It’s Our Birthday!!

Hi Folks:

An image of the flamingo at Victoria Butterfly Gardens. The caption reads, "This is Your Day! Strut Your Stuff!!Well, it’s now been 14 (!!) years since our blog took its first breath; it continues to be quite the journey! The world is quite different from what it was back at the start of 2020, but we’re slowly finding our way back to each other. As Ram Dass said, “We’re all just walking each other home.”

Our blog has been somewhat quiet this year, but we currently have 697 blog posts and 154 pages on our site. The posts cover poetry, photography tutorials, our hugging adventures (88 countries and counting!) and Free Hugs chalk art (as well as various other musings); our pages include some of Marcia’s stories, some of Mike’s stories and free Adventures of Rainbow Mouse colouring pages to download and enjoy. We’ve shared some wonderful adventures with you through these and are looking forward to sharing more in the future! This blog is our gift to you, our readers, and we very much appreciate having you here with us. Feel free to drop by any time, check out Marcia’s books, download our colouring pages, read our stories, leave a comment or reach out, relax and enjoy yourself. We don’t have any birthday cake that we can share (this is the best we can do: 🎂), but we send you love.

Remember to hug someone you love today, even if it’s just screen to screen. You’ll both feel better for it! 🙅‍♀️🙅‍♂️

M&M

P.S. Extra special thanks to our son Nick, who does all of the techie stuff that keeps us afloat!! 🙂

It’s Our Birthday!!

Hi Folks:

Generations

Generations – Cathedral Grove, Port Alberni, BC

Well, it’s now been 13 (!!) years since our blog took its first breath. The world is quite different today from what it was 13 years ago… the world is quite different from what it was 3 years ago, but we’re slowly finding our way back to each other. As Ram Dass said, “We’re all just walking each other home.”

It’s been a somewhat quiet year, but we currently have 678 blog posts and 153 pages on our site. The posts cover poetry, photography, our hugging adventures (88 countries and counting!) and various other musings; our pages include some of our stories and free Adventures of Rainbow Mouse colouring pages to download and enjoy. We’ve shared some wonderful adventures with you through these and are looking forward to sharing more in the future! This blog is our gift to you, our readers, and we very much appreciate having you here with us. Feel free to drop by any time, check out Marcia’s books, download our colouring pages, read our stories, leave a comment or reach out, relax and enjoy yourself. We don’t have any birthday cake that we can share (this is the best we can do: 🎂), but we send you love.

Remember to hug someone you love today, even if it’s just screen to screen. You’ll both feel better for it! 🙅‍♀️🙅‍♂️

M&M

P.S. Extra special thanks to our son Nick, who does all of the techie stuff that keeps us afloat!! 🙂

It’s Our Birthday!!

Parrot Pals

Parrot Pals

Hi Folks:

Well, it’s now been 12 (!!) years since our blog took its first breath. It’s been a somewhat quiet year, but we currently have 662 blog posts and 150 pages on our site. The posts cover poetry, photography, our hugging adventures (88 countries and counting!) and various other musings; our pages include some of our stories and free Adventures of Rainbow Mouse colouring pages to download and enjoy. We’ve shared some wonderful adventures with you through these and are looking forward to sharing more in the future! This blog is our gift to you, our readers, and we very much appreciate having you here with us. Feel free to drop by any time, check out Marcia’s books, download our colouring pages, read our stories, leave a comment or reach out, relax and enjoy yourself. We don’t have any birthday cake that we can share (this is the best we can do: 🎂), but we send you love.

Remember to hug someone you love today, even if it’s just screen to screen. You’ll both feel better for it! 🙅‍♀️🙅‍♂️

M&M

P.S. Extra special thanks to our son Nick, who does all of the techie stuff that keeps us afloat!! 🙂

It’s Our Birthday!!

Beacon Hill Park, Victoria, BC

Beacon Hill Park, Victoria, BC

Hi Folks:

Well, it’s now been 11 (!!) years since our blog took its first breath, and we currently have 635 blog posts and 150 pages on our site. The posts cover poetry, photography, our hugging adventures (88 countries and counting!) and various other musings; our pages include some of our stories and free Adventures of Rainbow Mouse colouring pages to download and enjoy. We’ve shared some wonderful adventures with you through these and are looking forward to sharing more in the future! This blog is our gift to you, our readers, and we very much appreciate having you here with us. Feel free to drop by any time, check out Marcia’s books, download our colouring pages, read our stories, leave a comment or reach out, relax and enjoy yourself. We don’t have any birthday cake that we can share, but we send you love.

