Family

To my family:

Sometimes we don't say the things we need to say exactly when we need to say them. I want to say that I love you all and I appreciate everything that you have all done for me throughout my life. Thank you Dad for taking care of me, especially when I needed it most. Thank you Mom for always being the ear I needed. Thank you Karen for opening up your home for Austin and I when we needed a place to stay, not to mention it was nice to spend time with you guys too. Thanks Tom for hanging out with me and talking about anything we could come up with! Thank you Eric for taking to heart the things I've said to you throughout our lives and for caring. Thank you Sara for entering Eric's life and not running away when he scared you! Lol! Thank you Tabby for understanding my craziness when no one else did. Thank you Nancy for caring and always making me laugh with your funny self! :-) Thank you Grandma for listening the first time I opened up to you and for loving me. Thank you Grandpa for making me feel special when most of the time I felt left out. Thank you Ericka for being the one friend who has never left my side. Thank you Alice for listening and making me laugh. Thank you everyone for all the other things you did that are unmentioned.

I love you all so very much and all my neices and nephews! Thank you to everyone in my life whom I have crossed paths with and who have been good to me throughout the time they've known me. Thank you God for giving me Austin.

Austin, Mommy loves you more than anything in the whole wide world! You are the most beautiful, heaven sent gift in the world. Please do your best at everything you do and know that Mommy never has been perfect and I would never pretend to be but I would have given anything in the world to see you happy that's why I've always pushed you to be better and do better. Don't listen to any negative things that anyone might say to you, no matter what, I want you to know that I love you!!

Forgiveness

I find it difficult at this moment in time to forgive someone for something they've done. I have been able to do it in the past under other circumstances, which took me about 6 years but I had not thought about forgiving that person until 6 years later because I didn't know it was something that should be and could be done. I don't want to wait another day let alone 6 years.

I am now in the position that I absolutely must learn to forgive this person. All of my suspicions have been confirmed and as heart wrenching as it is I have to forgive him very soon or I may carry this burden for far longer than necessary...

This is the most difficult thing I have ever had to go through and to find out that the person you love can just look you in the eyes, straight faced and lie to you is just painful in more ways than one. The only thing I've ever asked for was Honesty and it was the only thing he never gave to me...

Too Short

I was just paid a very high compliment by someone I do business with this morning. He said: "your gentle, patient demeanor reminds me of my daughter's personality." This young woman passed away many years ago in an accident at a place that she loved. This is such a high compliment to me because there is no one and nothing I love more in this world than my son. If I were to say that to someone, then I would be saying it from deep within my heart.

This made me feel blessed and tells me that I need to remember, everyday, that life is too short to be angry, to be sad, to have resentment or to be negative. We need to live our lives to the fullest, I don't know how to but I am trying to figure it out!

Going in Reverse-Forgiveness

"Let go of the past and go for the future. Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you imagined."

-Henry David Thoreau

Do you ever think to yourself "I am in living in the past?"  Well, some of us are living in the past. What we need to do is this very important thing. I personally have done it before. When I was about 22 years old, I was living with a friend at her father's house. I went to Church every Sunday which was a pleasant place to go because the people there wanted to be there. Then one day, I took what they said: ("Forgive") and I decided deep down that I wanted to forgive the person I felt most hurt by in my life up until that point. I was at the point in my life (mind you, it took me 6 years-after it stopped) where I was emotionally ready to forgive. I said: "I forgive you" and I did. Certain people didn't understand that but how could they? The reason they don't understand is because they've never tried to forgive people the way they should. They may be carrying resentment from their past experiences. So if someone says to you: "How could you forgive them? I don't understand how you could." then they have never experienced or tried to understand what it means to do so. Church sermons are stated with forgiveness and motivational speakers say it too! If you find that you can't, then you're not quite ready to do so but if you don't try then it may not happen. Once you forgive that experience, it makes it easier to move on with your life.

If you want to continue living in the past with the resentment you carry then get in your car and look out the back window and drive home in Reverse. You can do it, but it's going to be painful after a while. You're going to want to turn the car around. Your front wind shield is larger than your rear window because you need to see where you're going and the rear window is small so that you can see where you've come from. The rear window is the past which should be used as a reference. The past is a place of reference, not a place of residency. - Nigel Risner

Think about it. If you want another example: take a bag and pack it with several heavy books. Stand with your arms out and hold the bag in your hand. Stand there for a while. Do you want to put the bag down? Is it heavy?

