It's hard not to be inspired by the creativity found in all of nature.
Tuesday, July 24, 2012
Monday, July 16, 2012
Pinky Promise
As a child, do you remember those pinky promises you used to make that were so very
important at the time? I have created a couple of pieces of jewelry that remind me of this childhood tradition. I have wrapped sterling silver wire in a way that reminds me of
pinkies wrapping around each other. This jewelry can be a reminder of those
simpler days.
Feel free to share any special childhood memories that might come to mind.
Thank you for reading!
Ida : )
Feel free to share any special childhood memories that might come to mind.
Thank you for reading!
Ida : )
Monday, September 5, 2011
Arthritis Walk
Since I took a little vaca from blogging over the summer, I will need to backtrack to share one of the things I did that I had wanted to do for a while. My Mom has had arthritis for over 20 years and I had been wanting to participate in the Arthritis Walk in honor of her. There was a great group of people who came together for this walk.
Arthritis has taken a tremendous toll on Mom's body and overall health. She has been through so much, but remains upbeat and optimistic. Though her hands are disfigured, she remains as active as she can, which includes knitting and drawing. She has entered her work in the local fair the last couple of years and has won blue ribbons each year. You can sneak a peak of Mom with one of her blue ribbons here: http://tinyurl.com/3efodew
Arthritis has taken a tremendous toll on Mom's body and overall health. She has been through so much, but remains upbeat and optimistic. Though her hands are disfigured, she remains as active as she can, which includes knitting and drawing. She has entered her work in the local fair the last couple of years and has won blue ribbons each year. You can sneak a peak of Mom with one of her blue ribbons here: http://tinyurl.com/3efodew
I want to thank everyone who sponsored me for the walk. I really appreciated it!
Is there a cause that is near and dear to your heart? Please feel free to share about it in the comments.
Is there a cause that is near and dear to your heart? Please feel free to share about it in the comments.
Friday, August 12, 2011
My blogging goal got a bit sidetracked, but I'm ready to try again. ☺
I hope you are all having a great summer. I'd love to hear about some of your adventures. I've had the opportunity to go hiking, swimming, kayaking, and to the beach. I've also gone to some local festivals, which included lobsters and fireworks. I like them both, but think the lobsters win out over the fireworks for my favorite. ☺ It's been a really nice summer to be outside. What have you been up to? Feel free to share in the comments and let me know.
The summer is going quickly now, so this is a good reminder for us. Let's take advantage of the weeks that are left and do some of those things that we had planned to do, but haven't gotten to yet. What's on your list?
I hope you are all having a great summer. I'd love to hear about some of your adventures. I've had the opportunity to go hiking, swimming, kayaking, and to the beach. I've also gone to some local festivals, which included lobsters and fireworks. I like them both, but think the lobsters win out over the fireworks for my favorite. ☺ It's been a really nice summer to be outside. What have you been up to? Feel free to share in the comments and let me know.
The summer is going quickly now, so this is a good reminder for us. Let's take advantage of the weeks that are left and do some of those things that we had planned to do, but haven't gotten to yet. What's on your list?
Thursday, April 7, 2011
Exercise…I think I can, I think I can…
I thought I would pick a few goals that people have in common to talk about. I’m starting with exercise. Why? There are 2 main reasons I’m picking exercise. A) It really is important for our health, and 2) It can be a real struggle for a lot of people.
I’ll share a little bit about my personal experience with exercise. As I mentioned in a previous post, I am a list person. With exercise, I have a list in the form of a daily record that I keep to monitor my progress. When I say I can empathize with anyone who struggles with exercise, I am not exaggerating. When I first started using my elliptical machine, it was everything I could do to stay on it for 3 minutes. Yes, you read that correctly, three minutes. I was pretty embarrassed that that was all I could do and not very eager to write that number on my daily record.
But I’m here to tell you that there is hope. Before I knew it, 3 minutes became 5, then 6, 7, 8…until I was amazed to see the number 20 appear. I have a rowing machine and stationary bike as well. I now like to break my workout up and do 20 minutes on each machine for a total of an hour. (I’m good like that with math.) It didn’t happen all at once. I found I really needed to be realistic with myself and take small steps so I would stick with it.
If anyone had told me I would be exercising for an hour at a time, I would have thought they were crazy. No matter how good I felt after exercising, I still had the hardest time convincing myself to exercise again the next day. But then some stressful things happened in my life and I found exercise was a great stress reducer for me. That became my motivator. Now that I have reached my time goal, I am still keeping my daily log. Now I track mileage and calories burned. It is a way I can continue to see my progress and challenge myself.
