What I know for sure...

I was given this book at Christmas... Oprah's "What I Know For Sure" and loved every word of it.  That was my favorite part of her magazine, her wisdom at the end, and I would always feel like I had learned something from reading them.  Many times it felt like she was reading my mind.

And today I got the nudge to write again, and while it's been a lot of time away, I feel like it was a necessary break.  Sometimes we have to find new things to talk about or we run the risk of falling into the endless black hole of redundancy.

I know I'm getting older, but repeating myself isn't a road I want to go down anytime soon.

So I thought I'd start off this year with my own list of things I know for sure.  It's a work in progress, and I know it might be different next year, but that is how life works... which leads me to my first thing.

1.  The only thing we can count on is nothing stays the same.  Nothing.  If there is anything I've learned lately is that what we have right here - right now, could all be changed tomorrow.  Sometimes they're good changes, and sometimes they're bad.  Rarely is it in our control.  Best to learn to go with the flow.

2.  Friends make the world go 'round.  I think my friends are the reason I can stay sane in a crazy world.  We joke.  We cry.  We bitch.  We protect.  We love.  We listen.  We advise.  It doesn't matter what it is, my friends are there for me.  I am beyond blessed to have the best of them too.  Friends that would bail me out of jail.  Friends that understand I'm not perfect.  Friends that laugh at with me.  Friends that read my blog :) and ask for more.

3.  Creativity > Laziness.  Even the greatest day-long-Scandal-binge-watching-marathon isn't as good as writing one really good paragraph/scene/chapter.  It just doesn't.  Doing something productive always wins.  But if you can learn to be productive/creative while watching Scandal...  Well shut the front door.  You got yourself perfection.

4. You will never be prepared for bad news.   How could you?  We can't be those kinds of people who walk around expecting the worst all the time.  We believe, we hope, we dream.  So when the bad news comes, it usually sneaks up on you flips your world upside down.  It changes us and our reality, giving us a different perspective than we had before.  We will learn to believe, hope, and dream again, but it will always be different than before.  It just takes time.

5.  Resentment will eat you alive.  Raise your hand if you cling to resentment like a fuzzy warm blanket.  Yeah, me too.  I'm learning though, that life is too short, and eventually all that resentment is just hurting yourself.  Like drinking poison and expecting the other person to get sick.  Let it go....

6.  What someone thinks of you is only their business.  This one is a work in progress for me, for sure.  I am the ultimate people pleaser.  If it were and Olympic sport, I'd be a multiple gold medalist.  Constant worrying about what others think is the quickest way to resentment.  See what I just did there?  It boggles the mind!  Anyways, start listening to your self about what you want... or who to be with... or what to write about.  At the end of the day, you are the only one you have to please.  People will naturally come and go in your life... Pretending to be something or someone else is just making you miserable.  Miserable = resentment.

7.  Giving is better than receiving.  Once a month I pay for the person behind me at Starbucks.  It's never a big amount, but the joy I get from doing that one thing lasts me the whole day.  I have never regretted doing or giving something to someone, and I truly believe your heart grows when you do.

8.  There really are some words to live by.  Here are just a few:  Joy.  Calm.  Strength.  Peace.  Courage.  Love.  Laughter.  Gratitude.  Find one word to guide you each day.  It will change the way you think and live.

9.  Being kind is better than being right.  Anyone who's been married longer than a year knows this.  #word

10.  No matter how old you get you will always need your mom.  It's been 11 1/2 years since I've seen my mom.  I know she's there, watching over me, but sometimes that's not good enough.  I need parenting advice in the worst way right now, and relying on myself isn't cutting it.  I know I don't have a choice, and muddling through it is all I've got, but a sign would be really good, Mom.  Just a little sign.

Well that's it.  What I know for sure.  Is it the same as what you know?  Probably not.  But I hope you will take the time to at least think about what your list would be.

That's all I really want... to get you thinking.

I hope you have a great 2015...

8 Posts

I've been working on a video for the rink again, and have found myself looking over the past year.  You can learn a lot looking through old photos, but even more when you look through the posts from this year.

It seems I have a lot to say.

I am so thankful that you keep coming back to read what I have to say :)  So I thought it might be fun to make a list of the ones I like the most from this year.

Here we go... (please don't feel like you have to read them again)

1. Believe:  Friday, January 27
2. Read This!:  February 13
3. Friends, Zac, and the power of 50 shades:  April 30
4. Courage:  April 5
5. B Something:  May 3
6. Blaker's Top Ten:  June 14
7. Finding Gratitude:  November 21
8. Blessed:  December 7

It's seriously like a trip down memory lane for me to read them again.  I don't often do that, which is why I probably repeat myself so often.  I don't always love doing what I get paid to do, but this blog makes up for that.  

This is what brings me joy.

This is putting it out there for you to love or hate.

This is where I actually can show some courage.

Happiness is.... this.

Have a fabulous week!

Happy Anniversary

So, in my little corner of cyberspace, my blog is officially 1 year old... again.  Long story, but last year I remember going through a personal crisis of having all my writings deleted.  Like, for good.

As in, you'll never see them again.

And I did what any other writer would do.  I wrote my way out of it, and found that happiness can be recreated again.  I still sigh over all those lost posts, but have to believe that everything happens for a reason.  Perhaps I was in a rut?  Not sure, but I do know that while this blog is similar, it's somehow better.

New and Improved!

Tonight I just wanted to say thank you to anyone who has ever wanted to hear what I have to say.  I still get a little excited when I see that people have found my page and are coming back to read more.

I really can't wait to see what the next year brings.  I have always found anniversaries to be excellent stepping stones in my life to see where I'm at, and where I'd like to be a year from now.  Last year at this time I think I was just trying to get to the next day.

Oh what a difference a year makes....

harvesting words

set your timer: for the next 15 minutes, write about the words you love. Write about the words you hate. Write about words that make you think.

I'll be honest, there is a reason I skipped over this one 4 years ago when I had first started this project. While I love words, I'm not one who takes chances on using new or different words very often. On my iPad I have the Dictionary.com app that will send me a word of the day, every single day. Most days I'm curious enough to go and look it up to see what it means, but sometimes I just go about my day without needing to know. Yesterday's word was catawampus, which I thought was funny because I always just figured it was a word Toby made up. Although, he has always said kittywampus, maybe just the earlier version of the word?

I have found through writing various projects over the years that I tend to change the language or wording to fit the project. If I'm writing something for a young adult novel, the words I use will be different than those in an article for ten rules to happiness. I don't have a magic book that carries all my favorite words, but maybe I should. I will find the inspiration in a picture and create a whole post just from that. Perhaps I should try to do the same with the words I see. Perhaps... I do like that word.
A whole post on catawampus? Not so sure about that.

So, as Barbara has instructed, I will start to make a list of these words that intrigue me and make me want to learn more about them. I will star the ones I like, and the ones I don't like will stay in the dictionary forever.

For some crazy reason, when I started reading this chapter I was reminded of the movie Elf with Will Farrell. "Francisco...Fran-Sis-Co...Francisco... that's fun to say."

That is how my mind works. Welcome to my world.