I like cats and dogs. We have a dog. H is name is Lucky. I like to play with him. We play tug of war.
He likes it too! Ashleigh
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Have you ever had a day where you feel so sluggish and like you've done NOTHING? I certainly have, and it feels awful when it happens to me. I get down in the dumps, grouchy and all in ll quite unpleasant to be around when I feel like I've done nothing... but I've found a solution. In order to get yourself out of a bad mood... you need only clean! Even if it's something small, if it makes a noticeable difference TO YOU, you'll automatically feel better about yourself for accomplishing something.
For example- this morning, my Grandma wasn't feeling good, so I was helping a lot in the kitchen. I did the dishes, unloaded the dishwasher, helped prepare breakfast for everyone, cleaned the counter and reloaded the dishwasher. Let me tell you... watching a pig-sty kitchen get clean is one of the most satisfying feelings ever when you are in a foul mood. I felt much better knowing that I cleaned up AND also that I helped my grandma when she was feeling sick. It occupied me for a bit, got me on my feet, made me feel better... and all while teaching me essential skills I will need when I grow up and have my own family. I am going to need to know how to cook, clean, do laundry, make beds, AND teach younger children... I also helped my little sister with some of her homework and after I finish this post, will continue to do so. Next, I have to go help her get dressed. Then, I'll help her finish her blog post and then we will go out for a quick walk down the driveway before lunch. I already have my coding, blogging, and 1/2 of my math done for the day, so it should be plausible. Well, I have to go now... so until tomorrow, Maddie We all have pictures of ourselves in our mind's eye. It can be very hard to break away from these mental pictures even when the reality is different. It can be done, however. Here is a personal example. I am an introvert. I like to spend time alone, and while I do like to get out and about people, I have a tendency to do it in small doses. Even so, many people I know consider me an extrovert. In fact, some of my closer friends laugh if I say I am an introvert.
The reason most people don't realize I am an introvert, is because I don't like to be perceived as one, so I began to act as if I was an extrovert. When I was younger, I was so afraid that people would think I was backward if I didn't keep up my end of the conversation, that I forced myself to talk with people so that they wouldn't feel awkward. I have done this for so many years now, that I can talk easily to anyone I meet and I will usually try to get them to smile. Funny, even while I am doing it, I sometimes still wonder if I am coming off as awkward. The power of the mind is a strange thing! I find I can use my mental picture of myself for change in other ways as well. Take karate for example. There are some kicks that I can do well that I really shouldn't be able to do. The main difference is that before I even tried those kicks, I said to myself that they looked easy and that I should be able to do them. I then practiced them until I could do them. For those of you who don't know me, I am forty-nine, I am about sixty pounds overweight (although I am losing weight) and I can do nearly every type of kick to head level (straight kicks, roundhouse kicks, sidekicks crescent kicks and spinning hook kicks). When people first look at me, few expect me to be able to kick them in the head. So, how do you picture yourself? Take a card and write down ten things about how you perceive yourself. Be honest! Now look at your list. Are there any negative pictures there? If there are, these are areas that you should actively work to change! Are you depressed? What would make you happy? jot it down! Now, what steps would you have to take to reach happiness? Are you unhappy because you are bored? Then what could you do to alleviate the boredom? Maybe you always wanted to learn how to play the guitar, but just didn't have the time. Why not schedule a few minutes each day to learn a chord? Do you want to be able to speak fluid french? Try talking out loud for a few minutes each day...or write a sentence you would like to know how to say in English and then have google translate the sentence into french. Then practice saying that sentence! Each of these exercise would only take a couple of minutes each day, but at the end of six weeks you will A. be able to play a new song on your guitar and B. be able to say a few things in french! James Altucher says to try to find a way to make yourself 1% better each day in anything that you want to improve. One day you might work on improving your health, another day you might work on your humility. The point is, it doesn't matter what you work on, as long as you are actually trying to improve. He targets 1% because he doesn't like to feel pressured and put unrealistic expectations on his improvements. He figures that if he can improve 1% a day, then by the end of the year he will be that much better of a person or that much happier. The true point of the exercise is to only focus on improving, and actually thinking of ways to incorporate those positive changes into your life. So, who are you? What changes can you make to your internal picture to improve your life? And what steps are you willing to take to make yourself happier? For me, I am trying to lose some weight...I want to make my spinning hook kick into a knockout weapon. I want to treat everyone I meet with kindness, and I want to make sure my daughters know I love them very much and will always try to help them to reach their own version of happiness. Fishing season is coming! I like to catch fish. We fish at the lake. Fishing is fun
Ashleigh I've noticed that everyone has a certain routine they follow throughout the day... whether they realize it or not, I do not know, but I have noticed it mainly because my dog has a very uniformed routine. Dogs are creatures of habit, even more-so than humans and actually get very upset if their schedule gets changed. My dog is epileptic, and major switches in his routine can actually trigger seizures. Because of this, everyone in the family makes and effort to keep his day on track by feeding him and rewarding him at the proper times.
