The Last Lecture

Inspiration has come by way of television lately, I have been so busy working on the house that I haven't had the time, energy, or motivation for much else. While HGTV is the TV standard for the most part, I do stray every now and then and came across the recent prime time special on Randy Pausch. A college professor at Carnegie Mellon University living with terminal pancreatic cancer, Pauch's speech, "Really Achieveing your Childhood Dreams" is truly inspiring. Given in the tradition of Carnegie Mellon's retiring professor's "Last Lecture" his speech is for everyone. He clearly has an amazing insight on the significance of love, family, faith, and life. I had seen his Last Lecture before on the internet, I think on Oprah.com but I hadn't gotten a chance to learn more of his background and also enjoyed the personal interviews with he and his wife. Here is the link to watch it online. http://www.cmu.edu/uls/journeys/randy-pausch/index.html

Spring Break

This time of year it seems like everyone is ready for some time off. I have been so focused on reading A New Earth and trying to incorporate those ideas into my daily routine that I haven't made time for blogging. Now I am looking forward to a week off to catch up on all the new thoughts and ideas and processing them all. Of course along with the mental house cleaning I hope to accomplish some actual house cleaning that is even more urgently needed!

Peace and Quiet

After being without a reliable working home computer for a couple weeks I finally had to break down and buy a new one. All in all it has been a good couple of weeks and I have to say that it is been helpful to employ new ideas in thinking to deal with stress as it happens. The best thing has been being able to sleep! After being one of the world's great sleepers for much of my life I have really struggled with sleep ever since the avn in my hips developed. The reading I have done in the last couple weeks though has really helped. Eckhart Tolle's ideas about focusing on the "now" and being at peace with ourselves along with his description of how our minds control us with endless thinking about the past and the future, has enabled me to reign in some of that "racing mind" at night and by focusing on what I am grateful for and then just concentrating on breathing I have gotten past the discomfort and actually have been able to sleep! The other change that I have noticed is that I am more comfortable with quiet, I don't need to fall asleep with the TV on and it isn't necessarily on all the time as I used to have it.

Greatness

I have been reading Eckhart Tolle's "A New Earth" which has been thought provoking in many ways, but so far my favorite insight from the book has been his view on achieving greatness. "The great arises out of small things that are honored and cared for." By concentrating on and honoring the present moment we can accomplish more than by striving for future "greatness". The key of course is in remembering to focus on the now.

Fun with dogs!

Just got back from a walk with Sandy and our dogs, we walked the trails behind her house and the dogs had a ball! Claire never stopped moving, she chased Sandy's brittany spaniel Babe around every tree, branch, rabbit, and deer track out there! By the end of the loop she was one big snowball and totally wiped out. Just watching them was a riot, we tried to get a picture of the 3 of them but of course they wouldn't sit still! Here they are on the move and a short video clip.

Snow Day!!

I promised Shannon that I would only need 2 words for today and "Snow Day" really does say it all...but on the other hand, in the name of spreading good ideas for those who don't watch Oprah, her latest book club selection is "A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life's Purpose" by Eckhart Tolle. Tolle is also the author of "The Power of Now" and "Stillness Speaks", based on what I have read so far on Amazon.com all three are revealing books on the topics of spirituality and personal development. I went searching today and found "A New Earth" at Book World and reserved the others from the library, I am ready for the next snow day!

Quote of the Day

"I like to exercise but it is not always possible with my hectic sleep schedule."
from Life Makeovers by Cheryl Richardson

Thoughts from "Heal your Life"

Heal Your Life by Louise Hay was published 20 years ago, at 80 Hay is still a vibrant active speaker, she recently released a movie based on the ideas she wrote about in her book. While some of her ideas about illness and healing are questionable here are some I felt worth sharing...

What you give out in life is what you get back.

What you think and what you believe is what will come true for you.

If you give others the power of making you happy or not, you become dependent on a conditional love and you give away your own control over your own happiness.

Happiness is easy...it is caring about how you feel and practicing feeling good.

The fastest way to loving yourself is in finding appreciation in others, the beauty of a flower, a sunset, a child...

What we complain about the most is what we get.

All you need to be happy is here in this moment.

Live life as if what you want is already yours.

Members of a Tribe

Last night I was so disappointed in the Packers loss that I had to keep reminding myself that it really didn't matter, but still the loss stung. So today I was searching for the answer to the question of why it feels like it really matters when our favorite teams win or lose. What I found was reassuring. The research in sports psychology suggests that caring about a sports team, even to the extreme of wearing foam cheese heads, is actually a healthy way of connecting with others, a harking back to being part of a tribe.

In an article for Web MD, Daniel Wann, PhD, author of Sport Fans: The Psychology and Social Impact of Spectators, states "There's no doubt that a lot of sports fans are so involved that the team's performance literally becomes their own. They're going to feel the same elation from a win or sadness from a loss that is felt by the athletes, sometimes even more intensely. But for the most part, whether their team wins or loses, sports fans are more psychologically healthy than those who don't follow sports. Because in the long run, it's not really the performance that matters, it's the connection to the team."

