Category Archives: Short stories

Oct6

The Older I Get…..

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The Older I Get…..
The photos of me at the end of 6th grade wouldn’t load, so art is what you get!

When I was at the end of sixth grade, I thought I was pretty darn grown up. Then I started what was then called “Junior High,” and things really changed. I no longer thought I was the cats pajamas because I now was a small fish in a big pond.

Fast forward to high school…..

Again I thought I was going to be the cool one in school because I was entering a new phase in my life, High School! I went to Van Nuys High in the San Fernando Valley. In those days VNH was the place all the kids from families that were in the film industry went to school, and I was going to school with them. Natalie Wood, Stacy Keach both went there, but I didn’t know either of them. High School wasn’t quite as glamorous as I thought it would be, but there I was trying to be a cool kid, and still keeping up with my grades. That wasn’t easy since I was basically majoring in “Boys!” To be honest, the boys situation was a bit discouraging as well. There wasn’t the selection I had anticipated, but what was available had to do!

Faster forward…..

Once out of high school, again I thought my knowledge was primmer and with nothing more to learn, I tried my hand at a local community college. The thought of studying literally made me sick to my stomach, so I decided to once again major in “boys!” There I had a much better selection, however still not quite up to my expectations.

My next door neighbor was just entering a university, and invited me to go to one of the groups of interest she signed up for. This one was a skiing club, and reluctantly I went to her first meeting with her. Wow, now this was what I was talking about!!!

BOYS…

They were everywhere, tall ones, short ones, skinny ones, stocky ones. There was a boy for every occasion. They looked at both of us like they had never seen girls before, and we were in seventh heaven! Conversations were easy, not like those lowly high school boys. They hadn’t learned how to talk to girls yet. Before we knew it, we were both invited by the boys to go skiing with them, and hang out. My friend wasn’t intimidated, but I was passing myself off as a college student, and I wasn’t. So after the meeting I quickly disappeared into the sunset, not to be heard of since. I lived out my days in high school quietly, and as quickly as I could.

After graduating I thought my life was my own. I’m free as a bird, with nothing to stop me! Sure that’s what I thought, then reality set in. My parents were very strict, and I still couldn’t go anywhere without their approval….I was humiliated! I was an all knowing, graduate, and adult now, how could they treat me that way? I know they were just trying to do the best they could, but at the time I couldn’t understand why their job wasn’t finished.

Me at “21”

The following year, I met the love of my life, we married soon after, and started our family. First a son, then three years later another son. By five years later, I had divorced, remarried, and had a daughter. I was a young, all knowing mother of three with one divorce under my belt. Boy was I cool!

Fast forward a few years!

Almost seventeen years later, my kids are getting big with two boys in high school, and a daughter in elementary school. My hands were full, and I was running a business., and holding down a full time job. As I look back, I wonder how I found the energy, or the time to do all of this. But I did, and it worked. I had a lot of energy, and of course I was all knowing. That helped! I knew exactly what I was doing, and where I was going. How cool was I?

Then the stuff hit the fan…..

One day my husband came home and told me he was dating a blond waitress, and because I was so cool, he knew I’d understand & be OK with it. I certainly was OK with it! I guess I figured it was time… and so I decided since I knew everything there was to know, it was time for my children and I to go. And we went…

It was a struggle, but somehow we did it. The kids and I had a Charlie Brown Christmas , and ate hotdogs & baked beans for some time, but we did it, and we were better for it. My dad use to say, “What doesn’t kill you, makes you stronger!” “Thank you Dad, I hate to admit it, but you were right!” How true that was… We have all grown, and become stronger, and better people because of this little bump in the road. Looking back, that’s all it was, just a bump in the road.

Many years later in the middle of working my second job, I met a local man, we dated for a while, and decided to marry. They say the third time is the charm. Apparently they were right, because we are now going on thirty years of marriage. Everyone is doing well, and we are all happy.

The point of this entire story is this, I have learned by trial and error that the Older I get, the less I know! Yup I was cool then, and slightly cooler now.

As most of us do get older, and each day I learn something I didn’t know, and each day I reflect on how much is in our world to yet learn, I’m curious, I want to know things, and I learn every day. But every day I’m on this amazing earth, I realize how much there is to learn, how much it has to offer, and we only have so much time. It’s undetermined, Don’t waste it!

With much love, I thank you for stopping to read Stone Soup.

