I just read Biscuit and baby, and I liked it very much. The story is about Biscuit
meeting the family's new baby for the first time. Biscuit is curious about the baby. He finds the baby's rattle and bunny and wants to bring it to the baby. The baby is sleeping until Biscuit wakes her up. He then finally gets to meet the baby. Ashleigh
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I just read " I Am Lost". The story is about a little puppy that gets lost while chasing a leaf . When he got lost he was frightened and sad. He is saved when he walks up to a police officer. The officer reads the address on his collar and takes him home. I liked the book very much.
Ashleigh I just read my second book, Biscuit Wins A prize. It is about a puppy, Biscuit and a little
girl. They go to a pet show. Biscuit sees two of his friends, Sam and Puddles. Biscuit ran away to visit the other animals. He won first prize for being the friendliest pet! Ashleigh I read, my first book today! It was " Biscuit's Day at the Farm "by Alyssa Satin Capucilli.
The story is about Biscuit, a puppy, who goes to visit a farm. He helps to feed the animals. They feed chickens, goats, sheep and pigs. A piglet likes Biscuit and follows him around the barn yard.They both run back to the pig pen when a flock of geese scare them. I am excited that I read my first book! Ashleigh I just read an article that said that every good writer has an emotional anchor...something deeply personal that happened to them that they can tie their work to. By having that anchor to ground them, they can then go crazy and really write about anything, because they will always have that deeply personal experience to pull them back to reality.
I disagree. While I am sure everyone has something deeply personal that has impacted their lives, I think the anchor just works to hold you back. It stops you from reaching your full potential through fear, or sadness or both. To really move forward in life, or to write something different you need to cut the chain to the anchor as best you can. You want no distractions as you ride the stormy seas of life and write about them. In my life, my wife's death is my anchor. It numbed me, and made it very hard to get anything accomplished. My daughters were the winds in my sail, however. My daughters needed me to be functional. I couldn't just sit down and allow life to pass me by. The girls needed a father who could provide a stable home and an atmosphere of hope. These things can't be accomplished while living in the past. Each day, I focused on doing the little things that needed to be done to make sure my daughters were taken care of properly. The more I focused on getting these little things accomplished, the more I returned to the land of the living. The anchor had been attached to my ankle and had been pulling me under. My daughters were the lifeboat that offered me the opportunity to live on and travel to another place. As I battled on to reach the lifeboat, I found that my struggle became less and less. The anchor was shrinking as I got closer to my goal. Today, my anchor is pocket sized. My life is once again moving forward. I enjoy helping my daughters to learn and to grow and new horizons surround me. In the end, no one's journey through life needs an anchor. It is very hard to move ahead when you have an anchor set. Instead, Instead, we need a compass. An underlying belief that will help us to make decisions about where we are going with our lives. No one's life should be without direction. My wife used to say she liked to "go with the flow". Life is a gigantic ocean, but sometimes setting yourself adrift with the currents will still crash you on the rocks. It did that with my wife's journey. No going with the flow for me! I've used my moral compass to set my goals and while my life ship will occasionally approach the rocks, I have so far been successful in eventually turning my ship away from the danger. An emotional anchor, or a moral compass...which would you rather have? For me, I'll take the compass any day. Yes, that is a quote by Diogenes. I am in a quirky mood tonight and I thought I'd touch upon a quote that speaks a lot of truth. You see, to quote an old tune by the Main Ingredient, "Everybody plays the fool, sometimes...there is no exception to the rule."
