My brother didn’t want a dog. He didn’t pick him out at a pet store or receive him as a Christmas gift. He came to my brother, Martin, as a temporary houseguest. His stepson was going to visit and asked if he could bring his 2-year-old dog, Knuckles. My brother agreed to a short visit if the dog stayed off the furniture.
 
A few days into the visit, Knuckles broke the rules by jumping onto the couch landing right next to my brother and laying his head softly on my brother’s lap. Martin’s blue eyes locked with the beautiful brown eyes of a dog. It took one eyebrow lift from Knuckles (which became his signature move) and Martin was in love. In that moment Knuckles was home. In that moment Knuckles, Martin, and his wife Julie became a family.
 
Julie became the dog mom that gave Knuckles baths, brushed his teeth, gave him his medicine, pulled stickers from his paws, and did physical therapy with him after his leg ligament surgery.
 
Martin and Knuckles became inseparable adventure buddies. Their daily hikes always included chasing squirrels. On lake days, Knuckles would lay in the back of the boat and watch Martin waterski and fish. They were best friends, comrades, and confidants. Martin was Knuckle’s Person, his man, his leader. And Knuckles was Martin’s best buddy, his good boy, his dog child.
 
Dogs don’t love in a flashy Valentine kind of way. A dog’s love is steady, solid, and unshakeable. Dogs don’t have to speak because love and loyalty come through their actions and not words. Knuckles was always right next to Martin ready to play, ready to help him shovel snow, ready to support and love him, and always ready to please him. Knuckles and Martin shared a mutual devotion to each other. An understanding that they were in this life together, connected with the binding of trust.
​
If you are a dog person, there is always that one dog. The one that stands out from the others. The one that can lift one eyebrow and change your life. The one that sits by you through the dark times and runs with you in the light. The one that is your soul dog, sent to you in an unusual or mysterious way. The one that is undeniably meant to be with you.
 
My brother didn’t want a dog. Not because he didn’t love dogs, but because he knew he would love it too much. He didn’t want the heart crushing pain of saying goodbye. In the last months of having Knuckles, when arthritis and age kept him from walking, my brother selflessly carried all 50lbs of him where he needed to go. When the medicine could no longer alleviate the pain in Knuckle’s joints, my brother would lay on the floor with him as they both cried.
 
The goodbye was painful. With Martin and Julie by his side, my brother held his hand on Knuckles chest feeling love through the beat of his heart. The all-familiar rhythm pushed love into Martin’s hand, beat after beat… until it stopped.
 
Martin and Julie welcomed Knuckles into their home when he was sent to them in an unusual, (possibly mysterious) way. Maybe it was his assignment to be Martin’s best buddy. Maybe it was his job to teach Martin it was okay to open your heart and love deeply – even if the time together was not long enough.
 
Dogs are not gone when the bowls are put away and the last of the fur has been vacuumed. They linger in your life with every breeze of wind, with every hike, with every new puppy kiss or bark you hear from another dog. They remain imprinted in your heart, in a photo on your mantel, or tattooed on your arm. They leave us with the memory of their love, trust, and loyalty – more than we deserve and too much for us to ever repay.  

And when just for a moment you forget your pain and reach down to pet them, but your hand finds only air, they are there- just out of your sight. You see, their job is not complete. They are patiently waiting for when the time is right, and they are once again by your side.

My brother didn’t want a dog.
What he didn’t know was that he needed one.
Job well done, Knuckles.
Job well done.
                              ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
                                                Pennie’s Life Lesson:
                                 When you open your heart to love a dog-
                               it seems like a short time, but it is forever. 
                               ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

In business the term Touch Point refers to the number of times a customer will see a logo, hear the company name, or listen to a jingle. Any engagement or communication between the brand and the customer is considered a Touch Point. The more Touch Points the company can create, the more familiar and trusted the company becomes the customer.
 
Let’s think of our personal Touch Points. Watch a baby who is learning to crawl. They will slide their legs and move their arms for a short distance. Then they look back at their Mom and return to her. They need to touch her to make sure she is close. When they begin walking, they take a few steps and then crawl back to Mom. She is their Touch Point. The place of safety. The place of comfort. The place of trust. The place they recognize as familiar.
 
