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Thursday, December 31, 2009

Happy New Years To All!


I wanted to take a moment and wish you all a happy, healthy and prosperous 2010. As 2009 comes to a close and we take the first steps in to a new decade I look back at the last and wonder how I ever made it through. There have been so many changes to my life in just 10 little years it's amazing and yet, I stand in my shoes today and can't imagine them being any other way. While I faced a great number of challenges I also had some great moments of happiness and have gained the strength that comes with experience.

My Goals for this new year and new decade are the same as most of yours. I plan to become healthier, loose weight, work on growing personally, spiritually and financially. I know that through the help and support of all my friends and family and of course through my own strength, I can achieve any goal I lay out for myself.

My New Years wish for you is that you are able to achieve all you lay out for yourself. That your family and friends are always their to support you and that even through the hard times you have the strength to smile.

Happy New Years my friends and may the Gods Bless You and Yours!

Here's to 2010 and beyond!!

Wednesday, December 30, 2009

PASSING ON THE GIFT OF INSPIRATION:












I am a woman,
poor but proud, invisible but invincible,
a natural resource with unlimited potential.
I am important.  I am ready for change.
Given a choice, given a chance,
I will participate, strive, achieve.
I will improve my community and contribute to society.

You can help.

With tools, with knowledge and opportunities,
I am someone - one of many,
working together to overcome prejudice,
fight poverty, wage peace,
for our children,
for our future.

I am a wife, mother, sister,
daughter, partner,
force, leader.

I am powerful.

***
She has the power to change her world.
You have the power to help her do it.
***
Getting involved is so easy.  You can make a difference with one nomination, one small $10 donation, and five minutes of your time.  Please help us to pass on the gift of inspiration to women of poverty.  Make your nomination today.

Then, if you want to help us even more, you can help us spread the word about this great project.  Tell your friends, family, and colleagues to visit our blog and make their nominations.

One nomination at a time, we will make a difference.
***
*This information was compiled from CARE's "I Am Powerful Action Kit."

Tuesday, December 29, 2009

Top 5 keys to ensuring your New Year's resolutions are acheived in 2010



My Thanks to Jennifer May, my friend and mentor for this awesome article! 
Now is the time for everyone to get ready for the New Year... Time to write your goals and dreams down for the year and start implementing the tasks to making them happen. Before you write them down this year, let's dig a little deeper into really achieving them. As known in The Slight Edge, Secrets to a Successful Life, it is not just writing down these important things but it is staying consistent with actions daily to making them happen. Instant gratification is a very sad concept this world has grown to need and feel is necessary to prove success. Which honestly is not at all included in the road to success by any means. The road to success or happiness can be a hard, difficult one. But remembering that it is the journey and never giving up is what counts will ensure you achieving these successes and achievements you dream of.

With that said we wanted to share a few key concepts and tasks to implement with these New Years resolutions of yours. So not only writing down and thinking of what you want to achieve this year but now actually sticking with them and making them happen can be accomplished successfully.

The Top 5 Keys to ensuring your New Year's Resolutions in 2010:


1. To know and believe you will achieve your goals and dreams. Make it your focus and visualize making them happen and they will. Put your heart, dedication and determination into whatever resolutions you make. Do whatever it takes to make them happen, do not let any wall, obstacle or hard time stand in your way. A great way to enforcing this mindset is learning more about The Secret.

2. Staying realistic but still reach for the stars. Make high goals so when you achieve them (even if it is not as high as you wanted it to be when you get there) you will still be proud of yourself and know it was worth it! Making high goals that are still realistic make your achievements that much higher and allow you to achieve more than you thought possible as to opposed to aiming low. Aiming low will ultimately not get you where you want to be.

3. Action, action, action. Put forth the tasks, work, dedication and determination that is necessary to achieving your goals and dreams. Write down a game plan and stick with it on a daily basis. Ensure you are working towards them everyday even when you do not feel like it. Make it a priority in your life just like your children and family. It has to be on the top of your list no matter what.

4. Consistency is key. With any resolution, goal or dream you might have... it is those who do not stick with it consistently are the ones who do not achieve these goals that they so awfully want to make happen. What happens is many will get excited and get those goals in action mode. Then a week goes by and they do not see instant gratification and they give up or gradually stop working towards it. This is where consistency in life and in your goals is necessary to achieving them. Also, understanding it will not happen over night and will take time is a great deal apart of staying consistent achieving success.

