I love red poppies! They are scattered strategically around my house in various arrangements. In my office and entry way, etched into a glass plate and painted on a porcelain jug. A beautiful watercolor featuring the paper-thin red poppies adorns the wall in my dining room. These blood-red beauties are my all-time favorite flowers. Like life itself, they are fragile. Don’t even consider picking one—the bloom will bow its precious head and die within minutes of being plucked. Continue reading →
Author: Anthea Tripp
I am a Mom, a Grandma and CEO of GetSuperHealthy.com Anthea's Anthology is a collection of random entries prompted by a lesson learned or a topic that moves me, so posts may be funny, serious, or sad. Perhaps at times you'll be inspired as we share this journey called life. My blog is mostly about life in all its glory, the triumphs and setbacks, the order and the random chaos. As we travel this road of life there are valuable lessons and experiences to discover - and to share with others who follow our footsteps. Hope you'll stroll alongside for a while. Although it sometimes appears as though I've "tripped" or "stumbled" on success and happiness, I believe beyond a shadow of doubt that there exists so much more order and significance to each of our lives and reasons for being, than mere random coincidence or "good fortune". It is my humble hope that this conviction is revealed as a common thread, woven into the literary fabric of Anthea's Anthology.
The Birds Are Still Singing
Our feathered friends are still singing!
Today, their melodious songs are unmistakably loud—and persistently cheerful, just like any other day. Two of our resident squirrels pause for a moment to tease the nesting mockingbirds but quickly return to stealing nuts and seeds from the swinging feeders. We strategically placed the feeders out of reach of the squirrels, but the furry rascals manage to find a way in! Annoying the birds has become the playful critters’ daily ritual in and around the magnolia and crepe myrtle trees. As I glance up at the majestic magnolia, I note dozens of bulging buds, announcing their readiness to burst into flower. Of course! It’s almost May—the month the magnolias bloom every year. Continue reading →
What Will Your Take Away Be?
How are you using this stay-at-home time to think about your future?
Will you make changes going forward? What will they be?
I’ve been knocked to my knees or had the stuffing knocked out of me many times, humbling me and causing me to rethink my priorities, my lifestyle and where I was headed. I’ve had to change direction. These are valuable tipping points. It’s happening again! And this will not be the last time, for undoubtedly there will be more times. It is ever so in this life. Are you feeling it too? Continue reading →
The Life and Times of Now
Greetings! In this post you will find one of the stories in Life’s Lessons, Chapter Five of the book I published last year entitled My Soul Sings for You—Spiritual Peace in the Life and Times of Now. The story below is on page 151 in the paperback version and, while I read excerpts from it in my video book reading, it is written here in entirety as was published in 2019.
During these unsettling times of battling the ramifications of this virus Covid-19 on human health and the world economy, millions of people across the globe are feeling stressed, confused and troubled. I understand. The unknown is always scary, but I want to encourage you to take heart. Have hope. Turn fear into faith. Our country is strong. We’re uniting and pulling together. Look for something positive in your current situation. Make a gratitude list! Believe that you and your loved ones will come through this. I pray you feel a sense of peace amid the chaos. A living, loving and powerful God is working it all out. Good things will emerge from all this. Continue reading →
Fearless Friday
Are you superstitious? Personally I’m not, but some people are and they tremble at the very thought of anything that relates to the number thirteen—hotel room numbers, floors in a building, street addresses, dates on the calendar, and even the military time of 1300 hours! I’m sure you can conjure up your very own connotation of the number thirteen.
Today is Friday Thirteenth, and as if that isn’t enough to unsettle those of you who are overly superstitious, there’s a new bully on the block terrorizing mankind. Covid-19 is on the move, swirling its evil tentacles around the globe, wreaking havoc with human health, creating turmoil wherever it goes, striking fear into the hearts and minds of millions the world over, and infecting thousands with its virulent virus. It’s all part and parcel of The Life and Times of Now! Continue reading →
My Book Review from Kirkus
I’m thrilled to announce that Kirkus has reviewed my book and you can read their assessment below. I feel the review is an accurate description of the message I dreamed of portraying through the stories in my book. This link will take you directly to the review as published in their site.
https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/anthea-gillian-tripp/my-soul-sings-for-you
MY SOUL SINGS FOR YOU
SPIRITUAL PEACE IN THE LIFE AND TIMES OF NOW
BY ANTHEA GILLIAN TRIPP RELEASE DATE: SEPT. 18, 201
Book Review
A motivational guide to simpler living that taps into its author’s experiences.
