The prompt today is Love. You’d think this would be an easy one, but I had a hard time narrowing it down and deciding what to post. I decided I’d share a little bit about the clay hearts you see on my blog header and on my Facebook page. My sister-in-law, Sister Caroline, a nun with the School Sisters of Notre Dame, gave them to me. She uses them in her devotional time and gave me a set many, many years ago. I just googled “Purple clay hearts” and found them online!

Here’s what it says about them:

By combining heart, the shape we use for the hearthstones, and earth, the material used to make the hearthstones, the word hearth is created. These simple, hand-made terra cotta clay hearts come in 56 different attitude-words. Each rich, purple velvet bag contains 25 randomly selected hearts. Their popularity has spread by…

You need to associate with people that inspire you, people that challenge you to rise higher, people that make you better. Don’t waste your valuable time with people that are not adding to your growth. Your destiny is too important. — Joel Osteen

Photo Courtesy of C. Bolton Instagram ©

It’s Monday morning.
I’m driving down I-95. Off to work. Same
Two car lengths in front of me is a rider.
Helmet-less.
Cars in front and back of him giving him wide berth.
I close the gap to one car length.
And hold position.
Both of us cruising a smooth 55.
A Harley.
I’ve never been on a bike. Never.
Hemingway: “No, that is the great fallacy: the wisdom of old men. They do not grow wise. They grow careful.”
Man is speaking to me. Don’t like it.

August 1st of  ‘How To Change Your Life One Day At A Time‘.

Mary Morrissey is a renowned life coach and spiritual teacher who has shared the stage with the Dalai Lama and many other incredibly inspiring individuals.

One of her core techniques is to get you to ‘change frequency’. The way she describes it is beautiful. We are surrounded by an infinite quantity of frequencies in the same way we are surrounded by TV and Radio waves. In order to watch something different on the TV or listen to something different on the radio we simply ‘change channel’ (change frequency).

We can do this with our feelings too. We can change the channel from feeling miserable to euphoric, or from afraid to confident just by changing the frequency we’re tuned into. She describes it as going from CNN (Constantly Negative News) to the Discovery Channel.

Today in 1964, the Beatles’ “A Hard Day’s Night” went to number one and stayed there for longer than a hard day’s night — two weeks:

If you are of my age, this was a big moment in 1981:

READ THIS.  You will not be disappointed.  It started my day off on the right foot.

From George Saunders’ 2013 “Advice to Graduates” commencement speech @ Syracuse University:

“…Now, one useful thing you can do with an old person, in addition to borrowing money from them, or asking them to do one of their old-time “dances,” so you can watch, while laughing, is ask: “Looking back, what do you regret?”  And they’ll tell you.  Sometimes, as you know, they’ll tell you even if you haven’t asked.  Sometimes, even when you’ve specifically requested they not tell you, they’ll tell you.

So: What do I regret?  Being poor from time to time?  Not really.  Working terrible jobs, like “knuckle-puller in a slaughterhouse?”  (And don’t even ASK what that entails.)  No.  I don’t regret that.  Skinny-dipping in a river in Sumatra, a little buzzed, and looking up and seeing like 300…