Support networks...

Do you have one?

I've been talking to a few friends lately that told me I should write about this. How everyone needs a support network. I don't mean just friends either. I mean a solid group of four to five people you can depend on, talk to, know they won't say a word about ANYTHING you tell them, won't judge you and will give you solid advice.

Gossip spreads fast when you think you're confiding in someone who really truly isn't part of your support network. Trust me I can speak from experience on that one and I have learned my lesson. The hard way.

I'm talking about that small team/friends that you trust everything with. It is the team of people who are truly there for you. My group is five people. My husband being one, my mom and three girlfriends. All of them I can turn to when I feel negative and they don't judge they just help me through it. I can vent to them, again no judgment just help. I completely appreciate having people who support me in every avenue of my life. My work, my studies, my personal life.

I know I can count on this group to help keep my attitude positive and see the big picture, when I'm struggling. I learn from them and I adore them. It is a two way street though. They give and I give back. It is not just me taking. I know that I am part of their support network too! I listen to them, help them just as they do for me!

That said, I know I am in others network of support and I'm fine with that. I love being able to make them feel better and help them.

Think about that group you have around you that does this for you. When you think of them some of the values that should come to mind are acceptance, trust, loyal, open minded, gratitude and giving.

The bottom line is these people ALWAYS make you feel good. Lift your spirits and listen to you and care about your success and happiness.

j

What's for LUNCH?

I'm hungry.....(no surprise there)

I forgot to pack my lunch (sitting in the fridge...again no surprise there)

Pita
Sub
Hamburger

What would you choose if you were 7 months pregnant???

Tough choices

It started last Thursday, just a tickle, I went to bed early only to be woken twice by my oldest who was "not feeling too good" after a couple of toilet breaks and some dry heaves on his part, a cold cloth and some fresh air. We tucked ourselves back into bed. In the light of day he was clamy and pale. I was stuffed up and coughing.

Is it possible we are sick again??? I just don't get it. On top of that we had the craziest weekend ever on the go.

I was supposed to be attending a Scrapbooking retreat 2 nights, 3 days of food, friends and crafting. Sleeping and eating whenever I want. I love this weekend since it is in the dead of winter and it is always just what I need to get through till spring. However, I knew this year would be cut short. My Gramma is turning 85 and this weekend was also her birthday. Top that with my in-laws anniversaries 19 for BIL and SIL and 47 ??for my hubby's parents. All very important occassions not to be missed.

Cut to Friday night, I have 2 large tables which I committed for use at this retreat. I had the afternoon off and decided around 2 that I was going to stay home that night but head out to the retreat in morning. Hubby and I dropped of the tables and I headed home for more soup and rest. Saturday morning came and went and I still did not feel great.

Tough choice time. I decided that going would cost me more energy then the benefit I would get from going away for my favorite event of the year. It was very disappointing, but I had to important events that required my presence and something had to give.

Sunday morning I did not feel much better, and sadly had to send my hubby and the girl to the party without me and my son, both of us curled up on the couch with our soup and extra vitamin c, coughing and with a box of kleenex.

I hate making tough choices like that because usually I can medicate and make it through, I am always the one you can count on to be there. However, this pregnancy and the colds and virus' that are going around are spanking my butt.

The boy is always more suseptable as his daily activities require more energy and leave him worn out on a regular basis. He is so good about taking his vitamins, eating well and I mean really well, the kid can't eat anymore vegetables or fruits in a day, he is so good about getting to bed on time and doing his exercises. He should be the healthiest kid ever, but his is also very active which wears him down over the course of the week.

We managed to eek our way off the couch for dinner on Sunday night, only because my in-laws live next door and my MIL made soup especially for us and the soup is MAGICAL , I swear!

The boy and I only stayed for an hour or so and headed back home for hot baths, new pjs and off to bed again.

If you are still with me, the point I need to make is that sometimes as much as these tough choices are hard and totally ruin your expectations, if you are willing to make them, they usually work out for the best.

Happily, the boy woke up with sparkling eyes and a skip in his step and me I'm still a little stuffed up but I definately feel better. Thankfully I had the forsight to take today off as a day of rest, little did I know it would be for a totally different reason.

If you have a story about a tough choice that really worked out for the best, please share!

Have a great day!
shann:)

Sunday quote

"The Land of Opportunity is an attitude."

~BJ Gallagher and Warren H. Schmidt

Again and again, what is the common thread to success? ATTITUDE!!!!!

If you have a crappy attitude, it is unlikely you will achieve your success you desire. This quote is so true. With the right attitude anything is possible. You can change your life around with the a good attitude.

How is your attitude today?

What is one thing you are doing right now to change it and/or improve it?

Do you have Gratitude?

