June 2008

Earlier, while driving through town, I saw a picture of a horse on the side of a truck. It made me flash back to 7th grade. My mom took a group of my friends and me to a horse farm (no shortage of those in Kentucky). She knew the owners, so they saddled up their horses and gave 6 giggling girls the chance to ride like the wind. Or something like that.

While they were saddling the horses, and no doubt asking them to please not break their friend’s giggling daughter or any of her friends, the other girls and I pointed and picked out which horses we wanted to ride. Angela (who was more a friend of a friend than a friend - in fact, truth be told, she could have been an Amy, Andrea, or Annette - but I’m going with Angela) pointed to the same horse I had my eye on. Being a softy even at the age of 12, I convinced her that I wasn’t really pointing at the muscular horse who was so black he looked blue. No, no, I was pointing at the charming grayish, brownish, smallish, one behind him. Yeah, the one with about a gazillion flies around it.

I overheard someone telling Angela Amy Andrea Annette that her beast’s name was Magical just as I was being told the name of mine: Gomer. As in Pyle. If I’d been allowed to cuss, I’d have blistered fate with every word I’d ever heard my dad use.

That afternoon proved to be SO much fun. When we left, I nearly cried when I hugged Gomer and told him goodbye. He had the sweetest, most gentle disposition in the world and, in spite of his appearance, he actually left the rest in the dust. Even Magical. Even before I got behind the wheel of a car, speed was of the utmost importance to me. Several speeding tickets later, I guess it still is.

I guess the moral of this story would be this: We don’t always get what we want in life. Sometimes we’re “blessed” with problems that we’d just as soon not be “blessed” with. We almost never have all the things in life that we want, and the grass on the other side of the fence doesn’t always just look greener - sometimes it is!

We have two choices.

1.  We climb up in the saddle life’s prepared for us and ride it out.   We can hope for the best and deal with the rest.  Or…
2. We can stand around whining and complaining.  We can tell everyone within earshot that life just isn’t fair and that, By God, we deserve better than this!

Personally, I’m all for getting in the saddle.  You just never know when it’ll lead to one of the greatest rides ever.  Many opportunities actually come into our lives looking like Gomer the horse - flies and all. In the end, you realize you wouldn’t have had it any other way.

** The adorable print at the top of the post is from AllPosters.com - click the link or the horse, herself (himself?), for a closer look.

Beginning today, treat everyone you meet as if they were going to be dead by midnight. Extend to them all the care, kindness and understanding you can muster, and do it with no thought of any reward. Your life will never be the same again. - Og Mandino

God has blessed me with a busy life, for which I thank Him daily.  Okay, okay - almost daily.  Some hectic days find me more full of caffeine than thankfulness.

One of the drawbacks of business is never having enough time to read all of the books, blogs, magazines, and newspapers that I want to read. Over the past few posts, I’ve told you about some of the websites and blogs that I do manage to read regularly.

Another one of these sites is ProBlogger.net.  If you’re a blogger, I guarantee this is a blog you’ll benefit from reading.  The more you read it, the more you’ll benefit. The comments, alone, contain more knowledge than most blogs!  Wow.  Big statement for a Friday.

The posts are always informative and entertaining.  A particular series of posts Darren Rowse is doing is what I’d have to call Must Read’s.  The series is called “10 Ways to Let Your Blog Go and What to Do About It.”  Great stuff.  Dibs on the cat in the picture, though, I’m straight hooking him up with my cat Alexa.

There’s a whole string of imperfections in my R’epertoire.  My driving? It’s the one thing that would have corrupted Job.  Decisiveness?  I can’t decide if I possess that trait or not.   Procrastination?  I know I have that one up my sleeve.  I’ll work on it tomorrow, though.

However, the biggest knot in my psyche is money.  Cold, hard cash - the stuff that gets me into more fixes than Hong Kong Fuey ever hoped to get into.   To me, the concept of saving money  is spending half of your money at the grocery store, saving the other half for the mall.  No wonder the concept never works for me.

