The Inherent Dragonfly A journey of discovering hope, change and love within myself.

Mediterranean Sea off the coast of Barcelona, Spain - May 2024 I am stretching my wings into the zone of uncomfortable.  Bruce and I will be embarking on a cruise shortly.  We enjoy the sea air and being forced to unplug from life.  This is a cruise that was not planned a year ahead, but instead is a cruise of opportunity.  We had received a nice discount on the cruise, but even better had some air plane miles to cash in providing us with a nice less expensive winter get away to a three places we have never been and even better, warmer temperatures. I found a Facebook group for our cruise. (Seems like everyone has a Facebook group).  I am not much of a people mingler in person.  Virtual mingling is more my speed.  As I read through the various posts, a fellow cruiser suggested an on board gift exchange between cabins.  It seems like a secret Santa style gift giving.  We will be assigned 4 cabins and surprise them with a little $5 - $10 gift o...

Great Smoky Mountains - June 2024 My word of the Year is Maintain .   I often look back at past years' goal to help assemble my current year's goals.  I have always want to be certain to include growth in my goal.  I wanted to go deeper and farther than previous years, but this year I have decided not to grab the measuring stick. My goals may look similar to years past, but that is ok.  BODY  1. I will continue stay active through YMCA classes, hiking, biking and kayaking.  I feel better when I am moving, but I will forgive myself when I choose to rest. 2. I will continue to do strength training whether through the YMCA or on my own.   3. I will continue to try to block the noise that comes from society and my own head that I am overweight and maintain a weight where I feel good and healthy. MIND 1. I will continue to find quiet time to help me sort my thoughts. 2.  I will continue to forgive my mind when it doesn't work the way I want i...

Painted Desert, Arizona October 2024 When I wrote out my 2025 goals and posted them, I had even admitted that I didn't think I could follow through. It is only nine days later and I know that to be true.  I must have been in a stressed mindset when I set my "2025 Mantra" , luckily I have few followers on my blogger page and no one has read it yet.  I thought of deleting it, but I want to stay true to my missteps.  These were not goals to aspire too, but a map for my mental state at the time.  Maybe my words took shape from the highlights of the struggles I was feeling coming out of the holidays and what I perceived as others expectations of me  caused the rushing of setting my 2025 goals.  I tried to take the easy way out with a post from Facebook.  Does that ever work? So I awoke this morning and am going to make a fresh start with my goals of 2025.   May be the reason that it is so difficult for me this year to come up with new goals is tha...

Northern Light in our Backyard  - October 10th, 2024 Why is time flying by so quickly?  I am still waiting for time to watch Christmas movies and it is mid-January.   I thought that things would slow down once we took a break from traveling, but this hasn't been the case.  The time between Thanksgiving and Christmas was a flurry of activity. Getting ready for the holiday is always a busy time.  Preparing for the annual Christmas Party, wrapping gifts, decorating and baking prior to Christmas. After Christmas, we traveled to Erie, Pa to see my mom and sister.  We visited with friends for a 3 hour lunch.  We celebrated Christmas with Bruce's side of the family.  This all seems like a standard for the holidays, but I felt I rarely had time to catch my breath and that I was always on the go.  Things settled down after the new year, but I still feel as if my days are full.  I guess that is good.   I did revel in a good old fash...

A friend posted on her social media pages a photo of rows and rows of letters and words and it was titled  "The first 4 words you see will be your 2025 Mantra".  I have decided to let fate and my eyes choose my word for 2025.  Correction, words.  Change Gratitude Health Strength The more challenging of this is to choose a specific goal for each word.  I feel the words a fairly general so I will need to personalize them. CHANGE I want to change my mindset that it is up to me to make everyone feel comfortable at the expense of myself being uncomfortable.  Even as I type this, it seems like such a selfish goal.  But when I look back at the times in the past year when I have been most upset, distraught and negative, it was when I was trying to change myself, my plans or the environment to make things better for others.  Again, this seems so selfish.  But I really want to take time this year protecting my spirit and not try to control the narra...

Hello and Goodbye to 2024! I rang in 2024 with the word   "ASPIRE"   to guide my path and goals in 2024. Looking back, how did I do? I WILL ASPIRE TO.... Better health by purposely being active 4 days a week. Walking, kayaking, biking and home work outs. I will forgive myself and my body on the days my body requires rest. I will rest and begin again. - I was much more forgiving of my body than I have been in the past.  I have found a new normal of acknowledgement when my body needs a rest and took it.  I have done better listening and acting on my bodies cues for rest and have stopped literally falling down when I require rest. As for how often I was active, I didn't really keep a record. When I could and chose to, I walked.  When we were traveling I walked a lot, hiked a lot and kayaked. I think it helped my mental state not to be so regimented on getting physical activity.  Other than the winter months, I remained very active, but again we were trave...

 Happy New Year!! Chargin Falls, Ohio December 2024 It is so hard to believe that it is 2025, even still it is hard to believe how busy that I have been so far this winter.  Doing what?  I don't even know.  There were no big life changes.  No young children in the house to "make" Christmas magical, but still I felt as if I had little down time since returning from my trip the end of October.  On Christmas Eve, I was so tired that we forwent our traditional evening at friends.  Instead Bruce and I enjoyed some time in the hot tub under the stars and upon returning to the living room promptly fell into a bottle of red mulled wine while settling into a movie.  I have gotten grief over the high rating I gave the movie, but in reflection I believe the rating came from the ambience of the much need relaxing evening.  Speaking of reflection, the new year has come and I have yet to take some quiet time to meditate and reflect on 2024.  I find th...