Today’s Challenge: Get ready to vote. Learn what you need to know so you can make an informed decision next week.
I can see both sides to every issue, but I want less government and more self-governing freedom. Because I’ve been to many other countries, and I lived in a socialized country off and on for several years, I know how incredibly lucky I am to have been born and raised in the United States. As always, I’m excited to vote! 🙂
Today’s Challenge: Make a decision about your life and then go for it!
Most of you know we have two dogs now and we’re trying to make a decision on whether or not to keep Marek. We have 3 more days to decide. This decision is entirely up to my man. I didn’t want another dog. As much as I love all animals, I was looking forward to a little more freedom. I just lost my cat of 18 years (who needed a lot of care and attention the last year of her life) and I still have my wonderful 8 1/2 year old pug who is very easy to have around. Marek is 2 1/2 and the most amazing dog. I do love him but our lives have just become more chaotic, and we are living in limbo. We haven’t two-dog-proofed our home, we haven’t really done anything to make me believe we are keeping him. On the other hand, I see no signs pointing to us getting rid of him either. THIS DRIVES ME CRAZY! I have asked my man and he just says, “I change my mind every day.” I assure him that we can keep Marek and we’ll make it work. But he just can’t make up his mind. He has this deadline because there is somebody patiently waiting to make Marek her own wonderful new dog. If this was up to me, I wouldn’t have brought Marek home unless I was sure I wanted him for life–That’s how I roll. And at this point, we know he’s a great dog, a little too playful/wanting to be dominant with our pug, and our lives are crazy and chaotic now, but it’s all manageable. SO PLEASE MAKE A DECISION!!! If we keep him, we’ll two-dog-proof our home and move forward. If we decide to give him to his new owner, we can make that happen and move forward. Living in limbo sucks. Making other people live in limbo sucks. I like moving forward. I like to make decisions, right or wrong, and move forward with that choice… making a decision makes life so much easier. 🙂
Today’s Challenge: Turn bad choices into life gifts.
I went to see Oprah on Friday night–I skipped the rest of the tour, because I really just wanted to see Oprah. She spoke for almost two hours about her life. I feel blessed that I was able to experience this amazing woman live. Although I had heard some of her life stories before, I love the reminder that when bad things happen to us, our lives often move in a better direction. This has happened to me many times… and even if I don’t see the positive in the experience right away, I know deep down that there is a lesson for me to learn. I wrote about this many years ago in my first novel, The Gentlemen’s Club: A Story for All Women. Angie, went through some hard times of homelessness and being assaulted on a bus, but she always knew that with every bad experience, something good was at work. These two experiences of Angie’s, were actually my experiences, and I’ve had many more… the one I thought about yesterday, was when I was in seventh grade, I spent the night with a friend whose father had a cupboard full of hard liquor. We thought it would be a brilliant idea to drink some, but because it was my first experience with hard booze, I over did it and became very sick, unconscious. Long story short, ever since that night, I’ve never liked hard liquor, or mixed drinks. I consider this to be an amazing gift. Don’t get me wrong, in my early twenties, I loved to drink and go crazy and have fun with my friends, but I only drank beer and I kept track of the bottles so I wouldn’t get drunk, unless of course that was the goal. 🙂 These days, I don’t drink at all. I’ve had too many people I love hurt by alcohol so I’ve just decided to skip it all together, besides, I’m a hell of a designated driver!
Today’s Challenge: Have an amazing weekend. Stay warm, safe and happy! 🙂
Today’s Challenge: If you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all.
Remember this old saying? I still love and try to follow the wonderful advice.
During times when I’m not feeling good about myself or I’m not happy in my life, it is harder to follow today’s challenge.
In person, this rule is easy–I never want to intentionally say something hurtful to other people. But I’ve noticed that sometimes I make comments about people on TV, usually reporters–the news is about all I watch these days. “I think she has extensions.” or “His nose is crooked.” I mean really, who the hell do I think I am? Probably jealous! 🙂
And occasionally I’ll make a comment about somebody I’ve talked to over the phone–mainly just to vent my own frustrations. And in truth, it is probably lack of control… these people are not doing things the way I think things should be done! LOL
I don’t like put downs or negativity, especially when it comes from me. I don’t like how it feels in my body. I don’t like how I feel when I make a negative comment about somebody out loud.
