually, where I have to lay down, sensitive sometimes to light and sound. Dizziness. 

A throbbing achy ache. It hurts.

Sometimes my headaches and facial pain generally occur, most days, and sometimes they go away and generally I’m pain-free, most days, or only in very mild pain that doesn’t interfere with me. It comes and goes. 

But for the last few days, they have been occurring, most severely  in the afternoon. A severe ache. Sometimes it’s hard to stand up.
They go away after a while but some days, quickly return.

My physical pain, even when it’s bad, usually doesn’t depress me even though I’m prone to temporary fits of depression. But it does sometimes provoke me to go into a “depressed-like” state. A state where I don’t get out of bed, sometimes for fear of making the pain worse, sometimes thinking what’s the point when I’m in so much pain. I stay in pj’s most of the day, avoiding things I like to do like putting my makeup on, art journaling, going out, even getting dressed..but it’s not depression. I still have the desire to do things, still have interest and appetite, it’s just I feel that the pain will either get worse or mostly ruin the fun of doing anything pleasant. And sometimes the pain is so physically severe I literally can’t stand up or I’m too dizzy and it throbs so much. 

But it’s not good to think that way.
I’m going to feel the pain anyway so why not throw a little fun and inspiration into the mix!
Doing fun things as long as I’m physically able to, can help significantly. Help me cope, distract me, and allow me to think of something other than the pain. This pain hurts me not only physically but emotionally. It hurts to hurt so much. 

But I won’t let it conquer me. If I want to stand up, I will stand. If I want to go out for a walk I will go. If I want to take pictures, to draw and paint, do stretches, I will. It takes courage and strength some days but I will muster the courage and the strength. 

There is so much beauty to be thankful for! 

Also when I keep doing fun, inspiring things even when it hurts, the habit will become more and more ingrained, the habit of having fun, coping when pain is overwhelming. 

Sometimes my pain even sends me into a deep, deep abyss of dark despair or a full blown panic. But I always find my way back to the sunlight.

For a while my pain disorder has been mostly not acting up, I have been not hurting everyday, and even when the pain would arise it was brief and mild. But this disorder flares up terribly once in a while. It’s ok though. It’s to be expected and at least I’m alive to feel pain, right?! 😀

Whenever I want to crumble, I remind myself of the goodness all around me. The beauty of Nature, my books, uplifting quotes, people, animals, taking pictures….the fact that I’m alive, the fact that pain strengthens us and teaches us, deepens our empathy, compassion for others, and our wisdom if we allow it. I won’t let my pain be in vain. I won’t let it conquer me.

 “Think of all the beauty still left around you and be happy.” – Anne Frank

My head has been throbbing today but when I look out the window and watch the little flurries, when I take a walk and listen to the white crunching, feeling the cold embrace me, when I catch a snowflake on my tongue, tasting the wet coldness, and smell the fragrance of wet concrete and hear the cars sloshing through the sludge in the streets, it temporarily burns out the pain, the emotional pain that accompanies the physical and it helps me cope with the physical pain. I look up a foggy street of white like a dream and the magic ventures through my veins. I know I can go on.

Here are some of my pictures and my favorite Winter quotes! 

“I prefer winter and fall, when you can feel the bone structure in the landscape—the lonliness of it—the dead feeling of winter. Something waits beneath it—the whole story dosen’t show.” ~
Andrew Wyeth

“And finally Winter, with its bitin’, whinin’ wind, and all the land will be mantled with snow.” ~ 
Roy Bean

“We cannot stop the winter or the summer from coming. We cannot stop the spring or the fall or make them other than they are. They are gifts from the universe that we cannot refuse. But we can choose what we will contribute to life when each arrives.” ~
Gary Zukav

“People ask me what I do in winter when there’s no baseball. I’ll tell you what I do. I stare out the window and wait for spring.” ~
Rogers Hornsby

While I usually promote living for the moment, not overlooking Now just to want something else, I love this quote and concept because it’s so full of hope. It shows that we have things to look forward to, whatever season (whether a season of Nature or a season of life) we are experiencing that may not be pleasant to us at the moment, it will end and something seemingly more pleasant will begin. It’s fantastic to live for now but also great to have something to look forward to and know seasons are fleeting. 

“The winter solstice has always been special to me as a barren darkness that gives birth to a verdant future beyond imagination, a time of pain and withdrawal that produces something joyfully inconceivable, like a monarch butterfly masterfully extracting itself from the confines of its cocoon, bursting forth into unexpected glory.” ~
Gary Zukav

“Even in winter an isolated patch of snow has a special quality.” ~
Andy Goldsworthy

 “You can’t get too much winter in the winter.” ~
Robert Frost

 “While I relish our warm months, winter forms our character and brings out our best.” ~
Tom Allen

“Let us love winter, for it is the spring of genius.” ~
Pietro Aretino

“Once something has outlived its usefulness in one area of life, its purpose for being in existence is no longer the same. The leaf that captures a stream of sunlight, and then transfers its energy to the tree, serves one purpose in the spring and summer, and another completely different one through the fall and winter.” ~
Guy Finley

Each season, each day, each stage of life, each sentient being…is important.