I've noticed that if my dog's schedule DOES get changed, even a slight bit (such as not getting treats from my Dad at breakfast), he will tend to mope around for a few hours because he feels forgotten. Extremely large changes, such as my Dad leaving for the day, DO trigger seizures. Indeed, I can stand to say that humans are similar in this regard... we tend to react on one of the two extremes. Our change of routine either causes us to be extremely happy, or extremely down. For example... my change of schedule recently has given me more time. I have been finishing my homework earlier, which opens up the rest of my day. Good change, right? Wrong. While this opens up my day... I have nothing to do with it. I seldom enjoy going out, albeit for shopping with my family and I'd much rather just stay home in bed. All my friends are usually in school until about 3:30, so from about 11:30 until then, I have nothing to do. Video games have began to bore me, my sister usually is still doing her homework, and my Dad is busy with work. So while getting my work done leaves me time during the night to socialize, it also leaves me quite lonely and in a way, depressed during the day. I don't know... how do you react when your schedule changes? What happens to you? Also, how do you occupy yourself when you have nothing to do??? Let me know... it would be appreciated. Maddie My name is Ashleigh. I am home schooled. I like to do my home work. I try to do my
best. I am learning to read. When I do my work well, I get stickers! Ashleigh Yesterday was Easter. For the first time in a long time, we stayed home and celebrated it alone. While we had a good time, I noticed that something seemed to be missing...and that was my sister and brother in law, and the rest of our family! Usually, we go to New Jersey and spend the holidays at my sister's. That wasn't to be this year, though, due to doctor's appointments for my Mom and I and a back injury to my sister.
Although I had fun yesterday, it seemed more like any other weekend. Maddie and I went to church Saturday night, so we slept in on Sunday morning while Ashleigh and Grandma went to mass. After waking, we had a quick lunch, and then I played video games with Maddie for a couple of hours. After that, I spent a few hours playing with Ashleigh in the living room. Barbies, pillow fights and tackles were the order of the day, and after three hours I was ready for a meal and a movie! After dinner, we went up stairs to watch a new Looney Toons DVD the Easter Bunny brought Ashleigh. All of the above was enjoyable, however it didn't really seem like a holiday. The point was driven home this morning when Maddie quoted one of her friends who said "How sad is it that here it is Easter and the three of us are all sitting here playing Xbox." Throughout the day, that is how I felt as well. Not so much that we played Xbox, but that we all just went about our day. None of us were dressed up, and while we all ate our meals together, we do that every day anyway.I also try to play with Ashleigh and Maddie each day as well. All said, I think I have found a new appreciation for holidays that in the past I failed to appreciate. Although the holiday may be held to celebrate some sort of religious day or a "national" day of appreciation, I think what really make the days special is the fact that you get to hang with friends and family that you may not get to see often. Every year runs the risk that some of those people won't be there again to enjoy their company. My wife, my Dad, and my Grandmother all fall into this category. I guess what I am trying to say is, enjoy what you have while you have it. The Xbox will be there tomorrow...a friend or family member may not. Little things can make a big difference. Sometimes it takes a holiday to hammer that fact home. I have been taking an online course through Coursera this month- a course in Curanderismo, which is the traditional way of Mexican healing through herbs and rituals. Since natural cures for illnesses interest me, I thought it would be a fun and easy course that would also give me something interesting. However, the course so far has disappointed me... it is poorly put together, there are flaws in the material and it has no structure.
