Changes In Life

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A few years ago I made a life changing decision, to move away from my known life and start somewhere else. I was called everything from ‘a little nuts’ to ‘completely insane’. Some people took the liberty to inform me that ‘at my age’ I better ‘enjoy the rest of my life’ instead of making drastic mistakes, and they had considered me to be wiser.

Well, guess what? I’m my own person, and this is my life. Sometimes I learn from my mistakes, and this wasn’t one of them. Who could have foreseen the pandemic? It started about half a year after my big move. This didn’t work out as planned, and life blew me forward, through the South to the East and then up North…

Since Mid January I have had a ‘temporary life on hold’, I was going through many changes, some expected, and some just heading my way to save my sorry butt from bad things happening.

I learned a few things:

1. I’m still up for an adventure
2. I’m still as resilient as I ever was
3. I’m facing life and the world head on, no matter what
4. You’re never too old for changes
5. Without the most wonderful friends and a generous and caring sibiling, I wouldn’t be where I am now (And do you have the feeling too, that this should make the top of the list? Let me re-phrase then…)

1. Without the most wonderful friends and a generous and caring sibiling, I wouldn’t be where I am now
2. I’m still up for an adventure
3. I’m still as resilient as I ever was
4. I’m facing life and the world head on, no matter what
5. You’re never too old for changes

I was looking for a quote about life changes, like this one, from Buddha:

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It is inspirational and eye opening, but it doesn’t ‘catch’ exactly what I want to say. Changes are coming your way, no matter what you planned. Sometimes they’re for the better, sometimes they’re not. But they all, each one of them, is an opportunity to learn and to grow – and also one to sound the depth within yourself. When I found Henry Stanley Haskins’ quote instead, I felt, that this one is much better suited for today’s blog post.

Tiny matters are what lies behind me, and tiny matters are what lies ahead of me? Not quite… after all, my past is what made me who I am now, and I still have a future ahead, no matter what my critics say… But figuratively speaking, I doubt very much this is what Henry Stanley Haskins meant. What he wanted to show is the ‘comparison’ between what’s behind, what’s ahead – and what’s within us… and that ‘within me’ was definitely what I was re-introduced to, in the past, almost 9 months.

I found ‘things’ that I had missed without knowing that I missed them, ‘things’, that were missing in action and presumed dead, things I haven’t heard very often lately… And I found a few things I had thought I’d lost somewhere…

Of course, we’re talking about my emotional state, feelings… long buried emotions… I might have re-found my inner soothing voice, my believing in the good that will happen, my believing in life and how to enjoy it again… I might have found more resilience deep inside of me, and a patience I never believed I had. Also, I might have discovered a strength that I had believed buried below everything that blocked myself…

But most of all I found two things I had believed to be dead inside of me… love and hope…

And that’s why I picked this particular quote. What’s inside of you is far stronger, bigger, and more important than most of us can grasp.

What is it that you find in yourself, when you dig a bit deeper? You want to tell us? Leave a comment.

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Henry Stanley Haskins

Haskins (1875–1957) was a stockbroker and man of letters. His aphorisms were edited and published anonymously with an introduction by Albert Jay Nock in 1940. Haskins was the author of “Mediations of Wall Street”. (Source: Wikiquote.org)

Thanksgiving 2021

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It’s Thanksgiving 2021… a day we should find things to be thankful for, even though the year after the COVID-19 pandemic was a strain for many of us.

Still, at this moment I want to see the positive things, that I have in my life and those are the things I’m grateful for!

I want to say thanks for many things:

Helping friends

My wonderful sister

A Future

Love and Hope

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To celebrate Thanksgiving you will be able to buy ‘The Council Of Twelve’ books with a 30% discount coupon on Smashwords:

Coupons are valid until December 5, 2021

Use Coupon AC53P

Use coupon ZC87A

Use Coupon EG65K

Use coupon CW24X

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I’m grateful for the wonderful subscribers, readers, followers, and friends that make my writing, social media, and blogging so much fun! Thank you!

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If you have the chance to spend this holiday with your loved ones and family, please enjoy it. Unfortunately, once again, this year I will be all by myself. I want to wish you and your family members:

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‘Writer’s Treasure Chest’ Celebrates 100K Views!

It happened… it really did! With great pride I can announce that my blog, ‘Writer’s Treasure Chest’ has passed 100,000 views! This is so exciting.

But, of course I cannot let this celebration pass without telling you all how grateful I am! When I started that blog I didn’t know exactly what to expect. But you all, loyal readers, friends, regular visitors – and the ones finding it by accident… you all made this blogging adventure a wonderful one for me!

