Remember…

…when the days seemed so long and weeks were endless? Time had no meaning, except that a year seemed like an eternity? Christmas and Easter seemed so far apart and birthdays never seemed to arrive fast enough?

I remember a time when I didn’t worry. I didn’t think enough about the future to worry about what might happen. I didn’t worry about how I looked or how I appeared to other people. I didn’t worry about what other people thought of me. I was probably about 5 years old.

If I got sick,I just got sick. I didn’t sit and stew about having a fatal disease. I just dealt with life in the moment.

But as I grew and became more accustomed to being in the world, I learned to worry. I learned to feel guilt. I learned to think that my worth was dependent upon what I did. If I got A’s I was good, if I got B’s I wasn’t as good, if I got D’s…. now that was bad.

I learned to judge myself on my accomplishments and the days became shorter and shorter as I crammed activities into every available moment.

For the past few weeks, I’ve been taking break from the insanity of constantly “doing something” and frankly, it feels weird. Like I “should be” painting a room, making more teddies, cleaning out drawers, changing the house around, making clothes, organizing my life, cleaning out the car (ugh!) ….. ha …DOING SOMETHING… but I haven’t been.

In fact I’ve been kind of lazy… at least by my standards. I actually read a novel. I mean, most of the day this past Sunday, I simply read a book. Instead of doing the laundry, baking bread, cleaning something again… I read a novel. It was wonderful.

Am I getting old? Most certainly I am. And it seems like I am being gifted with a kind of dawning and awareness of my life and how my life is not about “getting something done” all the time.

Gosh, if I don’t learn how to take a break and play a little, I’m going to be a sad old lady.

So here’s to those lazy, hazy, crazy days of Winter… 

Mystic Wynd features Juneau, Alaska on her Blog

Karen from Mystic Wynd has featured my hometown of Juneau, Alaska on her blog. She will be featuring other cities as she focuses on her "buy local" theme.

I want to publicly and personally thank Karen for featuring our beautiful city of Juneau, Alaska, in her most recent post.

Please click on Mystic Wynd to visit her blog and follow her in her travels to other areas.

Thanks again ! Vicki and the Bears

3.5 inch Serge, First Bear of 2011

His name is Serge!

He is 3.5 inches tall.

He is all dressed up… with a little cap, jacket and trousers.

And his Mom’s hands are all munged up from sewing these teeny tiny stitches.

I’m still jazzed on the little ones, so I’m going to put more effort into creating little outfits and little bears.

Thanks for dropping by.

All the best from Vicki and the Bears

Scaling Down in 2011

I’m not one for New Year’s resolutions. I’ve made many and failed miserably. I do, however, believe in change and whether that happens in the new year ahead or periodically within the year, I believe change is good as well as difficult at times.

For me, change is about letting go of something that isn’t working and putting more of my energy into something that may work, if I put in more time and energy (how about that for an epiphany).

I have a tendency to have too many sticks in the fire and then I simply dabble around and don’t feel like I ever really accomplish anything worthwhile. Like the song from Tommy goes…. fiddle about, fiddle about…. sometimes I just feel like I’m simply fiddling about.

So, I am letting go of Facebook, finally. No, I really mean it this time. Honest. I even sabotaged myself so I can’t simply “reactivate” my account like I did last time I decided to quit Facebook.

I deleted all my profile information (at least the parts Facebook would “let” me delete); I deleted all my pictures; I unfriended all of my friends (sorry); and deactivated my account for which I hope is for good.

So, for all my Facebook friends who follow my blog, I’m still here, I’m still around and hopefully I’ll find you here, where it feels like we can get to know each other a little better.

I watched a documentary on Facebook last night presented by CNBC. I had also watch a program earlier last year on 20 Minutes where they interviewed the “founder” of Facebook.

So to keep my comments rather subjective here on the blog, I simply decided that I wasn’t comfortable participating in that venue any longer.

And, my resolve is to spend more time on the blog and doing other things I love.

So, with that, I’m closing this post, because I have another one to follow.

Thanks! Vicki and the Bears