Okay so after the other post I had some interesting emails from a few people that know me well. They were telling me that writing things down that they were grateful for was just not possible because they had NOTHING.

What? actually that is a more WTF??

Your kidding me right?

I emailed them back and the one started a conversation. This is the short of it.

me: You have a roof over your head?

them: Yes but I might loose it because I lost my job.

me: You still have one for now, you can get the job soon.

me: You woke up today. Fresh start.

them: Yes but I hated today

me: You have a loving family

them: yes but their disappointed in me

me: Have you asked them that? Do they say they love you.

them: Yes they do love me. Okay I have one thing.

me: You currently have the ability to apply to jobs, walk there, drive there or surf the internet.

them: Yes

me: The sun is out ;-) (yeah sneaky but heck I'm grateful for sun in the winter)

them: yes


This person then went on to list about 6 more things that was good in their life and before you knew it.... bingo... that person had found GRATITUDE.

You know what. I got an email shortly later saying that their mood had drastically improved and when it did they went only line and found 6 jobs to apply too!!

Seriously, how fantastic is that??? You change your view, change your ATTITUDE and change happens.

Sometimes it is really hard to find gratitude. The easy way is just to be negative and say forget about and the world is out to get me. If you can just find a few simple things, you will be amazed at how fast that snowballs into LOTS of reasons to be thankful!!!

Remember, life is good. It is 10% what happens to you and 90% how you react to it!

jenn

Self doubt talk!

Ever hear that nagging voice in your head??? You know which one I'm talking about! We all have it, we've all heard it. Some of us listen too it too much! It goes like this...

• I can't do that.

• I won't be able to.

• I'm not smart enough.

• I'm not active enough.

• I don't have enough money.

• I'm not good enough.

• Murphy's Law will get me

• It's cancer, I know it, its my family.

• They don't like me.

• I have no courage.

• I'm not pretty enough.

• I'm doomed

You know that voice? We've all had it. We all get it. You can squish it out. It really is the only way to truly become a positive thinker/believer/doer.
When you hear that voice come into your head. Stop, think and say the opposite!

• I will/can do it!

• I will be able to...

• I am smart.

• I am active

• I have an ever increasing income

• I am good enough.

• I create my own luck and I am lucky.

• I have a healthy body, soul and mind.

• I am happy and have lots of friends.

• I am full of love and courage.

• I approve of myself.

• I am beautiful.

• I have a good life.

We bombarded our inner thoughts with so much negative self talk, we don't realize we are doing it. I always thought of myself as happy and positive, but when I stepped back and realized how much negative talk happened in my head, I could not believe it! Every time I caught myself talking negative I moved my bracelet I was wearing to the other wrist. You know the first time I did this I moved it 20 times. YES TWENTY!!! These days I don't wear one. If I catch myself verbalizing a negative thought or saying it in my head, I just stop and say "I approve of myself" and then repeat the negative statement I just said, but with the positive twist.
It seems like a lot of work, but in no time you will have less and less negative thoughts going through your mind.

Replace that negative thought with a positive affirmation!

YOU CAN DO IT!!!!!

Another easy way to replace the self doubt talk is to keep a gratitude journal. It doesn't have to be anything huge, but when your feeling full of self doubt. Write down 20 things your grateful for in your life and don't tell me you don't have 20 things. We all do. Even in our lowest moments we can still find things to be grateful for.

Remember ATTITUDE IS EVERYTHING!!!!!! We really are what we believe we are.

From the Planning Ahead File.

As you know I will be on maternity leave from my full time job, beginning in May. In December I decided that I needed a week to decompress after Christmas take stock and do some planning to prepare for my Maternity Leave. Can you believe that when I asked for this week off in January my work asked me if I could tell them how I was planning on using the rest of my vacation time before my Maternity leave. How was I planning on using 5 weeks vacation in less then 5 months????

My reply, good question that's kinda why I am taking the week off in January.

My point being that planning ahead is never wasted time.

I just thought I would share with you a few of the things you may want to consider thinking about and planning ahead for during these cold days of February. I find it really helps me get through this time of year when I can look ahead at the things we want to do and make a plan to have the money available for us to do them!

1. If you have a garden or would like to start one, have a look at the plants you would like to grow and the supplies you will need. I have already purchased my starting trays, soil and seeds, they are tucked away for a snowday or the beginning of March when the kids and I will decide and start planting our seeds for our garden this year.

