Month: September 2019

Happy Birthday Vivienne!!

You are Three! Three!

Happy Birthday Monkey!

You bring us such joy! Your smile and your laugh make us so happy!

You definitely don’t smile all the time, and you have quite a temper when you don’t get your way, lest anyone think you are just a perfect angel, you aren’t. That’s actually good, because as Mommy likes to say, “Perfection is boring, and life is messy”

Speaking of wise sayings— You learned the word “Nana” just in time for her visit !

What a year it has been!

Job changes for both Mommy and Daddy!

We took you to your first Pride Parade, where you charmed everyone and gave out tons of “free sister hugs” to everyone!

You have learned so much in just one year! You are talking and walking and dancing! Yes! Dancing!! Your favourite book is “Green Eggs and Ham” and you love to have us read it to you!

You put on your shirts and dresses ALL by yourself, still working on the shorts and pants, and you are getting closer every day.

You love to play with your stuffed shark and you love the outdoors! You love the outdoors so much, it makes Mommy appreciate it more, which is saying a lot since Mommy doesn’t like the outdoors at all.

You love to swim and you like to run and play!

At the moment, Your favourite color is purple and you are spending a lot of time coloring, you love to color!

You watch movies with Mommy too!

The ones on rotation as of this writing are:

“Coco” “Leap”, and “Meet The Robinsons” and recently, much to Mommy’s delight, you have begun to request “Frogs” which means, “The Princess and The Frog”! (Mom’s favourite, obviously!)

You eat at the table with very little help, and you are so helpful to Mommy and Daddy with the dishes and the laundry!

At night we sing to you and read you books, and tell you,

“We love you, we are proud of you, and you are ours.”

We love to tickle you (Daddy especially) and make you laugh, and each night we send you to bed with these thoughts, “Keep the bad out, and all good things close” (a phrase written by your very talented Aunt Rachel)

and performed by another talented relative, Tio Gab)

It’s the last thing we say to you before kissing and hugging you and sending you off to sleep.

We love you so much and can’t wait to see what the next year brings!

Love,

Mommy

Dear Readers,

This week I discovered that due to my stubbornness and pride I ALMOST cost myself a good chunk of money because I assumed I knew EXACTLY how something worked but come to find out, I was 100% wrong. Don’t you hate that?

Have you ever done that? Made an assumption about how something worked and were 100%, take it to the bank (you would bet money on it) ABSOLUTELY SURE and it turned out you were wrong?

Well, I did, and it really made me wonder how often I have done that, so I started to look back on past things I was “sure were correct”?and whoo boy, there is a lot of “I was wrong” that I have had to say or to be honest, I SHOULD have said, but was embarrassed and didn’t address it.

I am not going to go through all of them with you, but suffice to say, it’s not a short list and that’s okay because after all, I am only human and so are you, despite our desperate attempt to appear perfect, we truly are not.

I think the 3 most important things a human can say are.

I was wrong.

I don’t know.

Tell me more.

I have a lot of curiosity so the last two are pretty easy, but that first one, boy, oh boy.

So what is my point, you ask?

It’s this.

Be curious, not certain.

I wonder what will happen if I listen instead of say the thing I am sure is true. Is it possible, I could be wrong? Is it possible I have an idea in my head that is wrong, and If I just listen a little longer or ask a question or two, maybe I will learn something new?

Think About It

 

 

Dear Readers,

In tackling any large goal, you might feel a little bit like a Ghostbuster.

The original movie came out 35 years ago so I will let go of the notion that my blog post will “ruin it for you”, and if you have not seen it, you should. It holds up.

For those who don’t know, in the movie, the main characters, The Ghostbusters help to eliminate ghosts from your life and take them away from your home or work so you can ostensibly get on with life or work, whichever has been disturbed by the paranormal.

In a similar fashion, chasing your dreams and goals, (see extraordinary circumstances) you have to “fight” the ghosts of your past, which says, “You’re too late, you should have done this YEARS ago. You’re too old now.”

