Living Your Life

Looking For Serenity

April 16th, 2012
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Resilience is having the ability to bend with change and when I am working on building emotional resilience within myself, I am reminded of Reinhold Niebuhr’s famous serenity prayer:

God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference.

I have found it best to start in small ways.  Almost every day, I try to examine what has happened and why.  Not in an overly analytical way, but in a way that makes me more aware of my responses and behaviors.  One way … Read More

Happiness Is A Choice

April 13th, 2012
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Today’s post is a continution of yesterday’s chat about life being easier to navigate when you embrace a positive attitude.  As the below story says, happiness is a choice, and you can practice it as much as you want!! A very good friend sent me this story that was recently published in a British newspaper called The Guardian.  It gently addresses the thoughts of people who know they are at the end of their lives and talk about what they wish they had done a little more.  The story is timely because it gets right to the core of addressing… Read More

Being Positive

April 12th, 2012
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My son came home from college for a brief Easter break and happily it caused a shift in my outlook. For me, the take away message of his visit is all about the importance of having a positive attitude.  Maybe it’s young energy or maybe it’s because he has a smaller plate of responsibilities than I do but my son has a wonderful tendency to find happiness in many things.  Just by being around him, I am reminded that being positive makes living a lot easier. Do you think that sounds obvious?  Maybe so.  But if being positive is so… Read More

Spring Into Action

April 9th, 2012
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I hope everyone had a beautiful Easter and Passover celebration!   This wonderful quote that I found on The Silver Pen (www.thesilverpen.com) says it all don’t you think?   Let’s go for it!!… Read More

A Postcard From The Beach

April 6th, 2012
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In my purse I carry a post card that my husband sent to one of his oldest friends when we were on one of our annual family vacations at Bethany Beach.  He wrote some silly note about the beach, the kind of message that someone writes when they know everyone at the post office will read it but you don’t care because you’re at the beach!! The wife of my husband’s friend recently gave the postcard back to me after my husband died and for some reason, just having that post card in my purse makes me feel connected to… Read More

Calgon, Take Me Away

April 5th, 2012
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The world around us can be dynamic and sometimes intense. If channeled in a positive direction, being around people who are intense and dynamic or situations that are dynamic and intense can be a good thing; even a great thing.  It can be the fuel that gets the creative juices started and sometimes can bring about breakthroughs or solutions in otherwise stuck situations. But if you are already feeling overloaded or overwhelmed by being the single parent (either widowed or divorced) who works full-time, takes care of the house, the children and the finances, then maybe for your own sake… Read More

Emmylou Harris

April 2nd, 2012
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Emmylou Harris Happy Birthday Emmylou Harris!!  The Grammy-winning singer songwriter turns 65 today and I thought it would be appropriate to share one of my favorite songs that she wrote with another Grammy-winner, Bill Danoff. The song, Boulder to Birmingham, recounts her feelings of grief in the years following the death of country rock star and mentor Gram Parsons.  Danoff also recorded the song with his group, Starland Vocal Band, on their self-titled debut album. It is a beautiful, haunting song.  I think we all can identify with that feeling of doing anything, even walking from Boulder to Birmingham, to… Read More

Fab Friday

March 30th, 2012
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It’s Fabulous Friday!! It’s hard to believe that this is the last weekend in March! I’m ready for the weekend and I hope you are too!! Go for it!!… Read More

Electronic Meltdown

March 29th, 2012
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Yesterday was a day from electronic hell.  Every time I turned around some piece of equipment in my office needed attention. Has this ever happened to you?  Don’t you just hate it when computers, cell phones, blackberries and xerox machines misbehave? I don’t consider myself a tekie kind of person at all and I don’t feel any desire to stand in line when I know Apple is going to be selling a new iPhone or a new iPad.  I am open to learning new things about electronic devices but I’m not very happy about it.  I’m of the mind that… Read More