fun – Cairn by Cairn

Red Neck Bliss

I grew up part red neck without even knowing it. My mother’s family was large, loud, boistourous and always fighting about something. Sometimes it was like living inside a soap opera where you needed a score card to figure out who was talking to who. My father’s family wasn’t quite as boistorous but I suspect they were red necks at heart.

To my way of thinking, being a red neck isn’t about how many cars you have parked in the front yard, it isn’t about marrying your cousin, and it isn’t about eating roadkill for dinner. Being a red neck is about being honest about who you are and about calling a spade a spade. It’s about getting down and dirty and enjoying life. It’s about stomping in the mud puddles instead of walking around them.

Going away to college and joining the workforce, I tried hard to keep my red neck tendancies hidden and to fit in with the rest of the crowd. Being a red neck wasn’t cool and I wasn’t about to annouce to the world that I liked bonfires, demoliton derbies, and being honest. It took me a long time to learn that the corporate world isn’t about total honesty. It’s about putting on a mask of civility and learning to keep your friends close and your enemines closer.

I’m still trying to figure out how to reconcile my red neck roots with my need to play in the corporate playground and make a living. A few years ago I found my anthem in Gretchen Wilson’s Red Neck woman as she sings about being a product of her raising, shopping at Walmart, and playing in the dirt. I will probably never be as red neck as Gretchen, but I’m working really hard to embrace my inner red neck and to discover the bliss that comes from being real and not wearing the mask all the time.

29 Days of Giving Bliss?

I finished the 29 days of giving challenge back on November 1 and I promised that I’d right a recap about whether or not I felt it had changed my life. I’ve been pondering that question for over a month mainly because every time I thought about it, I reached the conclusion that it hadn’t changed my life and that I really didn’t see what all the hoopla was about. I kept telling myself that that must be wrong because everyone was excited about this and the author got a book published and everything so there must be something to it. However, no matter how many times I turned the question around in my head, I still reached the conclusion that the 29 days of giving had had at best a minimal impact on my life.

The big question was why did I feel it had a minimal impact on my life and that’s the question I’ve really been pondering over a month. I guess the real reason I felt it had minimal impact was because all of the things on the list are things that I would have done anyway. I always try to make the world a little bit better and to do nice things for those around me. The 29 Day challenge didn’t make me give my daughter money for homecoming, I would have done that anyway. Taking the dog for a walk had more to do with my desire for fitness than anything else and I always let someone go in front of me in line if I the person only has one or two items and I have a handful.

The next question was did my consciously noticing and recording the things I’d given and sharing them with the 29 days community make a change in my life and if anything I think that had a negative impact on my life because I felt like I was bragging about doing the right thing. I didn’t need praise or recognition for the gifts and kindness I was sharing because I knew in my heart I’d done the right thing and that meant more than sharing them on a list with others.

As I was trolling through the Internet to get ideas for how to sum this up, I came across several random acts of kindness sites where people recount how kindnesses done by loved ones or strangers have changed their lives. To me it was much more meaningful to read stories from people who recognized the gifts given to them and how those gifts changed their lives.

My life has changed tremendously since I’ve started this blog as I’m consciously looking for the good things in life and recognizing those has led me to a more consistent state of bliss. Life still isn’t perfect, but recognizing the gifts of bliss in my life seems to in a weird sort of way lead to more gifts of bliss in my life.

Comfortable Bliss

Old shoes may not be glamorous, but it is sure comfortably blissful to slip your feet into a pair of shoes that have molded themselves to fit your feet perfectly. Sometimes in our search for bliss, we assume that bliss is something to be found and not something we already have. There are so many blissbringers in this world that bring bliss precisely because they are comfortable. Here’s a list of my top 10 comforting blissbringers:

Snuggling back into the covers on a cold winter morning when you realize you have 10 or 15 minutes before you absolutely have to get up. I can’t sleep in a hot room, so I generally leave the window open as late as possible into the fall so that the bedroom is a little bit chilly at night. This morning I woke and realized that it had surpassed chilly and was downright frigid. I hustled out of bed to shut the window and then climbed back beneath the covers that were still warm from my body heat. I snuggled under my microsuede comforter that I got from Goodwill and just relaxed and let my mind wander.
Friends that you can pick up the phone and continue a previous conversation with without having to regroup and bring them back up to speed.
Inside jokes. I work with people from both our plants and headquarters and the folks at one of the plants play buzzword bingo when they have meetings with us and tick off the buzzwords as we say them. They consider me one of their own so they shared the game with me and now when I’m in a meeting with both corporate and plant folks, ever so often I’ll send a text during the meeting saying “bingo” and we all understand what that means.

Old shoes that fit perfectly and feel as if they were made for your feet.

Spaghetti with tomato sauce and Parmesan. This isn’t some fancy pasta dish, it’s just pure comfort food that reminds me of being a kid at my grandmother’s dinner table and the pure heaven that her pasta brought.
Snuggling in front of the fireplace on a cold winter’s day. Watching the flames is highly hypnotic and can put me into a snuggly warm state.

Days without running errands, chores, or playing taxi driver. Every so often, I will be lucky enough to get a day that I get to spend at home without having to go anywhere. Those are perfect days that are lazy and fun and very relaxing.

Soaking in a hot bathtub with music playing and no responsibilities.

Chocolate pudding eaten while it is still sorta warm and not quite set up yet.

Snuggling with my husband. I feel so safe when I snuggle up with him as if nothing could hurt me and as if I’m safe from all the cares of the world.

My blissmakers are comfortable and satisfying and bring complete happiness.

Crafty Bliss

There is something about making something with your own two hands that is magickal, it’s like alchemy to take several things, blend them together, and create something new. My day job is working with computers and theories and I don’t often get the opportunity to create something with my own two hands so it’s always a treat when I get the opportunity to get my hands dirty and make something.

I was especially inspired this week because I found a lot of really cool ideas for things to make and unlike years past where I would have taken the idea and file it away into a the looks cool file and never take action to bring the idea to fruition. This year, I’ve decided that when I see those cool things, I’m going to take action and actually sit down and make them.

Things I’ve Made this Week

When we were at the Farmer’s Market out in Mount Carroll a few weeks ago, I purchased a couple of bags of tumbled stones and wasn’t sure what I’d do with them. I got the idea of making a mosaic with them so I went out and purchased an old picture frame at Goodwill, a hot glue gun,, and some grout and set to work creating a tray. It was a lot of fun to figure out how to place each stone so that it looked random, yet still fit together with a minimum of wasted space. Once I got it put together, I grouted it so that the spaces that were left were filled in. Then I clear glossed it so it was nice and shiny. It looks amazing and is unlike everything I’ve made before.

As you all know, my son Sean is a Batfiend from the word go and I was blog surfing and I found this really really cool batman soap that I could made. We rushed out and got all the stuff to make the soap and I came home and made it last night. It didn’t turn out perfectly because we had some excess bubbles in the soap, but it was really cool and unique and our Batfiend loved it.

I’d used up all the Triple Goddess Body Butter that I’d made so another batch of Body Butter, but I tweaked the recipe a little so it was a little thinner and not quite so thick. It smells heavenly and I feel so incredibly special when I layer it on my skin. I layer it on before bed and then head to bed and wake up in the morning with smooth and soft skin.

There is something incredible about making things yourself because everytime you use them you feel another rush of bliss remembering the fun you had making it.