We add more Touch Points as we grow. How many of you can sing your high school song? The high school you graduated from is a Touch Point. Our minds can drift back to teenage memories, our favorite teachers, football games, school colors, and pep rallies. When we think of high school, we remember it as familiar.
 
Now move on to college where you earned a degree. Are you a member of the alumni club? Do you still attend sporting events there, even though you graduated years ago? If you do, it is because it is a Touch Point for you. It is an important institution in your life. It made a difference in the life path you took. You want to stay connected.
 
If you have moved during your life, your hometown will always be a Touch Point. The place where you grew up. The place you trust to hold your memories. A place of comfort. When you visit, you retrace the memories. You drive by the house you grew up in, your elementary school, and the park you played in. Touch Point, Touch Point, Touch Point.
 
You may have cemeteries or memorial sites that you visit because tracing your loved one’s name on the stone with your finger is comforting. There, surrounded by peaceful quiet you have found a Touch Point. 
 
Now let’s twist this a little more. Who needs you as their Touch Point? Your children may be adults, but they still need you as a Touch Point of safety and trust. As our parents age their circle of connection shrinks. Their friend circle becomes small and they may not have the ability to reach out to others. We need to be their Touch Point. They need physical touch and comfort. They need the security and familiarity of you.
 
Look at your friends. Sometimes the ones with the biggest smiles need hugs the most. Sometimes the ones helping everyone else need support. They need you as their Touch Point of understanding. They need to know you care enough to be a stable and steady Touch Point in their life.
 
If you piece together your Touch Points, they become a timeline. A map of meaning that tracks the most important people, places, and events of your life. These personal Touch Points, just like the marketing Touch Points, are based on engagement, communication, and the effort you make to stay connected.
 
Never forget the significance of your Touch Points. They helped you become the person you are today. And never forget the importance of being a Touch Point for someone else.
 
Who do you need to connect with today? Who might need the comfort of knowing you care enough to reach out to them? Be someone’s Touch Point. 
                                           ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
                                                     Pennie’s Life Lesson:
                      Nurture the people, places, and things that are important to you.
                                         They are the Touch Points of your life.
                                  ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Have you made worry and stress habits?
​It is easy to do. First, you begin by worrying about everything and everyone. Then you start catastrophizing everything you are worried about and imagining the worst-case scenario and outcome. Finally, you begin believing that it helps the situation if you are stressed and worried about it. That’s it. These three steps are repeated, and the habit is formed.
 
Every time someone you care about is having a life struggle, you worry. Every time you watch the news you layer the worries of the world onto your shoulders. Politics, the economy, disputes between countries, tragedies, and the wild weather all become your worries. The three steps are repeated. And you worry, worry, worry. Stress grows and the habit of being stressed becomes stronger.
 
I know because I have done this many times in my life. And every time I have paid a price for my self-inflicted worry and stress. For many of us, habitual stress plays out as a health issue. When you create such a habit of stress, it builds up in your body. It finds a comfortable place in your body to live and at some point, it will show itself outwardly. You may begin having migraines or stomach issues. It might be hair loss or weight gain or loss. It might show itself as a more serious issue. Stress can do crazy things to your body. If you don’t take care of yourself and manage your stress, your body is going to act out and force you to notice.
  
We all have difficult times when we are in real-life situations that cause us occasional stress and worry. This is normal. It is when the habit of worrying and stressing is formed that it is a problem. Worry is a negative meditation. Instead of meditating on clearing your mind and finding inner peace, you are meditating on worry and creating inner stress.
 
Athletes understand the technique of visualizing winning the game or crossing the finish line in first place before the competition begins. Through clear visualization, the mind doesn’t know if you are imagining it or if it is happening. By visualizing, the mind believes you have already won before the opening whistle blows.
 
This happens negatively when you worry. When you visualize repeatedly the worst outcome to a situation your mind believes it is happening. Stress builds in your body. When you get upset about everyone’s problems, and everything on the news, your mind doesn’t know if you are just thinking stressful thoughts or if you a “in” a stressful situation- it reacts the same way. Our body and mind begin living in survival mode. The mind believes the worst will (or is) happening, so the turmoil becomes the fuel for more and more inner stress.
 
