Trip Begins with T Which Starts Tomorrow Morning

I'm leaving for a grand trip tomorrow morning (so early in the morning!).  My husband and I are going with his Mother, brothers and their wives on a Caribbean cruise, and I'm excited (well, down deep I am; I'm just feeling tired at this moment because I've been going all day getting packed and cleaning).  

I love taking trips- any kind of trip is fine with me!  I especially love road trips!  Nothing like driving down the highway at a nice pace (at least 5 mph over the speed limit) with either the radio at a  high volume or talk radio on.  I love it!

There's something about getting away, leaving my life behind and doing something new.  I have found myself traveling quite a bit since all of my children grew up, moved away, and got married.  Most of the trips I take are to visit them and my parents and sisters who live in Texas and Arizona, but I've also gone a few other places as well.  It's been great!

Last year I made a Vision Board which sits in my office behind me on a table; one of the phrases I cut out of a magazine and thumb tacked on the bulletin board reads, "Adventures Big and Small".  Funny how since I have pinned that up where I can see it daily, we've gone on two fun, family trips with my husband's family. 

I'm looking forward to this get-away and still have some things to do to get ready.  (I'm going to try and write a few more letter blog posts tonight; whatever I can't finish I'll blog about by the end of May (I hope!).  It's going to be a busy few weeks, and I'm looking forward to it.

What fun trips have you been on and where is your favorite place to go?

What's Your Favorite SUBJECT?

I was thinking last night about S words (so, what's new?) and thought of the word subject and then thought about my favorite subjects in High School.  They were English and Psychology along with French.

The interesting thing is that so many years later (I'm not saying how many years!) I'm still interested in all of them and continue to use the first two, with an interest in French that I haven't done anything with.  I find that interesting to look back and see that my favorite subjects have become passions of mine.

I love writing; although, you will find, I'm sure, many grammatical errors in my text.  I think I've forgotten some of the sentence structures that I once loved diagramming, but I still love to write.  It's strictly a hobby, but I've found myself pulling out a small notebook I keep in my purse at Church or even in the car and airplane and jotting down a page or two.

I love how our minds work; why we feel the way we feel and do the things we do.  I'm intrigued with psychology.  I remember taking Psychology in my first semester at Brigham Young University; I just don't remember how I did in the class!  (I was dating my now husband so my mind wasn't exactly on school and I was young; what can I say?)  I think my love of psychology and wanting to help people took me on the path to Rapid Eye Technology and now on to learning about other modalities of energy healing. 

I would never have put together my favorite subjects in school with where my life has taken me so far, if I hadn't have had to think of an S word today because I signed up for the A to Z Challenge.  Thank you, A to Z creators and to a friend who passed that along to me.

My Reaction Reflex

I was sitting at my desk trying to think of a word relevant to my life that starts with R and had an interesting experience, one that has happened to me more than once, and it was so clear: my reaction reflex. 

How many times have you had someone decline an invitation and your reaction was the feeling of rejection or embarrassment that you invited them in the first place?   I sent out some invitations via facebook for a girls' night out that I'm going to host for my Daughter-in-Law and just had someone decline.  My first reaction was the feeling of rejection and then embarrassment in which I quickly changed to rational thinking, "I'm not being rejected just because she can't come to my girls' night out; she has other plans."  

Whatever works for you and me in order to not feel rejection is fine; there's no need to react with such negative thoughts which turn into negative feelings.

I have a tendency to react quickly to situations rather than to take a minute to think about it; not a good thing, but my reactions are usually internal.  I would not want anyone to know that I wasn't okay; ever.  I know some people don't have such quick reaction reflexes; I admire that.  Is there a trick to that?

Note to Self: Quit It

This A to Z Challenge seems to be getting a little more difficult as it moves along; not because I have to post something daily but because it has to be specific to the corresponding letter of the day.  Today's day and corresponding letter is Q.  Oh my, how many words in my brain begin with Q?  Let's see, quiet, quiver, questioning, quizzical,  qat and qi (which I've learned playing words with friends), QVC (a place I love to window shop without actually walking!), and I just found myself telling myself to Quit it! 

I was looking through my quotes on Pinterest and saw this quote:
Okay, I probably wouldn't have used the second word, but it pretty
much explains my "quit it" phrase to myself.

Yesterday I posted about perfectness and lessons I've learned from looking
for it or trying to achieve it.  The problem with so  many of us is that we get
this picture in our heads of how we think things or people should be which
causes us more problems than we want.

I find negative or unrealistic or comparison self-talk to be so destructive to us and even to those around us.  I've tried (and will keep trying) to make my life better, myself a better person and to find my purpose in life using positive outlooks. 

A while back I posted something on balance and achieving balance in my life.  In my head, I was thinking that my life was out of whack if I wasn't balancing it each day.  This morning I saw a blog post from Positively Positive about this very subject and I had one of those aha moments!   The title of the blog posting was,  "The Myth of Life: Balance"; the title was so intriguing to me since I've been thinking about balance.  The author, Danielle LaPorte states, "it’s not the imbalances of life that will get you down—it’s doing meaningless things that aren’t taking you where you want to go."  (which totally goes along with my "Out of Time" blog post the other day; I love when things come together for me.)  I guess it's time for me to find my meaningless activities and replace them with activities that go along with my passion. (or at least move them to a different time of day or evening as to not interfere with what I really love.)

Anyway, back to my "quit it" (I'm kind of rambling today; sorry).  After reading her blog and watching her short motivational video I need to quit telling myself that I need to be a certain way and instead replace the shoulds with things that I love, and push through fears that I have about going with my passion.   What things in your life do you need to quit and replace with something more positive?  What is your passion?

 

My Adventure in Searching for Perfectness

P is for My Adventure in Searching for Perfectness.  I've looked for perfectness in all areas of my life for longer than I care to mention, and I've learned a few things along the way.

First, I have never really been a perfectionist or a type A personality.  I do like things to be perfect for me, but I know when to not care if they're perfect or not .  In a perfect world my house would always be clean ,I would be efficient, I would be doing everything right, and never say the wrong thing; fortunately, it's not a perfect world.

In my perfect world, my house is perfectly fine if it's presentable without a white glove test.  I used to have a sign hanging by my front door that read, "If you're coming to see me come anytime.  If you're coming to see my house please make an appointment."  The perfectness in my home is more about the feeling than in the presentation; although, I love decorating and making things look good.  Just last night we went to Home Depot to find the perfect ceiling fan for our bedroom.  Needless to say it took me longer than it should have with only 3 perfect choices!  I'm happy to report that even with my doubts even in purchasing the fan that when my husband installed it last night, it looked pretty close to perfect to me!  It gives our bedroom the feeling I was looking for. 

It's a good thing I've never expected my family to be perfect, at least not always.  I learned through raising five children that children or things or situations are not always perfect, but they were perfect for me in learning lessons and becoming wiser.  I have learned to let go of desires for us to be perfect as a family unit and especially now with everyone grown, gone and raising families of their own.  I used to think that our get-togethers (which don't happen very often) had to be perfect, but I have learned to let that idea go and to embrace the time we all share when we are all together.  (we are scattered from Washington State to California to Utah, and Texas)

I still love it when I find the perfect thing for a room or my closet or the perfect present for someone I love,  as well as the perfect thought at just the perfect moment, but life is too short to put so much pressure and stress on myself or my husband or my children to create perfectness. 

I guess my final thought on perfectness is it's all in how we view our lives, the people in our lives and our living spaces and circumstances that makes them perfect or not.  I'd rather choose to believe that my life and everything I'm learning is perfect for me.; otherwise I'll be going down the path of guilt and I choose not to travel that route.