Going through life, I've noticed that some things really never change. All the time, change happens around us- from fashion, to the weather, to people themselves. Constant change keeps the world turning. But I've found that there are some things you can always count on that will stay the same... for example, your family.
Now I don't know if this holds true for others, but I personally know that NO MATTER WHAT, my family will always be there for me and have my back and I will always have theirs. On a smaller scale, I also know that every morning until I am older I will hug my Dad in the morning... something I have been doing since I was little. I can also count on my dog mooching next to me when I am eating, and on my sister greeting me with a hug and kiss in the morning. This was just what was on my mind... The point is, while some things are constantly changing... it's nice to know that some things won't and that you don't always have to get caught up in the world as it rushes to the next great change. Maddie
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Today is Spring
Though you wouldn't know it The grass and flowers aren't there, The snow doesn't show it The sky is all gray, And the clouds fill the sky the flowers won't grow And no one knows why A crisp breeze rips the skin On my body apart, The ice is falling, It goes straight through my heart The clouds block the sun And the snow refuses to melt The puddles are forming, The damage is dealt. Over the past two weeks I have had both of my cars inspected. The Blazer needed brakes and a new tire, while the plow truck seems to have gotten away with an oil change. Amazing, really, given that the truck is 23 years old...10 years older than my eldest daughter.
Although cars only get inspected once a year, other parts of our life seem always up for inspection. In karate, our kata gets viewed often and we are given ways to improve our performance. At work, every three weeks I am in press and my reports are inspected by an editor and a statistician. At home Grandma's food choices are always under Maddie's microscope. In turn, her school work is always under my watch! Inspections of one type or another start early in our lives and never seem to go away. Some people take it to an extreme and worry about how other people perceive them. They make sure to have the latest phone and all types of gadgets. Their car also has to be something cool. I get tired just watching them try to keep up with the Jones. Oy! In reality, this is a self imposed type of inspection. They feel that they have to have the showy item, otherwise people will think less of them. For me, I don't care what people have...I care about whether I can like or trust them. If not, they can have all the fancy gadgets in the world and I will still try to avoid them. Life comes down to two things. What can make you and your loved ones happy, and whether or not those things be achieved while keeping your honor and self respect.My cars are old, but run well. My phone, has not been changed in a few years and looks like a walkie-talkie. It still works, though, so there is no need for me to replace it. My house is out in the boonies, because this is where I choose to live. Some of my friends think I am crazy for moving so far away from New York. I, in turn, think they are crazy for staying. To each their own. In the end, the only inspection that really matters is your own. Does your actual life stand up to the inner picture you have of yourself? If not then start taking steps to fix it! We can be what ever we want to be. Sometimes though, you have to be willing to make the sacrifices necessary to achieve what you want to be. Want to be lead guitarist for a rock band? You can. But you may have to step out of your comfort zone. Actually practice playing the guitar sitting down in your basement...maybe hang out with people who also like to play music. Want to be the top salesman at your office? You can. You may have to call 100 people a day or start your day an hour earlier and stay an hour late, but its doable. Maybe take some classes on selling. Whatever you want to do...there is always a way. It just comes down to how much you want it, and how much you are willing to give up to get it. Work hard? Sometimes. Usually it is work smarter. Enough rambling for one day. I guess the question is: "Do you stand up to your own inspection criteria? If you don't, then you may want to work on that. Well, here is another post about getting out of a rut. It has been on my mind a lot lately. While I feel I have made vast improvements in my life over the past year or two, I seem to get this feeling that I am running in neutral.
After having run a business for the past twelve years, I find my new life both relaxing and scary at the same time. It is relaxing because I am actually enjoying the work I am doing. It is scary because I still have an entrepreneurial spirit. At the moment, I have many side projects started with the goal of improving the lives of my daughters (and myself).. With that said, I am constantly working on a number of projects to accomplish many different goals. Many of the projects are very large, and I have been breaking them down into increments so that I can feel like I am accomplishing something. Unfortunately, finishing an increment, hasn't helped me to feel like I am accomplishing anything. Work wise, I am accomplishing a lot. School wise for the girls, I also feel like I am making progress...with both girls really. Maddie is responding well to my new schedule, and she is asking intelligent questions about the work I am assigning. Meanwhile, Ashleigh is doing well with numbers and recognizes more and more words each week as she progresses with her reading abilities. She loves writing on this blog because it makes her feel like a big girl like her sister. So back to my premise, How am I getting out of neutral? Well, I am going to follow some advice from a Nike ad..."Just do it!" That's it. Just do it. If you got a long list of stuff you want to do, then prioritize it (however you wish) and then just start at the beginning and incrementally knock stuff off. This weekend, I am going to attack a lot of small goals that have been piling up. Not because I think that they will magically make me feel happier, but because at a minimum it will make my list a little smaller and get me closer to completing some of my larger goals as well! Want to get out of Neutral...then step on the gas and get stuff done! My favorite food is cheese sticks. I like popcorn too. I like pancakes for breakfast, and cottage cheese and salad for lunch.
