Worry Wort

I woke up yesterday with worries on my mind.  Heavy already before my head left the pillows.  Deep worries about my sister and her second stroke, my oldest stepdaughter's struggles, about retirement money....so many worries crowding my brain.

Why the onslaught even before I had had a cup of tea? Why did they flood in so quickly? Why do I carry them on my shoulders? The bigger questions is what good does it do?  Worrying?  I am a worry wort.  I feel things deeply and as if I'm responsible for others.  My brain thinks of a million scenarios that go from bad to worse.  And then I have to break the cycle.  Catch my self. Remember that life is truly one day at a time.  I shift and reframe and say all the things I'm grateful.  My list grows to combat my worries....grateful for:

My home

My able body

My mind that can solve problems

My ability to hold a pen and to write

My clean, wonderful sheets

My clients

My team

My family

My many friends

My sweet, dear puppy Max

My incredible husband

I calm myself.  Right the ship and look towards a day full more of promise than worry.  

What about you? What do you do with your worries?  

Poodle Parade

Last night I had a full-on technicolor dream about a poodle parade.  It was fabulous!  Every size, shape and age of poodle, all lined up strutting their stuff.  Incredible fluffed up manes, they know just how just how handsome they were, and they owned it. 

I love dreaming.  Dreams are a place where my brain is not limited by rules, negativity, reality. It's a place to be free.  Last night's dream included staying at a hotel where turn down service included being anointed with lavender oil to help you sleep. I fell in to a deep slumber in my dream.  Now don't even ask how this connected to the poodle parade in the same dream, because it didn't, it was a DREAM!  Dreams don't care if anything makes sense, they have a life of their own.

The waking hours have some parallel to the dream world.  For example, I have a goldendoodle, who is 75% poodle.  Max makes me happy in the hours of the day and warms my feet as I dream.  Lavender oil goes in my baths at night.  But in my dreams, both of these things lived to the extreme, how fun is that?  Dreams are expansive, limitless and are another part of our lives.

I say bring on dreaming to the daylight hours! Allow your mind to have some fun.  So much darkness can fill our days, whether you have cancer, a sick parent or loved one...just life.  Why not take a moment to be free, to lift your mind, to let some beautiful thought take you away.

Why not?  Who will know?  Just imagine, you might see your own poodle parade in your mind's eye!

Tooth Fairy

Wasn't it fun to lose a tooth when you were a kid?  The when it started to wiggle and  you'd use your tongue to push it back and forth, just waiting for that magic moment for it to pop out.  Or maybe you asked someone to give it a good yank?  All in anticipation of putting it under your pillow, knowing the Tooth Fairy would retrieve it and replace it with a quarter or a dollar, or whatever amount seemed like a big deal at the time. 

There's something about believing, hoping, knowing someone is out there that is going to take care of you.  Make you feel special, like you are the only person on the planet ...even if just for one night.  Being grown up, or adulting as the millennials call it, kind of sucks.  No more Easter Bunny, Santa, Tooth Fairy.  All those silly things we believed in as children.  Things are so serious, logical, practical now. Especially when it comes to illness, diagnoses, accidents....life.

So how do we create more magic? More lightness? More fancy in our lives?  I think it's by surrounding ourselves with people who lift us up.  Inspire us, motivate us, make us laugh. Two nights ago, my dear friend Vicki (also the person who came up with the name for GO Lisey) threw herself a birthday party!  Each of us felt so honored to be invited.  It was a glorious group of women.  The conversations were flowing, the laughter, the joy of being together.  It lifted me up!

I also got reminded by another friend at the party, Carol, that i needed to get back to writing my blog.  She said she missed it when I stopped writing.  She reminded me to open my eyes again to look for all those moments that sparked simple messages, stories, something I want to share.  And POOF, it was as if the Tooth Fairy had left a story under my pillow for me to find this morning.  Sometimes we all need us to be reminded to keep looking in life and gifts will be revealed.  I let life get in the way these past couple of months, all I needed was that push to get back at it.  Thank you Carol!

What will you find hidden under your pillow tomorrow morning?

Bad Dream

“It will all be like a bad dream, like your cancer never happened.” That's what the first oncologist said to me five years ago. That pissed me off, it was condescending and from a true place of not really knowing.  Bad dream was not accurate.  Cancer was a seminal point in my life, not a nightmare.   Read my blog “You’re fired!”  that was that oncologist!

Five year's ago on Christmas Eve, I got the news the biopsy I had on my left breast was benign, but the radiologist said "I know this is cancer, regardless of the biopsy."  He was so right and amazing.  He had the courage to tell me the truth and the compassion of knowing how this call would impact me?  Can you imagine what his Christmas Eve was like calling people and telling them "you have cancer" or delivering the gift, "you don't have cancer."  God love that man.  He told the hard truths to others like me that day.  While my family was celebrating the diagnosis of benign biopsy that night, I knew he was right. 