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A Little Bit Of Childhood – Or – How To Become A Tough Adult

I’m now talking to the kids, teenagers, and the ones who one day want to become teens, young adults, and millennials. I’m talking to those wimps who have no clue that one can grow up without having everyone (namely, the parents) fighting for them while they lean back and continue playing on their computers and not do anything…

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We and I very consciously talk about that group of people, born before 1980, we didn’t have what you have today – what did we have? Nothing, after the war! We had nothing! (And I know exactly who of you is laughing now and got the joke!) 😀

What did we have? We didn’t have mothers who bought us fast food or whatever we wanted to eat and ordered deliveries of our favorite sweets. We had a mother who cooked! Our mothers cooked spinach, green beans, peas, cauliflower – I grew up in a time before broccoli! We had real oatmeal and soup! We had to eat what was on the table – OR NOT EAT AT ALL! And when we didn’t behave as we should, there were days we were sent to bed without dinner.

We had toys – our toys came from China! All the lead paint and cadmium we sucked off the toys ourselves! Nobody helped us – and we didn’t die. Our mothers drove us around in cars without baby’s safety cushions and children’s seats, without airbags and some of them even without seat belts! Our mothers didn’t drive their children around in family vans and SUV’s. We had Volkswagen Beetles! Vacation time came, and our Dad was driving us, his wife, and two kids in the back of his baby blue beetle for 16 hours across the continent! Our mother had a few plastic bags for us kids to vomit into in case we didn’t feel so well.

When we were on the road, our mother didn’t have baby wipes or sterile medical wipes. She had a fabric family handkerchief where she spat into and wiped our faces with! That is actually the best stain remover on Earth! If a cleaner-production-company would be smart, they’d bottle up mother-spittle and sell it as an ‘all stain remover,’ because it removes everything, from mud to blood. And in that handkerchief, if anyone would ever have it scientifically investigated, you could have found the DNA from our great-great-great-great-great-grandfather, robber-knight Alexander!

When we couldn’t sleep as kids, we didn’t get ‘sleep-well-baby-tea’ or ‘baby-sleeping-juice’ from the drug store. No! Grandmother came in with the big bottle of brandy, and if there was none in the house, we got eggnog instead – we were forced to open our mouth and got it fed with the tablespoon, followed by a handful of gummi bears which we ate, one after another, then turned around and slept, and we still have all our teeth!

If we once in a rare while got a chewing gum, we didn’t chew and carelessly discarded it by the side of the road after half an hour. We chewed the entire day – and then in the evening, carefully placed it on our nightstand! In the morning, we blew the fluffs off the gum and stuck it back into our mouth – and in school, in the break, when talking to our best friend, we loaned it to her for the duration of the break – and the next lesson!

To play with we didn’t have Wii-consoles, Playstation, i-phones, i-pads, i-pods and were glued to them and frozen in time. What did we have to play with when we were kids? We had FRIENDS! And with these friends, we played daily! Yes, and sometimes we argued, we wrestled and once in a while one of our teeth fell out – but back then an incident like that wasn’t followed by an immediate meeting with parents who threatened to contact their lawyers! We were the ones being responsible for what we did!

And additionally, to the lost tooth, we got a clean slap across the face from Mom what she considered a clear statement in educational measures. Then we played ball – all kinds of ball. Softball, Basketball, soccer. The athletic kids were picked by the respective team captains, the not-so-athletic ones (like little AJ) were watching, not playing because these kids had to learn to handle disappointment – without the constant support of a children’s psychiatrist.

We all drank from the same glasses. Not the matching glasses – the SAME ones – like our siblings, parents, neighbors, neighbors’ kids, friends, and the neighbors’ dog sometimes. That wasn’t always nice – and sometimes we even drank from the garden hose when we were really thirsty – and we all survived!

We barely ever drank water and never soda- nor ‘filtered water’ out of a bottle, or water with a taste – no, we drank lemonade, yellow lemon tasty liquid with tons of sugar, sometimes the thing was syrup with orange taste and bubbles – and then we went back playing and ran it off.

We got grades in school – from first class on! And when we had bad grades in school, our parents told us off! They didn’t go giving their opinion to our teachers! We were the ones who had to work hard in school because only the kids with good grades who knew things and were good in school went to college, not every Ritalin-addicted brat whose parents were too lazy to work in school back in their times and hired tutors for their kids from the second class on, still believing their brood is highly gifted.

