so I have been reading articles of how to reinvent myself.
What needs done and what I should keep doing.

this one article says by Paula Harvey……..

Warning signs of a passionless life

1) has life become routine?

2) is the zest for life gone?

3) do you live for vacations and weekends?

4) from all outside appearances your life looks wonderful, do you often       

    wonder why it isn’t fun anymore?

5)  do you have to literally talk yourself into going to work?

 If you answered yes to three or more of these questions…..than you may be suffering from passion deficit  disorder

you have no passion in your life,  you have fallen into a routine because it is safe, comfortable and  conveniant, bottom line is you have settled!

and as I read that I thought, how in the hell have you seen into the bottom of my soul!????

that is it is a nut shell.
I have no passion in my life!!!!

Which isn’t entirely true because I am quite passionate about my grandchildren and the wonderful existence of all four of them!
🙂

the article goes on to tell a person how to find passion again
She suggests you find things you once loved to do, working in the yard, writing, reading….etc….

she also suggests going back to childhood dreams

and….take notice of things you like about your job and your life and write those down and reflect on those more than you do the negative things going on in your life.

yada yada yada……

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Father, please help me to take down the negative pictures in my mind and replace them with faith-filled photos, special memories and images of hope for a tremendous future

I believe You want me to enlarge my vision, to expand my horizons, and to engage in a life that will have eternal significance.

 

this is from a book I am reading by Joel Osteen titled “Daily Readings from Your Best Life Now”

I  have to keep positive.
I have to believe that I am supposed to be where I am.

I have to find an inner peace…..

Dear Lord help me find that inner peace.
It is in your son Jesus’ name I pray
Amen.

without you, where do I go?  Where do I turn? I just don’t know.

in the back corner of my mind there is a place where the real me is sitting cross-legged and cramped and feeling neglected and blue.

this part of myself whom very few people know or understand.
this part of myself who rarely if ever gives a voice to the true thoughts and feelings that I possess.

I remember as a young girl growing up, that I wanted to be different from my siblings.
I wanted to make things work I wanted to jump outside the mold and be something different.

I remember watching my eldest sister be such a fantastic mother to her daughters and I thought, ‘if only I could be half as good of a mother as she is, I will have done a great thing’

and I have tried……

with the exception of a few years of floundering on my part I have always put my children before myself

I have always tried to be the best mother and wife that I could be.

But in doing that….I have lost myself.

now that my children are grown I look to my grandchildren for my happiness.
And I adore them all so much and I thank God daily for their lives being intertwined with mine.

but I feel lost
I feel uncertain.
I feel confused and sad and blue.

no I am not depressed, I am just lost and feeling incredibly alone.

that part of me that is sitting in the corner of my mind, wants to break free.
She is tired of being put last.
She wants free to run and jump and experience everything that I have held her back from…….

but at what price do I let her escape and run free?

without my children, who are all grown and don’t really need me any more and my grandchildren who light up my life in so many ways….what would I do with me?
If I didn’t have them, where would I go?
How would I function?

and would I lose them?

that is my biggest fear…..that if I let myself be who I yearn to be, that I would lose my little grand children in the process…..

What would I do with me?

on one hand I have things tied neatly in a bow, I know my place, I know my part and I know what is required of me.
on the other hand I feel like I am floundering….drifting out to sea with no life support to keep me from drowning

on one hand there are days I feel like I own the world and feel rich and content

on the other hand, I still have an ache to run and discover new things and possibilities

on one hand I feel obligated and on the other hand I feel like I should live for me.

On one hand….I put everyone’s wants and needs above my own

and on the other hand…..I fear if I put myself first I will lose all those I love so much….

on one hand I can see the future and all it holds

but on the other hand…….I see a dead end road

On one hand I feel discontent more often than I feel content anymore

but on the other hand…..

alrighty then.
I am trying to be positive.
Trying to stay focused and look at the big picture instead of the day in day out routine that I feel makes each day feel like I’m standing in a ditch knee deep in mud with no way of moving

I am taking a four-day vacation in October to a beautiful park in Tennessee with my children and their familes and my husband.
Than the plan is that my husband and I will take an eight to ten-day trip to Florida the week between Christmas and the New Year.