Five years later, New Year's 2018, I am healthy and free of cancer for now.  I don't see cancer as a bad dream, it gave me the vision for GO Lisey, it was a challenge to show my tenacity and fortitude.  It showed me how to ask for help from my family and friends and to see how much they really love me.  It inspired me to write about my experience to share and lift others up.   Glam Gowns and Guy Gown and more to come!

I know with lobular breast cancer, my chances of the cancer coming back in ten years is real. And I know I have what it takes to battle it...my attitude, choosing my mood, collecting my support system and medical team, taking care of my health....all tools to tackle it if it come back.

You know what...use your cancer as an opportunity to reevaluate, to ask for help, to see what you are made of!  Cancer is not a bad dream---yes it sucks, and it can have many blessings if you choose to see them.  I'm alive, I'm healthy, I survived...I can celebrate that!  So happy 2018...what are you going to celebrate today? 

Full Moon

Today is a full moon kind of day— not a half glass full or half glass empty day, it’s actually a full glass kind of day.  Recently a professor Notre Dame, Matt Bloom, gave a Class on the science of happiness. One of the tools he recommended was Daily mapping. This technique was based on research he’s conducted on happiest places on the planet.  So simply this tool goes like this, at the end of every day put a happy face or sad face on your calendar.  Was it a good day or was it a bad day-that simple.   See what patterns you notice. And if you’ve got a whole series of bad days, it might be time to look at doing something different. Or if you’ve got a series of happy faces,  what do you want to keep doing ensure those happy faces continue? Sounds overly simple? It is. So this week I started it. It’s enormously gratifying. I found today that I drew a huge :-), in sharpie no less, because today was one of those wonderful, busy, happy Fall days. The sun was shining, I had the top down on the car, are even saw my stepson randomly in the car ahead of me on the beltway! And tonight I was out walking my puppy Max and looked up to see this beautiful full moon. And I thought, yes it was a full moon kind of day. What about you? Good day or bad day?

Sip, Shop, and Save the TaTas

 OK so there are lots of reports out that say multitasking is really not efficient. Research, evidence, you know that kind of stuff. I think I have an example of fabulous multitasking t – – on Saturday I held an event in partnership with Chris Novack, the owner of the consignment shop New to you. I’ve known Chris for over 20 years.    It’s the kind of place you go with your girlfriends. It’s the kind of place you go with your sisters. It’s the kind of place you go with your daughter, your nieces, all those women in your life you adore and love. I even went there with my sister Candy, right after my mom died. I know that sounds crazy but we needed a little shopping therapy, and shopping therapy we got. I bought the most fabulous Gucci pantsuit  (when Tom Ford was designing for Gucci) what an incredible find!  I still have that suit 15 years later ...quality does last...and I think of my Mom every time I wear it.

There is something about how small the shop is, the Tiffany blue paint color, the fun finds, that make you just better.   Your mood gets lifted. 

Shopping is not going to Save the earth, solve world hunger.... but it sure can lift your mood, especially when done with your favorite women. The thrill of finding something that was meant for you, that someone else decided that they were done with, but knew it had another life, is just fabulous. I know lots of people who don’t go for consignment shopping – – I understand they think it’s kind of yucky.  Buying something someone else wore, but not me.  I really do love the idea of passing things along.

So I don’t know, maybe consignment shopping saves the planet just a little bit, does it’s part in helping us go green and recycle, or maybe it’s just a simple as helping all of us clean out our closets.  

So on Saturday Kris and I joined forces.  We had  pink “boobly”, women are going to shop, they can get their make up done with perfect pink lip, by Ky Washington, and if they want they can buy a Glam Gownfor themselves or one of their dear ones who’s been diagnosed or who is a survivor. All for a good cause, saving the Tatas. 5% of all sales will will go to the Breast Cancer Reasearch Foundation.

So sipping, shopping, and saving the Tatas may be one small step in helping with Breast Cancer  awareness. Hug those special women in your life! Celebrate the survivors and toast that’s ones we’ve loved and lost to breast cancer!

GO Lisey team! 

Fellow survivors! 

Ky Washington, makeup artist! 

shopping! 

Cinderella

Last week I was in New York for work. Hurried one morning getting out of a taxi, my brand new, perfect, black patent leather pump fell out in the trunk… only me! I got to the meeting location to discover it was gone.

            Ok - reality check - no big deal - it’s a shoe! This September as hurricanes continue to hit the Caribbean, the South, Texas and earthquakes in Mexico - true tragedies everywhere. Then there are the words individuals hear everyday around the globe, “you have cancer”, “this is terminal”, “here are your odds”, “your child is sick, your spouse or partner, mother, father, sister, or brother.” Those moments in time where the loss hits you deep in your core - your soul. It may not be visible to the outer world like downed trees or flattened buildings, and yet it has shaken your foundation.

            So back the shoe - how could this stupid shoe relate at all to the true pain occurring in people’s lives? Well - I’ll tell you! I was determined to find that perfect black pump - to track it down from a New York City cab trunk. What were my odds of success? Lots of New Yorkers scoffed and said “Good Luck!” If it had been lost in an uber the odds would’ve increased, but this was the needle in the haystack situation!

