Interesting fact I learned yesterday and I thought it was worth sharing on Halloween. (Ok, maybe just interesting to me.)
Remember the Munster’s House?
www.stalkingthebelleepoque.blogspot.com
Remember Desperate Housewives?
www.powsley.blogspot.com
Same house.
I know! Blew my mind too.
Spooky Day To You!!!
If you want to ponder The Munster’s more check this out….The Addams Family vs. The Munsters…Where Would You Live?
When is a pumpkin not a pumpkin? When you drop it; then it’s squash.
What did one Jack-o-lantern say to the other? Cut it out.
I love a good pumpkin and I love the color orange.
Recently we went to a pumpkin patch and I was reminded of this fact–over and over.
What’s the ratio of a pumpkin’s circumference to its diameter? Pumpkin Pi (3.14)
The color psychology of orange is optimistic and uplifting, rejuvenating our spirit. In fact orange is so optimistic and uplifting that we should all find ways to use it in our everyday life, even if it is just an orange colored pen that we use. Orange brings spontaneity and a positive outlook on life and is a great color to use during tough economic times, keeping us motivated and helping us to look on the bright side of life. (Courtesy of www.empower-yourself-with-color-psychology.com)
If you like Orange you’ll LOVE Orange You Glad its 2014? Or Decorating Inspirations with Orange.
I had coffee with a military spouse and longtime friend the other day and we reminisced. I told her how I had been bullied in high school. I only just recently learned to associate “bullying” with what happened to me all those years ago. Girls who thought they were so powerful felt it was ok to shove me down stairs, throw food at me during football games, call me names to my face, and tell made up stories behind my back. All because a boy liked me and not one of them? I’m really not sure. I don’t care and I think they are insignificant. But I think what they did was significant. You see I learned about power. They thought they had it but really they just looked dumb. And all the people that went along with it, well they just looked dumb too. The power laid with me, not them. They could not take my power away. I would not give them power over me. And while it is something I rarely think about, it is an event that defined me, but not my defining moment. I give my mom the power for that one.
Lately I’ve had a lot of people ask me if I can write more about military life. I do write about it. But not the really hard stuff. The really hard stuff is raw, complicated, political, sometimes painful, and most of the time really personal. Oh, but that’s what people want to read about…well just because I can, doesn’t mean I should. And much of the time, it’s not my story to tell. I almost have tunnel vision as I write this as all the life events I’ve experienced as a military spouse come rushing through my mind. Truth is stranger than fiction would be a fitting caption for the movie that is playing through my head coupled with a long, hard journey.
Much of what has happened to me, happened for me. And that gave me power. Power to decide what I would let define me. My being bullied in high school is my story to tell and I’m proud of it. My life as a military spouse is full of defining moments that I’m both proud of and sensitive to. In my head I am the leading character, but I also realize I am not the only character. And that is another example of power, or wisdom.
So just because I can write about military life, doesn’t mean it’s always appropriate that I should. But I will when I can, exercising my power, of course.
Dear Gentle Reader,
My blog did so well the other day it crashed for about 36 hours. It’s like good and bad all rolled into one. I stayed cool, though, (until 10 pm–sorry Audra). I kept telling myself this is an opportunity for change. I’ve been wanting to make changes to my website and this is presenting me with a gentle tickle (at 11 pm it was a brick wall). I’ve been talking about changes and then, not changing. Talking the talk, not doing the walk. Then the excuse part came in. I don’t know HOW to make the changes, I don’t have TIME to make the changes, I don’t want to ask for help to make the changes.
I love self-sabotage. Not the actual act of it but that I now I have a name for it. It’s so good. It’s freeing. You know how you set yourself up for failure and then when you “fail” you totally beat yourself up. For example, yes, you will totally run that 10k race even though it is the morning after New Year’s EVE and you are the one throwing the party for 500 people at your house and you just had open toe surgery on your foot 3 weeks ago and the race is in Alaska. And then you pretty much get carried away in a stretcher at the 1k mark while you curse yourself for being unathletic, out of shape, a total loser…etc… Or, my favorite, you take your two small boys to Target, the dry cleaners, Costco, the Post Office, and a store made entirely out of crystalglassextrabreakableexpensive things that look like toys but aren’t, and they haven’t had lunch or a nap and it’s like, Black Friday and Christmas Eve at the same time and everyone and everything—goes—very—wrong, and then you say, I’m just not patient enough, or not a good enough mom, etc… I mean maybe you are thinking I would never do something that extreme but really? Isn’t it the same as being completely unrealistic about our limitations and then when it doesn’t work out we blame ourselves? Now I have a name for it–self-sabotage. And by having a name for it makes me feel like I’m not the only person who messes up and I can stop myself and say there is a difference between aiming high and just being DUMB.
Another way we, meaning me, self-sabotage ourselves (myself) is to not ask for help. Help is so weak. Help is so passé. Ha.
So last night at 10:30, after the brick wall, I turned on my iPad and opened my iBooks. I’m in the middle of reading Carry On, Warrior by Glennon Doyle Melton and in iBooks when you open the app it opens directly to the page you left off. So imagine my surprise when it opened to an entirely different book that happens to be a devotional that I am not reading, haven’t opened, and was just staring at a few minutes ago THINKING I should open it. I swear this is all true. And imagine my surprise when I start reading the page it opened to and it says, ASK FOR HELP. “All you need to do is ask for help…when the path before you looks easy and straightforward, you may be tempted to go it alone instead of relying on God. This is when you are in the greatest danger of stumbling.” It did NOT feel like a coincidence. So I went to bed and I asked for help. When I got up my site was back up.
I know it is not always easy like this. In fact, I said to myself, “SELF it is not always easy like this”.
Ten minutes later I opened my iPad and it automatically went to iBooks. Remember it opens to the exact place you left off–which in this case was the devotional from random October 3rd–and it opens to March 10th, NOT WHERE I LEFT OFF, and it says “This sounds easy but it requires a deep level of trust, based on the knowledge that God’s way is perfect.”
Well.
The devotional is Jesus Calling by Sarah Young. I’m just going to carry around the pocket version around with me now in lieu of the whole self-sabotage issue.
Love, Jen
I’m all about avoiding negative energy.
As I write this my husband is cursing the tub.
People always tell me that God won’t give me more than I can handle but I disagree. He totally gives us more so that we don’t try to duke it out alone, so that we come to Him.
Husband just passed by again disgusted. Apparently, we have a tub issue.
I love that. The God part, not the tub. That means that when LIFE becomes way BIGGER and more out of control than I could have thought possible–I need to stop and remember that someone’s got my back.
So, big check in the box about God. But what about all our friends and family and in-between? Do the people we surround ourselves with have our backs? Do they have toxic energy that invades you whenever you are around them? Do you walk around on egg shells feeling like you are holding your breath and talking like you are constipated? Seriously, try it. Think about some embarrassing moment when you were a teenager, squint your eyes, and clench your buttocks. That my friend is you on negative energy. SO do NOT need that. In fact, you might just say– “ain’t nobody got time for that”. Which brings me to my next point.
Tag Lines. A positive friend asked me what my tag line would be. You know, a phrase that you say a lot, think a lot, associate with etc… Mine is totally, I DO NOT HAVE TIME FOR THAT. And THAT meaning squinty eye butt clenching energy slurping nonsense.
Oh Lord I know you’ve got my back so let THEM know YOU’ve got THEIRS so they get off mine! Just go ahead and say Amen. I know you get me on this.
What’s YOUR tag line?
By the way, the other day I overheard my 9 year old tell my screaming 7 year old, “Mom SO does NOT have time for THAT.” Love it.
