Your world

Happy Tuesday,

Hello readers. How are you doing today? It’s finally cooling down a bit. We’re at a nice 90 degrees today. Yes, I said a nice 90. When we’ve had 100+ temperatures, I’ll take the 90. Anyway, how are you? I’ve missed two days of writing and boy am I feeling the absence of my writing to you.

On days I don’t write, I feel as though somethings missing. It’s become such a huge part of me and I love every moment of being able to just sit down and write. I love interacting here on my blog and I love being able to chat with you on your blogs, emails and texts. It’s incredible.

Did you have a nice weekend? Are you ready for the three day weekend ahead? I am. It’ll be nice to have an extra day to not have to go anywhere, especially since this weekend we’ll be taking a little road trip to San Diego to visit with John’s family. Always a good time, but glad we’ve got the extra day to be home.

I’d love to hear what everyone’s been up to and what plans you may or may not have, so shoot me a text or drop me a comment because you make my day when I get to interact with you.

Onto the blog:

Today I wanted to talk a little about gratitude and creating a world filled with happiness and joy. While we can’t change the entire world, we can contribute to it’s betterment. While contributing to the betterment of the world overall, we are quite capable of changing our own world, or at least, our mindset of how we see things.

Sometimes I think we get so caught up in the details we forget to look at the big picture. For me, I get hung up on little things. I amaze myself that the over abundance of crafting supplies I have I can overlook to some degree, yet, some of the clutter in our dining room drives me crazy. I’ll chalk up the irrational thoughts along with being OCD mixed with a dose of hot mess with a drizzle of spaz. Basically, I can’t explain it.

When I overthink the tad of disorganization in my life, I become hyper-focused and that causes me to lack the appreciation for the amazing lake home I am fortunate enough to live in.

I love this quote by Thomas Kinkade, “Once you begin looking, you may be surprised to discover just how much joy your world has to offer.”

Words that are beyond true. For me, I live in a wonderful community. When I open my bedroom shutters I see nothing but trees and lake. Sometimes I’m blessed to see kiddos as young as 5 or 6 out fishing on the oversized rocks down by the lake. On those days I reflect on how much my sons would have enjoyed growing up here, but now, they get to enjoy lake life as adults. Maybe one day I’ll get to see my grandchildren enjoy more lake life.

This past weekend my son Kevin had a fantasy football party here. It was an amazing feeling having so many of the guys here that I watched grow up. Some are teachers, one a doctor, two contractors, a couple of nurses and one or two financial guys. Every one of the young me that were here are college graduates and doing well in life. One of them is a new daddy as of a month ago.

It’s been a real blessing in my life to reflect on the gift of seeing these guys grow up and accomplish so much in their own lives, this includes my grown up sons. Even Grant is coming into his own. Yesterday he outlined his upcoming future goals. They won’t be easy, but I have faith he can do it.

When I feel myself losing control of trying to accept the things I cannot change and embrace the things I can, I do much better when I reflect on the gift of the many blessing I am surrounded by.

I will be completely honest with you. I was one of those planning my life when life had something totally different in mind for me. Sometimes it’s hard to accept, but He’s the one that knows what’s best for me, so I need to remember, He’s the one guiding my path.

Yesterday I met with a new therapist. It’ was our first and last visit. She was amazing, however, she too is for short term therapy and my current therapist wants me in a longer therapy, therefore, she referred me to another group who specializes in PTSD and trauma. Tomorrow I’ll reach out and try and get myself an appointment. In the meantime, I’ll be grateful for what I do have as far as mental health help.

During our session yesterday she asked me to name a few things that make me happy and bring me joy. Of course I said John and my kids. She giggled a little bit and said, “that’s awesome, but what things, hobbies or activities bring you joy and happiness?”

I immediately told her about my writing. She said writing is a wonderful therapy in itself. I was glad to hear that she is in favor of writing being my outlet and my own therapy or self-help. I told Dr. Lowe that I enjoy sitting on my patio, when it’s cooler of course and just watching the boats and people swimming. I told her I enjoy quilting and doing my diamond art projects. I love to paint and create new things. I told her I have a couple of stockings I want to make for Christmas this year, but I keep getting distracted so I haven’t started them yet.

