You will never know how much until it's gone

As my youngest child is now almost a grown up I know that soon he too will move out on his own. As my other children moved out one by one I always still had young ones that filled the house with life. But now I will have a quiet home that is lacking the happy spirit of a child. Sure I will see them on holidays and the grandkids will visit but for the most part it will be actually lonely. You spend so many years getting a house big enough for everyone and then before you know it you don't need a big house anymore. Except a few days a year you need the space for them to come to visit on holidays. Holidays will be more special to me now more than ever. I have to figure out how to have the food prepared before they get here so I can sit down and enjoy every moment they are here. Enjoying our time together has become rare occurences so therefore it is more important than ever before. I may have always wanted more time to myself as they were growing up but I never thought about having way too much time by myself. I am lucky to have grandchildren still young enough to want to come to Grandma's house to visit. And they live only three miles away. I know how fast they grow up so I see them whenever I can. I don't want to miss their youth because I know that is the only time I have before they grow up and move away too. It may have been a little tough when they were young but it is really tough to find yourself alone in a big quiet lifeless house. And a lot darker when no one is there to leave all the lights on.

Plan your life around it

Every afternoon you know it will rain so you got to plan your day around it. Getting frustrated over something that you know is going to happen doesn't make any sense. If you know what to expect then you know what you have to work with. There are people who you know have certain ways of doing things and you expect it. If you accept it you won't be annoyed by it. Before you can move past things you have to accept it first so you can quit stressing over it. Which is what I had to do when I realized I had forgotten to blog on friday. I had to accept it because it was now Saturday. Have a happy weekend everyone.

Bigger is not always better

There will come a time when you know a bigger store doesn't make it better when you can't walk as far. For sure when it comes to gifts those small but expensive newest electronic gadgets are what they want. Of course a big bill is not what anyone wants to pay. But worst of all is when you make a mountain out of a molehill when you keep adding dirt. Which means you have a small problem that by your negative reaction that turns it into a big problem. It is the small things in life that you treasure more than anything. That is if you don't miss out on them while you chase after a big thing that is always out of reach.

Wow it is hard to believe that they really think it is okay to spew hate on others.

Unfortunately there are far too many people who are comfortable spewing their hate on anyone they come in contact with. Especially those who sit behind their internet gadgets who are desensitized to the damages it has on anyone. I just read a person's comment on a site that advertised to anyone with the next million dollar idea to contact his office. I decided to respond to get their feedback. Within 3 minutes he sent a response cussing me out for contacting him. I couldn't believe it. Did he tell people to contact him so he could have more victims to spew hate at? I struggled whether to apologise to him. It bothered me and I eventually did apologize. Although he was wrong to talk to me that way his message also said he was having a epic bad day and my email made it worse. For causing him more stress I had to apologise to ease my own conscience.  It did but it also still left me stunned at what he had said to me. And I have had to keep flushing it over and over again because it keeps popping up in my mind over and over again.  I guess his mom either forgot to tell him that if you don't have anything nice to say then don't say anything at all or he forgot and someone should tell his mom so she can make him stop doing that. But considering his picture made him to appear to be middle aged he probably would not listen to her anyways. Be kind to everyone you come in contact with because you should and you have no idea what they may be facing. Mr. Miller if you ever read this you should be ashamed of yourself for your response and I hope one day you can feel remorseful for the hate you spew on your innocent victims that  cross your path.

You may be surprised yourself at what flies out of your mouth

Have you ever asked yourself, why did I just say that? We all have. Now if you said it while you were angry your probably saying to yourself, I sure wish I had not said that. When you are just having small talk about random things you have a lot of chances of saying something that you have no idea why you said it. Like today I was just talking to someone young who recently had gotten married and had their first child. As someone who had been married for 36 years I thought I would give them something useful they could do to keep them happily married for life. I thought for a split second then out popped one of those things that make you wander, why did I say that? I said have separate bedrooms so you can each have your own space to go to. Now I would gladly say that anytime to couples who had been married around 20 years and were experiencing tension that could lead to divorce. But to my surprise they quickly responded with, oh yeah didn't everybody do that back in the fifties? There I stood dumbfounded and wandering how on Earth they even know that. That was over sixty years ago.

You are what you think you are

If you say you can't do it then there is no doubt you won't because you won't try to do it. If you tell yourself you are just no good at balancing then I suggest you stay off the balance beam. You can be your own worst enemy. It's ok to say I never done that before so I'm not sure if I can. That leaves the door open to trying it one day. It's ok to say I didn't do good at it last time I tried, because that leaves the door open to trying it again. But to matter of factly say no I can't do that means you are not going to try and you slam the door shut. You can't be all you can be nor can you enjoy everything that you could because you keep saying you can't. You have to stop sabotaging yourself. Your thoughts make up the reality you live. Even if it is not true if you believe it is then to you it is true.

Do you read the fortune cookie when you get one?

As soon as we get home with our Chinese takeout food I dig in the bag and get the fortune cookies out first. We each choose one and read it out loud. It is hard to believe that in all these years we have never gotten a duplicate. Sometimes they seem to know what we need to hear at that moment in time. Sometimes they are powerfully motivating. They always make you take a moment out of your busy day to relax as you find the meaning it has for you. They really caught my attention and I started saving all the fortunes out of them. I keep the really good ones in a separate spot so I can read them whenever I need a little inspiration. I have never played the lottery numbers  that are also printed on the fortune cookie perhaps I should.