You can turn this around. You can break the habit of perpetual worry and stress. Learn to control what you put in your mind just like you control the food you put in your body. Stop visualizing the worst outcome for every situation. Instead, visualize winning the game. See yourself and others in the best possible outcome. How would you look, how would it feel to have the problem solved, and how would you act? Play this visual over and over in your mind until you believe it could be true. This is a positive meditation. This will relax your mind and your body. Stress will no longer be invited to create health issues.
 
Have you made worry and stress habits? It is easy to do. But if it is easy to do, it is easy not to do.
 
Pennie’s Life Lesson: Learn to control the thoughts you put in your mind. Don’t allow worry and stress to become habits. 

​#CornerofSpiritandBrave  #loveyourlifenomatterwhat  #JourneyThrough #PennieHunt  #IAmGoodEnough
YOUR TURN...        
Share your thoughts and experiences relating to this post in a comment below.  And please feel free to email me  at:
 [email protected]. 
                                                                 Thank you!  ​
                                      ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
                                                         All Rights Reserved
                                          Copyright © 2013-2024 Pennie Hunt
                             This was written and produced by Pennie Hunt.
Feel free to forward and share this post.  Please keep the entire message intact, including  contact, logo, and copyright information.

Time.
It is a gift we are all given. We each get the same amount. Sixty minutes every hour, 1440 minutes every day, 10,080 minutes in a week, and 525,600 minutes in a year. None of us know how many years we will be given in this life, but for the time we are here we all receive the same number of minutes. It is a fair distribution without preference to anyone.

How we spend it may be very different. As a child playing in a sandbox, the thought of time didn’t cross our minds. We just went through our days carefree and living life. As we age, we talk about how time flies. With every year it seems to pass faster. We allocate time to every commitment, appointment, job assignment, and responsibility we have. As our calendars, planners, and schedules fill up our time decreases. But wait… it can’t decrease. We are all given the same amount. The amount of time never changes.

Time can be shared, spent, wasted, tracked, suffered through, and enjoyed. It is our choice. It all depends on who we give our time to. No, we don’t keep time. We give it away.

We are the ones who ‘give’ time to commitments, appointments, job assignments, and responsibilities. Our life can become so busy that inside we feel like Swiss cheese. We give our time away bite by bite until we feel out of control and less than a whole person. We suffer through time.

And then there are the nibblers. They eat away at what little unscheduled time is left. These are the ugly places we give our time to that we don’t write in our calendars, planners, or schedules. We do it unconsciously and don’t realize how much time we give to worry, procrastination, gossip, anger, and other unhealthy habits. These are the places we give our time to that create feelings of pressure, pain, and suffering. Time is wasted.

Now, remember the sandbox and that carefree feeling? We were ‘giving’ our time to fun and enjoying life. That fun time can become lost in our busy adult world because we don’t pay attention to who and what we give our time to. We can be so overwhelmed with responsibilities that we forget how to weave fun and joy into the minutes of our days.

As you rush to take your children to school, can you use the driving time to have an enjoyable conversation with them? As you cook dinner, can you make a game out of who chooses the menu, who sets the table, or who creates dessert? Can you incorporate enthusiasm and fun into work projects and job assignments? Time can become enjoyable.

Don’t forget to add fun time to your planners and schedules. This is not free time. This is memory-making time. Time for coffee with friends, a fishing trip with buddies, a grandchild’s sporting event, or a movie with the family. This is the time when we invest in our self-care and personal growth. This is the time we feel carefree and happily living life. This is the time that energizes us. This is sandbox time.

Time is given to all of us in the same quantity. Time is free and yet priceless simultaneously. The value of every moment we are given is in who we share it with and the memory it makes.