5. Personal Growth and Development. Learn about you, grow yourself daily as a person. Doing this will allow you to work towards your resolutions, goals and dreams with the positive feeling and mindset to making them happen. This includes utilizing audios, books, movies, seminars, etc. Just doing something on a daily basis to grow and learn. You can find many ways of Personal Growth and Development here.

As you can see these are just a few things you can do to ensure your success of any resolution set in your mind and heart. There are many ways to ensuring you achieve these but remembering it does go much deeper than writing them down and starting them... It is finishing them is what counts! Giving up is not an option and if you have to fail your way to the top, you better do it to make those goals and dreams come true. Happy New Year and may you have the strength, perseverance, consistency and most of all... the heart and passion to achieving your goals and dreams in 2010!


N.Y. Protestant churches apologize to Native Americans

N.Y. Protestant churches apologize to Native AmericansBy Daniel Burke, Religion News Service

Four hundred years after their spiritual ancestors took part in the decimation and dislocation of Native Americans in New York, one of the nation's first Protestant churches held a "healing ceremony" to apologize.

"We consumed your resources, dehumanized your people, and disregarded your culture, along with your dreams, hopes and great love of this land," representatives from Collegiate Church said in a statement. "With pain, we the Collegiate Church, remember our part in these events."

The Friday ceremony took place on Native American Heritage Day in lower Manhattan, where in 1628 Dutch colonizers built the first Collegiate Church, then known as the Reformed Protestant Dutch Church, at Fort Amsterdam. The Dutch West Indies Company treated Native Americans "as a resource," Collegiate said in a statement, and "we were the conscience of this company."

Collegiate now includes four churches in New York, including Marble Collegiate Church, where the late Rev. Norman Vincent Peale preached from 1932 to 1984.

Ron Holloway, who attended the ceremony as a representative of the Lenape people, said "the native populations were suppressed by a political and religious will of which they could never begin to conceive." But, he said, he and other Lenape people "whole-heartedly accept this apology."

At Friday's ceremony, Holloway embraced leaders from Collegiate, according to the Associated Press, and exchanged wampum, strings of beads symbolizing money or ornaments.

"After 400 years, when someone says 'I'm sorry,' you say, 'Really?'" Holloway told the AP before the ritual. "There was some kind of uneasiness. But then you've got to accept someone's sincere apology; they said, 'We did it.' We ran you off, we killed you.'"

Monday, December 28, 2009

Fifteen Things God Won't Ask

 Fifteen Things God Won't Ask
Author Unknown

  • God won’t ask what kind of car you drove, but will ask how many people you drove who didn’t have transportation. 
  • God won’t ask the square footage of your house, but will ask how many people you welcomed into your home.God won’t ask about the fancy clothes you had in your closet, but will ask how many of those clothes helped the needy. 
  • God won’t ask about your social status, but will ask what kind of class you displayed. 
  • God won’t ask how many material possessions you had, but will ask if they dictated your life. 
  • God won’t ask what your highest salary was, but will ask if you compromised your character to obtain that salary. 
  • God won’t ask how much overtime you worked, but will ask if you worked overtime for your family and loved ones. 
  • God won’t ask how many promotions you received, but will ask how you promoted others. 
  • God won’t ask what your job title was, but will ask if you reformed your job to the best of your ability. 
  • God won’t ask what you did to help yourself, but will ask what you did to help others.
  •  God won’t ask how many friends you had, but will ask how many people to whom you were a true friend. 
  • God won’t ask what you did to protect your rights, but will ask what you did to protect the rights of others. 
  • God won’t ask in what neighborhood you lived, but will ask how you treated your neighbors. 
  • God won’t ask about the color of your skin, but will ask about the content of your character. 
  • God won’t ask how many times your deeds matched your words, but will ask how many times they didn’t.

Sunday, December 6, 2009

Quotes to Inspire Your Life!

