Here we won't be so audacious as to tell you how -to master life--but we will investigate the possibilities. Oh, yes, and keep wishing on white horses...
Below are the first few paragraphs of a new project I
began on May 1, 2023. I began it by typing as I looked out the window at the pink
dogwood blossoms on an old tree. Today I… Read More
A few days
ago, I pulled Robert Fulgum’s book, What
in the World Have I Done, from my
cupboard bookshelf, and read the best story I have read
all week.
Fulg… Read More
"Bon appetite." Have any of us said that phrase in a normal voice since 1964?Do you know anyone who hosted a TV show and never tried to change themselves? Apparently, Julia… Read More
A few years ago, Daughter Number Two and I stood on
the rim of the Grand Canyon and said, “Holy Cow!”
It was a hit to remember.
As Daughter
Dear and I sat on th… Read More
In my effort to
access the subterranean recesses of Instagram, and begin a new site, I hit upon a post by #Scott Beckstead, the director for
Oregon at the #Humane Society of the United… Read More
No blog today.
It is time for an artist’s holiday. That is to do
something different to recharge your batteries.
Julia Cameron takes herself to the pet store to hold
(whatever his n… Read More
Monster from The Hidden Power of Feelings*
The Kia was from the aunt of a detailer. No wonder it looked
like new.
The car is four-years-old from a littl… Read More
I remember,
years ago, sitting in the San Diego Stadium filled with thousands of people
listening to John Denver sing Rocky
Mountain High.
After the
song and the applause rose… Read More
This past week I stumbled into someone who said we had entered the Age of Aquarius on March 23, 2023. Oh, joy! I've been looking for the Age of Aquarius since 1967 when I saw the sta… Read More
Last night I heard a lady comedian say that she felt alive when she was on stage. When she worked at other jobs, she felt flat. Was being a comedian her purpose? When you were six years… Read More
Last night I heard a lady comedian say that she felt alive when she was on stage. When she worked at other jobs, she felt flat. Was being a comedian her purpose? When yo… Read More
"What's the No.1 thing that I need to know about going away to college?" Shaun Galanos asked his store manager. "Do smaller loads of laundry." said the manager. "Your c… Read More
Off the subject: True Story from a reader: Scene: Live Radio Real Estate Show Lincoln City 40 years ago. Real Estate Person: My Mother Caller: Some… Read More
What do you think of these?Mess. Clutter. Dirt. Advertising. Achieving Your Dream My aching liver, I exclaimed after receiving a newsletter from a Real Estate Agency with an article… Read More
Quick before I throw them away, the quotes on paper, not the flowers. The flowers are the reason I'm clearing my space. They were a Birthday gift from Daughter Darling. From Bill… Read More
My heavens, I thought as I read a post I had written on June 28, 2022; I do not remember writing this. It came back to me as I read it, though—I'm not entirely out of touc… Read More
I have often quoted Steven Pressfield, author of “Put your Ass where Your Heart Wants to Be.” For a writer, it's writing. For a musician, it's making music. F… Read More
Occasionally my husband and I go out for breakfast, and my usual order is bacon and eggs. However, of late, I find bacon to be terrible, I skip it. I did find a good source last Thursday on… Read More
Although I must admit that the thought of cleaning the garage has been lurking in the back of my mind, not to mention that the storage in the Wayback (our auxillary building) needs organizin… Read More
Ice Dec. 23 by the front door. Lethal driveway.Pink, our pink flamingo in the arbor. Pink was last year's Christmas present from Daughter number 2 to me.The pink flamingo is our mascot for o… Read More
What can I say? My hands are freezing, so I can hardly type. The heater hasn't chased the night chill out of my office yet—I don't know where it will go—it's beautifully… Read More
Remember Chick-a-Dee? She wasn't stupid. I'll get to stupid later. In the meantime, I'm letting Chick-a-Dee do some decorating around here. She's in chicken he… Read More
"In the eyes of a Buddha, everyone is a Buddha. In the eyes of a pig, everyone is a pig."—Haemin Sunim, The Things You Can See Only When You Slow Down. Why do we resis… Read More
Dilip V. Jeste, a psychiatrist, decided to focus his medical career on helping the elderly age well instead of merely treating ailments. This goal led him to a commenta… Read More
Hi guys, When I was a kid, sometimes my family went fishing in Mill Creek stream, river, whatever it was, and we would meet few if any, people. We'd say, "Hi," and they would be on th… Read More
And neither do I. “Hello, babies. Welcome to Earth. It’s hot in the summer and cold in the winter. It’s round and wet and crowded. On the outside, babies… Read More
Here is a view of Jo's Newsletter. I don't expect you to read these small images, they are a preview. The content is printed below, so keep scrolling. The original PDF ve… Read More
Jo's Newsletter, a view, The content in repeated below the Newsletter copies, so keep scrolling. The original PDF version is easy to read in email, but not so much here. I invite you t… Read More
Did Methuselah live 969 years? If so, how? I don't know if they counted years the same as now. Perhaps they used a different calendar. But if people lived as long as indicated, how did they… Read More
What do you do with discouragement? Don't read all those symptoms that something is wrong with you. Don't think you should take this something to calm your nerves or that someth… Read More
