Since I just turned swifty nifty I thought it was high time to start a blog.

So let’s start off by first defining the meaning of “chinwagger.” A chinwagger is a person who likes to talk a lot. I thought this was an excellent title for my blog, because as a matter of fact, I do like to talk a lot.

I used to talk quite a bit to my mother when she was still here. She and I could burn an hour on the phone and it felt like 5 minutes. For both of us even if we didn’t talk about something super important…like if we were ruminating on the last movie(s) we saw, or what to do next in the spring garden, to the heavier stuff like feelings about family (new and old), friends, pets, and life stuff.

So rather than continuing to spin in this world without that special outlet I had with my mother, that no one person can really fill in her absence, I figured it would be best and most productive to honor my mother’s memory by talking a lot here…thus the idea of the chinwagger blog was created.

Just like when I teach yoga I do not care if you finish all of the postures. What does that mean? It means the PROCESS of practicing yoga is what I care more about. How does that apply to this blog? I do not care if this blog gets read or not. I am simply chinwagging, which is a process. There might be useful information to you here or there might not be. I plan on sharing on a whole myriad of topics that may not even be related, but whatever it is I invite you on this journey with me!

Work Stuff:

Have you ever seen an entire industry come to a screeching halt? I suspect that happened to a lot of people during the crash of 2008. At that time the business I am in just began to boom. What do I do? I am in the business of retail/wholesale garden supplies to gardeners of all kinds.

We had our boom year in 2010-2011. Wild beyond dreams…then the market began to change and here we are struggling through one of the worst seasons ever.

It’s really hard to see an industry change so drastically in a downward direction. It’s really sad to listen to your owner talk about selling his assets just to keep the business going. I thought I would be part owner of the same business, but if it were offered to me today I would not want to take it on because the market has changed so much and the future is very uncertain.

Not that uncertainty is part of any business. I think it’s easy to get complacent, and stay in a comfort zone. It’s hard to make changes when certain strategies that had worked for so long seemed to be enough…and then all of sudden those same tactics are no longer workable.

Being successful in any business requires staying ahead of the curve. That’s hard to do when the curve keeps changing by the minute, but I think it is possible. Some people are better at this than others. Some people are just lucky. Some people work their ass off and are lucky. Sometimes shit just doesn’t work out.

Like Dr. Wayne Dyer has said…think of fear as curiosity instead. Instead of going straight to fear mode when shit happens, think instead of being curious. WOW.

So I have taken things lately to be curious, and to expand my network, and to look at things with a fresh perspective. And of course, I am looking for any new opportunities that might arrive in that process.

Other things…

I love this time of year. Some people might be annoyed by the lighter skies so early, but I love the long days of May, June, July. I love the early light which helps me get up early for spin class or yoga. I love driving home from an early yoga class feeling inspired and watching the sun rise over the Cascades as I get off of my freeway exit. Yeah, I love it.

I also love my garden this time of year. I can spend hours.

More other things…

Man, I don’t know what it is about this year, but it is the year of surgeries for me. Knee surgery in January and now Moh’s surgery yesterday for basal cell carcinoma on the tip of my nose. (Wear sunscreen)!!!

I am still recovering from knee surgery, and I figure by the time I get back to the gym once again after this nose thing in about a week maybe, just maybe it will feel normal again. Maybe, just maybe I can bend my knee all the way in floor bow or standing bow yoga poses. Maybe, just maybe I can ride my road bike or do spin and my knee won’t blow up and get swollen later in the day. That alone has been a spectacular journey of severe frustration.

Why so frustrating? Because I have to move. Movement is my anti-depressant. If I can’t move then I start to get pissed off. I know there are a lot of you out there who understand this important thing.

As for Moh’s surgery…what is it? Sounds creepy, right? Well, it means they cut you until they find free margins. Yep. They cut a chunk out of the tip of my nose and then cut more of it in order to sew it back together again. Thank goodness they only had to do one cut to get clean margins.

Right now I look like a skunk with a big, white bandage down my entire nose. They had to cut it all the way up to the bridge in order to sew it back up again and look normal. I look like I was in a bar fight or something. Tomorrow the white bandage can come off, but stitches stay in until next week. Fun times.

Never thought cancer could be part of your story? I didn’t, either. I am grateful, so grateful that I have the most treatable form of skin cancer a person can get. Shame on me for being in the sun too much in the past. Must have been all those golf games in the blazing sun, even with sunscreen.

After that I get to have a ganglion cyst removed from my left wrist. Probably 15 years of chatarunga dandasana is partly to blame and lots of road biking of course has put pressure on the joint which is probably why it’s there.

After all of that I should be the new bionic woman!

I find that no matter what is going on in my life that if I can find one thing to be grateful for today, then that makes it all worthwhile. It can be something so simple, too.

Gratitude opens the door to new things and in my view is a gateway to the Universe.

More to come on the chinwagger! Thank you for reading all the way to the end!