According to Grandma

I'm too young to drink coffee. She's proud of the man I've become, but can't help sometimes still seeing me as her little grandson, and wondering why a child is drinking coffee.

The time to have a garage sale is when you can't remember what's in those boxes in the garage. If you can't remember what you have you won't miss it anyway.

I remember my younger brother using this as to why he should be able to keep my cool t-shirts when I was a senior in high school and he was just a puny 7th-grader. He said if it took me two weeks to realize he had taken them, it meant I didn't realize miss them.

Yeah, I know that kinda looks like Brad Pitt, but I swear I looked just like him in high school. I don't know what happened....

Dustin, I don't care if your wife is the reigning Mrs. North Carolina, I want them back. I miss them and they'll make my muscles look big, almost as I was wearing my little brother's shirts.........

Ooops, I guess they're yours now.

I shouldn't stop Sofia from soliciting my neighbors to come in and eat at "her restaurant".

Grandma thinks it's cute. I tried to argue that my five-year-old entrepreneur is only charging a penny per item.

According to Grandma, money comes and goes. Children grow up and go. Let her have her restaurant.

Yes ma'am.


Sleeping when it's raining is the best. It's wonderful to fall asleep to, wake up during, and roll over and go back to sleep. I agree. I've been doing a lot of that this week.

While we're talking "It Happened One Night" (1934) is on TCM. According to Grandma, Claudette Colbert was a pretty girl and a good actress. Clark Gable, however, was and still is, quote-unquote, "Fabulous"!

Grandma!!

Neither of us care too much for Orson Wells as an actor (also in "It Happened One Night"). He was much better as a director, although Grandma likes movies with happy endings...

Don't we all Grandma, don't we all.

Drawing Yourself Into Peace

You aren't always going to wake up feeling good and thinking great thoughts to start your day off right.

This morning was one of those mornings. Up till 5:30 am working on illustrating a new book; two hours later woken up with loud whispers of "Sofia, don't wake up Daddy!" by her older sister Bella.

Instead of focusing on Bella's good intentions (Thank you, Honey), I immediately thought of how tired I was and how much work I still had to do (versus how much I accomplished).

Thoughts are indeed very powerful; powerfully uplifting or heavily overwhelming. As Sofia rolled off my back, I rolled out of bed feeling like Atlas, with the weight of the world on my shoulders, instead of feeling uplifted by the beautiful love a child has for her father.

My equally wonderful son brought the cup o' joe he made for me, and thanks to the three spoonfuls of coffee versus one, I was soon wildly wide awake and wired, but entirely stressed, from the hair on my head to the bottoms of my feet.

All the little things were bothering me, and with Brosden and Bella leaving early, everything was bothering me even more.

If we can't think or feel ourselves into it, sometimes it helps just to DO ourselves into it. So outside we went to draw and play ourselves into a state of peace, appreciation and happiness.

This didn't go as well as planned, as somebody accidentally hit his sister with a whiffle ball he got as a pre-birthday present from our neighbor (Thanx TJ).

The good thing about this is it forced me to stop feeling sorry for myself and focus on the feelings of the hitter and the hit-tee. The hitter felt so bad that I probably shouldn't mention his name (See buddy, I didn't mention it was you. All is good. Oh! Happy Birthday by the way on Wednesday.)

By focusing on giving them both good love and energy, I was able to continue it with Sofia after they left. We finished the Yin and Yang symbols Bella and I started, and drew ourselves into a better state of peace (Sofia wanted her puppy Spikey to help me draw).

Of course, having a great sense of humor helps too :-)

Sometimes just taking action and focusing on others is the only way to turn our thinking around and improve how we're feeling. I'm feeling I could draw about a billion more of these symbols with all the coffee in me.

By the way, my neighbor, TJ Jones, was the Open Doubles winner, A category, at this year's Orange Blossom Tennis Championship. He and his doubles partner Clint are repeating champions, this year coming out on top of over 200 other players. Congrats Champ!

Peace Slideshow