            My mom used to say I was tenacious --- I am. So I called the 311 number on the taxi receipt. I got the cab company name and number, I called four times - no one picked up. Four messages regarding the story of the perfect –black- patent- leather pump - never worn ( I might’ve sounded crazy - I prefer to think I was a modern day Cinderella searching for her own shoe and not waiting around for Prince Charming!)

            And so….I finally got a call from the cab driver! He had my shoe - he dropped it off at the hotel I stay at and it’s on its merry way now to me in the mail!

            Be tenacious in fighting. Believe you will find a way to beat the odds. KNOW you have the fortitude to call and call and call to get answers. Don’t let the disease attack you or your loved one - attack it!

            How can you be more tenacious – more BOLD? 

Full Moon

 I'm at the beach this week celebrating the end of the summer with my sisters. This has  become a tradition --it's our fourth year now. It's a wonderful way to end to end the season--or as my sister Candy would say "to punctuate" the summer!

Last night we had our  favorite splurge dinner, Thrasher's french fries(for the girls) and a vanilla dipped cone in chocolate for me! Pure decadence. It's the kind of thing you only want to do once a year. We enjoyed every bite, why not?

As we were sitting on the boardwalk people watching , I noticed a bunch of people taking pictures at the beach, standing on the benches clamoring to walk down closer to the water. I turned around and looked, and saw the most incredible orange moon. It was spectacular. It was one of those moments in life where you just have to pause and look up – – to recognize the beauty in our lives.

Sometimes it's hard, especially  when you're sick, or hurting, or in pain, or just plain too busy to  to see what's around you.  Last night standing on the beach, looking up at that magical orange moon – – by the way it was impossible to catch by a camera, I just couldn't get the color quite right --as if it didn't want it to be captured on camera and wanted to be frozen in your minds eye-- I thought about how so many things in our lives that cannot be captured by a word, a picture, an explanation, you just can't express what you've seen or how you felt. That's how the moon seemed  to me last night. So instead of attaching a picture of that moon, I'll let you imagine it, and will attach a picture of me enjoying that big, delicious ice cream cone.

What  moment, experience, feeling do you have in your life but it's just too hard to express to someone else? 

Life is Life

I’ve been thinking about this concept for years now. Life - it keeps coming, whether we like it or not - until it doesn’t. Life is unmapped territories, twists, turns, ups, downs. All the planning in the world can’t help you what’s really next. We can’t see what’s around the corner, no matter how hard we try.

So what then? Give up if there’s no control? Throw your hands up? No - it’s not giving up, it’s realizing you have is how you go THROUGH life. How you cope, deal with the crap, attack the disease, the heart ache, the losses. That’s the solution. Choose how you are going to go through it.

My dear Grandmother Ursie used to say, all I have to do in this life is pay taxes and die - I can be certain of those two things. She made me laugh. It is the truth. The death past isn’t a laughing matter and yet that is ____, we will all go - exit. Move on.

So today, is what we have. How do we conquer the diagnosis, the care giving, the pain? What are the choices if the other things are not mine to control?

Wondering why me? Why now? There is no answer to the question. It’s the wrong question. The read question is what now? How now?

Life is life - it’s joy, it’s sadness, it’s progress, it’s failure, it’s boredom and exhaustion, it’s pride and shame. It’s everything and sometimes, all at once.

The BIG question is how do you want(?) to do your LIFE - you chose

Say Cheese!

Today is my husband's birthday. Like many men, he is impossible to buy for. And yet there is one thing that always pleases– – a photo album. A good, old school, lowtech photo album.  I comment on the pictures, add bits and pieces;   Ski passes, hotel room keys, maps, airline tickets (he loves first class). Not exactly scrapbooking, but not too far from it! 

  I can't say why he loves these so much. Maybe it's because I put the time, effort, and thought into making them just for him. Maybe he is sentimental underneath all the bravado? Having our adventures documented physically and tangibly  makes a difference to him. 

 I had a funny conversation with the guy the photo kiosk last week, he was making prints for his wife. We talked about how people really don't do this anymore, now that everything is digital.

What is it about real photos? I think my brother-in-law Stan knows the answer--/he's our family photographer. Always with the camera, bugging the crap out of everyone, yet everyone loves the product.  Stan has documented our lives, our celebration---the birthdays, holidays, weddings and even sweet summer nights like last night.

He took Gordon and I to a Nationals baseball game for Gordon's birthday.  It was perfect evening .  No DC humidity, Predident's club table at the rail and a fantastic game (Even I paid attention!)   And, of course, Stan took pictures of us! And the pictures we have now are wonderful....capturing a moment, a combination of people, a celebration that will never happen . I guess that's it, pictures freeze frame an instant that will never reoccur never be replicated....a special slice of time.

What's your favorite photograph?