We are all given the same amount of time. It is in our control who we share it with. Who will you give your time to today?
Will you give it to people and things you love... family, friends, pets, and hobbies?
Will you give to work, interests, and goals?
Will you give it to worry, procrastination, gossip, anger, and unhealthy habits?
​
Think about it...
We all give our time away, but are we giving it to the best areas of our lives?
Who do you give your time to?
                                               ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
                                                      Pennie’s Life Lesson:
                                                 Time is free and yet priceless.
                 The value of every moment we are given is in the memory it makes.
                                     ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

​#CornerofSpiritandBrave  #loveyourlifenomatterwhat  #JourneyThrough #PennieHunt  #IAmGoodEnough
YOUR TURN...        
Share your thoughts and experiences relating to this post in a comment below.  And please feel free to email me  at:
 [email protected]. 
                                                                 Thank you!  ​
                                      ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
                                                         All Rights Reserved
                                          Copyright © 2013-2024 Pennie Hunt
                             This was written and produced by Pennie Hunt.
Feel free to forward and share this post.  Please keep the entire message intact, including  contact, logo, and copyright information.

I have a stairway in my home. It isn’t a normal straight-down or L-shaped stairway. It floats in a majestic curve. The oak arches as if the tree it was created from swayed in the wind like a ballerina practicing this permanent pose. When I walk down it, I feel like royalty with my diamond-studded gown flowing behind me while the ballroom waits for me below. Each golden step glistens and cascades to the next. It is a masterpiece of construction.

That fantasy is not quite reality. Most of the time I am running up and down my stairs to let my dogs in or out, looking for my husband, or doing household chores. The idea of a flowing gown would be a disaster as the wooden stairs are slick and can be dangerous. But it is a masterpiece of construction and beauty.

For the eight years we have lived in this home we have ping-ponged the idea of carpeting them for safety with the fear of covering the beauty of the steps. After a couple of near slips, we decided carpet would be a wise move.

We contacted our local flooring company. The appraiser came to measure. After an hour of looking at the staircase from every angle, he was baffled as to how to carpet the steps and match a pattern with the curve of the grand staircase.

We ultimately connected with an out-of-town company that had experience with staircases like ours. When they arrived to measure and assess the job they were confident they could accomplish what we wanted. The father, Bob, and son, Heath, were caring, and thoughtful. I soon became secure in their expertise.

After waiting for the carpet to arrive, the holidays to be over, and the weather to clear, the installation day came. Bob, Heath, and an additional installer named Jim arrived shortly after the sun came up. Carefully they brought all their equipment inside and carried it downstairs. They set up a system of one measuring and laying the pad, one cutting the carpet and running the serger machine to finish the edges, and one installing the carpet.

One stair at a time they measured the curve, matched the pattern in the carpet, finished the edges, and secured it firmly to the wood. Methodically they worked throughout the day.
I listened.

I listened to the pounding of the nails, the snap of the tape measure, and the humming of the serger machine. This created a harmonic background to the gentle voices of the three men.

Occasionally I would peek down the stairway to see the progress. The carpet was creating a path of beauty. The pattern turned perfectly with the curve of each step. Our fear of covering the wood was pleasantly squelched. On each side of the carpet the wood still glistened, and the railing and riser of each step was more than enough wood to appreciate the curve and beauty of the construction.

As they finished the top and final stair the coolness of evening had arrived. They collected their equipment, took a few photos, and were ready to leave. We gathered at the front door for a long goodbye. By the time the door closed behind them I felt like I was watching friends drive away. Throughout the day we shared stories, compared lives, and became friends.

They weren’t just workers who had come into our home to do a job. These were masters of their craft. They were artisans skilled in the techniques of their art. They had an ear for listening and understanding our needs. They had the talent to manipulate their machinery to match the level of their skill, equal to a master painter gliding a brush across the canvas.

But most importantly they had an understanding of the human heart. They put their hearts into the project and worked with pride and precision. And they understood the desire of our hearts to keep the integrity and beauty of the stairway while making it safer and even more elegant.

I will never walk down this stairway wearing a diamond-studded gown, but I will never walk down my stairway without thinking of my friends, the master craftsmen who taught me lessons that day. The lessons of how to listen, how to create, and how to do it all with the understanding of the heart.
                                  ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
                                                     Pennie’s Life Lesson:
                                              Search for the craftsmen.
                                     The ones who work with their hearts. 
                                             ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~