Set Yourself Free - Break From Reality

Spa Day.  A Day At The Spa.  Don't you love the way that sounds?  A few months ago I house, dog, cat and sheep sat (try to say that fast) for my daughter Rochelle and her family.  As a thank you, she gifted me with a day at the spa.  In that post, Can a Day at the Spa Remove the Smell of Sheep?   I shared this out-of-the-ordinary spa.  It is the Grotto Spa at Tigh-Na-Mara, 25,000 square feet of insane bliss.

Here I am again -- but this time GOATS have been added to the list.  Rochelle does not treat these animals as livestock -- to her, they are family!  They have names and she is teaching them tricks.  I don't know if that is what she expects me to do when she is gone -- but I feed 'em and scoop up the poop.  End of story.  Yet, she scheduled a day at the spa for me.  A little bit of heaven.

Walking in, you feel like royalty and any memories of your real world start to fade.  The way the floor plan is laid out you see very few other guests.  There are twenty-five treatment rooms for massage alone!  The mineral pool is a place where you can literally drown your sorrows.  

Image Over Substance - It's A Matter of Roots

I'm not much of a gardener.  In fact, I know very little about gardening but I do know that it is wonderful therapy for many people.  I don't understand gardening, yet I have learned a valuable lesson from a tree. Years ago, we lived on a large acreage and over the course of any summer, trees seemed to spring up out of nowhere.  It was as if they had some special magic like the seeds in the story, Jack and the Beanstalk.  In a matter of weeks, these trees would grow tall and if we didn't get rid of them, they would easily take over the road.

It was not difficult to get rid of them as they had a little root system.  The tree would be several feet high with roots that were only a few inches deep.  You could lean on them and they would uproot.

What I did not understand was why some trees took so long to grow and these grew so quickly.  I asked an avid gardener friend and her response was, "Real trees know better than to go up until their roots have gone down.  Trees that last," he said, "have as many roots underground as they have branches above."

BAM!  That hit me hard.  It rang true when thinking about life and what matters.

Do You Welcome The Bumpy Roads And What They Teach You?

BUMPY ROADS.  All of us have times in our lives when we travel roads that are not smooth.  Often, it is a very unpleasant experience but we become stronger and wiser for going down those paths.  Brian Wilson has written a compilation of short stories about people whose journey may have  been bumpy, but they have faced the challenges and are better people for it. 

I connected with Brian Wilson on Linkedin and had the opportunity to interview him here. His website is Hidden Treasure Books, Where you find great books.   He has authored two books, Moments in Time and Bumpy Roads. Both of these are collections of short stories to entertain you and provoke thought.









Brian, what made you want to become a writer?

I have always been interested in short story writing and saw an opportunity on February 22, 2011 when Christchurch City, New Zealand was leveled by a 6.3 earthquake.  Across the road from where I worked, a six story building collapsed entombing all 113 occupants and 185 died that day.  This was considered one of the worst earthquakes to hit a modern city.  Based on these events, I wrote a number of short stories and told them in my first book, Moments in Time, along with other stories of my experiences in other countries.