Category Archives: Random Thoughts and Musings

August 14, 2015

Liebster Award! I am honored!

By Kat Myrman

Liebster Award!

I am honored to have been nominated for the blogging Liebster Award by Susan Spilecki from buildingapoem. Go check out her blog! The Liebster Award is an award by bloggers for bloggers that is passed forward, and it has some other cool bells and whistles too!

The Rules:

  • Thank the person who nominated you and post a link to their blog on your blog
  • Display the award on your blog–by including it in your post and/or displaying it using a “widget” or a “gadget”. (Note: The best way to do this is to save the image to your own computer and then uploading it to your blog post)
  • Answer 11 questions about yourself, which will be provided to you by the person who nominated you.
  • Provide 11 random facts about yourself
  • Nominate 5 – 11 blogs that you feel deserve the award, who have less than 1,000 followers (Note: You can always ask the blog owner this since not all blogs display a widget that lets the readers know this information!)
  • Create a new list of questions for the bloggers to answer
  • List these rules in  your post (You can copy and paste from here).
  • Once you have written and published it, you have to inform the people/blog that you nominated that they have been nominated for the Liebster award and provide a link for them to your post so that they can learn about it (they might not have ever heard of it!)

Susan’s Questions for Me

  1. What is your favorite book to reread?
    Wuthering Heights
  2. If you could be any hero, who would you be?
    this gal...
  3. What is the hardest part of writing for you?
    Finishing a piece. I tend to write and rewrite and break a piece down and put it back together over and over. I’m never sure when it’s “done”.
  4. How do you avoid writer’s block?
    By practicing mindfulness and being present in the moment.  There is plenty of inspiration in a moment 🙂
  5. What movie would you watch if you were feeling down?  August Rush
  6. Do you speak/read a second language? Which one?
    No…though I often consider my intuition a language of it’s own.  I am particularly fluent in intuition.
  7. What do you like best about blogging?
    It gets the words out of my head. 
  8. Spartans or Ninjas? Why?
    Since this is the first time I have given it thought, I decided to look up the meanings of each:
    Spartan (noun) … a citizen of Sparta…a disciplined or brave person…a Canadian variety of eating apple
    Ninja (noun)…mercenary agents, highly trained in martial arts and stealth (ninjutsu) who were hired for covert purposes ranging from espionage to sabotage and assassination.
    Decision made…considering that I am a pacifist, I must choose Spartan.
  9. Captain America or Ironman?
    This one is easy…Ironman, for no other reason than I like Robert Downey, Jr. 
  10. What is your favorite summer drink?
    Mimosas
  11. What weird writing rituals do you have, if any?
    Writing rituals? as opposed to other things that I do? I am generally weird. 

11 Facts about Myself

  1. I am a veteran of the U.S. Marine Corps.
  2. I live in a zoo.  Seriously though, I do live with a menagerie of critters, two mastiffs, three cats, a conure and a tortoise.
  3. I am a tree-hugger.
  4. And while we’re on the subject, I believe in Faeries.
  5. My favorite dessert is cheesecake.
  6. I have only one stamp in my passport…Beijing China. The Great Wall was my favorite place.
  7. I have four grown daughters, two of which are twins, five grandchildren and three grand-pups.
  8. One of my ancestors arrived on the Mayflower…Mary Chilton, who was a teen and reportedly the first person to step foot on land when they docked.
  9. I drive a Fiat…other Fiat owners will understand 🙂
  10. I live in an historic neighborhood and a century plus home.
  11. My favorite thing to do is…cook…and read…and paint…and write.  Hey, why stop at just one thing!

I nominate:

Healing Through Connection

The Novel In Her Head

The Greening Spirit

My Simple Daily Blog

karadie

Kelli Blogs

SV Chantey

Chef Mary Berry

My Questions

  1. If you could interview one person from history, who would that be?
  2. What makes you happy?
  3. Pick a number from 1 to 10. Now tell me why.
  4. If you could live anywhere, where would it be?
  5. What inspires you to write?
  6. What is your favorite color?
  7. What types of books to you most often choose to read?
  8. What is your astrological sign?
  9. Dogs or Cats?
  10. What is your favorite song?
  11. When you are not writing, how do you spend your days?

4 Comments   |  tags: , | posted in Challenges and Writing Prompts, Random Thoughts and Musings

August 12, 2015

Credo…In Times Like These…

By Kat Myrman

newsie
If you’re paying attention, the current political climate has become impossibly ludicrous. Politicians bought and sold to the highest bidder, average folks be damned. When I spend too much time watching the news or reading commentary I find myself losing ground in my goal to live mindfully, in gratitude, inhabiting each precious moment. Worry, fear, and downright disbelief at what some charlatans are seemingly getting away with at the expense of our nation…and ultimately our world, causes me to forget to breathe. And of course, it’s miserably downhill from there. Breathing, as we all know is kind of important.