It is so true that like attracts like. When I’m feeling good and happy about the direction of my life, everybody around me is awesome, beautiful, capable, smart, talented, brave…. and I’m blessed. But when I’m not thrilled in my life or having a bad week, I’m just not so sure the people around me are all that great either! LOL
So I’m going to try to count my blessings everyday, focus only on the good qualities of the people around me, and stick to today’s challenge for the rest of my life. 🙂
Today’s Challenge: Realize that sometimes it’s just not a good idea to talk.
Monday I had a full day of stressful work, and I didn’t even get to the halfway mark when my man came home. He came in all chipper and said, “I gave you the whole day to work. You must be all caught up now. You have to feel great!” Of course that’s not how I was feeling at all. I was disappointed in myself for not achieving my goal, I was fighting a headache, and I was stressed. He asked me about my day and as I started to tell him, I could feel my tension building. I was becoming angry for no real reason, and I felt like I was angry at him. But then suddenly my gut told me to stop talking. “… Honey, I really don’t want to talk about work tonight.” And he said, “I don’t either.” We quickly merged into talking about other things, holding hands, and enjoying the rest of the night. It’s funny how I could have been a big crab-ass that night, but by me just listening to my gut, and deciding not to share my day, I had a wonderful night with my man. 🙂
Today’s Challenge: Don’t always trust nature or time to figure things out.
Most of the time we have to step in and take control of our destiny.
About Marek, (possibly) our new German Shepherd and Shorty, our Pug… Back Home But Missing the German Shepherd The German Shepherd is almost 3 and still wants to play. Our Pug is almost 9 and doesn’t want to play… or at least not as rough as an 85 pound young dog.
Most of my dog-loving, dog-owning family and friends keep telling me to “leave them alone, let them play. They’ll figure it out.” But because my Pug has been attacked in the past, I’m over protective. I don’t want Shorty to EVER get attacked again. So, yes, I was a little annoyed that people were so annoyed with me over my constant watch over both of the dogs. After a few days of all of us being together, we (the humans) started to believe what others were telling us “leave them alone, let them play. They’ll figure it out” and so we did. The playing got rougher and Shorty started to go after Marek to put him in his place. I didn’t like what was happening at all… it felt like the tension was escalating. I felt like I wasn’t protecting my baby from the bully.
My man is good friends with an amazing professional dog trainer, so we took Marek to his place so we could do some work with him. We spent a couple of hours, and I asked a lot of questions. He told me that we shouldn’t let Marek touch Shorty. “You don’t let dogs figure it out, we figure it out for them. We make the rules, they don’t.” He also told us that Marek was trying to show dominance over Shorty and that was not good. Just as I had suspected, Marek was being a bully.
We quickly put an end to the “playing.” Marek can’t put his paw on her back or try to nibble on her feet. Marek is not allowed to touch Shorty.
Oh, what a difference! I feel good about this! Shorty is protected. Marek is learning boundaries. And we now live in a much happier home… together. 🙂
Today’s Challenge: Research the President who was in office the year you were born.
I was curious this weekend so I did a little research on the President who was in office the year I was born and what was happening in the world at that time. Not only did I learn something new, I exercised my brain a little over the weekend. 🙂
Today’s Challenge: Don’t drink and drive, and discourage others from drinking and driving.
Years ago, when I was in my early twenties, I made the mistake of drinking and driving. I had been at a party with friends when I realized I had forgotten something at home. I was about a mile from my apartment so I made the dumb mistake of getting in my car after drinking a couple of beers. Feeling invincible, I raced home. It wasn’t until I was in my apartment parking lot that I realized a cop was parked behind me with his red and blue lights flashing. Then my life flashed in front of me–I thought I had just ruined my life. I was scared. Not so cocky anymore. I admitted to the cop that I had been drinking, and so I had to do the sobriety and breath test. I’m pretty sure I passed both, but I assured him I’d never drink and drive again and I would stay home the rest of the night–I wouldn’t go back to the party. He never did tell me if I passed or failed, but he did lecture me the way a father might. That night I stayed home feeling blessed for the important lesson, and I vowed that I would never again drink and drive. All these years later, I have kept that promise. 🙂
Miles in America 