Ashleigh Who doesn't love something they can relate to easily? I don't know about you, but I like a LOT of things I can relate to in some shape or form- characters from books or movies, poems, songs, and even my friends. I like the sense that I'm not the only one in a certain situation... or that I'm not the only one with the thoughts that I have. It IS a false sense of security; a sense that you AREN'T alone when in reality... you are. Unless you get really lucky and find friends who COMPLETELY understand you, you're still only being comforted by a figment of your imagination... or a figment of someone else's.
That's really all I wanted to say, nothing else... so I'll leave the post here. Gives you something to think about throughout your day. Do YOU like relatability? Maddie In my magazine "Rick Jr" I saw many birds.A mommy duck with her ducklings. They had down feathers. They were very fluffy! I also saw a red cardinal and a bluebird.
Ashleigh My Mom, when she was alive, was a great poet. When she died, she left behind a LOT of her poetry... it was always one of her dreams to publish all her work in a book, but she never got the chance to. So Dad and I are currently finding all of Mom's poetry, putting it into a document, and plan on publishing her poems in a book sometime this year or next year.
As part of my homework, I have to put 3 poems into Mom's book each day. I also enjoy reading Mom's poetry... I read it and I feel more connected to her, in a way. I feel as if I'm looking into a part of life and seeing a side of her that I never got to see when she was alive. I wish I had read some of her poetry before she died... some of it seems almost relatable to me. Maybe I could have been able to talk to her more openly about things, or about her. I don't know. I kind of regret it, to be honest. But hey, I can't turn back time, so I'll keep enjoying the time I DID have with Mom. That's the best thing you can do when someone passes... don't try blocking them out, cherish your memories. Maybe block out the bad memories, but don't forget whatever they taught you. That's what I've done; and so far it has worked well. I don't even know where this post went... I rambled. Sorryyy :D Maddie Many people go through life not really knowing what they want or why they are doing what they are doing. To avoid that outcome, I find goals help to keep me on the straight and narrow. When I don't set goals, I find I am less happy.
I try to pass this attitude on to my daughters...particularly my eldest. When she doesn't set goals for herself then I try to set some for her. I know I am always happier setting my own goals rather than having someone set them for me. My daughter seems to be the opposite. She seems to like people to tell her what to do, unless it involves her karate or music. Asking Maddie to find a new class to take leads to dramatic outbursts about not being ready to choose something to do with her life. In reality, one has nothing to do with the other. I ask her to take different courses to see what she likes and to learn new things. She takes it that I want her to go find a job! When she gets in THAT mood, there is no talking to her. I have started Maddie studying to get her GED. She has tested out above high school level for each of the past three years. She constantly complains about her math and other work being boring. Yet when I try to change things around for her, she complains. It is pretty easy here. Set a goal, or I will set one for you. Over the past three weeks, you have failed to pick a new course to study on Coursera. I have chosen the GED course for you. There is nothing to get all dramatic about. Next time I tell you to choose a class to take, do so! There will be no drifting here! Recently, I've been studying for my GED test. Next year, I'm going to take it and hopefully pass, and then I'll be through highschool. If I DO pass, I'll be out of highschool at 14... 4 years before I have to worry about college. Correct? Nope! I'll be doing 2 college courses online of my choice for the next years leading up to college, so I can explore my interests and figure out what I want to do. Excuse me for sounding a bit rude but... I don't want to! I'll be FOURTEEN. I don't want to even THINK about college at that point, let alone start doing two courses each semester.
Yes, I understand that I'll be out at a young age... but I don't want to start overloading myself with college work and have no time to be with my friends or have fun for myself. It stresses me when this topic comes up because I simply DO NOT want to think about it right now. I know that eventually, yes, I will have to... but not this year. This year, I just want to focus on studying and having fun with my friends- nothing else. As I'm constantly saying: life is too short, and I don't want to waste it stressed out and unhappy. Does this mean I want to neglect my studies? No! Not at all! I just want to be able to take some time away from school, albeit two weeks after I get my GED. I don't want to go from working hard to working even harder right away, if that makes any sense. I want to do coursework online, because I do enjoy it. I want to continue my education and I want to get a good education so I can get a good job and actually have a life when I grow up... but I don't want to start planning for it or talking about it yet. I don't want to hear about college plans every week, and I don't want to talk about my future un-decided career every other day. I DON'T KNOW YET. That is what school, college courses and LIFE are there to help me figure out. I just want to be able to find out at my own pace and not at the set pace of someone else... I don't want to overly FORCE my interests and end up royally messing myself up. Please, please, PLEASE let me discover learning and what I want to do on my own... I'm doing it, just slower than what you would like or think. Please rememember that while I am smart and mature for my age, I'm still young and I still want to ACT like I'm young... not like I'm a 17 year old graduate. Maddie Maddie and I made a deal right when we were creating this blog. Our deal was that if she didn't have a post done by 4:00 in the afternoon on any day Monday through Friday, then she would owe me a two-page paper on a topic of my choice. On the flip side, if I did not have a blog post out by 4:00, I would owe her $2. So far, she has made six bucks!