From Harold, my tax attorney for over 30 years: Used with his permission. The Old Broken Bat It was just an old, broken bat, but it was mine The team didn’t wa… Read More
Rude but funny. You know what the most significant distraction for anyone who works on the computer is don't you? Of course, the Internet. Yet it's fun to start the day w… Read More
This morning I reached into my sock drawer and pulled out two black socks from the pile of black stockings. And by some quirk of fate, I had a pair--they matched. Now, that is as rare as a m… Read More
Pi, you know that magic number 3.1416 is conveyed by the symbol p. No pie crust, berries, or lemon custard, nothing as great as that, just a mathematical formula. Why am I conce… Read More
Would you befriend someone who is going on a buffalo shoot? Yesterday I met a neighbor who recently moved into our neighborhood. I really liked her. We had similar interests un… Read More
As I gave Sweetpea, my little dog, her morning sniff walk, I passed the spot where the neighbor had placed their garbage for pickup yesterday. There on the ground was a package that had esc… Read More
* Do you have days of falling off the wagon? I’m not talking about drinking or taking drugs—I do neither, except for a few glasses of wine occasionally. Although now… Read More
How's your corner?This morning I poured the last of last night's coffee over ice, loaded it with half and half, and aimed for my office in the Wayback. On the way out the door, I casually s… Read More
This is the most insane thing I've heard this week. Are people so desperate to have a blog they will let a computer write it for them? What happened to the expression… Read More
*Welcome, It's been a quiet week here in Junction City. Strains of Garrison Keilor (Prairie Home Companion with its news from Lake Wobegon) just wafted through my head. I found some old… Read More
I couldn't believe it. One day in a wooded area behind a motel giving Gabe, my Rottweiler, his morning potty break, I came face to face with a TIGER. Really, in Redbluff, California, A TIGE… Read More
A few days ago, I sat on the paver that spans across the brick planter beside our front door. Next to me, a bush abundant in tiny white flowers was abuzz with bees. There were two kinds of… Read More
Prelude to the first Edition: There is nothing like talking about money to bring up issues surrounding it. You know how it goes, you are all focused, you are plunging ahead, and… Read More
If you don’t want to commit to $12.00 for 12 issues, that will be 12- weeks-worth, delivered on Tuesdays; you can hit the one dollar per week per issue, and stop when you… Read More
My Childbirth class teacher used to say: "When the apple is ripe, it will fall from the tree."(I had two apples, one ten days late, the other two weeks early.)Okay, writing is rather l… Read More
"I'll be darned," I said this morning as I read a passage in a book. "I would never have dreamed that would happen." It was in the '60s at a bar in Waikiki. Everyone was… Read More
For you Entrepreneurs, I am passing on information I got from one of my favorite writing gurus Steven Pressfield. He borrowed it from Dan Sullivan, a Strategic coach. (So, this… Read More
Is this the longest day of the year? It was on the day I married. On that June 21, it was Sunday, the longest day of the year, Father’s Day, plus my honey's and my wedding, all roll… Read More
I've been consulting with Prince Charming, our neighborhood peacock this week. He concurs. When I thought the Covid 19 Pandemic was nearing a… Read More
Yep, I've quoted Mark Twain often. He sits right up there with the Pantheon of the gods in his wisdom. I tried to quote him in my book on Hawaii, but the editor kept… Read More
Listen to Oz sing "Over the Rainbow,"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V1bFr2SWP1I mellow out, dream of sandy beaches and swaying palms, then check outhttps://www.bestdamnwrit… Read More
“Put your ass where your heart wants to be and don’t ask anything else of yourself.”—Steven Pressfield. I began to write this post for my other bl… Read More
“When I write something that really happened, people read it and say, ‘Sounds like bullshit.’When I pull something completely out of thin air, I hear, ‘Wow, that was… Read More
Pink dogwood tree outside my window. I fell into a slump last week. You may have noticed that my last week’s blog, May 3, didn’t have much content. The girls, though--yep, t… Read More
You know what? We came here to have a grand vacation, but it doesn’t feel like going to Disneyland. I hear the word STRESS all over the place. Form this ancient person, listen… Read More
I'm home from my cabin in the woods, and the irony is I moved out. Not out out, as in leaving home, but I moved my office from the living room (where I had my desk) to the Wayb… Read More
As I sit at the window in the cabin in the forest—a rented cabin, not mine, on this Tuesday, April 12, I am watching great gobs of snow that were heavy on the fir branches a mo… Read More
You know the one. The one that says you can’t do whatever you decided you were going to do. Not clean the house or mow the lawn—you know you can do that. You just d… Read More
I don't know why this impacted me so. I've lost pets, and I've grieved over them. However, when I checked in again to www.dailycoyote.net. I was impacted a second time over… Read More
I have one for you.This is a YouTube video sent to me from a reader on my https://Travels with Jo.com Site/It is Roasting a chicken in Borneo.It starts slowly with a girl riding a… Read More