So as much as it hurt last night to lose, today all is almost better, and I know that according to Wann's research that the sadness will fade and that sports fans are generally happier than non-fans and despite the agony of championship losses there is always next year to look forward to. So tonight I can go sleep peacefully without the stress and frustration of last night's heartbreak and know that I have at least a couple months of potentially restful slumber before the Cubs season begins!

Notes of Blogs

The web is so vast that it can be overwhelming, we can waste hours surfing and come away with nothing meaningful, in general I have found blog pages are less commercial and more personal, small snippets of what people around the Internet are thinking and doing. Lately I have been using the blogger profile search to discover blogs with thoughts and ideas to help lead toward my goal of less worry and more enjoyment. Among those I browsed today were a couple I think are worth sharing and that I would like to revisit also, both just happen to be from Michigan, The Mundane Life and True Balance Life Coaching, I discovered them by searching common book interests. The first is a personal blog that was just started in January with only a couple posts but a with clear warm voice I am looking forward to her future posts. The second, though primarily business related offers tips and links to ideas about gaining balance and happiness which we can always use. There is a link to a goal setting quiz on the blog page and her web page has links to life coaching articles such as this article that were also helpful. The funny thing about what I found today is that part of what I liked so much about "The Mundane Life" blog was her opinion on the futility of New Year's resolutions and yet most of "True Balance Life Coaching" is aimed at those of us who keep trying to pursue such futile efforts of change each year.

Snow

Today's snowfall made for a picture perfect winter day, in fact while I had the dogs out for a walk I was regretting that I didn't think to bring my camera along. The fresh snow-cover made everything sparkling clean and the tree-lined back road I walk along hadn't yet been plowed so it was a perfect winter scene. The dogs romped through the new snow with childlike enthusiasm chasing each other up and down the road while I walked along enjoying the beautiful winter day. The prediction for several more inches tonight could bring another winter windfall...a snowday!

Memories of another snowy day....

The Best Thing about my day

The best thing about my day is SNOW! Apparently, however, the "old grey mare ain't what she used to be..." since my dance produced the storm after 7:30 a.m. Timing is everything! Oh well, it's nice to see some new white stuff. The city was starting to look a little dingy with all the dirt covered snowbanks!

Ideas to Share

Favorite books, great movies, family stories, good news, pets, friends' successes, our own successes, pictures, quotes, thoughts, and more...

I'll start with something that makes me smile on a daily basis. I probably wouldn't admit it to Dane or Jim, but in first place on my list these days are Kobe and Claire! They are so entertaining that they keep me laughing and appreciative we made the sometimes questionable choice to get second dog. Along with the fun of watching them play together is how they interact with each other and Dane & I. Claire is almost always the one to start the playing but she usually gets all of us to join in because she is so happy you can't ignore her. Maybe it is because she is only a little over a year old or maybe it is the Schnoodle in her but she is alert and bouncing most of the time whether pouncing on Kobe, watching who is walking down the street, or throwing a sock up in the air and chasing it all over the room, Claire is never bored. Add to that that she is just the right size to cuddle up with, when she is ready to settle down she'll snuggle up cheek to cheek with whoever is willing. You can't beat the combination of having two loving dogs to make you feel happy!

Juno

My best thing today was definitely Juno. It is was thoroughly comical, engaging, and heartwarming. I enjoyed every minute, laughed and cried, loved the characters and the story. Before it was even finished I was thinking I wanted to see it again. It gets my vote, along with Roger Ebert's for the best film of the year! As Ebert eloquently ends his review, "The film has no wrong scenes and no extra scenes, and flows like running water."

Writing about Gratitude

I am hoping that this blog will be a way to come together to focus and share gratitude for all that we have and enjoy. So many of us have talked about the power of positive thoughts and feelings and yet it seems we don't take the time to share those positive thoughts with each other often enough. We always seem to share our frustrations with our friends and family but forget or hesitate to share our joys and triumphs.

My hope is that you will join in this online gratitude journal by posting your best things and then go a step further and invite your friends and family members to share in this blog and post their best things. By doing this not only are we helping ourselves by focusing on what we are grateful for, we are also helping each other by building connections and sharing joy.

My inspiration for starting this comes first from Judith Gould's presentation on writing and the idea of being writers outside of work just for our own pleasure. Her discussion of blogs and authentic writing for students led me to a renewed interest in Blogger. While creating and updating our elementary school blogs I used the profile interest search in Blogger to find blogs with a variety of interests. It didn't take long to discover several that inspired me. The Mill Yard is a personal blog by a mother new to rural New Hampshire who shares stories with an engaging writing voice, her postings are both interesting and entertaining, she also made me wish that I too, was a writer. I especially enjoyed her post about her experience in buying their house.

The Happiness Project blog by Gretchen Rubin first resonated on a personal level in giving me ideas and tips to find happiness in my life but then made me want to go a step further and connect with others. Finally, over lunch at the Olive Garden, Bella asked what my best part of the day was, it was of course lunch at the Olive Garden with Shannon and Bella! So the combination of hearing a fellow educator talk about the importance of writing, my discovery of the inviting lure of blogs and Bella's great question led me to the idea of creating and sharing a gratitude blog with all of you. I hope you will join me!