I re-watched the videos about 5 times, but I found no mention of one of the herbs asked about in the quiz. Thank goodness for Google Search... I had to look up what Valerian was in the timeframe of 30 minutes that was given for the quiz while answering the other questions too. There was also a lack of information about Aloe Vera, which bothered me... thankfully, I can research well and it only affected my score by one point. While the course comes in 3 pieces, this being the first part (Healing of the body), I will NOT be doing the remaining two courses afterwords. The teacher does a poor job of covering the material needed for quizzes, there are NO weekly posts or announcements from the teacher, and the course page in general is poorly structured... there are no moderators or staff working the course forums either, so students are getting more and more confused each day. The whole course is a mess and I can't wait for it to be over. Maddie I like to play with my toys. Some of my toys are stuffed animals .Even my toy Winnie is stuffed. I
play with chalk too. I like to draw on the driveway.Some of my toys are ugly, but I like them anyway. Ashleigh This post is a follow up to my Dad's post from yesterday. Yesterday, he published a post titled "Where Have All The Heroes Gone" and my answer to that is that they HAVEN'T! Society's perspective of what is heroic has just changed so much from the ancient Greek times that what was once considered heroic has been downgraded SO MANY TIMES throughout the years that now, everyone walks around a hero of their own little world.
Everyone seems to have their own standards now... the world does not work in synchronization at all. While one person may consider, say, a military general responsible for many great victories to be a hero, another person will consider a soldier who barely did anything whatsoever in the war besides leave his house a hero. A hero to me is not someone who is brave for the sake of being brave... but someone who is selfless and kindhearted. Someone who is willing to make sacrifices for others NOT for publicity or for special attention, but out of the kindness of their heart. For example... not on engineer made it off the Titanic alive. When the ship hit the iceberg, the engineers were given a choice to abandon their jobs, which would have led to a faster death of everyone else on the ship... or to stay a keep at their jobs. The engineers kept working even though the ship was sinking... preventing explosions in the control room and keeping the ship lighted. Thanks to their act of selflessness, they saved hundreds of lives. Another bit of selflessness? A group of elderly men and women have lined up to volunteer cleaning out a contaminated nuclear plant in Fukushima.. simply because they believe that they have lived full and complete lives and don't want to risk the lives of their children. There is a high chance of poisoning and death, but they are doing it nonetheless for the sake of their families and their futures. THOSE people and people similar are true heroes. Not always does something have to be a feat of strength to be considered heroic... some people are heroes just by being kind. Maddie Today I have a day off, and it's nice. I had a physical therapy session at 8:00 which was better than I thought. The guy actually did a better job of explaining what was wrong with my knee and why surgery wasn't my best option than either of my two doctors have been able to do.
So now I have a bunch of new exercises to do daily. I don't mind. I like to exercise anyway, and at least these exercises are designed to build the muscles I need to return some stability to my knee. I will add them to my repertoire. As for the rest of my day, I am looking forward to spending it with my daughters. At three o'clock I am heading over to the dump to get rid of our garbage. Then the girls and I are heading out for a couple of hours of fun. There is still snow on the ground up here...about 18 inches, so hiking and the park are both out. Meanwhile, the ice on the lakes have started to melt, but is still too thick to make fishing an option. We will likely end up at Wal-Mart or some other large store where we can walk around. Not the best thing to do, but better than nothing. It has been so long since I have actually had a real day off that I don't know what to do with it actually. Ten minutes to write this post...now what? I think I'll take a nap! Talk to you Monday! You ever notice that the word hero is overused nowadays? In the past, someone like Hercules was considered a hero. I think very few people would argue with that one. Nowadays, everyone seems to be given the hero moniker. Below, are a few definitions of "Hero". This way I don't get a number of nasty comments arguing about semantics.
Can you think of anyone who fits those standards? I can't. People who are paid millions of dollars to hit a ball around or to put it into a goal etc. While these men and women may be good at what they do, I find it hard to call any of them heroic. How about your average run of the mill soldier? While some of these people may come closer to the mark, I still find it hard to call more than a handful of them heroes. A man who is thrown into an extraordinary situation and performs extraordinarily well can be considered a hero. Nowadays, anyone who puts on a uniform seems to be called a hero...regardless of what they did while in that uniform. To me, this cheapens the sacrifices of the real heroes. To me it is the above the norm bravery and extreme performance that defines a hero...not the uniform. If you joined the army and for four years you were a cook at Fort Hood, then you were a soldier, not a hero. There is nothing wrong with that. As there is nothing wrong with doing nearly any job in the military. In fact, performing the ordinary is the fate of 99.5% of the people who join the military. That is your job. If you saw combat, that too, seems to be normal for our military nowadays. Even so, I find it hard to call any of that heroic. Are there any heroes nowadays? While I am sure there are, I can't name any. The media just doesn't give these people the attention they deserve. Instead, they focus on generalities and try to make everyone, including the ordinary into heroes. If you know of any "real" heroes, send me their name and what you believe makes them a hero. If I agree, I'll write a post about them so people can hear their story. Lucky is my dog. He loves to eat! He comes for walks with Maddie and I. He guards our house and us. Lucky is a good dog.