See you next time, Karen

Sep1

Find the Sweetness in Life

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Sunday after church (on line of course), we were all giving readings from spirit, and nothing resonated with me. I listened patiently as all the messages seamed to be general, and almost for everyone. So I sat there taking it all in, and realizing I had a spirit on my left waiting for me to read him. He was patient, courteous, but still wanted me to acknowledge him.

After everyone had finished their reading, I finally said I’d go next with a man who had been waiting patiently for an hour. He first showed me black and white poke dots. I thought, what the what?? After received that I had a very unexpected and strange thing happen to me. I found myself viewing his journey from behind his eyes. I was a little taken aback as this had never happened to me before. We walked all over the forest, watching little animals in the woods, traveling, seeing the ocean, the beach, and exploring everything around us! I thought to myself, this is what I love to do! That was an interesting experience in itself, when out of my mouth I exclaimed, “This reading is for me!” I was so stunned that I lost my connection with this man. I didn’t know that was coming, it just spewed out.

As soon as that happened, our Minister Malcom took over and finished the reading. Malcom was able to connect to the same man that I had been connected to, and this is what he told me…..The man was my grandfather, he was here to let me know to keep looking, and exploring, I’m on the right path!

That was from my grand father who I haven’t seen since I was a teenager, & it warms my heart to know his spirit is watching over me, guiding me, and keeping me safe. My grandfather passed many years ago and I feel so blessed to have him come to me, & let me know he is here supporting my efforts.

This may sound strange to some of you, and I can understand. But I assure you, as strange as it is, it’s true. We can speak with our loved ones that have passed, and we all have the ability. Some of us don’t want any part of it, but if you just open up and consider the possibility that there are things still unexplained, you will be amazed at what is possible!

Have you ever had a dream of a loved one, or dear friend that had passed? Maybe even one of your animals from the past is in that dream. Well, this is one way they contact you, another way is you might feel your pet jump up on your bed, but when you look—nothing is there. You could have sworn something was on your bed, maybe even up against your leg.

I know I’m stretching your world right now, entertain the possibility of finding peace from a place we have been programed to know nothing about. This isn’t a religious thing, Spirit is totally non-denominational.

Just give it some thought!

Thank you for reading my post today. Many blessings to you all. Karen

Aug11

LIVE IN THE MOMENT

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A mind is a terrible thing to waste, and our minds are so powerful, we don’t even realize how much we can do with our own mind.

We all have so much going on in our lives, some more than others. I for one am comfortable with my own problems. I know what they are, I’ve resolved myself to whatever it is, and I wouldn’t change with anyone else for the life of me. I’m betting others feel about the same. I know, I know we don’t really want the problems we have, but we have them, and until we fix them, they aren’t going away!

Many of us are anxious, and stressed about what the future brings. What can you do about the future. We plan, we invest, we spend much time thinking about something that is difficult to predict. Yet, we still stress over it, and our health and happiness suffers for it.

Live in the Moment!

Might I suggest that we all try to push the past, and the future aside, and make an effort to go somewhere peaceful, maybe even fun and spend the day with someone you care about. Take a day off from stress, and anxiety, just one day…see how it goes.

Others seem to be fixated on the past. I ask you if you are one of those people? Do you talk about your life ten years ago, five years ago, or in a different marriage? STOP! After the first two or three times, your friends and family don’t want to hear it, and it doesn’t serve you well to hash it over.

What good does that do? We can’t change the past, we can learn from it, survive it, but we never need to dwell on it. It’s in the past, it’s gone….let it go!

Again my suggestion is taking someone special on a picnic, or to an outdoor restaurant for lunch or dinner, or even on a drive. Have fun, and laugh a little, or a lot. Laughing relieves stress, lightenes the mood, and is very beneficial to you. Can we even walk on the beach these days? That’s also something men, women, and kids love to do.

Treat yourself kindly, and everyone else kindly. It feels really good to start changing the narrative in your mind. You are appreciated, and you are loved.

Thank you for stopping to read Karen’s Stone Soup, see you next week. Karen

What we do today is what matters most. The Buddha

Aug4

It’s Never To Late!

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After sitting and thinking about this post, and what to write, it came to me. In my life I have made many transformations. Regardless of whether you consider them for the bad or for the good, I have learned something from all of them. Actually I’m grateful for the negative experiences, they have made me who I am today. At the time I wasn’t so happy, but reflecting back, some things make me chuckle, and some have made me grow!