I’d like to go down to the Key’s but I doubt my husband will want to go that far….

Then we will be going some where…. hopefully to The Grand Canyon for my 50th birthday!
(What I would really love is if my kids and their families would go with us as well!)

and then my sister and I have a vacation planned to Colorado next July.

So needless to say I am going to be like dust in the wind going from place to place with in the next year.

NOW I just have to stay focused on that and not let boys urinating on the bathroom walls and floors get me down.

Or girls who use toilet tissue and throw it on the floor instead of the toilet.

Little things really……that get me down and make me blue…..

 I just have to stay focused…..keep reminding myself this is a means to an end……

stay positive…..keep my hopes and dreams up high……

I can do it…….

🙂

I have a small problem….

there is a friend of mine, who over powers me with her need to spend time with me.
I find that seeing her at work doesn’t require a lot of time seeing her outside of work.
We have on occasion gone out to eat or gone over to another co workers for drinks and on and on……

I like this woman but I don’t feel the need to spend time with her outside of work.

I almost feel guilty for feeling this way but…..I am not a big fan of sitting around talking about nothing.
OR gossiping about our coworkers.
She is very quick to judge and to me that is a major turn off.

She emailed me over the weekend and said “Let’s go to lunch tomorrow”
Well I will be working and I will have to get permission from the principal to leave the school for lunch……and while that isn’t such a big deal and I have  never been refused to leave, I just don’t want to be bothered with leaving school and going some where to listen to her talk about other people!
I often wonder what she says about me behind my back?

Am I awful?

I have had this problem before where I had a coworker who wanted more of a friendship than I did.
She thought we needed to see each other every day and even came over at nine thirty-one night to visit.
My kids were young and I had to tell her, I need to put them to bed, now is not a good time for a visit.

I don’t mean to be rude, or a prude….

but ……I need my space.
and this need people have to spend time with me outside of work annoys me.

And while I am on the subject of friends…..I am more of a friend to them than they are to me, because they want to sit and gripe and talk about their problems but aren’t really “There” for me when I want to do the same.

ugh……

so Friday night my darling Keira was being a pain in the butt.
She was being silly and goofy and teasing me constantly.
So I said to her ‘You are a pain in my ass!”
She said “I’m going to tell my mom you said that!  That is a bad word!”

I laughed and said “Okay, Nana was wrong…sorry”

Well yesterday we were playing around and out of the blue she says to me “Nana  you are a pain in my ass!”
I said “Keira you can’t be saying that, it is a bad word and it will upset your parents”
her reply was “I am a big person if you say a bad word I can say it too!”

So of course now I have to watch my mouth around her!
🙂

it is a very cool day today…but incredibly crisp and beautiful out….

love it.
it feels just a tad bit chilly but yet the birds are singing and the sun is shining brilliantly down warming every thing it touches.

God is smiling on Iowa today
🙂

I just read the above line on a self-help web page.
And it struck me as so true.

The only thing between a rut and a grave is six feet……

wow, how profound.
And how incredibly true.

it continues to say that we are the only one responsible for our own happiness….

how true…..

now just to get the guts….to make the changes I need and really want to make…….

I have my grand daughters today.
We actually got them last night and they stayed the night.
They both slept well and are still here now.

Kayla is working on saying her A B C’s in the song and is getting better and better at it all of the time.

Keira is playing dolls pretending she is a mama with a little baby girl and I am her baby’s Nana, and she is married and I watch the baby while she and her husband go off and do things.
Things like “Riding the motorcycle”  “Playing beer Pong”  (Something her parents do) and going to movies and on and on.
I like listening to her pretend she is a grown up and does the things grown ups do.

My grandchildren are my treasures.