In her attractive nonfiction debut, Tripp draws in part on her time in East Africa in the 1950s, recalling some straightforward advice she was given about hippos and alligators. Gators, she was told, are very dangerous and live in swamps—so stay out of swamps if you don’t want to get eaten. That advice is typical of her direct approach. “Please don’t overlook the wisdom in simplicity,” Tripp writes in a sentiment that runs throughout the book. “If you don’t want to set yourself up for pain, don’t go where you know the potential for pain exists. If you don’t want to be eaten by alligators, do not venture into the swamps, at least not willingly.” She calls her book an “anthem to my Creator” and draws heavily on her life story, emphasizing optimism and flexibility in the face of life’s uncertainties. “I’ve learned always to expect the unexpected,” she writes, “and to smile at my Creator’s sense of humor.” Her book frankly acknowledges that modern life seems designed to attack and destroy peaceful simplicity. She reflects on how plugged-in she once was to that world, with feeds and notifications constantly bombarding her on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, Vimeo, and elsewhere until Tripp felt like she was “ADHD on steroids.” She bravely took a step that others only dream about: “I announced on my Facebook profile page that I was reining in my activity on social media to passionately pursue the business and personal goals aligned with my purpose.” Through life lessons and her Christian insights, she seeks to provide antidotes to that continual noise and chaos. Her narrative voice is inviting; her candid optimism will likely comfort even her non-Christian readers, though her sentiments can range from the biblical—“Love never fails”—to the familiar-but-ridiculous: “That which doesn’t kill us can make us stronger.” She urges people never to underestimate the power of prayer or the value of friendship, and such ideas, though commonplace, are always worth repeating.
A calming and gently thought-provoking reminder that the simplest wisdom is often the truest.
Be the Voice of Calm
Stay calm and carry on was an encouraging announcement on a poster from back in 1939. It was created by the British government to raise public morale when mass air attacks on its cities were widely predicted during World War II.
Staying calm was good advice then, and it’s just as relevant today. In times of trouble and turmoil, we need to keep our wits about us. All of them. We must think reasonably, rationally and creatively when the storms of life hit. We humans don’t behave at our best when we’re panicked. Continue reading →
Alone. Not Forsaken.
Maybe it was the faint click as they closed the front door. Perhaps it was my heightened intuition or merely an uncanny coincidence. I can’t say for sure what caused me to wake up with a start. I could see the landing light shining onto my feather eiderdown through a crack in the door, which was always left ajar at my request. The shaft of light was immediately reassuring, so I pulled back the bed covers, slipped my feet into the cozy slippers beside the bed, and headed for the bathroom just in case that was the reason I’d woken up. I wondered what time it was. It felt as though I’d barely got into bed, but perhaps I’d slept longer than it seemed. Continue reading →
Every Vote Counts and Each Soul Matters
The following is a chapter from my book, My Soul Sings for YOU, written and published in 2019 …..
How do you feel about elections? For many years I had to sit on the sidelines, unable to participate in any election, as I was not yet a citizen of the United States. Neither had I ever voted in the UK, my birth country because I left before voting age. I was nineteen years old when I moved to the U.S. and at that time in the UK, the voting age was twenty-one. I sort of fell between the cracks.
So, when I finally was naturalized as a citizen, I literally couldn’t wait for the next election so I could have a voice. I was thrilled the first time I cast my ballot.
I love to vote. I consider election day one of the “high” days. It always feels so good to exercise my privilege to cast a ballot for candidates of my choice, and I especially enjoy being able to do it early to avoid the craziness of the official day. I’m so grateful for the freedom to vote my conscience with no fear of coercion, no mandate to choose a designated candidate, and no worry of personal reprisal for my selection, except possibly some sneers or jeers from those who ardently oppose the candidates whose names I checked on the ballot.
Does it seem to you that the tone of elections has intensified, and the rhetoric become more hateful with each passing year? Have you noticed that the campaigning starts earlier and earlier and dominates the news long before the actual day to vote? Despite all the increasingly desperate and intense attempts from candidates to garner votes, along with the incessant chatter of mass media and political spin artists, we thankfully reside in a country where we, the people, still elect our governing body by casting a ballot. I thank God for that freedom. Around election time, I always think about those souls who shed precious blood in bygone times, to secure the right for each of us to vote our conscience.
Mitten’s Frightful Demise
By a stroke of good fortune, I survived to tell this tale, but last week I nearly died at the hand of a well-meaning human. It was a kill-with-kindness situation which resulted in an unfortunate outcome, reminding me that good intentions can have far-reaching consequences! The human’s generosity toward me, Mitten the hamster, quickly turned into a living nightmare for me and for her too! Of course, I must confess I wasn’t altogether blameless in the fiasco. Desire and greed contributed to my demise.
I’ll share the experience later but first a little history. A few months ago, I was a very unhappy little hamster with no family. I found myself in what the humans call a pet store. I was sad, homeless, and hungry. Although the store humans scattered food around the cavernous cage, it wasn’t like my mother’s cooking. There was a mechanical contraption that dispensed water, but it tasted bitter—not at all like the cold, sweet water I was accustomed to sipping from the woodland streams. The conditions in that store-place were appalling for a well-bred hamster. It was not like my warm, cozy nest under the sheltered tree roots in the wood—the only home I’d known before I was snatched away from my parents and nine siblings.
Home was never like this! This place was an overcrowded, stinky prison where I was forced to endure many indignities, like sharing a small space with others of my species—many were common types who stole food from each other and threatened me harm if I got too close, so I spent most days curled up in a tight ball, trembling in a secluded corner of the cage, hiding as best I could under a few bits of scratchy straw. I tried to sleep and stay out of the way of the other not-so-nice hamsters. Sometimes, a human who worked in the store would open the cage door and remove one of the more boisterous ones. I can’t say for sure what became of them, but chatter from the other hamster inmates suggested that a human bought them. What? Is it legal to steal animals from their families and sell them to humans? Isn’t that animal trafficking? I shuddered at the thought. Continue reading →