December 31--Goodbye and Thanks, 2020!

Very little is needed to make a happy life; it is all within yourself in your way of thinking.  --Marcus Aurelius

    At the end of my 2019 "year in review," I wrote "I can hardly wait for all the good of 2020." Here's the summary of my very interesting year...

WORK
==My 5th season doing tax prep ended early on March 31 due to the initial pandemic shutdown. With the deadline extended to July 15, the tax office "regulars" were able to complete the rest of the returns.
==Another year of MELT and yoga teaching for the Clearwater Wellness Center, online via Zoom from the end of March onward. Online teaching enabled me to reconnect with friends in FL and PA.

==Private and small-class MELT lessons I offered resulted in one of my students taking MELT training to become an instructor.

==Enabled the Kansas Dialysis Association to continue functioning by organizing their meetings on Zoom.
==Another year of spiritual life coaching with clients whom I dearly love and appreciate.

==Started a Power of Eight group which has had great success with our intentions.

FAMILY

==Just "under the wire," I flew to Denver in early March for a weekend visit with my kids in Fort Collins. I saw only a couple masks on those flights. Little did we know...

==Other trips to Fort Collins were scarce--June, November and Christmas. All masked up. 

==We rented VRBO houses to make our November & Christmas visits safer. We had another excellent Christmas holiday together. Son Derek stated, "This is my 34th Christmas, and I consider us really lucky to have spent them all together."

==Dennis and I celebrated our 34th anniversary.

==I organized several Zoom sessions to connect the spread-out Miller family.

==All the kids stayed employed throughout the year.

==Our older son and his partner are having a home built in Wellington, north of Fort Collins. Younger son moved into a solo studio apartment in downtown Fort Collins. 

==Watched an online family wedding from PA in December.

 

TRAVEL

==Trips to Arizona, PA/OH, and Spain/Portugal were all cancelled. 

==No stadiums were added to my MLB stadium quest.

==Being cautiously optimistic, I put a deposit on a group trip to Jamaica for December 2021.

HEALTH
==Reached 65 and Medicare in October.

==Mid-October hip replacement surgery gave me a new joint, corrected body alignment and a new lease on life, an enormous blessing of 2020.
==Swam over 100 miles for the 23nd year in a row, despite the YMCA being closed for 12 weeks and being off five weeks for surgery recovery. Hit the 100,000 lap milestone at the end of December (starting January 1998).

==Invested in the Holosync program and started that in June.

==Most of our family members have stayed Covid-free, but those who were infected recovered without hospitalization. 

DOG

==In early December, we celebrated one year with Barney. I don't know how we would have made it through 2020 without him!

MISCELLANEOUS

==I spent very little money in 2020!

==I did a lot of online learning in the time I would have spent watching basketball and baseball.

==I published a blog post every day since April 1, writing being a part of my spiritual practice.

==Took up the painting hobby of barn quilts.

==Had regular online meetings of my writer group of three.

==Reconnected with my roommate from Elizabethtown College, huge fun and blessing!

==I made my public singing debut and finale doing a Facebook duet with Dennis, John Prine's "In Spite of Ourselves."

==Pandemic boredom led us to declutter and paint the inside of our garage and decorate it with two of my barn quilts.

==Finally had the AC in my car repaired.
==Praise the Universe, we do not have to suffer through another four years of Trump as POTUS.

    Despite the unusual nature of 2020, in hindsight, it was a damn good year! Onward to 2021!

        Leta

Dennis installed my barn quilts on our shed.

There were those days...

My favorite artwork of the year, "11:11."

December 30--We Certainly Do!

Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated. --Confucius

    Confucius lived about 2,500 years ago. If he thought folks complicated life back then, wow, what would he think of today's world?!?!

    Two areas of present-day complication that amuse me are baby things and kitchen gadgets. You surely do need a lot of stuff to have a baby these days. You practically need a mechanical engineering degree to operate a stroller. How did we manage to raise two healthy boys with so little of today's must-have stuff?

    My husband and two sons are all very fine chefs. I think given a good sharp knife, a pan and a heat source that they could make just about anything. My personal requirements would be a good knife, a Kitchen-Aid mixer, a heat source and a means to brew coffee. My older son is adamant about not cluttering their kitchen counter with unnecessary gadgets. Especially at Christmas gift-giving time, it is fun to see all the new kitchen inventions we really don't need. 

    I believe 2020 has taught us a great deal about "simple." We've learned a lot about what is essential, what we want for our future, and what we can let go. That is extremely valuable wisdom, a blessing of a very unusual year. 