The bag represents your past, obviously, but instead of putting it down, forgiving, and moving on, we decide to continue holding the bag. We carry the past with us and it's a burden to carry.

"No one can make me feel inferior without my prior consent." -Eleanor Roosevelt

The secret to forgiveness is this: the other person doesn't have to know. (This is something I figured out when I was 22 yrs. old and no one ever told me but I heard it again when I was 30 almost 31 yrs. old) You also need to forgive yourself for what happened and forgive the other person for who they are in order to move on. If this person is still in your life, it will not matter what they say and do as long as you remember the statement made by Eleanor Roosevelt. (above) No one can make you feel a certain way without your consent. Think about it...................... Come up with your own example yet?

Plan:
Have you tried to change something about yourself that you don't like and find it hard to do on your own? Has it dragged out long enough? That's the way I felt too until I tried something different.

My plan, 2 months ago, was to change what I didn't like about myself on my own. No help, couldn't find a therapist and I was on my own. Then one day I took advice from someone I had been listening to for over 2 months. Unless I had something in my face to follow, I was never going to accomplish the goal I had set for myself. The plan I am using is called the 21 day plan. I wrote Day 1, Day 2, etc. on 3 calendars and hung them around my apartment and at work. One in my walk in closet-I go in there everyday. One on my refrigerator, I eat everyday. One in front of me at work, I see it everyday.

You have to post something in places that you see everyday. So, everyday I get through and accomplish my goals I highlight the "Day 1, 2, 3 etc." and I am LOOKING at what I have accomplished so far. It feels good to see my accomplishment coming to life. Without these, I would still be doing what I've been doing every other time. I've got to tell you, I feel different, emotionally and physically. SEEING is believing! LOOKING at what I want to accomplish everyday is MAKING IT POSSIBLE.  So if you've been wondering what else you could possibly do, this is it! It doesn't matter what you want to do, use this plan to accomplish your goal. Make it your own.  

Dear Me

Dear Me,

You are more than you allow yourself to be. Ever since you were a child, you've always wanted to help other people. You've always found ways to do things that helped people be it giving advice, hanging signs in the convenience store windows, volunteering or just being there when someone needed you. Someone said they took an experience you went through and used it as an example in their life and it changed their life in a positive way. You have helped people and you don't even know it. You have such a big heart and you are a very loving, caring and considerate person. You have desires to do more with your life. You want to help people and live for a purpose for which you are still seeking. Go after it! Don't let one person in your life continue to make you feel down. With all the people who have come into your life and have gone and the things you have gone through and survived, you can do anything! Your life is great! You have your health, your son is healthy, your family is healthy and everyone you love is alive! Live like it! Stop letting one little insignificant thing bring you down. You are so much stronger than you have allowed yourself to be lately. Who is this person that you are at this very moment? What is the worse thing that could happen from this one thing? Well, the answer is this: YOU WILL LEARN FROM IT! Happiness is waiting for you, you just have to go and get it and stop waiting for it to come to you! It's not going to fall on your lap, you have to go and capture it! Feel it! Free yourself! Live like you are in love with life! Do it! You have to. There is no other option. You don't know how short your life may be. Why spend what ever time you have left in sadness? There are people who need your positive side, give it to them! Look in the mirror and tell yourself that you deserve the same happiness as everyone else does and mean it!

Life is too short, as you have heard from many people. Don't wait until you're sick, in the hospital, lose someone close to you or something bad to happen before you make yourself feel Alive! You are alive, you need to feel it, breathe it, live it, love it!! Do it today, don't spend the rest of your life looking for it, just do it. Be positive, think positive and all the negative things will fall away and your life will improve. You already have an example that it works. Just remember being 19 again, get that feeling back again and remember how good it felt to love yourself and to have hope. Everything seemed possible and everything you wanted, that was good, came to you! Make it happen again! Make it happen over and over and over!! You have to, there are no other options!!!

Be that person that you were meant to be. Bring out that person that you have always been and the happiness you have desired and searched for will be there. It's been inside you all along, you just have to grab it and pull it out!!

Habitat for Humanity-Halloween Weekend (10/28-10/31)

I took a road trip to help for a couple of days (because I was short on time) for Habitat's Gulf Coast recovery effort. I would love to go back again soon. I plan to go again next year.

