Hi, friends. Welcome back to Picture Love. I'm very excited and amused right now because while going through the two Seasons of Picture Love podcast, I, it occurred to me that picture love has released. 80 episodes already. I can't believe it. We passed our first birthday in October of 2024, and here we are plowing through March of 2025, and I can't imagine my life without this podcast. So for those who've been with me from the start, oh, I'm just sending you my deepest gratitude. And for those of you who are new to Picture love, thank you so much for being here as well. It takes a village to make a difference. It really does, and I'm so, so grateful that we are all here from different walks of life and for different reasons, but. The reason I want you to come and stay is because you wanna fill your mind with good thoughts. You wanna show up as the best part of yourself, maybe have somebody help fill up your cup before you go filling up more cups, and let's just build community around spreading love and light and helping people picture love better in their lives. And maybe even talk about some photos while we're at it. last week. I shared with you the beginning of a little project, the picture Love swag shop. And I went and I ordered one of each of the items, and the pieces are starting to come in and I'm really pleased. It's, it's been a lot of fun. And to see my artwork, made into stickers and candles and t-shirts and a journal, it's just a really fun thing to do. And so if you feel compelled to come alongside of me and support the show, please feel free to of course, share episodes and engage with the episodes that resonate with you, but also buy yourself or somebody you love. Some encouraging gifts from the Swag Shop. This is just the first design and there will be other ones to follow. So I'm open to suggestions if there are parts, talking points from any of the episodes that resonate with you the most. I would love to know what really sticks and thank you in advance for any input you have. I'm gonna continue with the topic of bringing or being your own sunshine. Because I chose a word for myself this week. It wasn't on purpose. I didn't wake up, uh, one day and say, I need a word this week. But it came out of conversation with a very dear friend of mine. While talking, the word amusement came up, and I love hearing myself say, I'm so amused by this. Have you ever been amused by something you said or did and nobody else in the room Got it, but it gave you like butterflies in your heart or a giggle or a secret joke? Well, the word amused. It felt so good to use it to describe myself today. So I've decided that this week and maybe longer, I'm going to continue to focus on ways that I am amused or like to be amused, or I'm calling it amusement. And I don't mean tickets to Disney World, although I wouldn't turn that down, but I'm talking. We can be amused in any moment of any day. Secretly. Or with a friend. And that is the topic of today. What amuses you? I'm gonna share some stories. I have some questions to help you, tap into some stories, some old ones, and maybe some new ones. And let's see what comes out of this together. I really hope my parents and my aunt and uncle listen to this episode because they were present for one of my favorite stories when I was so amused to retell this story, actually to experience it, of course, and this was with my husband when we were pretty newlywed, maybe even young parents. And we love to retell the story in front of our kids and they just laugh. They weren't there, but they tell the story as if they were there because we've had such amusement retelling it. But my husband, made it his mission to make sure my mom's glass was always full. He wanted my mom to have fun whenever we were together. He loved, he was amused by. Just giving my mom a little hard time, A lot of teasing, a lot of attention, and they have developed this banter through the years, and of course other people have noticed it too. Well, my dad used to own a speedboat and we would enjoy our family outings on the Hudson River and. He had it early in our marriage too. I mean, our kids have early memories on the boat and this one time a bunch of us, the family were getting ready to go out on the river for a ride and my husband, you know, packed like picnic food, lunch, and he got it into his head. He was gonna bring a picture of margarita. So. He was very concerned about making sure all the food got on the boat safely, not just the people. And he gets the snacks on, he gets the cooler on, and we're all just kind of handing things over from the dock about to climb in. And uh, I see my, I'm sorry I can't stop laughing. I see my husband step in what I thought. Was the boat, but he actually missed it and he didn't say anything. You just see him going down, down, down. His head starts to disappear below the side of the boat. But the picture of margaritas stayed up in the air and eventually somebody realized. And my husband was down off the dock in the Hudson River and didn't manage to spill a drip of the margarita mix. So that got on the boat and he got in the boat eventually. Thankfully, we had plenty of towels maybe this isn't even funny to you, but those of us who were there and remember have great amusement, just envisioning the fact that he submerged under the river but didn't spill a drop of the beverages. So he took great pride in filling my mom's cup for that boat ride and and the rest is history. My question to you is what is one of the stories that you love to remember, whether you share it or not, that literally makes you have an involuntary smile. Maybe you giggle and you don't tell it very well. I'm sure I did a terrible job of sharing it with you, but. It, it made me smile, it made me laugh, and I didn't get through this very smoothly because I was busy being amused. So you don't have to be the world's best storyteller in order to be amused and thank goodness for that, but, but recalling fun times, funny moments like this are ways that we can bring our own sunshine into our days. And quite honestly, the energies are very strongly lately and I really appreciate being reminded of amusing memories