    Love is simple--try it,

        Leta

Here's a tip. Best knives on the planet:
Warthercutlery.com

December 29--Less Is More

A simple life is its own reward.  --George Santayana

    I have very few complications in my life. I'm organized. I like it that way. 2020 has made clear those things that are the essentials in my life, and also how little I need to thrive--relationships, food, shelter, exercise, creative outlets, and learning. All the other stuff, like golf, travel, and watching sports, is fluff, albeit enjoyable fluff. 

    I admit that I'm in a bit of a funk relative to 2021. Generally I look forward to a new year with great anticipation, but given the way 2020 slapped us around, I'm wary of being too optimistic about the coming year. I plan to do tax work again, so that covers me to mid-April (I think!). Beyond that, do I dare plan trip(s)? I learned in 2020 to count on cancellations. 2021 shows a lot of "maybe," which makes organized-control-freak Leta crazy. 

    The approach which keeps my sanity intact is the simple slogan, "one day at a time." This and gratitude keep me from getting too far ahead of myself into uncertainties. They complicate life. As the Bible suggests: Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Matthew 6:34.

    Today is simple, and that's a blessing,

        Leta

December 28--Simply Not Broken

Life is not complex. We are complex. Life is simple and the simple thing is the right thing.  --Oscar Wilde

    As a spiritual life coach, and noting from my own personal journey, I see that many humans tend to think that there is something wrong with us that needs to be fixed. That's complex. If we have to fix ourselves before life can be good and we can be happy, that's a very long "row to hoe." What if we take the simple approach that we are not flawed, that whatever is going on with us right now is OK, that it is part of our practice of living? Broken things don't work well. It is hard to make useful changes in life from a mentality of brokenness. 

    In an Abraham-Hicks workshop I attended a couple years ago, Abraham taught that we are here for three things: joy, expansion and freedom. That's it. There's nothing to prove. We are free to choose in every moment--free will is the foundation of life on planet Earth. We are expanding from the moment of birth. Expansion is a natural organic process that takes way more effort to squash than to allow, but we can certainly choose to accelerate the expansion. Joy is the natural result of using our freedom to expand. Accepting and being our own unique selves enables these three things to blossom in life. We can adopt today a mentality of joy, expansion and freedom no matter what we have done or how we have seen ourselves in the past. 

     EnJOYing the simple,

        Leta

J 😃 E 😇 F 😍

December 27--Take It Easy

Smile, breathe and go slowly.  --Thich Nhat Hanh

    We just returned home last evening from our Christmas holiday with our kids. It is a VERY long drive home after all that fun hanging with those we love most on planet Earth. To sum it up, re-entry sucks. Back to "regular" life and winter, tax season work is coming, the pandemic continues, and I have nothing special, like spring/summer traveling adventures, to anticipate. Clearly an attitude adjustment is in order for me, so I shall make myself "smile, breathe and go slowly." I'm headed for a good swim to start the process.  

    Note the photo of my sons and me below. My shirt says, "Breathe. The Universe is taking care of everything else." Words to live by.

    Big sigh,

        Leta

The sunrise in Fort Collins, Dec. 26

Christmas 2020 with my sons

December 26--Overflowing Abundance

Not what we have but what we enjoy constitutes our abundance. --Epicurus

    I thoroughly enjoyed my family's Christmas holiday together. 2020's weirdness created some new conditions. We, the parents, rented a VRBO place large enough for us to all hang out and eat together. Our Christmas tree ended up being a fake palm to which I added a string of lights. Everyone wore masks all the time. Gift-opening was goofy, joyful, and fun, as we all know each other so well. My husband cooked us great meals. We enjoyed seeing our older son's new home under construction and our younger son's new apartment. The weather was spectacular, and we enjoyed much outdoor time walking the dogs. Our older son said, "This is my 34th Christmas, and I consider us really lucky to have spent them all together."
    It doesn't get much more enjoyable and abundant than that!

        Leta

December 25--Merry Merry Merry

Do justly. Love mercy. Walk humbly. This is enough.  --John Adams

    These are the words of Rev. Dr. Edward Viljoen, applicable whether or not one claims to be "Christian":

I celebrate the Christian message because I am grateful for what I have learned from Jesus: to be courageous and dare to question the established ways of thinking; to speak up about unjust laws; to be fearlessly compassionate; to reach out to those who are sick and suffering; to attend to my shortcomings before judging others for theirs; to be empathetic and reach across tribal boundaries to embrace people of all kinds, even those who are traditionally thought of as enemies; to have personal dignity under stress and not buckle under the weight of popular opinion; to be true to myself when the masses disapprove; to be charitable and stand for forgiveness and help those who are disproportionately disadvantaged; to be down to Earth about my spirituality and to practice it; and above all, to have a direct and personal relationship with the Divine, ... loving one another as we are loved by creation.

    John Adams simply said this in fewer words 😉😉

    Have a glorious day celebrating life!

        Leta

Botanica Illuminations
Peace and love to you and yours!