Ashleigh Most people, especially people who are my age... HATE getting up early. All my friends complain about having to get up at 6:30 to get ready for school- but to be honest, I don't really mind it! As long as I eat right when I get up, I'm good to go. I can then get my blogging and coding done quickly, take an early shower, and relax for about 15 minutes before I complete the rest of my homework.
I also get to see the sun as it comes up a bit when I am up this early! Nothing is prettier (in my opinion) than looking out my window in the morning and seeing how everything looks... in New Hampshire, there is beauty to be found everywhere. Even if I attempted to list everything, I wouldn't succeed because I see the simplest things as beautiful... going down to the smallest detail on a flower to the color of the sky at the beginning and end of the day. I am willing to bet that in every place on Earth, there is SOME beauty to be found. Look around where you are right now- If you aren't near a window, leave your computer or phone for a few minutes, go to the nearest window, and look around. It doesn't have to be something big, but try to find something nearby that you find beautiful. Need some help? Look at the sky. Look at the trees if there are any near you, or flowers and plants. Look at water, listen to the noises around you, breathe in the air. Find SOMETHING that speaks to you... and enjoy it. Life is too short for unhappiness and the waste of beauty. Try to enjoy everything around you... no matter how small. Maddie It is April Fool's day today! As a joke, I gave Daddy a brown E! It was so funny!
Ashleigh Ever read a poem and wonder what is going on with the person who wrote it? Me too! My daughter writes a lot of poetry, as did my wife. My daughter's poetry is a mixture of emotional themes that you might expect from a teenager. My wife's poetry had a tendency to run on the dark side. It was/is beautiful poetry...it's just that oftentimes it dealt with her inner demons.
I often wonder what drove my wife to be the way she was. While she had a beautiful soul, she seemed to have trouble seeing that. She also had an unhealthy focus on how she was perceived, both by herself and by others. Many of her early poems seem to convey that she was a little girl caught in a bad situation. Drowning, suffocation, and madness were all written about extensively. Although each time, the theme wasn't about the physical. It would instead focus on the drowning of the spirit or the suffocation of dreams. Oftentimes, she wrote of being visited by the madman at night or of knowing that the madman would return. I don't think my wife meant an actual person when she referred to the madman. I think the madman was a metaphor for addiction. Meanwhile drowning and suffocation seemed to have more to do with her feelings towards family, friends and lovers. Am I right? I don't know. My wife was simple, yet complex. What she spoke about and what she wrote about were often two separate things. One thing that my wife would always say to me that actually came true was that she would die young. In fact, when we first started dating and she was in her early twenties she used to tell me that she would be dead by 38. She died six days after her 38th birthday. Words have power. So where is the justice in this post? There is none. My wife had a beautiful soul, and she had an addiction. She wasn't strong enough to beat it, and she died. I am wifeless and my daughters are motherless. Justice? I think not. God after god has ended up in the dustbin of history. Anyone ever hear of Zeus? Or Jupiter? or Thor? Or any of the hundreds of others? I sometimes wonder if it is our God's turn too. And THAT may be poetic justice! April Fool's Day... important to some, NOT-so-important to others. In my family, the caring level varies... Dad and I typically care more about it, my sister only cares once someone gets her with a prank, and my Grandma doesn't care about it at all... so long as I keep my pranks out of her kitchen. I can't say that I followed that rule this year- I put food coloring in my sister's milk (she's a clean freak) and I also put a concoction of vinegar and salt in my Dad's lemonade.
I tell you, food coloring is THE BEST thing you can have on April Fool's Day. SO MANY OPTIONS! So far, I have dyed the toilet water, a few drinks, some Jell-O and I even put a drop in the cap of my sister's shampoo. I'm probably going to get hell from my Grandma about that one but... worth it. It won't do anything to the shampoo besides give the bubbles some color and it won't mess up my sister's hair at all. There are only a FEW set rules for April Fool's Day in my house... and those rules are as follows: 1) NO dangerous pranks (involving sharp objects, chemicals, poison etc.) 2) NO tampering with Dad's food... everyone else's food is fair game though ;p 3) NO messy jokes... water squirting, flour bombs, egging and exploding ANYTHING is off limits. 4) NO messing around with the work computer Apart from that... have fun with April Fool's Day!!! Maddie |
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