To calm myself, I have come up with a Credo (Latin for “I Believe”) list to remind me that there are certain truths I can depend on. Goals not too lofty or impossible to realize. Simple basics that I know are possible, that I trust are possible if enough of us believe. This little list is something I intend to refer to, (even if just line by line as a situation arises) and repeat like a mantra, to bring me back to the moment, to sanity, to remind me to breathe, and to guide me to gratefulness for the goodness that exists, even if it’s hard to perceive it in the cacophony of the absurdity around me.

In times like these…
I believe in the inherent goodness of humanity.
I believe the paths that guide our moral compasses are many, equally inspiring when they draw us to the light.
I believe that truth will ultimately win over spin and dishonesty.
I believe it is possible to exist with our neighbors in peace, bypassing war through diplomacy.
I believe we can care for our sick, our poor, and our outcasts without taking from another.
I believe that hard working people deserve to be paid a living wage.
I believe justice will prevail when we leave aside our egos and come to the table.
I believe that civil liberty and freedom are our birthrights, not to be dictated by arbitrary belief systems.
I believe we owe it to our Mother, Earth, to care for her waterways, her greenways and her skyways.
I believe in educating our young to carry our legacy of innovation into the future, without burdening their futures in the process.
I believe in honoring those who’ve served us in war, calamity and peace by providing basic care and sustenance for as long as they have need.
I believe we owe gentle end of life care to our aging elders, basic security of shelter, health and food.
I believe in supporting life in all of its stages, not just its embryonic beginnings.
I believe in families, large and small, organic and blended, in various flavors, colors and varieties, where love is key and the only thing that matters.
I believe one day we will look beyond our differences, acknowledging the common thread that binds us together as one race, one family.
And because I believe, no amount of lunacy or madness can dissuade me…
And because I believe, I have hope.

5 Comments   |  tags: , , , , , , , , , | posted in Essays, Humor, Random Thoughts and Musings, Social Issues, Spirituality

August 7, 2015

Memo Random

By Kat Myrman

image

i didn’t get
the memo…
the one that said
there is an us
and them…
the one that said
different
is bad
or scary
or inferior.
i’m afraid i am
terribly out of step,
but i didn’t know
that it’s not about
how we play the game,
because winning
is all
that
matters.
and winners
are all that
matter.
i didn’t get
that memo…
and it has made
all
the
difference.

~ kat ~ august 2015

2 Comments   |  tags: , , | posted in Humor, Poetry, Random Thoughts and Musings, Social Issues

July 31, 2015

Adventures of a Reluctant Gardener Part 3…On the Brink

By Kat Myrman

Tonight…tonight some 39 years ago, I became a mother to a dark, curly haired sprite who would change my life forever. Tonight…this night, as the moon glows just a breath from fullness, I experienced the thrill of another kind of “mothering”. That silly volunteer tomato plant, that calls my back porch home, is laboring with her first fruits.    This will be another truly life changing moment for this reluctant gardener!

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As I enter the last chapters of my time on this planet, I find myself falling into step more easily, rhythmically, with the ebb and flow of the tides and changing seasons. Daughter to Mother to Grandmother…planting, watering, harvesting…letting go of those things that no longer serve me on my journey, and starting new, embracing change again and again.

IMG_4077

Tonight as I surrender my soul to the surging energy of this month’s special Full Blue Moon, embracing some unrealized dreams now rising to the surface, it is comforting to reflect also on some past great shifts in my journey…mothering in its many forms. All of them bringing life and light into the world…my world. And to wonder about the new life sparks just on the other side of tomorrow calling me to the dance!

Leave a comment   |  tags: , , | posted in Random Thoughts and Musings

July 25, 2015

Adventures of a Reluctant Gardener ☺️ Volunteer Plants Part 2 

By Kat Myrman

 Nature can teach us a thing or two about grace and adaptability. At least my little volunteer tomato plant has much to say on the subject.


I am certain that tomato plant would have been quite happy to thrive, unnoticed among the weeds on the rocky slope in my back yard. But, of course, we wouldn’t have that! Ripping it from its cozy hillside, roots dangling proves the point that humans have a need to control the wild greenness around us. In truth, we humans like to control everything. But audacious nature is determined to thrive no matter what life throws at it. And that gives me hope.


Give a plant a bit of soil (even if it is confined to a paint bucket), water (this, of course is a deal breaker as any fledgling gardener is aware), a position where the sun can warm it, and a little structure so it doesn’t lose its balance when it bears fruit (because that, after all, is what plants are born to do), and even a wilted, transplanted tomato plant can and will thrive!


People are a lot like volunteer tomato plants. At times we may find ourselves uprooted from the original course we had planned, with no semblance of control, roots dangling, exposed. Sometimes all we need is a soft fertile spot to settle, to establish roots, a bit of nurturing, a touch of structure to ground and balance us. Given a few simple things it is possible, inevitable even, that we can thrive and even bear fruit doing whatever it is we were born to do and be.

And I know this because sometimes nature grabs me between the ears to remind me. I need to be reminded. Especially those times when I find that I am not as in charge as I think I am. Yes! There is hope for me no matter the circumstances of my scuttled plans because a limp, uprooted, audacious tomato plant told me so!

Leave a comment | posted in Essays, Random Thoughts and Musings, Spirituality