Three from Mary Mann

marymann has somehow survived, against all odds. She is, therefore, eminently qualified to have three things and to share them with the grandbabies. These three kinda rock out loud.

one All of your life you are talking to yourself. It has been my experience people will talk to themselves in a way they would never speak to anyone else. Practice, always practice, talking to yourself in a supportive, loving manner. It will pay off. I have found, for myself, the way I talk to myself is reflected in the way I speak to others. Very nice. I practice very nice all the time. 

two In my life there are people I have lost track of and I miss them terribly. I regret I didn’t keep in touch or at least make sure I knew how to keep in touch with them. There are people in my life who I don’t exactly have anything in common with, and yet there they are. I am not as unhappy about people I don’t like being in my life as I am about losing the people I did like. Take a minute, now and then, to touch base with those people you really like. It will matter later. 

three If you are going to have pets, they are going to die. They are going to get sick, they are going to have accidents. If you love them, they know. They always know. Pets are not concerned with growing old and knowing their grandchildren or their grandchildren’s grandchildren. They live in the moment. They love in the moment. They know you love them, now. They know you care. They are also animals who have a much shorter life span than we do. I don’t think it ever lessens the love of one life to love another. Love is one of those things that only grows. Love never fades and disappears, it always remains and when given away it grows. There are many, many pets waiting to know you love them, and waiting to love you. I believe when a pet is lost, take some time, honor your grief. That pet is indeed no longer living. The love you had for that pet exists still and when your ready for that love to grow, get another pet. I promise you will find more love than you ever realized. Love is funny that way. Having a pet is also funny that way.

copywrite 2012 moemasters thesethreethings marymann. yep.

These Three.

one. Never forget how much I love you. Know that there is somebody on this planet who gives an incredibly big hoot about what you choose to do. Do the right things and think happy thoughts. Finish what you start. Life is just too short to do otherwise.

two. When things seem to be too good to be true, they probably are. There really are no free lunches. If you are blissin'all the way out about your amazingly phenomenal stroke of luck at the end of the day - you may wanna just Google "karma."

Know this: everything worth having is worth working for. The Toll lurks and stalks. The Toll keeps track. You will bleed and sweat; I do so wished that that weren't the case. You may swear like a sailor. You probably will. The Toll may wake you up every single morning.  Things are probably going to get messy - don't drag your heels and do wear your good gloves. Keep up.

three. When the people on your island want to talk about God or The President: Just turn your head to the left and look up. Do not go there. Chuckle. Life is too short. Cough. Snore. Trust me on this one. We will talk about this business when you can button your own jeans and drive a car. For real. Smile and nod, Baby. If I din't love you I would not mention this.

@copyright moemasters thesethreethings 2012    BOOya.

teachers, music and death by Diana Markley Guidas

one IF you have had at least one great teacher in your life, and you can find a phone number, let that person know that they had an impact on your life.  I had a math teacher in high school named Mr. Wilbur. He taught me pre-calculus and calculus, and he had an incredible gift for making math understandable.  Twenty years after I graduated, I was at my parents’ house for Christmas, and I called Mr. Wilbur.  He had long since retired, and I am quite sure he did NOT remember me, but it didn’t matter.  I just told him that he was the best teacher I ever had, and I wanted him to know that.  I have never regretted making that phone call. 

two When someone invites you to a concert ~ GO.  I don’t care what genre of music is being played.  I used to think that I only wanted to attend performances by groups that I was familiar with … the Stones?  Sure.  Jackson Browne?  Of course.  CSN&Y?  Absolutely.  Mike Finnigan?  Always.  Then I met my husband.  In the past 8 years, he has taken me to over a hundred concerts, most of which were entertainers I had never heard of.  Some of them have been in tiny venues with audiences of 20 people; Others have been in huge stadiums.  The music has opened my mind and my heart and my soul.  I have danced in the aisles, stomped my feet and sung at the top of my lungs. There were perhaps 2 concerts that I didn’t enjoy all that much.  But two, out of more than a hundred, is a pretty good statistic.