We had everything – we, the ones born before 1980 had everything! Freedom, success, failure, happiness, disappointment – and lemonade! We grew up, we experienced the first computers – we learned how to use them, we grew with the technology – but it doesn’t control us! We are neither addicted, nor are we dominated by technology! To us, it is a relief, a help, not our master. We can survive without it – the one after 1980 can’t! We are the ones who are tough; nothing is killing us, shattering us or making us giving up – because we learned to live with whatever was thrown to us – and we survived!

Happy New Year 2020

New beginnings are often disguised as painful endings.

                                                                                       – Lao Tzu

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Thank you all, authors, readers, followers, visitors, and friends, for making blogging and writing to me an exciting and thrilling adventure, for being a part of my life and for supporting and encouraging me!

Let me wish you and your loved ones now

A successful, exciting, thrilling, enjoyable, positive and amazing NewYear!

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Happy Thanksgiving 2019

On this day, today, as a writer, I’m happy for many things and accomplishments:

Two published books

plenty of paper

useful pens

a working computer

a new printer

the time and chance to write

the God given talent to be a wirter

ideas for stories, posts, and books

– and last, but not least –

YOU – Followers, Friends, and Readers

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I wish you and your family, an enjoyable and blessed:

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Truly Grateful – A Poem For Thanksgiving 2019

For many things I’m grateful,

one of them is health

I don’t need to leave it fateful

health to me means wealth.

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Part of being wealthy is family and friends

having a home is also great to me

It’s important that love never ends

and that I’m truly safe and free.

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So many people don’t have anything to eat

They barely have water and the bit they have is unclean

Where I live in nature is giving and still neat

I have clothes to wear and the grass is green.

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I’m grateful for my education for the chances given to me

I’m thankful I can travel in planes and in my car

How glad I am that I have music, I can hear and I can see

that I have my dreams, moon and sun and wind and star.

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Life has given me so much to thank for

civilization, technology, a home and pets

what else do I need, what to I want more?

I am lucky, with me and my three cats.

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It’s time for saying prayers

to be thankful and feeling blessed

And to send our thanks to the One

and see them properly addressed.

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(Copyright: Aurora Jean Alexander, November 2019)

 

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Hungry After Dinner

Lately, I made some new friends, wonderful people I spent an afternoon with them and had tons of fun. Later on, we went for dinner together. We decided on getting a ‘family-style’ dinner. (For those who don’t know: that is different entrees for the entire table and each participant can help themselves from the served meals.)

Now, that is a great idea, as I find, provided there is plenty ordered. In a tiny small-town restaurant, I’m afraid four entrees for six people might be a bit narrow.

In particular, when one of the served dishes isn’t your taste, and the serving-round starts on the opposite side of the table it could happen that I’m sitting at the table and ending up with the paltry remains of the served meals. That can be especially painful if one of the meals is absolutely your taste and that one has been the first one to be gone.

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We kept on talking for another while, we had a really good time, except that I was secretly frowning and asking myself if there are really only women sitting on that table that belong to those who eat like sparrows… Still, they constantly talked about food, compared different desserts and meals and drinks… while my mood slowly but surely went downhills.

Bluntly spoken I had about two and a half tablespoons full of something to eat… and I was about to ask: “Cool – the idea with the appetizers – and where’s dinner now?” – when everyone found it an excellent meal and someone asked for the check.

I thought: “Jeeez… I’ll soooo need a burger on the way home.”

It has happened to me before that I was invited to dinner and got up from the table not eating… But I swear, there was served plenty of food – I just didn’t like it.  I never got up from a dinner table, still hungry – and had paid for it.

Oh well… what should I say…?

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Blog Post Achievement On ‘Writer’s Treasure Chest’

I was surprised to see once again, how far ‘Writer’s Treasure Chest’ has developed. Yesterday I discovered that I got a new achievement ‘award’:

1337 posts published – this is amazing. (Even though I wonder, what the magic number 1337 stands for.)

At this moment I’m surprised, and I’m flattered. I know, without you all, followers, readers and in particular friends, I couldn’t have done that! The guest posts, the ‘Featured Author’ posts, the interviews, promotions and re-blogs; without all those posts, ‘Writer’s Treasure Chest’ wouldn’t be what it is.

I want to say ‘Thank you’ to you all for making my blog a success and for making blogging a true adventure for me!

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4th Year Anniversary Of ‘Writer’s Treasure Chest’

Look what I found! I’m so excited!

I’m very excited to be a blogger of 4 years!

Writer’s Treasure Chest has grown significantly in the past year.

1,279 posts
almost 7,300 comments
1,306 followers
and
almost 110 guests

I’m so lucky to be part of the blogging world with all your help. Without guests, friends, followers, supporters and people encouraging me again and again this blogging adventure would not have been progressing at this pace and wouldn’t have been as successful as it is.

To all of you: