Tag Archives: lessons

AN ALPHABET OF GRATITUDE!!

22 Thursday Nov 2012

Posted by in Daily Life, Finding Me

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I know I left out a lot things I am grateful for.  I am sure I will remember a few more every time I look at this post. (like life, breath, water, freedom of choice, etc 🙂

A-ANDREA and ANIMALS – I am grateful for my identical twin sister. I am grateful for having a partner in crime right in the womb! She rocks!  The world is a better place because ANIMALS are in it!

B-BREAD and BED – So grateful for not having to worry about having food to eat and a bed to sleep. I am blessed! I feel so safe in my bed and I really enjoy my food!


C- CAR, CHOCOLATE and CLOUDS – I am grateful for having transport.  After 1 year without chocolate I am grateful for the flavor of chocolate.  Every time I look up and see clouds they make me realize the wonder of it all! and sometimes I see a bunny!

D-DANCING and DOORS – I am grateful for the love of dancing. I am grateful for the opening of new doors and opportunities every day.

E-EX and EXPERIENCES – I am grateful for my EX and all other exes before, Ex-boyfriend, Ex-boss, ex-friend, etc, all of them provides EXPERIENCES that enabled me to grow and be where I am today.


F-FAMILY, FRIEND and FORGIVENESS – So grateful for having my family and friends, a support group that I can always count on. FORGIVENESS is at the heart of any progress and moving forward in my life. Forgiveness is what makes relationships work.


G-GOD and GRATITUDE and GOALS – I am grateful for believing in a GOD that loves me and wants only the best for me! I am grateful for a grateful heart!

H-HARMONY and HEROS –  I am grateful for a harmonious life. I am great for daily heros, for people that I encounter and have encountered in my life that have provided with inspiration.

I-INSPIRATION and INTUITION – I am grateful for moments of intuition and inspiration – those challenge me and make progress in the right direction.

J-JOB and JOY – I am grateful for a job that allows me not to worry about food and shelter.  I am grateful for all the joys in my life, big and small.

K- KISS – I am grateful for the joys and beauty of a kiss. There is nothing better in life!

L- LOVE – I am grateful for believing in love and having love in my heart!

M-MUSIC and MISSION –  I am grateful for being able to have amazing beautiful soundtrack for my life! I am grateful for believing I have a mission in life and for not giving up in its search.


N- NEVER – I am grateful for not believing in the word NEVER and always believeing that there is a chance!

O- OPTIMISM– I am grateful for my eternal optimism.

P – PEACE AND PAIN – I believe and strive for peace. I believe PAIN is the catalyst for major progress in life.

Q-QUOTES and QUESTIONS – I love quotes, my Facebook will attest to that! QUESTIONS keeps my mind open and challenge me to not accept things as is.


R- RAIN – I am grateful for everything about rain. The benefits, the sound, the appearance.

S-SOLITUDE and SKIING – I am grateful for enjoying moments of SOLITUDE. I am happy and grateful for having skiing as one of the new challenges in my life.

T- TOLERANCE and TENNIS –  I am grateful for having a tolerant heart and grateful for everything about the game of TENNIS – playing and watching and the fun outfits.


U- UNIVERSE and UNICORN –  I am so grateful for believing that the UNIVERSE is always on my side. I am grateful for believing in unicorns.

V – VACATIONS – I am grateful for having vacations – a change to renew and recharge.

W – WOMAN and WONDER and WRITING – I am grateful for being a woman, full of wonder. I am full of hormones and feelings and WONDER about the world.


X – XMAS and XYLOTOL– hey X is a hard word! Even though I am a little ambivalent about Xmas, who doesn’t enjoy the blinking lights. Sugar free gum is king.

Y- YOUTH, YOUTH OF HEART AND MIND – I am grateful for youth – for what the next generation will bring. I am grateful for my youthful self, for feeling like I am 25 years old most of the time.

Z-ZUMBA – I am grateful for burning calories while doing something I love.

After the Hurricane

13 Wednesday Jun 2012

Posted by in Daily Life, EX Files, Finding Me

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He was a hurricane!

I was going to call him a tsunami, but I dont want to give him too much credit either!

He leaves destruction in his wake.  After him nothing is the same.

How does a hurricane happen? Did I miss the warnings?  Did I think that it was just a little wind? No matter!  All of a sudden it sweeps you up and before you know you are in the middle of it holding on for dear life.

Hurricanes shake you up, often leaving one homeless, powerless, pet-less, faithless.  But the good thing with destruction, if there can be said that there is a good thing, is that  after destruction one gets to rebuild life. After a tragedy one is not the same and cannot stay in the same place.  Among the ashes, among the crumbles, one gets to discover what he/she is really made of.

You end up losing a life you knew.  You lose the you that you thought you were!  There is the before and the after the hurricane.  There is nothing you can do to change “before the hurricane” but “after the hurricane” is yours to mold any way you see fit.

You get to make choices: Where to build, how strong to build, do you want a fence, what color to paint, you get to hurricane proof your house and you any way you wish.  You get to reinvent yourself!