I don't care how smart you think you are, there is always someone out there who is smarter than you in one aspect or another. And there's nothing to be ashamed of in this situation. No one can be an expert at everything. The trick in life is to find the one thing in life that you enjoy AND excel at and then become an expert at that. For some people, this can lead to multiple things that they excel at...Think of Michael Jordan, he is a hall of fame basketball player who when he retired then went on to play professional baseball. Does it matter that he wasn't the greatest at playing baseball? Not in the least! He was still skilled enough to play the game at the professional level. We are all good at some things and bad at others. For me, my main nemesis is calculus and guitars. I can't do either really well, although I like to try to play guitar. Meanwhile, I excel at stock analysis, writing and explaining things. Given my job involves all three of those things, and I am also home schooling my daughter, I'd say I am chasing the right things. Sometimes the distance between being wise and being a fool can be found in the decisions that we make. Ever do something that seemed to make a lot of sense to you at the time, but then ended up being a really bad idea in hindsight. Sure you have. It has happened to all of us at one time or another. I chalk those decisions up to hubris. When you think you know more on a subject than you really do, and are too proud to ask for guidance. Although I try to limit my poor decisions that are due to hubris, I still find that they slip in sometimes. Sometimes the distance between being wise and being a fool can be found in the decisions that we make. Finally, I think one of the best ways to avoid playing the fool, is to develop the habit of asking good questions. What is a good question? You might ask? Good question! A good question is one where you expect the answer to tell you something that you otherwise don't know the answer to. No question is a bad question if you truly do not know the answer. In the future, don't play the fool. If you don't know the answer to something, and you suspect the person you are talking to does, then ask the question! That way, you learn something and have less of a chance of playing the fool. I chose this quote because I think that my dad will like it. Why do I think this? Because one of the most important lessons that my Dad tries to teach my sister and I is to think. To use our heads. To use logic. To be imaginative and curious yet still keep our heads about us. One of the main things my dad hates about the public school system is the fact that you are trained to simply remember information- and then forget it when the test or quiz is over. Not to think about or absorb the information, but just to remember to forget.
It is due to the power of being able to actually think that I remember so many small little tidbits. Nothing is coming to my mind as of right now, but- if you mention a subject I know about... I can still talk relatively fluently about it, even if I learned about it years ago. I thank my Dad for this- he is very open and easy to talk to, so should I ever need help (especially with philosophy- MAN our philosophy talks are the best) he is more than willing to talk with me until I fully understand what's going on, or what needs work. He has taught me to KNOW and contemplate what I am reading and to think out the truth for myself; not just based on what I am told. He is the reason I am such a conspiracist; and such an over-thinker. I think about EVERYTHING. Him being an analyst, he has taught me to scrutinize everything and take everything I hear with a grain of salt ON TOP of teaching me to think: a dangerous combo that has given me the ability to see through just about any lie that is told to me. I pride myself on this ability and use it to its full extent. Alright... I think this rant is over... I just highly agree with the quote. Too many people (and I fully blame the public school system for this) read, remember, and forget... but never think about what they are told. They aimlessly follow orders like little worker bees, never thinking for themselves. Very few think. Don't follow the crowd. Be yourself. And think for yourself. Maddie I am going to be taking swimming lessons. It is going to be fun! I will need to wear a
swimsuit. It is in a big pool in New Ipswich. I am very excited! I can't wait for it to start. Ashleigh I like to learn about dinosaurs . There are many different kinds of dinosaurs. Some were
very big. And some were small. My favorite type of dinosaur was the Brontosaurus . Just like Littlefoot! Ashleigh "The mind is your greatest weapon"...don't turn it against yourself! Too many people have self doubts. Too many people don't love themselves. Too many people are their own worst critics. And it's sad. While it is healthy to question yourself sometimes, it can hurt you if you do it too much.