Perhaps the ghost of your present shows up which says, “You are far too busy to run a marathon/write a book/go back to school,” (insert your big and scary dream you are chasing) “Just go back to doing what you have always done and stop dreaming, this will NEVER get off the ground, trust me”.

The worst of them all, the “ghost” of your future shows up and says, “See I knew you couldn’t do it, have looked into your future and I foresee failure, I know you can’t do this so let me do you a favor and stop you before you start.”

How is this like our boys in gray? Early in the movie, they get fired from their comfortable academia job and it forces them to open their business, which is really thriving until, you guessed it, they hit another roadblock, and  get thrown in jail. Obstacle.

However, they convince the mayor he can sew up re-election with their help and so convinces the City Of New York to stand behind them. Roll credits, right?

Wrong. They go through all that just to get permission to go fight the ghost, and they are cheered on by a throng of crowds as they approach the building containing their enemy. Bolstered by such a strong reception, they prepare to enter and fight. Then the ground underneath their feet cracks open!

—— Hello obstacle——- There you are, waiting in the wings for us to attempt something big (sound familiar?)

As one of my coaches, Jon Acuff says, “Fear only gets loud when you are doing something that matters.”

So, struggling and shaken, they regain their footing and head into the building, only to find they have to now climb many flights of stairs in order to attempt to fight their ghost.

How many times have you avoided doing the research or the necessary phone calls to see “What’s next?” to accomplish the goal? Just me, right? I didn’t think so. Then after you make that call you find out the goal is even farther away then you thought. Obstacle after obstacle, shows up and you feel like giving up.

(Yes, you will feel like giving up)

So then, you climb the “stairs”.

One flight at a time, and then you make it to the top, and you face a creature with red eyes that questions your right to fight.

You have come so far now, and this THING dares to question you, and screams things like, “Who are YOU to run a marathon? Who are you to write a book? Who are you to attempt to do ANYTHING you are scared to do?

Take a deep breath breath, and shout back:

”Who am I? I am amazing, I persevere through hardship and will not be stopped by the likes of you, FEAR! I am beautiful, strong, and talented and am NOT afraid of you as much as I want to achieve my goal, so SHUT UP and SIT DOWN and WATCH.

Think About It.

Dear Readers,

Last week, my Papa Joe passed away. He lost battle with Stage 4 Brain Cancer. As he put it in his own inimitable fashion-

“I’ve lived 80 years at 60 mph and now I am maybe 5 mph.  Not so bad. “

He was beloved by many and to say he will be sorely missed is a gross understatement.

Grief is a really strange thing because when I saw him a few weeks ago, It didn’t really hit me that I was seeing him on his last days. I mean I knew it, but I didn’t really KNOW it. I hadn’t cried or really grieved because as silly as it sounds now, I expected him to live, and thrive.

I actually kept hoping against all the facts and evidence he was going to rally and live.

He gave me the nickname “Sunshine” due to my unstoppable levels of optimism.

The downside of relentless optimism and positivity is that the crash when it “doesn’t work out” is so much harder to come back from because “you were SO SURE” it was going to work out for the best.

So then, you don’t get that job, or part you were “speaking into existence” and then you have to deal with the aftermath.

However, I am not planning to give on my “sunshine” outlook any time soon.

So, this post is titled, What are you WAITING for? because I think when someone dies be it suddenly or slowly, we owe it to ourselves to STOP wasting our only non renewable resource. TIME.

Put another way, what are you “waiting for” to start living?

I do this too, I say, “when we have a little more money” or “when our daughter is a little older” or  “when I get in better shape”

No more. I kept saying, “we will go see Papa Joe” in a year when we have more time or more money.

As it turned out, I made the time and the money when I found out things were so dire.

Just two months ago, we were having one of our “everything and nothing” conversations about my job, and my husband and my speaking (he was one of the first to encourage me in my speaking career) and now he is gone.

He will never call me “Sunshine” again. He will never have “further words” with me.

I implore you.

STOP WAITING for the perfect moment and seize “this” moment.

Think About It.