Times are tough and getting tougher, though, so it’s making me re-think my carefree ways.  I’ve just got to be more careful where I throw George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, and Thomas Jefferson these days.  They don’t come to visit me as often as they once did.  When they do, they don’t stick around very long.

I came across a cool website, WalletPop.com, that’s full of monetary wisdom and woes.  I love their Daily Fantastic Freebie and have even taken advantage of a few.  You’ll find very useful information about gas prices, the economy, restaurants, saving money, etc. 

A few Must Read posts are:

• Gas Prices a Killer for the Elderly
• Raising Cash in a Hurry - Make Stuff to Sell
• Downsizing Your Food Budget
• Elton John’s #1’s: $1.99
• Paying the Higher Cost of a Higher Education
• Feed the Little Birds in Dollar Store Style (this one might as well have been written for me…)
• Saving Cash These Days - Cancel Your Newspaper Subscription

Be sure to check out the Daily Deals, too.

How about it, wise readers?  Do you have any words of wisdom to share about saving or stretching money?  You have my undivided attention.

The following is a sponsored post. What exactly does that mean?! Simply this: In a sponsored review, a web publisher is paid to “look at” and/or “try” a product, website, or service and tell their readers about it. They don’t have to sugar coat it, they don’t have to say they like it - they simply have to tell what they thought. For me personally, I only accept the ones that I CAN give a glowing review of. My thinking is, Why bother with the rest? Eh, they’re on their own.

One of the best Online Support Groups and Self Help Programs live at the same url: Tools to Life.com.

Tools To Life

One of the phrases I use the most often when talking about self help and self improvement is, “Improve your world by first improving yourself.” That’s the order it has to go in. We get frustrated, overwhelmed, and…. well, downright nasty…. when we wait for our circumstances to improve first. We put the cart in front of the horse and watch in amazement as nothing happens.

We have to set the change(s) in motion or things will always be like they’ve always been.

That’s why I’m especially excited to be able to tell you about one of the best Self Help Programs I’ve ever seen. Tools to Life is a completely free, online self help coaching system and support network. They have been helping people loose weight, improve their relationships, resolve depression, overcome anxiety and get better careers for over 20 years! Now that’s a reputation worth being proud of. They wanted to bring this success “online” so they could reach even more people ith Inspirational motivation and community support. It’s a labor of love and, take it from someone who recognizes the symptoms, is a clear case of people who simply want to save the world.

Oh, I love the way they think!

The article archive is amazing. You’ll find help, advice, and motivation for every aspect of your self improvement journey. Physical fitness, mental fitness, relationships, health, careers… you name it, they’ve covered it beautifully. I’m glad to see people who realize that there isn’t just one magical area of a person’s life that needs attention. We’re made up of so many different threads, not just one!

There are hundreds and hundreds of articles on Tools to Life. I came across so many that I not only enjoyed, but gained insight and helpful advice from. One of the first ones I read was titled “Healthy Eating on a Limited Budget” - that one gets us all where we live, doesn’t it?! We all want to eat healthy, just as the experts advise us to. But we go to the grocery store and are stopped dead in our tracks by the price of blueberries, red peppers, cauliflower, broccoli, seafood (Three times a week? On who’s budget?!) This is a really great article and I highly recommend it.

Another section of the site that you’re going to love are the Inspirational Videos. These are amazing - you won’t want to stop until you’ve seen them all. They’ve inspired me to add an Inspirational Videos section to Self Help Daily. I only hope to find some half as amazing as the ones they’ve gathered together. Honestly, they’ll blow you away.

The Life Coaching Support Groups seem to be a favorite with people in the Tools to Life community. I like that word, don’t you - Community. It makes you feel as though you’re a part of something. That’s exactly how you’ll feel when you join the Tools to Life Community. Sign up is 100 percent free, and the amazing thing is that you’ll have the opportunity to motivate and inspire just as many people as are motivating and inspiring you.

Does it get any better than that?