It all comes down to the fact that words have power...including the words you say to yourself. If you constantly tell yourself you are not worthy of love, then you will never truly receive it, except from your family members. Then, too, if you constantly tell yourself you are ugly, fat, stupid (fill in the blank), then you are going to begin to feel that way AND act that way. Life is hard enough without a poor self image! What we think of ourselves is a habit. Begin today to change your own self image so that eventually you will habitually think of yourself in a different light. Use your greatest weapon (your mind, if you haven't been paying attention) to help change your self perception. So how do you do it? Good question! And the answer depends on what you want to change. Do you think you are too fat to feel good about yourself? Then come up with a plan to lose weight! Picture what you would have to do to lose weight and then start doing it! As you do, create a new internal dialog for yourself...I am a person who eats healthily and avoids processed foods and snacks. Each day, wake up and think, I enjoy eating healthy foods, and then do so! Think about what a person who eats healthily would want to eat...and then eat it! The more you actually do what you think about, the more your self image will change! It's hard to look at yourself as fat if you are eating healthily every day and exercising...but it takes time. Doing it once in a while won't change your mind. You need to own the habit. Eat healthy foods, avoid unhealthy things and control your portions. Start a work out routine...and stick to it! After a while, these habits will become a part of you, and you will become toned and lose weight. The more you believe that you are a healthy individual, the less you will "feel" like you are a fat slob. Words have power! That is just one example. Usually, our self image has more than just one negative aspect to it. And they all work together to cripple your self image. Each day, work to improve those negative aspects of your self image just a little bit. Just saying that those negative traits don't exist is not enough! You need to take actions to prove to yourself that those things are not true. Work at it. Try for just a 1% improvement each day on your negative traits and in four months you will have a 100% change in your self image. Your mind will accept the change, if you actually take the steps necessary to change your self image. If you only think about it, and you don't take action, then your mind will never believe the story you are telling it. Take the steps necessary to make the changes, so that your mind knows that it is holding a false picture. Fail to take action, and your mind will fail to see a difference. There is no free lunch in this world. Change your actions to change your mind. It is that simple! The above quote was said by Lao Tzu. I love it. The main point of it is that your mindset truly determines who you are as a person, and what you think often can be shown in your actions. I think that it is quite true too... what you think, you do often tend to say without thinking about. And once you say something, yes, you have said it and people KNOW you have said it, or done it; depending. And once you start something... yes, there is the possibility for it to become a habit. And our habits do define us as people.
However. I'd like to take a moment and classify habits as something COMPLETELY different than addiction. Yes, an addiction is a habit, but it is separate from other habits. It's hard to explain but they are two different things completely. Habits aren't always in your mind, they can be physical and you may not even be aware of them. Addiction, on the other hand, attacks the mind and makes you aware. You may not be aware of your addiction, but it takes a different toll on your mind than a normal habit will. Also- if you're dealing with addiction instead of habit, then this quote is irrelevant. Addiction is a beast; it changes the person who has to deal with it. Too often, the kindest people are not separated from their addiction... and it warps people's views on them. One of my friends' boyfriends had a drug problem and everyone initially told her that he was horrible, bad news, etc. etc. She was actually able to help him over-come the addiction, which he had already started to beat on his own, and she was able to see him as a PERSON and not a walking addiction. The nicest people are often dragged down, left out and forgotten due to this mental state and I absolutely hate it. Not just because I watched my mom be labeled as her illness, but because I just think that it is wrong to judge someone without truly knowing them... at least not based on addiction. The kindest people you will ever meet can be struggling sometimes and I think more people need to realize this. Good night. Maddie I like to do karate. I have classes on Monday and Thursday. I like to run in the beginning
of class and I like to do forms. I know pinion one and two and blocking forms one and two. Ashleigh Every day is a second chance. Yep that sounds great, but it isn't necessarily true. One day, for each of us will not be a second chance because we will never wake up. I think a better quote is "never put off to tomorrow what you can do today".
Whenever I read a quote like the one above I think of my wife. We started dating in July 1999. After dating for a couple of weeks, Sharon opened up to me and told me she was an alcoholic and asked me to help her to quit. It was a good sentiment, but one that she never followed through on. At one point, after we started living together we decided to start diaries. Once she passed away, I read through her diary and kept mine handy for the same time period to see how our outlooks matched up. A lot of her diary at around that time was about lying to me about her drinking and how she didn't "feel" like stopping just yet. I would write about how I thought she was drinking and lying about it on some days, and on how she seemed to be making progress on others. Meanwhile, hers would be about how she snuck out from work to buy a bottle and where she was hiding it. She would mention when she was grabbing a drink etc. etc. She believed she had lots of time to stop her drinking. Well, for her, a second chance was always around the corner, right up until her drinking killed her. My wife had an addiction. She realized this, wanted to stop, but never took sustainable action. It ended up killing her. It's easy to point at my wife