As I’ve grown through my life, my ideas and attitudes have changed. There was a time of innocence, a time of testing my wings, a time of my wings being grounded! Then my wings flew once again, and I went through some real growth, I mean real growth! A time of calmer waters, and reflection. Some growth comes from hard times, some comes from quiet reflection. For me this time was one of quiet reflection. Learning why I made the decisions I made, and how I would manage to reverse some of those decisions, most importantly how not to make the same decisions again. Each time, I grew, and reflected, and grew. I grew one more time with the best decision I’d made in many years. This time resulted in being happily married for twenty nine years now. It’s never to late!

Those were decisions. The things I’m going to talk about now are also decisions, however they are internal decisions. The process of Giving myself an attitude adjustment!

Words from Dr. Wayne Dyer

For one reason or another, I won’t mention how I think I downloaded these ideas, but I always thought you had to step on others to get ahead. This went on for many years along with a very negative attitude. At some point maybe forty five years ago, I didn’t like who I’d become and after giving it many hours of thought, decided to change my way of thinking.

I somehow found a little paperback book by Eric Pace. Funny, I remember his name, but not the title of his book. In essence it said to change your thinking, and you’d change your life. It was an easy read, and it rang a bell with me. I don’t remember how many times I read it, but I couldn’t get enough. Just about the same time I was introduced to Wayne Dyer. He said pretty much the same thing, however Dr. Dyer had reading material along with CD’s, lectures, and anything else that would inspire you. I became totally infatuated with Wayne Dyer. I couldn’t get enough on him. Anyone I ran into that was having a problem, I’d tell them about Wayne Dyer. If you don’t know about Wayne Dyer, do yourself a favor and Google him, or look him up on YouTube.

There was so much useful information on those CD’s that before long each time I had a negative thought I’d replace it with a positive thought and I felt better about myself. I was honoring myself, my higher self, and my creator just by those positive thoughts. After that my glass has always been half-full!

You see, negative thoughts pull you down, negative people pull you down, and in the process it’s sometimes necessary to shed the negative people in order to fly like you are suppose to. The shedding process happens all by its self. When those negative energies try hanging around you, they don’t like the change in you, and go elsware to unload their negativity. You may find those people do the shedding for you, they just aren’t comfortable with positive energy.

Make some new, positive friends!

The world is full of negativity, and it doesn’t have room for any more of the same. The world needs positive people to have good thoughts, and deeds. We need each other, and there is a huge group of positive people to be friends with. They will find you because a positive person has a light around them, that negative people don’t have. Positive attaracts positive, and negative attracts negative!

“It’s never to late!”

Spread the light, show others who you were really meant to be, and glow in your beauty. We are all special, and all have that little spark of the devine in us. Let it shine bright, and be a beacon for others!

Much love to you all, until next time. Karen

Jul7

Kindness Rules!

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Several years ago I declared my religeon to be Kindness! Does that seem strange to you? Well here was my reasoning….

I was raised in a Methodist Church, so I called myself a Christian. My mother had told me that’s what we were. In my eyes being a Christian was the same as being Jewish, Catholic, Protestant, Mormon, or any other religeon. I knew each had it’s own way of worshiping, and their differences, but it didn’t matter to me. We were all children of God. I learned that in sunday school, along with Jesus loves me, this I know. Growing up I really didn’t hear about Muslims, or even Mormons, nor even black people, so you might say my world was very limited by my parents choice. I’m not blaming them for not telling me about these differences, I know they did the best they knew how.

As I’ve gotten older, I’ve become more focused of what’s going on in the world, the impact we all have on our enviroment, politics, and each other. I’ve always been sensitive, and an empath, but now after my children have grown, and are self sufficient I have time to pay attention to things that just weren’t that important to a young mother.

My animals seem to be intelligent, they respond to what I say, and I believe they are much more in tune than I ever gave them credit for. All of you know how much I love trees. They facinate me with their graceful branches swaying in the breeze, and the way they seem to breathe in and out on a day when the air is alive with energy. The birds talk back and forth leading me to believe their conversations have meaning, and if I only had the patience to study them, I could most definitely learn every word they were saying, or singing. Their actions are like little people with lives, families, and a social network that amazes me each time I sit and watch them.

People are the same. For the most part we all want the same thing. We want to be happy, have a family, friends, have a social life. We want to educate our children so they may be more successful than we are. We want to clothe, and put shoes on our children, raise them with manners. We don’t want them to wander off in the wrong direction, and get into trouble.

In this busy world, people are not paying attention to the things around them. They work all day, come home, eat dinner, watch a little TV, and head off to bed! That’s it! We all do the same thing. Most of us plod along each day, all year with the same schedule, barely having time or energy to take a vacation, or even play with our kids. Some of us are so busy climbing the ladder, that they still don’t have time for family, friends, or vacations.