If I accept you as you are, I will make you worse; however if I treat you as though you are what you are capable of becoming, I help you become that. - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Happy Father’s Day to dads and grandfathers everywhere! My dad (who, incidentally, I thought hung the moon AND stars) is spending his 12th Father’s Day in Heaven. He died alarmingly young, but I’m thankful to have had him in my life as long as I did. His sense of humor and laid back approach to life were his trademarks and our world’s loss was Heaven’s gain.

Even though there’ve been 12 Father’s Days without him, it still gets to me. Today when I drove by a steakhouse, there were people pouring out of their cars with their dads. Waterworks. Time heals wounds but the scars remain.

The tears gave way to smiles though when I got home to another character that hung the moon and stars - my husband and father of our three daughters and 4 cats. No father in the world has ever out-loved their children more than Michael does our girls. Like all fathers, though, he doesn’t get the sometimes gentler role in the parenting equation.

I feel for fathers, I really do. They have to be the tough guys so often - while the mothers pat on the child’s back, smooths the hair and whispers lovey dovey mommy-isms. Sometimes it resembles a good cop/bad cop scene and fathers seldom get to be the good cop! The decisions they make, the stands they take - they’re always for their child’s best. Funny thing about children though, they generally don’t see past their own little noses.

The quote at the top of the post, at least in our own household, symbolizes a father’s mindset. Fathers often look further into the future than mothers do. I think the reason’s obvious… “mommies” don’t want to see the future. Give us the present, give us the past, but spare us the future!

It’s a good thing that fathers and mothers look at things differently and have different approaches. Two of either approaches would make the kids nutty. -er. Nuttier.

Know that the day will come when your loving strictness, your stern no’s, and, yes… even your lectures…. will be very much appreciated. Keep up the good fight - being a parent in this day and age isn’t for the faint of heart. Or stomach, for that matter.

Happy Father’s Day!

If you have anything valuable to contribute to the world, it will come through the expression of your own personality - that single spark of divinity that sets you off and makes you different from every other living creature. - Bruce Barton

Unless a capcity for thinking be accompanied by a capacity for action, a superior mind exists in torture. - Benedetto Croce Quote

Few things are quite as frustrating as watching a person who has a world of aspirations, ideas and abilitiess but fails to get any further than a person who hasn’t any of the three. They have everything it takes to succeed, except for one key element: GUMPTION. Sometimes that’s all it boils down to.

It’s much kinder, perhaps, and certainly more PC, to say they lack confidence, drive, perseverance, purpose, etc. But let’s throw political correctness out the window for a minute and just kick it old school. All of us are guilty of misplacing our gumption from time to time. Some days we’re just off our game - heck, I’ve had days when I wished there weren’t even a game.

The thing is, sometimes gumption falls out of our backpack without us even realizing it.

Periodical “check ins” can do a world of good. Every now and then ask yourself if there’s anything you have left on the shelf. Is there a task you’ve been putting off or a great idea that you’ve been sitting on?

Notice that I’m not telling you to ask yourself WHY you haven’t acted on your idea(s) or task(s). The reason for that is it doesn’t matter!  When we’re talking about gumption and action, the word why is very often a cop-out.  It’s an enabler that will do little more than anchor us in place.  I say it all the time… so much so that you can probably say it with me…. but, If we always do what we’ve always done, we’ll always have what we’ve always had.  Throw “why” out the window along with the political correctness we just heaved out of our way.

The only real questions that matter are:

How much do you want it?

What are you williing to do to make it happen?

When will you put everything in motion? 

And…

What are you waiting for?!

One of the best “Self Help” books you’ll ever hold in your hands is the one you write yourself.  It’ll help you more than all of the others put together and multiplied by a dozen.  After all, what good is a book with other people as the lead characters?  This one is all about you! 

Words in Action - A Journal to Inspire Change is for the person who has had it “up to here” with something in his or her life.  It might be a problem with weight, money, work, or relationships.  It might be a habit that they want to shake or a personality trait that they’re tired of lying down with every night and waking up to every morning.

Whatever “it” is, the individual has reached the point where they’re ready to make a life-altering change.  They’ve seen the past, they see the present, and they want even more from the future.  Heck, they demand more!  They realize that the answers aren’t going to come magically floating down from Heaven.  After all, if we keep doing what we’ve been doing, we’ll always have what we have.