and say "well yeah, but that was an extreme case!" But was it really? How many people do you know who are obese and yet do not change their diets or their exercise regiments to get in better shape? How many people do you know who go out most weekends and tie one on? How many people do you know who smoke regularly? All of these are addictions too. And they are very hard to break. Oftentimes, people give up one addiction only to bring another into their life. I will give you a personal example. When I was younger, I drank very heavily. I gave it up to help Sharon stop drinking. Back in college I had given up drinking, but went back to it after a while, because I felt not drinking was hurting my social life (this wasn't necessarily true). By the time I met Sharon, I was drinking out of boredom, and was looking for a reason to quit, since I believed it was a problem for me as well. Right after giving up drinking, I gained a lot of weight. When I started dieting, I noticed that my cigar smoking went from a casual habit of one or two a week to a daily habit. Similar to other "addicts" I was changing from one addictive habit to another. It has taken me years to realize this though. In fact, I just realized this the other day after reading an article about poor eating habits and their similarities to other addictive behaviors. So what are my addictive behaviors now? I am still battling with maintaining a low-carb diet. At the same time, I have added positive behaviors such as working out and push ups to the mix. Working long hours also seems to be a vice that I am driven to do. While working out is positive, I truly believe that I use it as a distraction to help get my dopamine high similar to how drinking, eating, or cigars gave me that high in the past. I notice that others also have their own little addictions going on...whether they want to admit to them or not. In the end, I find that I am always striving to better myself. I find it is best not to put off to tomorrow what I can be doing today. When I fail to keep up with something I am struggling with, I try not to look at it as tomorrow is another chance. That is such whiny bullshit. Instead, I look at it as a chance to better improve on the work I tried to accomplish yesterday. Beating addictions is hard. In my life, I have now beaten two. I have not had a drink since 1999, and I gave up cigars in 2003. To this day, I still get an occasional urge to smoke a cigar! Talk about the power of habit! I am still struggling to cut carbs out of my life. Diabetes runs in my family (as does alcoholism) and the carbs turn to sugar in your bloodstream. Pretzels and coffee rolls seem to be my major downfalls. As for working out and work in general, I will continue to try and work out daily. Meanwhile, it's hard to say how much of my day is work and how much is life. My work day is long, but broken down into many moments. I also home school my daughters during the day and take time to talk and play with them. I also do a lot of extra reading during the day that is only loosely tied to my stocks. I actually enjoy reading about the industries that I cover, so its hard to say how much of the extra reading is directly tied to the stocks I cover specifically. When I cover an industry, I try to become an expert in that industry. So there is a fine line between work and pleasure for me. I have rambled on long enough here. Please note, though, that I don't believe tomorrow is a second chance. Today is what you have, and there is no time better to make a positive change than right now. Because in the end, there will come a day for all of us when tomorrow will never come. Or a day when changing will be too late. Regrets suck. Even so, I think they must suck worse as you give yourself a shot of insulin or while you are relearning to walk after having some of your toes amputated. Or while you lie dying in a coma. Some regrets you have to live with. Some you don't. Try to have the wisdom to know the difference. Places to see, things to do, all within two hours of home! Yesterday, I took a vacation day and had a great time! My daughters and I spent the day visiting museums located within a short distance from our house. Originally, we were going to visit the Polar Caves and Squam Lake Science center in the White Mountains. The radio kept warning about the threat of thunder storms in the Boston area, though, so we changed our plans at the last second so that we instead would visit indoor attractions. While it ended up not raining for the entire day (figures...weathermen are rarely right!), we still had a great time, and I'm glad that we went where we did! Our first stop, after picking up one of Maddie's friends on the way was the McAuliffe-Shepard Discovery Center in Concord, New Hampshire. The Center was made up of two floors of exhibits and a planetarium. We started our visit at the planetarium since its first show of the day, "The Magic Tree House", was designed for younger children. The show was filled with basic information about space and was just right for Ashleigh. The show kept her attention the entire time, and the underlying story helped to keep the information flowing smoothly. Maddie and her friend also seemed to enjoy the show. Afterwards, we walked through the Center's two floors of exhibits. They had a full-size jet fighter on display as well as a replica Gemini space capsule. There were a number of hands-on exhibits including a simulator allowing you to fly the space shuttle, and another that let you try your hand at landing the Apollo 11 lunar lander. Other stations were designed to help explain gravity, mass, and propulsion. Overall, we had a great time, although I think Ashleigh enjoyed the exhibits more than the rest of us. She really liked playing with all of the hands on exhibits. She even tried on a fighter pilot's helmet, which quickly slipped down over her eyes and made for a funny picture. We next drove about an hour to the Mt. Kearsarge Indian Museum in Warner, New Hampshire. We stopped along the way and ate a leisurely lunch at a country kitchen and then drove on to the museum. I think my Mom and I enjoyed the museum more than the girls did. We opted for the guided tour and the tour guide was extremely knowledgeable. Ashleigh was tired, though, and needed to go out to the car for a rest, while Maddie and her friend found that the tour was too slow moving for their taste. About half way through the tour, I was the only one left with the tour from my family so I too left and ran to catch up