While I was up there, I found it very satisfying to help in completing the work on this house. It was a cute little house in a very quiet neighborhood with lots of trees away from the city life. Unfortunately, I only worked with them for 2 days but I wanted to stay longer and I wanted to get their sooner but was unable to do so! I stayed in Mobile, Alabama and drove over to another area (I'll fill the name in later). I was equipped with my work boots and a smile and ready to learn. I spent most of the time caulking the exterior siding, interior around the electrical outlets and re-doing the vinyl siding on the front porch ceiling with another volunteer. The people there were all very nice. There were only 10 of us working and I was the only female, of course.. Construction.. Lol. I'm use to it, I work in the construction industry. The supervisors who work for Habitat were very nice. It was such a pleasant place to do work on my vacation. Yes, I chose to work on my vacation and I would do it again. Next time I would like to go for a week but at least I was there longer than the local volunteers. Lol!

I'll be honest, Mobile is not very pretty but Downtown Mobile was gorgeous! That area has homes that look they could get up and walk away at any moment. Such personality showing in these well thought out huge homes. Such love and care was put into building them and no one does that anymore! I left Saturday morning and drove up through Montgomery, Al over to Atlanta, Ga and then down to Savannah, Ga where I spent time walking around on their Riverfront. Cute little area. It had restaurants, shops and nice architectural buildings. I plan to go back to Savannah Georgia to stay a few days, maybe next year around the same time.
Then I left on Saturday night and went back home to Florida since I had a 2 hour drive from my home to pick up my son and then drive 2 hours back!

I highly recommend semi-planned road trips with purpose!

Giving

Everyday I think about what I can do to better my life and the lives of others. I recently volunteered with Habitat for Humanity in Mobile, Alabama and it was an awesome experience. I would love to make the experience even better so I recently signed up to volunteer locally. I am currently awaiting a call that they are in need of assistance. I’m not part of a group and they have a huge group of volunteers but there are many ways I can help them according to the information they requested and the skills I had for each one. I look forward to working with my local Habitat for Humanity groups.

Ever since I was a child, I always had a spark deep inside me that may have been embedded by my mother but still lives and grows within me. When I help others, it makes me feel like a real person. I want to hear their stories and it reminds me of how lucky I am and how grateful I should be. I should help those who have harder times than I could ever imagine and help give them the hope they need to restore their lives.

I attend Church regularly and I give when I can and sometimes I may give too much of my money to others. Overall, I always find a way to make it through and I want to do the same for others.

Quotes:
"What do we live for, if it is not to make life less difficult for each other?"
- George Eliot (a.k.a. Mary Ann Evans-Victorian Writer)

"Service to others is the rent you pay for living on this planet."
- Marian Wright Edelman

"Never reach out your hand unless you're willing to extend an arm."
- Elizabeth Fuller

Life

We take a journey that we think is the right one to take but as we walk this road we begin to wonder where it’s really going. Most of us are not as strong and cannot see the signs to show us that we are taking the wrong paths. Or maybe we just choose to ignore them. So with this, we continue to go down the paths that lead us to continue questioning whether or not we are making the right decisions. Then we begin to wonder if it’s just us. Is it because we are incapable of being loved and happy? Yet, we continue walking this path until we reach a destination for which there are no other options. We have to turn and as we stand there and look down the path we think to ourselves, where will this path lead me to? Will I find the happiness I so ever lastingly seek? Can I finally find the love and happiness in my life for which I have searched so long? Then, the fear settles in. Will I spend the rest of my life alone? Have I done something wrong for which I can never make up for in this life? Why wasn’t I loved the way I hoped to be by this person who has now closed the door in my face? The end of this path holds no answers, only a door way to a new path. We must continue to travel though we know not what is in store for us. We hope that this new path will give us all the love and happiness for which we continue to search.

We continue to question ourselves. Have I been a person without compassion? Have I not loved enough? Was I selfish and lost in my own needs? What would the outcome have been had I done so? I know that I don’t want to know what the outcome would have been. What of those who have hurt us and of those who we have hurt? What of that person for whom left me in so much pain? Do they still...? Did they ever...? Inevitably, the feelings of that individual no longer matter or at least, should not matter because this person has taken themselves off our path.

So we carry on, traveling down a new road, in hopes of finding ourselves. Traveling, in hopes of finding the happiness we have been seeking. Our hearts hold discontent from a heart that has been broken. We walk alone and carry these burdens on our shoulders. Then we imagine that one day, one beautiful amazing day, we shall awaken from this nightmare! Then, in our hearts, will be the happiness we have been forever seeking and the burdens of love lost will be lifted.