like this one. So what's one of the stories that you love to remember? And you don't have to tell me. I would love to hear it if you're up for sharing, but I want to invite you to indulge in reminiscing over a fun story like that and if you feel like sharing it, do it. So what amuses you that other people might not get? I, I'll be honest. I hear myself say. In, in my husband's company all the time. I'm so funny. I just crack me up and he laughs like, like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, you're funny. And sometimes I really do catch him off guard and he literally starts to crack up. but it doesn't take a lot for you to have an inside joke. And so fun little things, whether it's noticing something that went wrong. In theory or happened unexpectedly or a little saying that maybe you have that nobody understands, but you sure do, and it amuses you all the time. What's your own little private inside joke? Maybe give yourself the gift of that today or tonight. And be reminded of all the times where life is serious enough. Where can we find space to be amused in the day to day? And. When something really amusing happens, who do you tell? Do you have somebody you go to? I literally can be heard talking to my pets. If there was a spy cam in my home, you would probably get lots of footage of me talking to my pets, because quite honestly, that's kind of how I process. By hearing my voice out loud, but when I'm amused, I love to talk to my family. Now that my kids are out of the nest, we have a family, group chat that's so random, but it is really fun to drop photos and videos in there and get the FaceTime calls going in on Sunday nights, but. Sometimes, I know they're not at all amused, but they're amused that I'm amused with myself. And so I'll just drop information in there as they do the same and random tiktoks and reels, of course. There's really genius in, being amused, and the genius is you can literally shift your entire energy by choosing to honor amusement, it's such a delicious feeling to break tension with laughter and tensions can be in a number of things. You know, one thing that my kids are working towards, and I think they're so incredibly strong and wise to work on this, is, both of them in the arts, the performing arts, are looking at mastering auditioning. You know, the, the big roadblock with auditioning is, is the stress and the pressure and the fear fear's really at the root of the, of. The pressure behind auditioning and by finding amusement in the process and finding enjoyment in the process and just focusing on shining your light instead of attaching to the outcomes, it would just be such a beautiful experience to find amusement. In something as tense as interviewing or auditioning, and I think that's a time when. you really are proving your genius when you take that approach and starving fear by watering the seeds of amusement. what are some of the activities that you do that allows you to experience spontaneous or random amusement. And where do you design it into your life and, and maybe this conversation is making you recognize you do it a lot, or maybe like me, you're trying to create a little more space for a little more amusement, or literally being more mindful of the beautiful amusement that's waiting to be noticed in any given moment. I think there's genius in that because when you can shift your energy and go from a place of routine and stress and rush, rush, and you can go to a place of joyful experiences that's showing up with your own sunshine, that is picturing love into your day and anybody who's around you. Gets to experience that extra sunshine that your light is emitting. So I invite you to just come alongside of me today and whether amusement is not the exact word you're looking for, choose a word that implies finding sunshine. Enjoying that sunshine and spreading that sunshine and being the sunshine that's in your heart and dare to do it even when things are tough, because it doesn't mean that things are not tough. I think we can be many things all at once. That is the beautiful thing about this human experience. We have the whole range, the whole spectrum of emotions, and by intentionally focusing on what we wanna bring in more of, I think we're giving ourselves a better empowerment to curate. The memories that we want our lives to be built on. That is a legacy I can get behind. What do you think? Now that I think about it, I remember what part of my conversation with my girlfriend where amusement came in. We meditated together. And she was talking about unpacking some fears that she's working through. And I've also shared that I'm working on healing some, some pains and it's so much easier to work through pains or traumas, things like that when we do not lose sight of our light. And I think. I was trying to find what are the words that are the farthest from fear for me? And I think that's where the trail led me to amusement, because I sometimes associate that with being surprised, kind of like on a rollercoaster where you know it's gonna be fun, you know, there's gonna be that belly rush. You don't always know exactly what it's gonna feel until you're in the middle of it. And then there's the laughter. Maybe they took pictures of you as you're going these unheard of speeds. And there's all kinds of ways that we can be surprised in amusement and. I love that kind of surprise. So if you are like me, I am wishing you all kinds of amusing surprises in your days. Now, if you are the ultimate planner and the word surprise, makes you cringe, then maybe you can choose a different word that works better for you, but may you find amusement in the way that delights your heart the most. That is my hope for you today. I hope you will keep coming back because we are going to have some beautiful interviews with coming up and. The best is yet to come with picture love. I can't believe we've already passed the threshold of 80 episodes. A hundred is just around the corner, and I hope that you will be here with me to celebrate, and I hope you will bring your loved ones along as well. Until next time, keep picturing love and keep being the sunshine that you are. Take care.