with the rest of them. Outside of the museum, they had a tepee set up and a nature trail. The girls had a better time on the grounds than they did inside the museum. After about a half an hour of walking around the grounds, we left for our final destination for the day. Our final stop was at the Hood Art Museum in Hanover. The museum is attached to Dartmouth College and is free to get in...you can't beat that! This was Ashleigh's first visit to an art museum and it was funny to see her reaction. It was easy to tell what she liked and didn't like. She didn't seem to be a big fan of modern art. At one point, she said "I do better than that!". After looking at what she was pointing to, I must say that I agreed. Most of her favorites were outdoor scenes similar to the one behind us in the picture. They even had a painting of Mt. Monadnock! One of my favorites was a relief from the Northwest Palace of Ashurnasirpal II at Nimrud. The relief was carved nearly 3,000 years ago! The amount of detail was incredible. Just looking at this piece from a distance doesn't do it justice. When you get up close you can see small details that the artist added that just make you say wow. The toe nails for instance, actually look like toenails! I expected that they would be little square blocks on the end of each toe, but they weren't. They had curvature to them and depth. Where the toe nail attached to the foot, the artist had even chiseled a little deeper to make it look like the nail was actually going under the skin. It was amazing! So lifelike, and yet one of the men is portrayed with wings! Why? what was the artist trying to symbolize with those wings? I'll be the first one to tell you that I am poor at picking up symbolism in art. Even so, I wonder if anyone really can tell us what is going on here. I love history, and I like to look at art. When I can combine the two, it's even better. If anyone can give me a reasonable explanation of why the artist put wings on this guy, please leave me a comment. Inquiring minds would like to know! . In all, I think we all had a great day! We got home around 10:00 at night after grabbing dinner out and dropping Maddie's friend off at her house. "Grades don't measure intelligence and age doesn't define maturity." I think this is something that everyone needs to remember. The other day I met a woman who doesn't like the fact that her daughter knows someone who is older than her. I couldn't tell this from just chatting with her for the two minutes when I met her. I found this out after the fact when my daughter told me that she was upset that her daughter actually knew someone who was of working age.
Making someone hang out with people only their own age seems very limiting to me, particularly when we are talking about teenagers. People mature differently depending on their experiences. To hold someone back just because of their age is just silly.Now, does that mean I think that a thirteen year old should date someone three or four years older than her? Absolutely not. But to just know the person? I don't think that is a crime. I have news for you people, the only place where age is an issue is within the current school system. In the schools, the grades are cordoned off by age, The date you are born is strictly used to say when you start kindergarten. You are then kept in your grade, regardless of how well you are doing. If you get good grades, they don't move you up to where your intelligence level is, No, they tell you you are doing great and keep you in the same grade as others who may not be learning as quickly. Instead of teaching children to achieve all that they can, they hold back learning for some so that all may progress together. No where else in your life are you going to find anything else like this...unless you work a union job of course! In a union, all are paid the same for the same type of work. If you are twice as productive as the next person, you don't get paid any more and they don't get paid any less. Thus, there is no incentive for people to work harder. In home schooling my children, I try to teach them to do their best and to learn at their own pace. instead of cramming their heads full of facts, I try to teach them to think. Sure, they still get a lot of work that involves facts, the curriculum I try to follow is very heavy in math and writing. I also try to keep them up to date with history and science. For the most part, though, I try to give them a lot of subjects that they are interested in. I want them to be interested in learning new things...and writing about what interests them...not so much me. My daughters each have friends that are older and younger than they are. Although Maddie is thirteen, most of her friends are fifteen and sixteen. She has both male and female friends. Later on in life, She will be exposed to people both younger and older than her. Why should it be any different now? To sum up this rant, my daughters are very intelligent, yet neither one of them has ever received a grade. Many of Maddie's friends think she is sixteen or seventeen, until she tells them her age. To put it in perspective, Maddie is smarter and more mature than some of the adults I know. She no longer plays with toys really, and to force her to choose friends her own age would be doing her a disservice. When she meets someone who has similar interests and they become friends, age is one of the last things on her mind. In fact, one of her most recent friends is about a month younger than she is. They are friends because of what they have in common and because they enjoy each other's company...not because they are the same age. I do lots of school work. I am learning how to read. And I do some math as well. This
blog is also part of my schoolwork. I hope you like our blog. Ashleigh I love this quote so much. It's so relevant... for everyone, really. I don't care WHO you are, everyone has gotten caught up in the past or over-thinking the future. The quote is so accurate and truly puts life in perspective. You should enjoy each day for what it is... not what you hope it may become. You never know when your last day will arrive, and it may be far quicker than you expect. Life has a funny way of throwing twists at us when we least expect it. I've learned the "tomorrow may never come" segment of this quote through my mom's sudden death two years ago. We all knew she was sick, but we all thought she could get better and didn't expect her death. It was quite sudden and a very upsetting time for all of us.
