the mud

I remember my mother saying to the five of us when we were young, "You just walked right by!" Usually it was a pair of shoes someone was looking for, or a book, or a paper.  If we were looking for something in the fridge, she would say, "Look with both hands!"  Usually that was my brother looking for the ketchup or something, and he would just stand in front of the fridge waiting for the ketchup to appear from behind the milk instead of moving the milk!  Or looking for socks in the sock basket, that definitely takes two hands.  Now I find myself, and of course it's very cliche, saying the same things my mother said.   You can't find the barbecue sauce, Look with both hands!  You can't find your backpack, You just walked right by!  You can't find the keys, You just walked right by!  And sometimes the kids say this to me too - MOM, You just walked right by!  (I can never seem to find my shoes- I never outgrew that.)  It's funny in our house because

Sometimes you want to get away and escape!  Just for fun, we can go shopping!  (I am not paid to advertise nor am I sponsoring any stores or products, I just felt like looking around for stuff I have seen or enjoyed... ) Here's a list of little surprises to help entertain you and help you entertain and enjoy the summer, whether you are headed to the beach or the mountains, to the swim club, or your own backyard:  (Trust me, I'm mostly just window shopping:)   Pineapple Matches  $5 - to light up (without those plastic torches) Blue Seaweed Wall Art  $36/4 - in case you have to stay inside one day Green Valley Kitchen Peach Feta Salad  $ - after you go peach picking! Aventurine  $298 - it's fun to have one new piece of jewelry Perfect Dress  $88 - I don't know where you couldn't wear this A Stay by a Lake  $300/night- we almost booked it for our trip to Indiana Folding Table  $125 - for iced tea, UNO,

I recently facilitated a workshop on Mindfulness.  Mindfulness is the practice of cultivating the art of being present, breathing, living, thinking in the moment.  It also has a lot to do with being available to the people we are with at a given time in a given place. I have been a student of mindfulness for about 12 years. When I walked into the room where I was to present, the table around which we would sit was far away from the computer screen, almost across the room.  The director offered to move the table closer to the screen for me, but I said no. I wanted space for us to move and sit and be separated from the technology pieces of the workshop. It worked. We all had space to sit and breathe and write and move back and forth.  We also had space to sit together when we were practicing our meditations. When it was time to share we all naturally gravitated toward the center of the floor where we could see each other and be closer. It is important to be “in person,” to be clo