Some days are busier than others, and sometimes it's worth the $2 to put the post off for later. Today was unusually hectic, so I didn't mind too much. So far, I am happy to say that I have not had to pay her a dime for just being lazy. Looking ahead, I think I'll try to write my posts first thing in the morning, before I get busy! In this case, Making time WILL save a dime!...or, to be more accurate, $2! I love to play outside.I run and jump in the driveway. I throw snow at my dog.
Ashleigh I've noticed a pattern in people lately. Whenever I do something that is simply common courtesy... everyone gives me a shocked look! It's normally something very basic, too. For example: When I went for my state testing at school last year (I'm homeschooled and have to test every year at a public school), I had to leave the room to use the bathroom. On my way back, I saw two girls who were walking into the same room, so I stopped and held the door for them. They thanked me politely... but they also gave me a look as if I had a third eyeball or something.
Then, yesterday in church, a guy got separated from his family when we walked up for communion due to me going to a different minister. When we walked back to the pew we'd been sitting in, I stepped aside and waited for him to get in before I got in. Like the girls, he thanked me; but I received another strange look. Is common courtesy gone? Really? People shouldn't look at you funny when you do something nice... have they never seen it before, or if so, very rarely? Because that's just incredibly sad. What has happened? When I was about my sister's age, there seemed to still be a thing called "manners" around... so how is that I've kept all of them while other kids my age seem to have let it slip? I attribute most of it to being homeschooled... I'm around my Dad and Grandma a lot, and in my house, manners are expected of me and my sister. If we don't show them, we're reprimanded. Now before you start thinking my house is like some sort of military school... it's not. The occasional slip-up is completely okay. Everyone messes up sometimes, including the adults. But slip-ups should NOT be happening to the extent that it is now viewed as different to an extreme to be polite. Fix your manners, people. Maddie
My daughter Maddie and I had an interesting conversation today. I had assigned Maddie "Caverns of Socrates" a book by Dennis McKiernan. The story is about a group of gamers who enter a virtual reality game controlled by an artificial intelligence. The game is so realistic that the players are having a tough time separating the game from reality. In fact, the artificial intelligence has started to up the ante by actively trying to kill the real players...not just their characters. With that as a background, Maddie had asked me "What if our world was actually a simulation run by other life forms for their own amusement or purposes?" Jackpot! It was exactly this type of question that I wanted to elicit from her when I assigned the book!
I initially read "Caverns of Socrates" about ten years ago. I was enthralled by the book, not so much because of the story, but because of the philosophical questions that it raised. Similar to Maddie, I also pondered the possibility that our lives were not totally our own. In fact, I actually wrote a couple pages of a short story broaching that exact subject. Thus, when Maddie asked me that question I wasn't actually surprised by it and we had a great discussion. I am not going to get into what we spoke about...That is a private conversation between me and my daughter. Still, I think it is ok to tell you that I made an arguement that life is a game. I don't mean to say that our lives are being controlled by some alien intelligence. Far from it. Instead, I look at it as if each of us is a player in a multiplayer game called life. Each of us make decisions every day that have either direct or indirect impacts on the people around us. I try to play the game so that no one gets hurt. Others seem to play with no rules other than that they must win. Most people go through life not even knowing that they are playing. That is very sad, in my opinion. Have I hurt people in my life? Unfortunately, yes. Sometimes, I forget my own rules to "My" game and I hurt someone emotionally or psychologically. For those instances, I am truly sorry. Other times, my actions have hurt someone, when they were entirely meant to protect others. It is these actions that can tear you apart if you let them. When I reflect on these instances, I try to remember that their are others playing their own games of life simultaneously. Sometimes it is their own actions that lead to the injury. Life is a multiplayer game...and no one ever said it is easy. Rest in peace, babe, I think of you often. With that said, I'll leave you with the question: If life is a game, how do you play? Although a comment giving me your thoughts would be nice, this is really a question that you may want to just answer for yourself. This week, I've been sick. Sore throat, congestion and a runny nose have been annoying and has made it harder for me to breathe, which isn't fun. I've also gotten rather sore and lethargic: we did a good workout in karate for the past 3 days (pushups, kicking drills, abs etc.) and I am sore all over. The congestion gives me a headache, so I have THAT to deal with. My Grandma is what I like to call a "medicine enthusiast" who constantly tries to give me medicine. I'm the opposite; I prefer trying natural remedies before taking medicine.
Here are some remedies I've found: 1) A drop of hydrogen peroxide in each ear. Tilt your head and let the peroxide bubble in your ear for about a minute. A lot of germs and viruses hide in dark, wet places- what better place than your ear? The peroxide will clear everything out. 2) 2 teaspoons of honey works well when you have a sore throat. It coats the back of your throat, tastes better than medicine, and works just as well. Plus, it's all natural with no drugs or weird preservatives in it. 3) Salt and hot water gargle. Mix about 1/4 tsp of salt into a cup of hot water, stir it up and then gargle it in the back of your throat. This can help with sore throats and also congestions. Just make sure you have a glass of cold, regular water to drink after you gargle! 4) Wet a facecloth with very hot water. Wring it out, and place it over your face. The warmth should relieve the congestion... and plus, it feels good too! Those are my tips. I hope you find them useful and give them a try the next time you're sick! Maddie |
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