This journal is absolutely perfect for anyone who is on a self-improvement journey.  Each page has a different ”Action Word” (such as Intelligence, Denial, Accomplishment, Karma, Breakthrough….) as well as two great quotes to help drive the Action Word home.  There’s also a short and right to the point description of the Action Word.

There are also random short articles (sort of like blog posts) for some of the words.  I believe there are between 10 and 12 of these.  I’d check, but my Words in Action - A Journal to Inspire Change isn’t beside me. It’s lying on my favorite chair in the living room. I write in it everyday. But I do more than just write, I also read. When you go back through a journal and read what you’d previously written, you sort of catch up with what you were thinking “back there.” This gives you a lot of insight into where and how you ran like the wind in particular areas of your journey. Of course, it also gives you insight into where you slipped and fell on your face. A journal shows you the exact slippery spot, helping you to recognize it before you have to eat earth again.

Something else I love about this journal is that it contains no dates.  THere are 365 Action Words and pages for writing on - but it’s up to us which 365 days we use them on.  I’ve always hated journals that try to hold you to a particular schedulce.  What if I have nothing to say on Friday July 25th?!  What if I’ve spent too much time in the sun and can now be found amongst oooohs and ahhhhs as my husband slathers Noxema on my back and extols the virtues of sunscreen?  Am I supposed to feel guilty or overwhelmed on Saturday July 26th?!  Pffft.

This journal takes a much more laid back approach and realizes that we all march to a different beat.  Hey, as long as we march, right?!

Anyway, this beautiful, hardback journal is beyond perfect.  You will love the journey and the wisdom and insight you pick up along the way.  It just occurred to me, but this would be an ideal…and I mean IDEAL gift for a blogger.  Each Action Word could be very inspirational in launching your inner writer - it’d send your thoughts in a wonderful direction.  You could then use the blank space to write these thoughts down.  The thoughts would then, of course, find their way into a blog post. 

“All of life is a journey; which paths we take, what we look back on, and what we look forward to is up to us.  We determine our destination, what kind of road we will take to get there, and how happy we are when we get there.” - Author Unknown (Too busy enjoying his or her journey to write their name, perhaps?)

I just got an e-mail from my aunt about a lady she knows in Louisville, Kentucky. The woman was recently pumping gas at a gas station. Her car doors were all locked except for the one on the driver’s side. When her back was turned (apparently toward the pump), she heard a young woman yell to her, “He just took your purse!” A man had opened her door, grabbed her purse and sped away.

She and her husband began cancelling credit cards and she deactivated her cellphone. She had keys to her office, so she had to notify security. She grieved for pictures, jewelry, and other possessions. Her heart also skipped a beat when she realized, “He knows our address.” That part alone sent chills down my spine.

Before they were able to cancel the credit cards, the creep had used it at a local K-mart, eaten at McDonald’s, and filled up his gas tank. Oh, the irony.

The uglier the economy gets, the more desperate people are getting.

Desperate people make me very nervous.  Thankfully no one was physically harmed.  But I doubt this couple will sleep peacefully for a few months.

I’ve e-mailed the message to each of my daughters and told them to pass it on to all of their friends.  Now I’m all up in your face.  Be very careful wherever you go, whatever you do, whoever you are.  Male, female, 12, 99 - everyone can become someone else’s victim in the blinking of an eye.  Never think that you’re safe because your town isn’t “that big…”   There are just as many desperate people in small towns as there are in larger towns. 

I teach and preach volumes about being happy, being confident, being persistent - basically being all that you can possibly be.  I want to do all of that, but be safe while you’re doing it.  Lock your doors, whether they’re your car doors or doors to your house.

It’s bears repeating, so bear with me while I repeat it, People are getting more and more desperate.  When you’re desperate, you don’t think of the consequences.  You only think about what you need and you do what you have to do to get it.

Be on guard.  At all times.  And pass it on to everyone you know.