Now that the weather is getting better (well, the snow is mostly gone anyway) I am going to mix in outdoor activities like hiking and bike riding. I find variety is good so your exercise doesn’t get boring.
What do you do for exercise, or what do you wish you were doing? What is your motivator? I’d love to hear your stories.
I’ll share a little bit about my personal experience with exercise. As I mentioned in a previous post, I am a list person. With exercise, I have a list in the form of a daily record that I keep to monitor my progress. When I say I can empathize with anyone who struggles with exercise, I am not exaggerating. When I first started using my elliptical machine, it was everything I could do to stay on it for 3 minutes. Yes, you read that correctly, three minutes. I was pretty embarrassed that that was all I could do and not very eager to write that number on my daily record.
But I’m here to tell you that there is hope. Before I knew it, 3 minutes became 5, then 6, 7, 8…until I was amazed to see the number 20 appear. I have a rowing machine and stationary bike as well. I now like to break my workout up and do 20 minutes on each machine for a total of an hour. (I’m good like that with math.) It didn’t happen all at once. I found I really needed to be realistic with myself and take small steps so I would stick with it.
If anyone had told me I would be exercising for an hour at a time, I would have thought they were crazy. No matter how good I felt after exercising, I still had the hardest time convincing myself to exercise again the next day. But then some stressful things happened in my life and I found exercise was a great stress reducer for me. That became my motivator. Now that I have reached my time goal, I am still keeping my daily log. Now I track mileage and calories burned. It is a way I can continue to see my progress and challenge myself.
Now that the weather is getting better (well, the snow is mostly gone anyway) I am going to mix in outdoor activities like hiking and bike riding. I find variety is good so your exercise doesn’t get boring.
What do you do for exercise, or what do you wish you were doing? What is your motivator? I’d love to hear your stories.
Monday, February 21, 2011
I didn't think I could do that, BUT I Did!
AOCDRNDICG TO RSCHEEARCH AT CMABRIGDE UINERVTISY, IT DSENO'T MTAETR WAHT OERDR THE LTTERES IN A WROD ARE, THE OLNY IPROAMTNT TIHNG IS TAHT THE FRSIT AND LSAT LTTEER BE IN THE RGHIT PCLAE. TIHS IS BCUSEAE THE HUAMN MNID DEOS NOT RAED ERVEY LTETER BY ISTLEF, BUT THE WROD AS A WLOHE. LET ME KONW IF YOU CAN IF YOU CAN RAED THIS. OLNY 55% OF PLEPOE CAN.
Besides being cool, what does this have to do with goals? Sometimes (often) we don’t THINK we can do something, only to find out that we actually CAN. Who would have thought you could read the above paragraph at first glance? What are you putting off because you don’t think you can do it? Are you ready to give it a try?
You can learn more about working on goals at my website.
I'd love to hear about something you didn't think you could do, but you DID!
Besides being cool, what does this have to do with goals? Sometimes (often) we don’t THINK we can do something, only to find out that we actually CAN. Who would have thought you could read the above paragraph at first glance? What are you putting off because you don’t think you can do it? Are you ready to give it a try?
You can learn more about working on goals at my website.
I'd love to hear about something you didn't think you could do, but you DID!
Wednesday, February 9, 2011
Recreating Yourself
The wonderful thing about individuals is just that, we are individual. We all have different and unique talents, hopes, and goals. Throughout the year, this blog will discuss goals in general as well as a variety of specific goals. This will be done by myself as well as by guest bloggers. Today I am pleased to share from our first guest blogger. Her name is Marcie. Let's listen to what she has to say:
Have you ever decided to do something that seems totally crazy, downright impossible and even unattainable? Well, on January 8th 2010, I did just that! I changed my entire lifestyle and started eating a vegan diet. It has been a year with my new life and I would like to share some of the highlights.
The original decision to do this came out of some health issues and the age-old problem of a few extra pounds. But currently, my new lifestyle is the basis of how I will lead my life forever. I started to research vegan diet plans, factory farming and the benefits for our planet of eating a plant based diet. Everything I read brought more knowledge that this is what I was supposed to do to make a difference in myself, but more over our planet.
Making the decision to not eat meat and all dairy was only the beginning; I also stopped eating refined sugar and flour and started eating all whole grain. I stopped drinking coffee (and I was a coffee junkie, I used to think about my morning coffee when I went to bed at night). Now vegans do drink coffee, but I stopped coffee because I didn’t want to be addicted to anything anymore. All of this sounds like it would have been excruciating, but it wasn’t. I started feeling better after about a week to 10 days and I began to lose the cravings that used to haunt me. I started exercising more, my energy increased and naturally I started to lose weight. I had a new sense of calmness, kindness and awareness that I hadn’t experienced before.