Most of this content comes from a blog post I wrote on Feb.1, 2019, then I put it away and virtually forgot about it. Having it come up in my email by a commenter made me curious to s… Read More
Once I took a train across a portion of India. The railroad car consisted of a plain wooden box with two platforms attached to the forward and backward wall, with a window between the… Read More
We found that lowering the amount of traffic had a measurable affect on our air quality. And the first spring after the lock down seemed more abundant with plant life than in previous years… Read More
In a time when I had more hair, my husband and I visited the fairyland castle of Neuschwanstein. It was the one that inspired Walt Disney to build a castle in the middle on Disneyland--a mag… Read More
"You find sometimes that a Thing which seemed very Thingish inside you is quite different when it gets out into the open and has other people looking at it."– Pooh, "The House at… Read More
My intended blog post, #Will Evil Ever be Eradicated from the Earth? is below, but first this: When I was a kid, I rode a school bus—as many of you have. We lived near the top of a l… Read More
Remember, growing old is a privilege denied many. Nobody needs to know your age once you’re over 21. I had an impulse a few days ago to start an Instagram ac… Read More
Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and right-doing, there is a field. I'll meet you there. – "The Essential Rumi" While walking down a street in Huntington, Long Island, Bil… Read More
When my daughter was a few months shy of three-years-old and my second daughter was a few months shy of being born, we got a little poodle puppy and named her Licorice. She was owned by a g… Read More
"Christmas, that holiday, that comes every ten years when you are a child and every ten days when you are an adult," (Tom Robbin's) tiptoed on down our street on Christmas night. The followi… Read More
On this past Christmas Eve, Daughter Dear said to me: "I have something for you, but you need to go outside for a while," "Great, I'll take your dog for a walk. It will be like my first and… Read More
"Intuition will tell the thinking mind where to look next." – Jonas Salk I need to be nicer to all those tiny atoms serving us, especially those inside my body. That exte… Read More
Dear Friends, I ran into an old friend at the grocery store who told me this story: First, let me say that we live in a small town about 12 miles from Eugene, and the minute you driv… Read More
Which do you choose, the front row or the third? Think of a man who wants to win the favors of his lady love. He attempts to improve his appearance. He builds up his body. He changes his be… Read More
"With the simple act of reaching out our hand to the Universe, we become partners with life." --Julia Cameron Ah yes. As my years have become more, I see that time is our most cherish… Read More
"Unclose your mind. You are not a prisoner. You are a bird in flight, searching the skies for dreams." —Haruki Murakami Quote of the day on the Internet. If… Read More
“Experiments show that the focus of our attention changes reality itself and suggest that we live in an interactive universe.”—Gregg Braden Have You ever been i… Read More
On the way to publish Tuesday's blog,"What Do You Think? I was warned that some domains were coming due, so I began clearing out some old blogs. I came upon this post. If you've… Read More
"Do you know why birds sing just before dawn? Scientists believe it's to tell their mates that they made it through the night, as a way of saying, "I'm still here." Maybe that's why we sing… Read More
I’ve eaten my words more than once. “Donkey cheese at $600.00 per kilogram, about $500.00 a pound.” They call it the most expensive cheese in the world… Read More
Which is it? "Are we hopelessly fragile victims of events beyond our control, or are we powerful creators harboring dormant abilities that we are only beginning to understand?" &nbs&hell…Read More
In January 1925, a deadly diphtheria epidemic threatened the children of Nome, Alaska. Medicine to stop the outbreak was in Anchorage, nearly 700 miles away. Twenty sled dog team… Read More
Maryanne Wolf, an expert on the science of reading, was worried—as perhaps you have worried—that she might be losing the knack for sustained, deep reading. She still… Read More
“If you can’t explain it to a six-year-old, you don’t understand it yourself.” ― Albert EinsteinWell, I tried to explain to my 12-year-old grandson that… Read More
Tuesdays With Jo Remember when the Newspaper was the News? Your grandfather or some elder in the family read it daily cover to cover. They were informed and would sit around th… Read More
Few drugs can seriously lay claim to the title of ‘Wonder drug. Penicillin and aspirin being two that have perhaps had the greatest beneficial impact on the health and well bein… Read More
Tuesdays with JoAll through Greece and Italy, my 13-year-old daughter kept saying, “I could be in A Course of Miracles.” (Never take a teenager traveling.) I’m… Read More
Tuesdays with Jo When I was under 6 years old a Hobo—as we called them in those days—came to our back door asking if we could spare any food. Without hesitation, my gra… Read More
When I was away from the house, my husband opened the front door for Gabe, our Rottweiler. Outside the closed door, mayhem ensued. A motorcycle had zoomed up a hill that intercepted ou… Read More
A psychiatrist in Eugene said he had never had so many depressed patients as this year. The other day he called his office and said, “I’m not coming back.” You know… Read More