Inspirational Sunday - Family and Holidays

When I was young, I used to love holidays. I loved the excitement. I loved decorating. I loved buying people what they wanted and even finding things they didn't put on their 'list' but I knew they would love.

Problem is, I grew up. Now working 6 days a week with a right ankle that hurts and a left knee that doesn't like any weight on it, combined with family that I really don't even want to see anymore, holidays have become cumbersome and a burden.

Today I made my grocery list. After 33 years, all of a sudden my sisters have decided to have Thanksgiving at my dad's. Was I copied on the email discussing this? Nope. All of a sudden I receive an email with the final facts and who is bringing what. Did anyone remember I have a wheat allergy and eat gluten-free? Nope. There is nothing on the list I can eat. My father calls me today and asks me how many he is to expect at his house. I stated I don't know. I didn't plan it. He said well the place where he was to get the pulled pork has been closed. The guy who owns it has been in ill health and he thinks it is now closed. He wanted to know if I thought it was okay to change where he got the pulled pork and to remind him how many were coming. I said I didn't know but would call one sister who was doing the organizing. So I did. I got yelled at for interfering. I said fine and handle it and hung up.

So I get a phone call back from my father. I told him to call my one sister and she had stated that you and her had talked last night and according to her, discussed everything and therefore for me to butt out. So I am butting out. Call her.

Why does this happen? Why are there people who ruin the holiday for others? But better yet, why am I allowing them to upset my plans and me?

Just last week I said to see the positive in the negative. I know this is a test. I just don't know the answer yet. All I want to do is do what I had planned and not even go to my dad's. I don't need this aggravation.

Is this what holidays become after one grows older? Why do all I see is more work?

So I will leave this post and find my positive. Wish I could make the turkey and do what Maxine suggests and stuff it with Prozac!

Inspirational Sunday - Turning Negative Thoughts into Positive Ones

I read this yesterday at a really great website http://greatday.com/:

Put your heart in what you do

If you’re making excuses for failure, it probably means you don’t really want to succeed. When you’re focused on what’s holding you back, it may mean that your heart is not really in the effort to move forward.

Instead of seeking to explain your failures, take an honest look at your intentions. Is there something else you could be doing that would inspire you toward a more positive and effective focus?

The obstacles you face may not be your fault. Yet when you promote and defend them, you give them more power than ever.

When you find yourself sabotaging your own efforts in this way, it’s time to reconsider those efforts. Either find a way to positively invest in what you’re doing or find a way to move on.

You have the power to make things happen and to succeed in the face of even the most difficult obstacles. To fully access that power, you must be doing what truly matters to you.

Instead of finding new excuses for your failures, look for new reasons to succeed. Truly put your heart in what you do, and what you do will do great.

— Ralph Marston

I don't know about any of you but I talk to myself all the time. I plan out conversations in my head that I will never end up having. I write letters to people in my journal I have no intention of ever mailing. Why?

I call it keeping a log of my positive and negative mental chatter. I will state that I don't always remember what some of the conversations I have with myself or all of the details since I only journal write at night, but I do try to remember the why and what was going on that I even needed to have the mental chatter.

For those of you who don't know what mental chatter is, I define it as talking to myself in my own head and it never goes out my mouth. I am sure everyone does it. I can't be the only one. I mean how many of you sit and think to yourself "What a horrible outfit!" or "What nasty breath she/he has!" or "Do they even have a clue as to how they look when they are sitting like that?" Mental chatter would also be trying to explain in 50 different ways how Medicare works and why a patient owes a bill and I am thinking of other ways to try to get it through to someone.

But by writing down that mental chatter, what I found interesting was how many times I beat myself up during the day, how inadequate I sometimes felt, how critical sometimes I am of others. I would also write down my positive thoughts of the day and then compare those positive thoughts to how many thoughts thoughts I had during the day. I then try to change that emotion that accompanies that negative thought with a positive one and it becomes my 'thing to do' for the day. Once it becomes a habit, I usually won't see it in my journal anymore.

But as Ralph Marston says, putting your heart in what you do or say makes you a better person. I have found that if I change my mental chatter, it works. Now I will say that there are times I just need to write that letter or have that mental chatter to let the negative emotion attached to that chatter out. I find I am less angry or have less negative thoughts and I have turned those negative thoughts into positive ones. It is my way of blowing off steam.

Inspirational Sunday - Bucket List

Until recently I didn't know what a 'Bucket List' was. I found out it is supposed to be a list of all those things you swear you are going to do before you die. There are numerous ideas on the internet about where the term comes from.

I found out what it meant after someone asked me what kind of things were on mine. I asked for a definition - yep, white and clueless once again.

Even thinking on it and perusing the internet at various sites for ideas, none appealed to me....which got me to thinking.

Do people live their lives always craving or wanting more than what they have. Is this a bucket list - a list of things they just have to do.

Why don't I have anything?

I have determined that the reason is because I am happy with my life as it is. Do I strive to be a better person? Sure do but it doesn't involve making sure I see Italy before I die although I would like to one day. It doesn't involve me crossing anything off my list to do before I die. I take each day as they come and enjoy every single moment in life. Yes, even those days I fight with my husband.

I guess my bucket list would only include then the following:
1. I want to say when I die that I lived my life my way. That every single moment was lived in the spirit of God within me.
2. I would like those I love and even those I don't, to live in the spirit of God so that we might meet one day.

Other than that, there is not a thing I can think of.

I like me as I am.