Dr. Lowe told me, be patient with yourself. Take a deep breath, 1.2.3.4.5 HOLD IT! HOLD IT! Release 1.2.3.4.5.

John’s always tells me I need to learn patience. What I am coming to realize about that statement is, I need to learn to have patience with myself. I need to learn to overlook the little things and concentrate on the bigger things, the blessings I have in life.

I am surrounded by my kids and I have John here in the lake full time now. I was over the moon excited to have him finally here and I’m not able to enjoy him fully because of the little things. The details that really don’t matter much. You know, the unfinished load of laundry or the puppy toys left out on the carpet.

What matters, or should matter is our world that we are creating together. Sure, it’s not exactly how we planned things, but we’re together and that’s the important thing. Like Dr. Gomez is always reminding me of, “you can only control your own thoughts, actions and space.” Noted!

My world is a pretty good one. I’m learning to deprogram myself from the indoctrination of living in a cult for most of my life. I’m surrounded by amazing people. I have an incredible support system and I have family I love deeply.

My friend Susan is helping me quilt again. My friend Jeannie is getting me back into gardening. John keeps cheering me on every day to write, my sons are including me in their new business and I am safe every night in the arms of the man I love and he’s a pretty good kisser too, so my goodnight and good morning kisses are to melt for. I’d say die for, but John’s made me promise not to die anytime soon.

I hope we can all take a moment and just stop and look around. Take in your surroundings and see the beauty that lies within your world.

Perhaps you have a new baby sleeping soundly in your arms. Maybe you have a new bud, just waiting for the right moment to open up and bloom. Perhaps you have the partner of your dreams waiting to make love to you tonight. Did your child just come home safely from the military?

Whatever it is, big or small, I hope you see the joy in your own world. I know I need to take more time to appreciate the joy in mine. I need to concentrate more on my blessings and I need to get my thoughts in check. God has blessed me beyond my wildest dreams. I don’t want to be like so many who sabotage their own amazing worlds.

I’ve been listening to the memoir written and read by Matthew Perry. What a hard life that man led, and much of it was due to his horrible addiction to drugs and alcohol. He somehow ended up with two horrible and deadly diseases. Throughout his book he says over and over again, “I’ll end things with so and so or I’ll cut ties or whatever it is before they cut me off. If I cut them off, then there’s no chance for them to say I’m not good enough, but if they beat me to it, then it confirms I am not good enough.”

When you grow up and continue through life thinking you’re not good enough, it’s easy to fall into the mindset of putting up walls and making yourself difficult, not because you don’t love someone, it’s because you live with a fear that they’ll soon see, you really aren’t good enough.

We can talk about that in a latter blog, but for today, I hope we can all take a moment and see our worlds in a different light even if we are facing hard and difficult challenges. I hope we can all take a second and see the joy our world has to offer. Our own little worlds that we’ve created.

When we are thankful for our blessing, our thoughts turn to being more positive. When our thoughts are positive, we attract more blessings in life.

“Gratitude makes sense for our past, brings peace for today, and creates a vision for tomorrow.”-Melody Beattie

Thank you everyone for stopping by today. May God continue to bless you and keep you safe. Until next time, don’t forget, Love Life++ Hugs.

Another glimpse into my book:

Sitting there, I wondered why I wasn’t loved and why my daddy hadn’t taken me with him. I just wanted to be loved, accepted, and I wanted my mother back. I was a good girl. I did everything I was told. I listened, I was respectful, I cleaned the apartment the way she wanted, I did well in school. I didn’t talk to the “worldly” kids very much, nor did I stand for the pledge of allegiance. Because of being a Jehovah Witness, I sat in the office for holiday and birthday parties. I even ate lunch alone so my mother would be proud of me for being a good little Jehovah Witness. Even when she took her break from the cult, she still would enroll me in school and tell the teachers the rules of being a JW child. Mother was a hypocrite, and I had to live the life of being what she certainly wasn’t practicing.