Wednesday, January 4, 2012

Counting My Blessings

Today’s Positive Quotation:
"When I hear somebody sigh that life is hard, I am always tempted to ask, "Compared to what?"
It might sound corny, but it does help to “count your blessings” so that you pay attention to all the good things in life.

Everyone looks at someone else and thinks how wonderful it would be if you could have their house, their job, their furniture, their money, their happy family. There are two things that are very important to remember when you are in one of those moments.

First of all, things are not always what they seem. What appears to be a happy family is not always. What we see as outsiders is not always what is on the inside. No matter how happy appear to be, they have problems just like you and I. They are just better at hiding them than you might be.

The last thing is that just like you are looking to someone who has more than you, there is someone who has less than you looking at you and wanting what you have. There is someone out there wishing they had what you have. There are people much less fortunate that you who would love to have a fraction of what you have. Sometimes we forget that. Because we want more all the time, we forget what we already have. We try to teach this to our children but sometimes we forget to take our own advice.

Tuesday, January 3, 2012

Controlling Your Reactions

Today's Positive Quote:
"People don't just get upset. They contribute to their upsetness." -Albert Ellis
I'd like things to go my way, but, really, there's nothing that says they should. I need to remind myself that I have what it takes to improve my mood-and my life.

You can't control many of the things that happen to us but we can control how we react to it. My goodness ! If I could count the times that I said that to my oldest children. I am a big believer of this already. Maybe I don't always apply it to each aspect of my life as I would like though. This will be my motto this year for sure !

Today has been a bit stressful at work. It seems as though all the customers that I have delt with today have had every issue under the sun and are just down right mean. It set me in such a bad mood and then it hit me. I am going to take this stress home and take it out on my undeserving family. So instead I took a walk to the bathroom and took a deep breath. This is just one day. I will not allow these people to put me in the same mood that they are in. I am not a miserable person. I am going to go home with a smile and enjoy my beautiful family tonight. I hope you all do the same.

Monday, January 2, 2012

Looking at things differently

Today's Positive Quote:
"Sometimes our fate resembes a fruit tree in winter. Who would think that those branches would turn green again and blossom, but we hope it, we knew it." -Johanan Wolfgang Von Goethe.
My life is filled with ups and downs. If today is a bad day-or this week is a bad week-I know it's not forever and that I will come through it.

What a great quote! Things change. Our emotions change, sometimes a little too quickly. There are days when I feel like things will never get better and then they do. Funny how when they get better, the bad times don't seem so bad anymore.

This past year has been filled with ups and downs. Without those bad times though, I would not be able to really appreciate the great times. The struggles that the kids have had in school only make the good grades that much more important. The health issues remind us that we need to not take our health for granted. Having to get up for work each day means we have jobs and how quickly we forgot what it was like looking endlessly for a job. Being thankful for what I have needs to take center stage. I need to take the time to really see what I have instead of always looking at what I don't have. 2012 is a year of new beginning. It's all about what you make it. Let's make it a great year !

Sunday, January 1, 2012

Happy 2012 Everyone

I want to start by wishing everyone a happy and healthy 2012.

My very best friend got me a book for Christmas. Not just a book but "The Daily Book of Positive Quotations". What a great gift. It's just what I need sometimes to keep on going. 

Tuesday, December 27, 2011

This is the cold that never ends !

I am sooooooooooo sick. Not just sick but insanely sick. I have the mother of all colds. I have the stuffy nose, the runny nose, the sneezing, the coughing, the aching, the chills, the full on congestion. The kind of cold that you have to sleep with your mouth open because you can’t breathe through your nose and then you wake up with dry nose and dry mouth. This weekend was filled with medicine… Mucinex, Dayquil and Theraflu, Oh My !

Unfortunately, I am not sick alone. CJ is sick with me too. I so wanted to stay in bed this morning. But you see, I don’t have sick time yet at work so I would have to take it unpaid. And to add to that, I am pretty sure that if CJ and I keep going down this path, he will be sent home from the YMCA sometime this week and I will have to leave work to get him. So I am holding out for that time instead. Then we can both rest at home.

