Channeling Rainbow Brite

Fully involved in my training and preparing for the Pretty Muddy event in September and have decided to do a whole rainbow themed outfit. From the wild socks to flashy shorts and t-shirt, I should stand out well before the mud flies.

As you can likely tell, I’m a kid at heart and love color passionately… I believe that life is all about the color and we shouldn’t worry about coloring in the lines all the time. Sometimes it’s all about the living and experiencing. Too many years were spent staying within the lines and when cancer struck, I realized it was all for nothing. I had wasted most of my life, living by someone else’s standards of “good” and “grown up” and it was killing me.

It all changed over that year of treatment and in the years that have passed since it has snowballed to the point that I LOVE my way of living and thinking! My friends are real, my life is bigger and the colors are vivid! Also, I love to color and paint like a kid, again.

This is how we should all live, true to ourselves and channeling our own Rainbow Brite (or whatever you love). It shouldn’t take something like cancer to bring us to life… Live a beautiful life, run your races (Pretty Muddy is pretty awesome!), and be something more.

Joy is in the living.

“Beauty is not in the face; beauty is a light in the heart.”  ~Kahlil Gibran

Happy Dancin’ in Technicolor

I don’t know if it’s age or what, but I’m blown away by just how many people live their lives miserably because they’re living in black and white. Don’t get me wrong, I love the classic movies in black and white, but life is to be lived and seen as Dorothy did when she opened the door in Oz… Absolute Technicolor!

Not sure where people went wrong, but many are walking around skulking and grumbling; instead of kicking up their heels and experiencing it. Some, I think, watch far too much news and see only the negative in the world. Others, I have to wonder, just enjoy the negative… Myself??? I’m sitting here giggling over the possibility of jazz festivals and wine tastings. What makes us different because I, too am a grown up, but I love life and live it.

Some say it’s because I’ve lived through cancer (others say it’s a midlife thingy, but what do they know???), but I’m thinking that it’s just a matter of seeing life differently. We all know that the world has its bad, but some of us make a point to create good, create magic. That makes a HUGE difference!

We could leave this world at any given moment, so wasting time on complaining and being sour is or should be criminal. Don’t wait on a cancer diagnosis, divorce, or some other crisis to be what it takes to open your eyes. Life is a ride and vivid with color, don’t allow your life to slip by without noticing. If your complaint is that the world is full of bad news, then you’re just looking in the wrong places because there are sites out there full of “good news.” All you need to do is look for them.

And a piece of advice… Do the “Happy Dance.” You can’t be in a bad mood when doing the “Peanut’s Dance.” You think I’m kidding??? No way. I do it all the time and don’t care where I am. Did you know that doing it in the grocery store will always cause another person to do it and smiles every where? My challenge to you is to be brave and just do it. I’d do it with you. Just do it, you know you want to.

If you want to be happy, be.  ~Leo Tolstoy