Remember to hug someone you love today, even if it’s just screen to screen. You’ll both feel better for it! 🙅‍♀️🙅‍♂️

M&M

P.S. Extra special thanks to our son Nick, who does all of the techie stuff that keeps us afloat!! 🙂

It’s Our Birthday!

Botanical Beach

Botanical Beach (image by Marcia)

Hi Folks:

Well, it’s now been 10 (yes, ten!) years since our blog took its first breath, and we currently have 602 blog posts and 146 pages on our site. The posts cover poetry, photography, our hugging adventures (88 countries and counting!) and various other musings; our pages include some of our stories and free Adventures of Rainbow Mouse colouring pages to download and enjoy. We’ve shared some wonderful adventures with you through these and are looking forward to sharing more in the future! This blog is our gift to you, our readers, and we very much appreciate having you here with us.

Remember to hug someone you love today. Or a stranger. Or, preferably, both! 🙅‍♀️🙅‍♂️

M&M

P.S. The image above is a composite made from a sequence of 23 images Marcia made with her cell phone. Look for an upcoming blog post on image stacking in the (hopefully not too distant) future!

It’s Our Birthday!!

Hi Folks:

M&M’s Musings is nine years old today!! It’s been quite a year for us – more stories, more photographs, more travels, more sharing of free hugs (82 countries and counting!) and much of that has been shared here with you, our readers. Our blog currently has 573 blog posts and 147 pages, including stories, colouring pages and more! In the past year we’ve made Marcia’s books available for sale through our website and in local stores, and we have (to the best of our knowledge) complied with the EU GDPR.

We have many more stories, photographs and free hugs to come in the next year, so thank you for continuing to be here with us! This site is our gift to you, after all.

Hugs,
M&M

P.S. We didn’t actually buy our blog a birthday cake, but Marcia’s birthday is also soon, so maybe she’ll share some of hers… 🙂

It’s Our Birthday!!

Hi Folks:

We are 8 years old today! Wow… Whodathunkit? Well, we did, one day and one post at a time. So far we’ve posted 549 blog posts (including this one) and 138 pages on a variety of subjects, and we’re just getting warmed up! Those 138 pages include 50 of our short stories (and how many have you read? 🙂 ) We’re certainly not alone in our celebrations, either. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland was first printed 152 years ago, this month!

Follow the White Rabbit

How far down the rabbit hole are you willing to go?

In a world that often seems polarized, today we want to celebrate two words that are most often misunderstood: respect and competition.

We use respect as a stick, and wield it over others. Respect your elders, respect your boss, show some respect for ___

Respect isn’t external, it’s internal. Re-spect: literally to look twice. To live with awareness of your ideas and your choices not because someone else told you that it was necessary but because, after giving it careful thought it makes sense to you. It’s about action, not re-action. Respect is the essence of life, to be true to one’s self.

Competition has an equally bad and equally undeserved reputation. We think of competition as some twisted version of Darwin’s theory – survival of the fittest (Darwin never actually said that by the way, but that’s another story).

We start instead with the Latin word competere: to strive together. One does not compete against anyone. To compete with someone is to seek the best in yourself AND to encourage the best in those around you.

FEAR can seem a powerful voice, but fear is just an acronym:

False
Expectations
Actualizing
Reality
(author unknown, but appreciated)

So, in closing out today’s post we want you to join us in celebrating kindness. Here are a few places to get you started:

Remember to hug someone you love today. Or a stranger. Or, preferably, both!!

Hugs,
M&M

I ‘See’ You

Hi Folks:

It’s been a while since I wrote one of those rambling blog posts where I collected seemingly unrelated threads of information and try to weave them into some loose form of coherence, so I figured it must be time to do so again.  As I’ve written before, my mind tends to ping pong from one thought to another, creating connections often out of the thinnest of junctions.  The title for this post comes from the movie ‘Avatar‘, of course, where among the Navï the term, “I ‘See’ You” goes beyond mere physical vision and encompasses, “I acknowledge you.  I honour your presence.” Continue Reading →