I am not sure what is going on. I mean I have been sick non stop since we moved back to RI. I was finally getting better to the point that I actually thought it was going away. And then BOOM ! It surprised me. I sometimes wonder if there is something in the house that is making me sick. And not just me but we have all been sick. We joke that we have been passing it back and forth between us but enough is enough. I did a full blown disinfecting clean before Thanksgiving because Jose’s mom was coming over and then I got sick right after. How is that possible? That is what led me to think that maybe it’s something in the house. I mean we can’t possibly just keep getting sick like this.

You know what this feels like:

This is the cold that never ends. It goes on and on my friend. Some people starting getting it not knowing what it was, and they’ll continue getting it forever just because….this is the cold that never ends. It goes on and on my friend. LMAO.

Thursday, December 22, 2011

The Holiday Season

Christmas is in 3 days. Christmas Eve in 2. My tree has been up since Thanksgiving weekend. Stockings are hung. Most of the presents are wrapped under the tree. But something is missing.

Maybe it’s the year that we have had. The two moves we had, one of which was up the coast back to RI. My mother-in-law’s battle with cancer. The kids struggle with school…everywhere. Being jobless for several months through the summer due to the move and feeling completely helpless. The continued pain of knowing that my mother is just fine with what happened with us. Along with a lot of little things, this was just a year that has definitely taken its toll on me.

Maybe it’s still the feeling of not having a home. For a while Jose and I didn’t even want to buy. The responsibility of everything that comes with it and the burden of feeling stuck really got us down. It wasn’t just us though, we watched many people around us go through the same situation. But being on flip side of it and never knowing what will happen at the end of our lease sucks. It’s an unsettling feeling. Not being able to paint and live comfortably as it is our own home sucks too. The last rental we had in NC was great, except for the area. The landlords were amazing and the house was awesome. It really did feel like home and if I could have picked it up and moved it, I would have been thrilled. But alas we don’t live in a magic land so we had to look for something else. We were tired of the thought of moving so we decided to buy. Still with a little fear of what we were buying we went with a rent to own home. That was short lived but the time that we were there really was amazing. That was home. The house, the neighborhood, the neighbors and everything that went with it. The ideas I had for that place to really make it spectacular. The decorating and upgrades planned. The plan for the shed and the deck. Coming back to RI was not what created this horrible feeling of loss for me. It was having to leave HOME. I hope and pray to find HOME here when our lease is up and then maybe I can get the spirit back.

Or maybe it’s just a sign of the times. People are selfish and grouchy. I hope that it’s not just a sign of the times because that would totally ruin Christmas for me. The commercialism has taken over and the spirit is just gone. I can’t believe what people will do to get the presents they want, the things that parents will do and pay for to get the kids all of the stuff they want. It is all about what “I” want for Christmas everywhere I turn. Everyone trying to outdo the next person. Trying to buy more than last year. Trying to spoil our kids to the point that they no longer even understand the value of a dollar. What has this world come to?

I have gone through the motions. Everything is done but the feeling is not there. It doesn’t feel like Christmas. It’s doesn’t feel joyous and happy. I am still hoping that the feeling kicks me in butt on Christmas Eve so that I can enjoy all that comes with it. But as of right now, it feels like something big is missing.

Wednesday, December 21, 2011

An Early Christmas Present

Nathan gave me the best Christmas present that I could ever get.

I got a call from his guidance counselor yesterday to let me know that he is all caught up. He has handed in all his assignments. He is doing great. He got a 100 on his last two math tests and a 99 on his Spanish test. He seems to have taken the step to get on track and work to his potential that I knew was in him.

I am so proud of him. Words can’t even explain my feeling. This is truly the best gift that I could get from him. I knew that he could do it.

Now I just need to find the Christmas Spirit. More about that tomorrow.

Catching up...oh yeah, and I bought a house.

Catching up is the understatement of the year. It's been quite a while since I have been here. The truth is that life has been one adven...