three There are no rules for grieving.  When my mom died, and I was crying, my brother pulled a piece of paper out of his pocket with the phone number for a funeral home and started dialing.  I was furious with him.  Wasn’t he upset?  Wasn’t he sad?  What was his problem?  He didn’t have a problem…he simply had a different way of grieving.  When someone passes away, there are those who clean out that person’s closet the day after the funeral and those who want to wait a year or five or ten.  Don’t judge - there are no rules for expressing grief.

copyright 2012 thesethreethings moemasters dianamarkleyguidas 

Tres Importants

one Forgive and forget is more than just a tired old cliche. Bad shit happens, people make unbelievably regrettable mistakes and screw up in ways that they weren't even capable of dreaming up. Get.Over.It. By virtue of the fact that we get to keep on growing older, we get to get smarter and more understanding as well. Yea, some of the big stuff takes a minute or two get over, but it is way WAY not worth throwing in the gloves. All the bad energy you burn up thinking unhappy or vengeful things will come back to you ten-fold. Trust me on this one. If,by some unfortunate series of star alignments, you are unable to forgive and carry on, then cut ties and burn that bridge all the way down, baby. Never fail to smile and nod, politely, in public. But let it go and move forward. No smack-talk and no public throw-downs. Don't look back and always be grateful for the lessons that little bit of bloodshed gave you.(If you almost bled to death you don't have to be nearly so grateful, ever... just smarter.)

two You can actually go back. Y'know, like: Home. It's a way over-used little sentence that's got something about how you can never go back. Well, you can too. Obviously you can't go back to, like, specific points in time (Like that one autumn when we were shooting the Howdy video and the leaves were falling like snow and the house was full of teenagers drinking all our milk and I had on my favorite skirt.) But, you can go back home, if you really want to. I don't have any quantifiable evidence to support this statement, but going back home could feel as awesome as leaving felt. And, I don't mind telling you: Leaving felt fan-freakin-tastic. A couple times. (The vortex known as Wichita has a powerfully strong pull and leaving often takes several attempts.) But, don't be putting all your eggs in that basket called "You can never go back." And, furthermore: Git! Get out of your town for the love of God. You'll get stale if you stay too long.... you'll grow things like potatoes....

three A good guest learns to recognize the cues that suggest he/she is about to get punched in the throat if silence doesn't happen soon. What this means to you is this: Sometimes you have to stop talking. That's it. Less is more, for real - more often than not.

copyright 2012 moemasters thesethreethings

from a grandbaby perspective

My name is Evelyn Mae. I am a grandbaby to whom all this great advice is directed. I have limitations because I'm, like, way short. But I see stuff. You guys need to chill and stare deeply into this. Bring your A-Game or call in sick.

one I am in charge here. If you ever forget that, try to go for a midnight taco run and then remember that it's a felony to leave a sleeping, teeny weeny, perfect, baby in a crib. Yea. I know. It's harsh, but I am kinda going to call all the shots from now on. Well, not like forever, but for a long long unspeakably long time. It will work out great for all of us so long as you remember that one thing. I could go on, ad nauseum, about what all this entails, how many compromises you will have to make, the blood, the sweat... the tears.... but: Life is short, I know you don't want to actually have to hear me tell you these things.

two If you feed me three, maybe four, pounds of fresh organic tomatoes when I am on a seriously bad-ass road trip, you will have to help me clean up. Dude. I am a baby. You cannot plead ignorance and you cannot feed my weakness  for vegetables. Seriously. You are fifty and I am not yet two. You do the math, think about the acid in tomatoes and give my mom a call. She was not a happy navigator.

three I know that you have to have some fingerprints on my spirit before all is said and done. This is what you grown-ups do as evolved mammals. I'm good with that. You need to own it. Engage. Teach me to sit up straight, make eye contact, use my manners, dumptster dive, pass algebra, read a book, feed the homeless and manage. Expect something of me. Cope. Help me cope. It's going to take every single one of you. Yea. Even you. You didn't even know that you mattered, but it's nutty what matters to a baby.  I count on you to think happy thoughts and keep your shit together. (I am allowed to talk like that on Momo's Porch of Immunity. She said so. The grown-ups can't hear it.)

copyright 2011 moemasters thesethreethings evelyn mae

Change, change, change.

