I would like to take a moment to express my humblest apologies to my readers who might have experienced the results of an innocent mistake on my part these last couple of days.

To explain, last year, I participated in the Ultimate Blog Challenge which required me to read and post comments to other peoples’ blogs.  It was an amazing experience for me and I am grateful to the many people I met and continue to interact with.  However, for some of those blogs, I had to sign up with Disqus in order to post a comment. 

What I didn’t realize at the time, but have discovered, to my deep regret, is that Disqus overrides the settings on Google with regard to comments.  While I believed that I had moderation enabled, since the default setting on Disqus was to allow all to post immediately, some rather ugly comments got through yesterday and today. 

I want to assure you that the problem is fixed and should not happen again, but please accept my humblest apologies, dear readers, if you had the misfortune of reading any of the hate spewing posts before they were taken down.  Rest assured that they do not reflect the tone of this blog and especially my age old rule, “attack the post, not the poster.” 

I appreciate dissenting views as I have learned more from people who disagree with me, but hate is hate, and not welcome here.  There might have been a valuable lesson to be learned, but I, for one, learn little from being attacked, and a great deal from the calm, respectful presentation of alternative facts. 

Please join me in sending love and light to those who have not yet learned that people will listen to you if you speak softly, but will turn away if you feel the need to scream at them.

The Universe does not make mistakes, however, and these sad people, filled with self-loathing, are being brought into my life for a reason, perhaps as a reminder that loving ourselves is extremely important as it shades every other part of our lives, and every relationship we enter into.

Please take a moment to offer understanding, forgiveness and love to those people who make it challenging to be in close proximity to them, or as a good friend put it, that you need to love from afar.  For me, at least, they remind me how fortunate I am to have learned to love myself.

I’d also like to set the record straight on something for which I’ve been attacked extensively (thank goodness for multiple block options which I recently discovered!).  There were two women joining us for Thanksgiving who required the assistance of a walker.  One of them made the best of her situation, joined in on the fun and challenges the day brought, and was a complete joy to be around, in spite of the limitations she had.  The other didn’t.  ’nuff said.

My gratitudes tonight are:
1. I am grateful for another wonderful night of dancing, and the additional stamina I’m gaining from my gym workouts.
2. I am grateful for loving and understanding friends who “get” that people who don’t respect our boundaries need to be loved from afar.
3. I am grateful for the time I’m getting to spend with my daughter now that our work situations have changed.
4. I am grateful for productivity and opportunities.
5. I am grateful for learning the lessons of peaceful interaction and compassion, even when my compassion is tested

Love and light