Is this the kind of life we really want to lead?

It isn’t any wonder everyone is so preoccupied with their own routine that they don’t realize they are being unkind to others, or teaching their own children to be unkind. Kids learn by example, and their parents are the first people they learn from. They mimic us from a very young age, and it doesn’t take much for them to learn how to be the kind of person you don’t want them to be. We wonder where they get some of this stuff from? Well maybe it’s learned right at home without anyone realizing it. Knowone wants their kids to be rude or insensitive, but they manage to pick it up if not at home by another child who’s parents have no idea they’ve handed it over to their kids, or that they are acting in an undesirable way.

Kindness is my religeon. Budha says the same thing, and to be honest, that’s where I learned it! All it takes is a little mindfulness, and a desire to be a leader, not a follower. A leader will be kind when everyone else is oblivious to others, the follower continues to be oblivious without realizing they are being that way. Together let us be more kind to each other, and to be mindfull of those who really need a kind word or action.. It’s possible they are so down that they only need to know someone else cares. A little bit goes a long way!

Thank you for taking time to read my post. Be kind, and have a great week.

Karen

Jun5

Peace and Love

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I have been thinking about how I could write a post about the healing that is so desperately needed in our world today. After sitting quietly and meditating, it came to me much more simply than I had imagined.

Josef Siegle is a mentor, and I consider him a friend. I respect him immensely, have taken many of his classes, and always come away better than I started.

Face Book is a go to for me because I can check on my friends and family easily. Sometimes I get information my daughter hasn’t thought to tell me. Or a friend mentions they aren’t feeling well, so I can call them to check on them. It has it’s place! In the process of all this, I have noticed the nasty, hateful comments people post, and I can’t help thinking how much better off our world if we toned it down. When I say toned it down, what I really mean is this…

We all come from different places, we have different colors of skin, different thoughts, ideas, political preferences, and ways we’ve been raised. We come from different places, and different religious beliefs. Because of these differences it is sometimes difficult to understand someone else’s perspective, or point of view. Why do some people talk differently, or louder, or their English seems a little scrambled? Why do some of us wear clothes that show how conservative they are, while some clothes seem louder, or gaudier, blinger, or more colorful? How can we understand one another’s point of view if they are a different religion, or come from an entirely different part of the world?

One thing I’ve learned from traveling, and reading is that people/parents all want the same thing for their families, and children. Most people are peaceful, and loving. We are all working, and struggling to pay for our homes, cars, credit card bills, and anything else that is a necessity at the time.

So what’s the answer?

Well I haven’t answers for the immediate problems, however I will tell you that what came to me during a meditation is this…

If we toned it down, stopped posting, or talking so hateful about the other person, and made an effort to hear their point of view regardless of how different they are than us, shouldn’t that be a starting point to bringing peace and healing to our planet. I don’t think it’s as important to change our views as it is to listen. People want to be recognized, heard and this isn’t happening at the moment.

We are spending so much time pointing out the differences each of us has, and not even giving thought to the similarities we share.

Everyone that knows me knows that I am a liberal. In my eyes, I’m viewed as a left wing democrat that wants to spend money that our country doesn’t have, helping people that don’t deserve it. My view is that the other side, the Republicans don’t want to help the sick, poor, or anyone else they consider doesn’t work for it. Are these perceptions true? Does it matter if they are true or not? Certainly they can’t all be true, but if we just sat down and took time to learn why the other has the ideas, and ideals they have, we would have a much better understanding of one another. I would respect someone for sanely discussing our differences. I’m not trying to change yours, I want to understand your point of view!

The same goes for our racial differences, religious differences and any other difference we have with each other. How can we be so different and so much alike at the same time. We are all created the same, our differences make us interesting, and I for one want to know more.

I’ve never been into religion, more into culture, and languages. I love hearing the music of different cultures, or the way others talk. The cadence in the way others speak, I love it, and I love the way people from another culture dresses, the fabric the use, the way others design, it’s all inspiring to me.

I have posted, along with my words, the meditation for healing the world, bring peace to each of us and those around us. The meditation is 33 minutes long, so I’d suggest you listen to it when your household quiets down. I found it soothing, and it made me feel better about life, and the craziness we are experiencing when I was finished. I hope you feel the same.

Thank you for stopping by and reading Stone Soup. Please listen to the meditation, I know you’ll find it relaxing, and it fills you with love!