The dawn of another autumn in New England has guest blogger Eric Klein contemplating change in all it's incarnations. He's got some credibility on the topic as the photo he supplied of himself dating from the early 70's clearly demonstrates.

one While prevailing wisdom suggests that highly successful people embrace change, one thing is certain. Survivors learn to cope with it. One secret to adapting to change is to understand that change tends to act as an equalizer, lifting some people from hard times, while simultaneously knocking some people from their pedestals. Coping with the teeter-totter rhythms of change helps keep us humble and reminds us to enjoy the good times.

two Don't underestimate the power of the seemingly lowly penny, nickel and dime. Alone they seem insignificant, but heap a whole pile of them together, and they can do some amazing things! Get a clean bucket, a few coffee cans or even an old fashioned piggy bank and start tossing spare change in it. Do this each day for a few months (no withdrawals!) and you'll be surprised how much it adds up to. It may not be enough to buy a pony, but it might be enough to get you the skateboard or MP3 player that will make you the envy of the neighborhood. All the cool kids will want to sit with you at lunch.

three Try not to fall in love with one particular set of clothes to the exclusion of all others. While it is totally normal to have a favorite, (trust me, I had a pair of blue parachute pants that I wore until the thread disintegrated) it can be off-putting to others to see you in the same outfit all the time. Besides, your favorite clothes will start to get funky after a while if you don't launder them regularly. Change clothes daily (and yes, that does include socks and underwear) and mix and match items for variety. Don't be afraid to experiment with your style a little. A little change can be fun!

copyright 2011 thesethreethings, moemasters, ericklein

When I Was a Kid, We Didn't even Have facebook.

If my parents were still alive, they would have both so totally been facebook people. The tech-support with my father might have very well killed me, but my mom would have dug this place. The changes that are happening now on the book of the face are shaking things up like plates shifting underfoot and these are the three things I would tell my parents if they were here...

one Facebook is changing and I'm sorry it's upset your delicate balance. Change is good if you don't protest too much.  facebook is an evolving medium. It is a commercial enterprise and is fed by our innate need for human connection. We are NEVER going to be charged a fee to hang there because advertisers are smart people who throw fistfuls of cash at facebook every single day believing that roughly 800 million of us meet up there. They don't have to charge us, we are consumers.

Annnnnnnd, Right.Here is where we suck it up and lean into the change. We sound like our ancestors sitting around the old Victrola when they were talking about those newfangled radio things. Seriously. Change is way cooler than the alternatives. We are movers and shakers and stuff happens here on earth. We can always choose to not play or stay or whatever. Facebook is going to change because it's a fluid, not a solid. And, we are the bosses of us. Stuff changes, we have to learn new skills, we grow complacent and then stuff changes again. It's life.

two Your online well-being is so completely, totally and wholly in your own hands that it's nutty. Every thing you do online is something that you could be held accountable for. Even if you think you have deleted and erased and deactivated and disabled: Somebody can find whatever they want if they are so inclined and smart enough. Lots of people are smart enough now, so you either have to be super-duper-smart or stay away. Do not drop this ball, Baby. Smarten up about your digital resources. I trust you and that great big ol'brain of yours.

It's also a really good idea to never ever share anything digitally that you wouldn't be comfortable sharing with the world. Remember that in sharing it with the world, you open yourself up to thievery (or mockery.) People can steal your stuff and call it their own (if you're good enough and careless,) just as quickly as they will find your flaws. Survival of the fittest stuff just like Darwin, but digital.

three Any time you click on "allow an application" to have access to your information you are saying that it's okay to harvest your story. For real: Be Careful. Some of the people who build and sell these apps are making huge pantloads of money. It is their job to gather information about you, package that and sell it. It's just the nature of the beast and you either allow it or not. 

At the end of the day: Don't be giving it all away. That stuff (your information and your story) is way more your stuff than your actual stuff. Physical stuff can be replaced (usually) but this digital universe plays a mean pinball. Trust few and play smart, Baby. I know you can do this.

copyright thesethreethings 2011