Free to Smile

I'm late in posting my thoughts about Lori Koop's Upword for last week "Free" but a post by Stacey Curnow today on "100 Things That Delight" inspired me to finally sit down and do it.

In her Upword post on the Word "Free", Lori asked us to write down the thoughts we were celebrating this week. "Write it down. Small or large, it doesn’t matter, " she said.

When I started musing on the word free - I thought about how great it is that in this country we are free .... free to practice whatever religion we want, free to dress how we like, free to speak out against things in public, free to go follow our dreams. The only thing that holds us back from being completely free is ourselves, our own thoughts, our egos trying to keep us on some path to perfect or follow society "norms" that causes us to be cautious, stay safe, not get out of that comfort zone of the familiar or what is "expected."

One of the things I'm learning going through Christine Kane's Uplevel Your Life program is that we are free to think positive thoughts. Our brain may try to focus us on what can go wrong and create negative thinking patterns but we are free to change this - to turn this around, think about whatever it is in a new way, create a positive vision of what it could be like and let the universe deliver.

My aha moment of the week happened today. It is that I've been doing this on some level all my life. Stacey's post on the "100 Things that Delight" reminded me of something I wrote years ago that I called "1000 Things for Troidles to Smile About."

Similar to Stacey, I wrote my piece when things weren't going so well for our family back in 2000-2001. My mom was struggling with the final stages of Chronic Lymphocitic Leukemia and my sister Cindy was suffering from long term side effects of the treatments she had to cure her Hodgkins Disease. No one in my family was smiling much about anything. I felt it my duty to bring some positive thinking into the game and distract everyone from the not so good things with some of the great things, funny things, blessings that have been bestowed on us that might lighten the mood.

I remember starting this on a tablet of lined paper - writing down a firehose of things that came out of my head and passing it around to my sisters for them to add their own when we were all in a car going to visit my mom one day. We laughed, we cried, we reminisced and we shared it with my mom. At some point I typed it into the computer and there is has sat until today.

Many of the things on my list are personal to us and won't mean much to many of you but I am hoping that Stacey's and my lists will encourage you to write down your own list. Be sure to save it in a safe place in a file or a notebook or on the computer so at some time in the future when you need it most you can pull it out and share it with your loved ones.

So my musing on the Upword of last week - FREE - reminds me that we are free to smile even when things look bleak by reflecting on the many many blessings we are given.

Here are just a few of my 1000 things for Troidles to Smile About.

1. Sisters
   
2. Finding the only thing in the discount store worth buying
3. Banning smoking on all flights
4. Ice cubes
5. Making popsicles from juice
6. Finding a pumpkin with good hair
7. Running into old friends in unexpected places
8. Chinese checkers
9. Having a cleaning lady
   
10. Ivy
11. Eidelweiss
12. Staying overnight in a castle
13. Playdates
14. "Evely Fliday, I have a gud tyme!"
15. Cutting one of GG's homemade afghans to make a doll blanket
16. Mulch
17. Squeegies
18. Thomson's Water Seal
19. The Home Show
20. Mousse
21. Primping and preening
22. Curling irons
23. Duct tape
24. Rich aunts who live overseas
25. Yoko Ono in the morning
26. "Hafta"
27. "'Pose ta"
28. Knowing why Eskimos wash their clothes in Tide
29. Inchworms
30. Petunia
31. Hannah, Hildegard and Gertrude
32. "What's the matter, Hannah?" "I don't know."
33. "Beats neither!"
34. Making the school play
35. The French Impressionists
36. Driving kids to music and dance lessons
37. Recitals
38. Telling people that Debby likes to lift heavy things
39. Family bonding sessions
40. Debby jokes
41. The big pine tree at 190 Walzford Road under which we held secret meetings
42. You gotta wanna
43. Telling people in other cars how they could drive better when you know they can't hear you
44. Ye Olde Tavern
45. Olivia
46. Being able to pronounce Lake Chargoggagogmanchoggagogchabunagungamogg
47. Paying off the balance on all your credit cards
48. Cappy Turtle
49. Deadbee Turtle
50. Sunny Turtle
51. Carrying a turtle
52. Cooking without a clue sessions
53. What a small world it is
54. Coincidences that aren't really coincidences
55. Deja vu
56. A Ruby Turtle
57. The Fonzies and the Potsies
58. Mo-mos Surprise
59. Belly flops
60. Spelling bees
61. "Chlamydia is not a flower"
62. Erma Bombeck
63. "Babies and other Hazards of Sex"
64. Pygmie hammocks
65. "Today I saw a bud"
66. Park and ride
67. Byes
68. Homemade potholders
69. Gummy worms
70. Sleeping under the tree on a carrot bed
71. Uncle Sam and Santa
72. Snow people
73. Painting Cindy's bald head for Easter
74. Slumber parties
75. Ralphie and Alfie
76. Cricket infestations
77. Spiral staircases
78. Coming home to a clean house
79. A clean car
80. Ed the Bibdog Dobbster
81. Beagley the Dalemeister Beagley
82. Recycling
83. Susan's haircuts
84. Dad, the Nurturer
85. Debby sleeping all night at the hospital
86. Knowing how to flush out catheters
87. In-laws
88. Sending email over the information super highway
89. Correspondence kits made by dad
90. The Troidle family extended calendar
91. Watching old movies on cable
92. Mom's bird collection
93. The Subaru
94. Tom Bombadil and Wurzel
95. Nimnum
96. Car phones
97. Meeting cousins you never knew you had
98. Midnight mass
99. Michael Burgo
100. Being president of the Holy Cross General Alumni Association
101. Depositions
102. Mediation
103. Being president of Ocean Beach Club I
104. Presidential inauguration
105. Desert fever
106. Swollen legs for 8 weeks from an allergy to dust on Mt Saint Helen's
     
107. New York bagels
108. Debby moving to Chicago
109. Kathy making Christmas dinner
110. Chutney
111. Mom's poached eggs
112. Prozak
113. Prednisone
114. Betty and Barney Bunny with Buster and Babies
115. "Ain't no bug, ain't no monkey, give me a hug, I'm a Funky!"
116. Organizing photos into albums
117. Angels
118. Cards that make you cry
119. Octagon decks
120. Still getting stuffed animals from your mom when you're 32
121. Roger
122. Frequent flier miles
123. Lillian Vernon goodies from Aunt Cindy
124. Taking off the pool cover
125. Donner and Desiree
126. Nutcrackers
127. Nuns
128. Bishop Clark
129. Jesuits
130. Spider theatres
131. Nerbus people
132. "Good job catapillar!"
133. "I am so proud of you!"
134. "Fibonacci!"
135. "But CeeCee, there are TWO boyfriends here, and your friends Debby and Kathy"
136. "No wifes (in the PlayMobile castle)"
137. Facial expressions that tell all
138. Husbands/Boyfriends who get all this