2. Kids activities for the summer, vacation bible school, summer camp, day camp, summer sports. Yes? No? Cost? Schedule?

3. Summer Vacation - staying home? going away?? where??

4. Special Activities or Festivals

5. Budget - Starting putting $$ away in a separate account or cash in an envelope, so that the $$ is already there when the time comes

6. Work around the house or yard that you want to do this year, prune trees, re-plant flower beds, build a walkway or deck? It really helps to put weekends on the calendar for large projects, this way you have a target for having all the tools, supplies and possibly extra people available to help. (maybe even a BBQ to thank all those who helped)

These are just some of the things that I start to think about and plan for during the month of February.

What do you want to get done this summer??

shann
:)

Designing the Best 10 Years of Your Life - Shannon

Back at the beginning of January, Jenn and I both did a post reflecting on the past 10 years of our life. Jenn also mentioned that we were on board with something going on with @Darrenhardy over at Success Magazine . We are both participating in the Design the Best 10 Years of Your Life course.
I was of course a little behind in getting started due to being sick most of January. However, I signed up, printed off the worksheets and have since gotten started.

The first set of Worksheets are titled Review and you go through the last 10 years and the last year and list things that you are proud of, contributions you have made, etc. This was fairly easy because I had already given this some thought for my New Year's post. Although they do ask you to list 10 victories of the past 10 years and I found 10 difficult I had to sit with it and think about what I considered a victory.

Next we move on to Gratitude which again was fairly easy as I keep a gratitude journal and was able to list things beside the various questions. The one that gave me pause was list 3 times I have experienced LUCK in my life. That is a great question! I loved it.

Next on to Contemplation interesting 24 hours to live and answer a series of questions. End result for me. Hubby and I need to update our WILL!

Next was a tricky exercise that I have done before, Write your own obituary. Morbid I know!. But once I got started it was not as complicated as I thought it would be, it came to me as I started writing, how I hoped to be remembered.

So this is how far I am, at the beginning, next we are moving on to Core Values so I am interested to get started on that.

This series is an investment in time probably a good 30 -60 minutes per set of worksheets, maybe more for some people, but it feels good already to get this information down on paper.

Also by registering for this program (which is FREE) you receive extra messages from Darren Hardy as well as excerpt of interviews or seminars from world famous speakers.

Again you can sign up for this program here. If your at all interested in Designing the Best 10 Years of Your Life I strongly recommend you get started now. I don't think this will ever be offered as a FREE course again.

What is the one thing you for sure want to accomplish in the next 10 years?

Shannon:)

quote

...always forgive your enemies..nothing annoys them so much.

--- Oscar Wilde


So much can be said about that quote. How true is it though? Really, why bother to hold anger, resentment against someone else. They don't care. You are only hurting yourself. Easier said then done sometimes, but it really is the best way. Let it go. Besides when you can let it go and they do notice that (and they will notice) they will be annoyed! ;)


Who are you mad at?
Who do you dislike right now?

Breathe deeply...

Let it all out...

Move on.

Happy Wednesday.

Sweet Day Off

So as part of my New Year's resolution. I took a week off in January to make some decisions and plan out my time until this new person arrives sometime in May.

I decided that I was going to use my full 4weeks vacation before my maternity leave to give me time to do all those things that need to be done before a baby arrives. I also took off the days that I have doctors appointments so that I didn't have to feel rushed to get back to work or pissed off at my doctor because he was late and that would make me late for work.

So today is one of those days that I am off for the day. I have had most of the morning to myself to catch up on things around the house and on my computer (cleaning out email !!). I have completed the boys scholastic book order (ordering ahead for the spring birthdays), I have been able to do some reasearch on a few courses that I would like to take. AND just for fun I was home and was able to take a call from our insurance agent who let me know that my insurance was actually going down (by $18.00 a year) but I take the reduction at this point.

I was able to touch base with a few friends (which is one of my goals for 2010) to say hello and ask how they are doing.

This afternoon I am off for my pre-registration appointment at the Hospital or as I like to call it the Social Services Interogation. I willingly let my hubby bow out of this appointment as I find it a total waste of time and really really annoying. I understand they are trying to identify people who may require services so they can get them on caseloads before the need is at a crisis point. I just get annoying with the constant questions about my drug use, marital status, and support systems within the community. I still remember our first visit when I was pregnant with our first child. Our appointment was the day before we were getting married (a civil ceremony in our backyard) the social worker asked if we were married, I shot my husband a look that said now is not the time for the truth, and I turned smiled politely and said yes! I'll be damned if I was going to get into a new series of questions over one measly day. To this day my husband likes to bring up the time I lied to the "government". Whatever!

Then I have scheduled a massage for myself which I so desperately need since I feel like my hip joints just want to fall apart on me.

Then I still want to plot some budget numbers down for me and hubby to look at so we can make some decisions about what to do with our mortgage, debt repayment schedule and living expenses while we still have a few more months of full income left and before we do our taxes.

If you had a day off, what are the top three things you would do???

shann
:)