 “Each solstice is a domain of experience unto itself. At the Summer Solstice, all is green and growing, potential coming into being, the miracle of manifestation painted large on the canvas of awareness. At the Winter Solstice, the wind is cold, trees are bare and all lies in stillness beneath blankets of snow.” ~
Gary Zukav

“It was one of those March days when the sun shines hot and the wind blows cold: when it is summer in the light, and winter in the shade.” ~
Charles Dickens

“I love the scents of winter! For me, it’s all about the feeling you get when you smell pumpkin spice, cinnamon, nutmeg, gingerbread and spruce.” ~
Taylor Swift

I wish you much love, happiness, warmth, joy, and healing if you need a sense of healing. I hope you are staying very warm & cozy wherever you are if it’s cold. My heart goes out to anyone struggling with the cold weather or chronic pain or sickness, grief, depression, anxiety/panic, eating disorders….anything. We’re all in this together and we can help lift each other. We won’t all experience all of these things but we can use whatever experiences we have, no matter how serious or less serious, and our basic empathy to better understand to some degree, each other’s pain.

“I will keep a smile on my face and in my heart even when it hurts today.” ~ Og Mandino ❤ 😀

Xoxo Kim 

Random Inspiration #7 {Thought Provoking/Zen}

“There ain’t no answer.
There ain’t going to be any answer.
There never has been an answer.
That’s the answer.” ~ Gertrude Stein

“Before you study Zen, a bowl is a bowl and tea is tea. While you are studying Zen, a bowl is no longer a bowl and tea is no longer tea. After you’ve studied Zen, a bowl is again a bowl and tea is tea.” ~ Zen saying

Lol “I know it’s crazy but it’s true.”

“The only Zen you find on the tops of mountains is the Zen you bring up there.” ~ Robert Pirsig

“Zen teaches us nothing; it merely enables us to wake up and become aware. It does not teach, it points.” ~ D.T. Suzuki

“The art of the tea Way consists simply of boiling water, preparing tea and drinking it.” ~ Rikyu

“Pure logic is the ruin of the spirit.” ~ Saint-Exupery

“Life just is. You have to flow with it. Give yourself to the moment. Let it happen.” ~ Jerry Brown

“Dreams are real while they last. Can we say more of life?” ~ Havelock Ellis

What is your interpretation, meaning, analysis of the above quotes?! Most of them are meant to be obscure, shady, simple but also complex…intended to get us to think and eventually just to BE.

😀

Xoxo Kim

Happy New Year <3

“And now let us welcome the New Year 
Full of things that have never been.” ~ Rainer Maria Rilke

In Sarah Ban Breathnach’s “Simple Abundance – A Daybook of Comfort and Joy,” she writes:

“January, the month of new beginnings and cherished memories, beckons. Come, let winter weave her wondrous spell: cold, crisp, woolen-muffler days, long dark evenings of savory suppers, lively conversations, or solitary joys. Outside the temperature drops as the snow falls softly. All of nature is at peace. We should be, too. Draw hearthside. This is the month to dream, to look forward to the year ahead and the journey within.” 

Isn’t this a beautiful description?! We don’t need a new year to have new beginnings, new hope, and new goals. We can begin anywhere, any place, any time. But January is symbolic of new hope and beginnings. A new, clean, blank slate to be and do whatever you want!

She also writes, “…time is the New Year’s bountiful blessing: three hundred sixty-five bright mornings and starlit evenings; fifty-two promising weeks; twelve transformative months full of beautiful possibilities; and four splendid seasons. a simply abundant year to be savored.” 

I shared this last year here, and maybe the year before too! It’s beautiful and full of so much hope! Like I said, you don’t need the beginning of a new year to be hopeful and create a new life or a new you, all that’s changing is the date, it’s what has to change within and our actions that count, but it’s a beautiful symbol! 

And the magic of a new year is lovely! 

I wish you a happy New Year full of love (of all kinds including self love), success with your goals, happiness, joy, beauty & light! Remember we don’t need lots of money, material possessions, romantic love, a big happy family…to be happy and full of love. Those are great things to have but not necessary to be happy in general. All we need is the right attitude and we can be homeless, financially poor, living in a shack and still be happy. True happiness and joy is within. External things can add to it but we don’t need them.
❤
 

Xoxo Kim 😀