Goodbye Grumblings

Find the good

How I enjoy email without getting buried by information (sometimes)

At the end of a long, tiring day, I’m turning off lights and heading to my room to get ready for bed. I decide to check my email one last time, just in case there’s something important. Mmm, delicious anticipation. Then… a little reward when I see I’ve got new messages. Sound familiar? Like almost […]

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Fill your heart with awesome — there’ll be no room for grumbles

Last week, Thing Two told me about an evening of awesomeness she had with the Scouts, and she gave me permission to share the story. I hope it brings you as many good feelings as it did me. She and a couple of other Scouters went with the 1st Greenwood Scouts (aged 11 to 14) on the bus […]

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Even a small connection can bring comfort

Even a brief human contact can make things a little brighter and be a surprise source of wisdom. As things settle into place after some weeks of difficult changes, both in my own small world and the larger one, I’m grateful to my work colleagues for reminding me of this. I went into the lunchroom at […]

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You don’t have to jump through hoops to get these three great benefits

I signed up for an exercise class with a friend and ended up getting three good things for the price of one: exercise, laughter and socializing. I don’t need to go into just how great these three things are for health, stress levels and even longevity. Use your google-fu and you’ll find a whole lot […]

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It’s better to be kind than fair

I believe that letting kindness guide my actions, rather than focusing on whether or not things are fair, will lead to fewer visits from Grumblings. I’ve often thought that I place too much emphasis on fairness when it comes to small things. I’m not talking about society, justice and the law. I’m talking specifically about […]

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What I learned from the talkers

In which I explore a grumble about talkers… and then salute them. I’ve written before about how normally my worst grumbling happens at home. However, during a workshop this year I caught myself grumbling excessively during my work day. It was a group discussion with four women during a course. At one point I found myself […]

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A bike story reminds me about gratitude, planning and the pleasure of helping

Thing One has a sturdy, expensive bike. It’s made by a company in British Columbia, on the other side of the country from Ottawa. It’s customized. It survives his riding every year on the first bare roads of March through to November’s cold and ice. This bike has history: he rode it while volunteering as a first aider […]

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Quilters sew comfort

In May, the Alberta city of Fort McMurray burned. People across Canada watched as residents fled with what little they had time to pack or could carry. Videos of near escapes, of cars driving through smoke, of houses in flames riveted our attention. Seeing the images and listening to the stories told in shell-shocked voices was heart-wrenching. […]

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Take time to notice the good

I’m grateful for times when Grumblings doesn’t make an appearance, times when finding the good is easy. In this post, I’m making a point of appreciating some good I was fortunate enough to enjoy. I’ve touched on how powerful negative messages are in another post. I firmly believe that good will triumph. I also believe that we need […]

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How recategorizing helped me battle a grumble

I firmly believe that we can all change if we really want to. It took some big, fluffy beach towels to remind me that sometimes a tiny shift, a simple change to my mental filing system, is all it takes to stop a grumble. I like the idea that we can all change. But the actual […]

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