As for "yesterday is gone"..? I've also mastered this aspect of the quote. I have an easy time letting go of the past, surprisingly enough, and I've managed to move on past a lot that has happened in my life; including my mother's death. It's an art of letting go, to be honest. Once you learn that the past is the past and there is NOTHING you can do to change it, no matter how much you want to... things get easier. Acceptance is key. You need to take life (and death, for that matter) for what they are. There is no way around it; we all die. It's better to accept the death of loved ones and move on from it. Appreciate them for who they were and how they impacted your life and accept that they are gone. You can't bring them back. While it's going to be painful, it can be gotten over and it is necessary so that you can continue living YOUR life. As for the first part, about enjoying life today... that is the one piece of this quote that I need help with. I too often take life for granted and sometimes fail to notice the small patches of happiness and joy in life. One of my life rules is to always try to find the happiness and beauty in the small things, but sometimes I forget to and I really need to work on that more. My mom had a knack for noticing the beauty in simple things, and she DID pass that gift on to both me and my sister. I just need to learn to use it more. But hey... no one's perfect. We all have aspects of our life to work on, whether they are mentioned in the quote or not. I just happened to like the quote, which is why I wrote about it. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did and hopefully learned something from it. Maddie Did you ever force yourself to do something very difficult because you knew that ultimately, it was the right thing to do? I have. I won't say what it was I did, but I will tell you that right after you do it you get the feeling that you have bit off more than you can chew, and you scramble to make more changes to make your original act work.
From experience, I'll tell you that the complexity of doing the right thing, grows in proportion to the time you have spent doing the wrong thing. I can think of a few simple examples that don't pertain to what is bothering me this morning, but that will allow you to see what I am angling at. Think of the last time you got lost. There comes a point in the trip where you realize that you made a mistake. At that point, did you turn around until you reached the place where you actually made the mistake? Or did you just plow ahead, figuring you would make a new short cut? Well, I just did this one! I was heading to Nashua following directions from Map Quest. I was looking for a specific road and as I was driving, a sign at the side of the road said junction 113 next left. Well, I made the next left and the road looked like an old farm road. My daughter and I both recognized that it didn't seem right, yet I kept plowing along anyway, figuring that I would hit a cross street that would link up with the road I wanted to be on. I mean, come on, the road was supposedly running parallel with where I wanted to go anyway! To make a long story short, the road took me nearly all the way back to where I started from. I ended up adding thirty minutes to my trip going back to the way I usually went to Nashua. The short cut Map Quest promised, actually made my trip longer! There are two ways to look at my mistake. 1. My mistake was looking for a shorter way to go, when I already knew a route that would accomplish my goal. This is the wrong way of looking at it. Man is always looking for short cuts to make his life simpler and save time. Think about the time we save by using cars versus walking? The second way is the correct way to look at my mistake. 2. My mistake was that after realizing that I made a mistake (withing the first 45 seconds of being on the road), I didn't turn around right away and correct it. If I had turned around and looked for the proper turn, I likely would have found it and saved myself 30 minutes. Did I get to my destination? Yes. Did it take me longer than it would have if I had turned around? Yes. The moral here is that pride goeth before a fall. Okay, that was a simple example of what I was talking about. The more I refused to deal with the error I made, the longer it took me to actually get where I wanted to go. This example is not as life altering as what is actually bothering me, though. Here is a better example, yet also not the "thing" I am speaking of. For years I lived an unhealthy life style. I drank heavily, overate and smoked cigars. Deep down, I knew these "choices" were unhealthy, and yet I kept doing them anyway. At