In the beginning, I think I was thinking more about myself, how will this help me, what is in it for me. Now, I am vegan for my family, our future, for the animals, for the water ways, for the air and for the truth of what the Government and Meat Producers do not want you to know. I know this sounds slightly like an activist rant, but that is not me at all. I am just excited about how this has made such a difference in all aspects of my life.
I feel there is a new awareness of better food choices and how they impact our world. There are so many ways to make small changes in your life, but the easiest is to be informed. Search the web and see for yourself or read a book, knowledge is power.
Some good reading material-This Crazy Vegan Life by Christina Pirello; Eating Animals by Jonathon Safron Foer;
Websites-http://www.vegetariantimes.com/
http://www.vegsource.com/ great recipes- www.goveg.com
Marcie
It is always exciting for me to hear about how somebody comes to set a goal for themselves and then bring it to fruition. I want to thank Marcie for her willingness to share her story with all of us. I also want to share something else about Marcie with you. She has a lovely shop where she sells beautiful handmade jewelry that she creates herself. You can take a look for yourself at www.marciejanedesigns.etsy.com.
Your goals may be different than Marcie’s, but I hope you will look at the steps she took in making her goal. Then you can see how those same steps might be applied in helping you achieve your goals. Here are some of the steps Marcie mentioned that stood out to me:
~ choose a goal
~ think about your reasons
~ do research
~ think about the benefits
~ decide what small steps you can take toward your goal
If you have a topic in mind that involves goals that you would like to learn more about, or that you would like to share with all of us, please feel free to let me know. You can contact me at info@professionallifeadvisor.com or learn more about goals HERE.
Have you ever decided to do something that seems totally crazy, downright impossible and even unattainable? Well, on January 8th 2010, I did just that! I changed my entire lifestyle and started eating a vegan diet. It has been a year with my new life and I would like to share some of the highlights.
The original decision to do this came out of some health issues and the age-old problem of a few extra pounds. But currently, my new lifestyle is the basis of how I will lead my life forever. I started to research vegan diet plans, factory farming and the benefits for our planet of eating a plant based diet. Everything I read brought more knowledge that this is what I was supposed to do to make a difference in myself, but more over our planet.
Making the decision to not eat meat and all dairy was only the beginning; I also stopped eating refined sugar and flour and started eating all whole grain. I stopped drinking coffee (and I was a coffee junkie, I used to think about my morning coffee when I went to bed at night). Now vegans do drink coffee, but I stopped coffee because I didn’t want to be addicted to anything anymore. All of this sounds like it would have been excruciating, but it wasn’t. I started feeling better after about a week to 10 days and I began to lose the cravings that used to haunt me. I started exercising more, my energy increased and naturally I started to lose weight. I had a new sense of calmness, kindness and awareness that I hadn’t experienced before.
In the beginning, I think I was thinking more about myself, how will this help me, what is in it for me. Now, I am vegan for my family, our future, for the animals, for the water ways, for the air and for the truth of what the Government and Meat Producers do not want you to know. I know this sounds slightly like an activist rant, but that is not me at all. I am just excited about how this has made such a difference in all aspects of my life.
I feel there is a new awareness of better food choices and how they impact our world. There are so many ways to make small changes in your life, but the easiest is to be informed. Search the web and see for yourself or read a book, knowledge is power.
Some good reading material-This Crazy Vegan Life by Christina Pirello; Eating Animals by Jonathon Safron Foer;
Websites-http://www.vegetariantimes.com/
http://www.vegsource.com/ great recipes- www.goveg.com
Marcie
It is always exciting for me to hear about how somebody comes to set a goal for themselves and then bring it to fruition. I want to thank Marcie for her willingness to share her story with all of us. I also want to share something else about Marcie with you. She has a lovely shop where she sells beautiful handmade jewelry that she creates herself. You can take a look for yourself at www.marciejanedesigns.etsy.com.
Your goals may be different than Marcie’s, but I hope you will look at the steps she took in making her goal. Then you can see how those same steps might be applied in helping you achieve your goals. Here are some of the steps Marcie mentioned that stood out to me:
~ choose a goal
~ think about your reasons
~ do research
~ think about the benefits
~ decide what small steps you can take toward your goal
If you have a topic in mind that involves goals that you would like to learn more about, or that you would like to share with all of us, please feel free to let me know. You can contact me at info@professionallifeadvisor.com or learn more about goals HERE.
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