The main cause for failure and unhappiness is trading what you want most for what you want at the moment. -- Unknown

Excellence can be achieved if you risk more than others think is safe, love more than others think is wise, dream more than others think is practical, and expect more than others think is possible. -- Unknown

It’s not who you are that holds you back, it’s who you think you’re not. -- Unknown


Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover. -- Mark Twain


If you are patient in one moment of anger, you will escape a hundred days of sorrow. -- Chinese Proverb


Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have the potential to turn a life around. -- Leo Buscaglia


The person who says it cannot be done should not interrupt the person doing it. -- Chinese Proverb


We must be the change we wish to see in the world. -- Mahatma Gandhi


What consumes your mind, controls your life. -- Creed


If you find a path with no obstacles, it probably doesn't lead anywhere. -- Unknown


Worry does not empty tomorrow of its sorrow; it empties today of its strength. -- Unknown


Tell me, I will forget. Show me, I may remember. Involve me, and I will understand. -- Chinese Proverb


You gotta dance like nobody's watching, dream like you will live forever, live like your going to die tomorrow and love like it's never going to hurt -- Meme Grifsters


What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us. -- Ralph Waldo Emerson


You never really lose, until you quit trying. -- Unknown


Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail. -- Ralph Waldo Emerson


Our background and circumstances may influence who we are, but we are responsible for who we become. -- Unknown


To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment. -- Ralph Waldo Emerson


I have learned that success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles which he has overcome while trying to succeed. -- Booker T. Washington


Choose your friends by their character and your socks by their color. Choosing your socks by their character makes no sense, and choosing your friends by their color is unthinkable. -- Anon


Nobody who ever gave his best regretted it. -- George Halas


Be nice and smile to everyone you meet. You don't know what they are going through, and they may need that smile. And treasure it. -- Christine M. Huppert


The happiest of people don't necessarily have the best of everything; they just make the most of everything that comes along their way. -- Unknown


Don't let what other people think decide who you are. -- Dennis Rodman


When you plant lettuce, if it does not grow well, you don't blame the lettuce. You look for reasons it is not doing well. It may need fertilizer, or more water, or less sun. You never blame the lettuce. Yet if we have problems with our friends or family, we blame the other person. But if we know how to take care of them, they will grow well, like the lettuce. Blaming has no positive effect at all, nor does trying to persuade using reason and arguments. That is my experience. No blame, no reasoning, no argument, just understanding. -- Thich Nhat Hahn


A successful marriage requires falling in love many times, always with the same person. -- Mignon mclaughlin


The hardest battle you're ever going to fight is the battle to be just you. -- Leo Buscaglia


Somewhere there is someone who dreams of your smile, and finds in your presence that life is worth while, so when you are lonely, remember it's true, somebody, somewhere, is thinking of you. -- D'Anne Bucy


To the world you might be one person, but to one person you might be the world. -- Casey


A friend is someone who knows the song in your heart and can sing it back to you when you have forgotten the words. -- Jacquie


The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy. -- Martin Luther King, Jr

The 85 year old water skier!

So, I'm working part time at Macy's right now to help out for the holidays! I love what I do and love being there. Well, the other day I have this elderly woman come over and tell me she has lost her Macy's card. So, I go through all the steps to help her find it. The first thing I do is take her back to the counter she was just at and check with the sales woman there! I noticed it took her a while to get to the counter, but just brushed it off as her age forcing her to walk slower than me. She said "Honey, I'm sorry, I just had my knee replaced, so I'm have to walk slower." I understood completely and let her take her time. Once at the counter, I talked with the sales woman, who had not found the card. The elderly woman emptied her purse on the counter and went through all her bags and pockets a second time. No card.

Since we couldn't find her card, we decided the best thing for her to do was to cancel it. These days it's all to easy for someone to pick it up and use it before she even had a chance to get home. So I took her to our credit dept. phone is and helped her to get everything taken care of.

While we were walking to and from the courtesy phone we chatted a bit. This woman was just great! She told me that she had been out of the hospital for a full week and that her doctor was a "quack.." I, of course, had to add the "they all are" to that conversation.

As it turns out her doctor had told her that she would have no chance of walking again, she would spend the rest of her life as a "cripple." She decided she would make her own rules and told him to go to... well, you know what she said. She told me that she had left her cane at home and would not be seen in public with it! But that she did have to give in to one of the orders of her doctor, and let me say, she was NOT happy about it!

She was forced to sell the her boat and skis because the doctor told her that he would not be able to replace her knee for a third time. As it turns out this woman, had been through three knee replacements and multiple other surgeries simply because at 85 she was STILL water skiing on a regular basis!

That had to be the most amazing thing I have EVER heard! I can only pray that at 85 I'm still water skiing! Hell, I'll be happy if at 85 I'm still walking!

So where ever you are Elderly Water Skiing Lady - Here's to you!