Sure you wish the hurricane had never happened, but you have to learn to accept certain things as acts of Gods, acts of nature or perhaps just life lessons and learning experiences that happen for a reason perhaps later revealed when you are wiser and ready to see it and accept it.

You also have to accept your role in it! Did I do anything to contribute to this?  Was I behaving in a way that made it easier to attract a hurricane?  Did I encourage the hurricane? Could I have in anyway avoided it? Had I become so weak that a simple wind had effect of a hurricane? Only by looking for and accepting my role in the situation will I be able to make sure that the events and patterns do not keep repeating themselves.

The calm after the hurricane is invisible, it is silent, it is scary.  Did I survive it? Did it really end it? Then there is despair and what you make of it! From the depth of despair you find hope and compassion. From the depth of despair you find beauty and freedom.  From the depth of despair you find you!

You have forgiven the hurricane! You have even thanked him for the lessons he taught you! You move on!

If anything you can just pat yourself in the back, beat on your chest and say: I survived a hurricane!

Well, perhaps my t-shirt is not ready to say: “I survived a hurricane!” Perhaps it can only say: “Finding ways to rebuild!”

So called friends

17 Thursday May 2012

Posted by in Daily Life, Finding Me

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The tumultuous day I had yesterday got me thinking (yes I do that some times! –  whenever I am not too busy watching tv or eating – just kidding)

I realized that perhaps I am not as good a judge of character as I thought I was, or perhaps I am becoming naive in my old age. And of course, I learned that appearances can be deceiving.

People that I thought were friends treated me in a less than friendly way.  People that I thought had great morals turned out to be a little flexible with their morals.

In the space of 2 weeks I have 3 less friends/acquaintances/contacts:

The ex-client V. (see my post: When you think you have a friend … May 7, 12) – that kept trying to chat about sex when I expressly said I was not interested in that kind of talk, and then just logged off and I never heard from him again. I see now the value of my friendship to him. For the record nothing wrong with harmless sexy chatting, but he is married and I don’t want to cross that line.

The ex-dancing buddy B. (see my post Am I becoming a prude? May 10, 12) – the one that wanted to keep me hidden, see me when his friends were not around and of course, I am sure, he would not ever mention to his wife about a female friend. We still exchange e-mails but it is not the same.

And then yesterday the train buddy (see my post My day destroyed with 1 phone call! May 19, 12) – that I thought was such a great man and could have been more than a friend turned out to be a disappointment. He later told me that the woman that called me yesterday was a married woman that he had had an affair with (probably while having other girlfriends) and she was having trouble accepting the break up.

I realized that what they have in common, other than they all being of the male persuasion,  is that they are all people that I had met several years ago and lost touch with.  Then one day they reached out and we started talking again.

I am thinking that there was a reason that they were in the past, and I probably should have left them there.

There is only a couple of problems:

1) As it is I am already a loner with not a lot friends.  If I am going to start to shut down the ones that return from the past I better then start adopting a few cats.

2) Nowadays you are nothing if you don’t have contacts.  I could be jobless tomorrow and have to start knocking on some doors.  It is very hard to knock on doors of people that you haven’t spoke to in years, or people that have reached out to you and you have ignored.

What is a girl that wants to get out of the house to do? What is a career girl to do?

But, there are lessons here, as there always is in every situation.  I have learned that I can be too trusting. Also, I think, oftentimes, I make people into what I think they are and not what they really are.  So I am going to take a real close look at my relationships. How am I treating and being treated? Is this relationship building me up or just tearing me apart and bringing me down?

And as I write this I am making arrangements to meet an ex-co-worker that I haven’t seen in a couple of years.  This is really a nice guy!! I promise!

Tennis Progress Report

15 Tuesday May 2012

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Progress Reporting:

Goal: To improve my tennis game

Yesterday I had my first private tennis lesson.  It was so great! I can’t believe how much I have learned in 30 minutes!

One of the things I found out is that I have been playing with a kid’s racket.  Well, at least I hope it is true and that  the instructor was not just trying to sell me a racket by telling me that I needed a new one.

Tonight I have the group lesson for 1 hour.  I am hoping it will be even better than last night.  I hope the rain holds off so I can actually have the lesson.

I am also hoping to make friends to play tennis with.  As with anything you try to learn in life, practice makes it perfect or at least much better.  Similar to many things in life,  tennis is one of those activities that you need a partner to be able to play. So that has been one of my challenges lately: finding partners.

I have also signed on a tennis site called http://tennisopolis.com/.  It is a Tennis Social Network site.  I have actually met and played with one person there, but our schedules haven’t worked out to play again – like I have said before, everyone is so busy nowadays.

It feels great to be working on my goals! And it feels even better to be moving in the right direction!

If you have a goal or something that you have always wanted to learn, do or start, the moment to do it is NOW.  Not tomorrow, not Monday, not next week, not when you find a friend to motivate you, etc, etc. The moment is Now!

So what goal are you going to start working on?