one point, I weighed nearly 300 pounds. I gave up drinking in 1999 and smoking cigars in 2003. I started working out in 2006 and watching what I eat in 2010. My weight is now back to the mid 240's, but my goal is 200 pounds, about what I weighed in high school. The sad part is that I realized I was making bad decisions when I was back in college, and yet my response was a half-hearted vow to improve when I was older. The truth of the matter is that the struggle to get back into shape seems to be in direct proportion to the amount of time that I was making bad choices. I drank for a little over twenty years before giving it up. Sixteen years later, I still have a "beer" gut. Sadly (in one sense anyway), I realize now as I near fifty that I am in better shape now, than I was when I was in my early twenties. While that is a good thing, it also points to how far astray I was from a healthy lifestyle back then. Was it hard getting back into shape in my mid 40's? Yes, but it is also rewarding.When you do a hard thing, and it is also the right thing, good things cascade from your decision. My decision to start taking karate with my daughter (which I did for a reason other than to get back into shape) has been a life changer for me. I am in better shape, I have started to make healthier choices in regards to what I eat, it is great stress relief, and I have made a number of very good friends. Sometimes, the hardest thing IS the right thing! My advice: If you have something in front of you that you know is right, but you are afraid to start it because it is hard...start it anyway. I am not moralizing here. I just know from experience that problems just don't go away on their own. In fact, they grow in direct proportion to the amount of time that you ignore them. What is hard for you today, will be harder for you tomorrow after the problem gets larger. Make a habit of doing the right thing now, and you will find that doing the right thing always will be easier for you tomorrow. I am learning to read books. I like books. They help me to learn to read. Some books
have information, and some have stories. I like the books with stories! Ashleigh Today as I scrolled through Facebook, I came across an interesting post that one of my aunts had shared. I found it to be very true and also good advice for many, and I'd like to share it here.
"A psychologist walked around a room while teaching stress management to an audience. As she raised a glass of water, everyone expected they'd be asked the "half empty or half full" question. Instead, with a smile on her face, she inquired: "How heavy is this glass of water?" Answers called out ranged from 8 oz. to 20 oz. She replied, "The absolute weight doesn't matter. It depends on how long I hold it. If I hold it for a minute, it's not a problem. If I hold it for an hour, I'll have an ache in my arm. If I hold it for a day, my arm will feel numb and paralyzed. In each case, the weight of the glass doesn't change, but the longer I hold it, the heavier it becomes." She continued, "The stresses and worries in life are like that glass of water. Think about them for a while and nothing happens. Think about them a bit longer and they begin to hurt. And if you think about them all day long, you will feel paralyzed – incapable of doing anything." Remember to put the glass down." I think this is great. It's an awesome metaphor... and it gives good advice that I think a lot of my friends should follow (hence why I tagged about 15 of them in the comments of the post). Too often, we stress out over the smallest things... and then let the small problems build up and lead into big problems. Big problems tend to cause even more stress, which can lead to longer lasting problems such as depression, anxiety, high blood pressure, migraines and even premature heart attacks. For example... my grandma lets herself get worked up over small and insignificant things. If I leave one piece of laundry on the floor of my room, she flips. If the house doesn't get vacuumed to her standards every week, she gets into a bad mood. These things are so small and so easily fixed, yet she lets them determine her mood for the rest of the day. I often say to pay attention to the little things in life... but I don't mean the little things to make you miserable! If you set large things as what determines if you are happy or not, you are going to lead a sad life. In the end, it all winds down to you and the choices you make. You can wake up in the morning every day and choose to be happy, or choose to be grumpy... which do you choose? I am happy... and I am also happy with my choice. Maddie |
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