I want this back. Let's hope it works for us

I received from my favorite aunt:

Let's hope it works for us

IF THIS WORKS FOR YOU - BE SURE AND LET ME KNOW – I HAVE SENT THIS ONE OUT TIME AND AGAIN - AND SO FAR NOTHING OUTSTANDING HAS HAPPENED EXCEPT I AM STILL AROUND - I GUESS THAT COULD BE CONSIDERED OUTSTANDING - RIGHT ? ? ?

It is a great blessing regardless of any gain!

Results from past recipients:

Not sure if this had anything to do with it but it was shortly after I sent this out - I got a call to say our bond was approved - against all odds.

I don't know if it works but i won a new fridge full of various cool drinks from Beyer And Beyer last week.

I do not know if it works, but I won a microwave yesterday (08 August 2004). Seems like it Hey !!

Have to take a chance on this one!

Good luck to everyone! And may all your dreams come true!!

----- This may sound nuts, but my husband got this the other day and sent it off. About 10 minutes later a really good financial windfall happened for his son
Sean who he had sent it too as well. One of the people he sent it to was responsible for the windfall.

AN IRISH FRIENDSHIP WISH
Good Luck!!
I hope it works...

May there always be work for your hands to do;
May your purse always hold a coin or two;
May the sun always shine on your windowpane;
May a rainbow be certain to follow each rain;
May the hand of a friend always be near you;
May God fill your heart with gladness to cheer you.


OK, this is what you have to do....

Send this to all of your friends! But - you HAVE to send this within 1 hour from when you open it!

Now.................Make A wish!!!!!!

I hope you made your wish! Now then, if you send to:
1 person --- your wish will be granted in 1 year
3 people --- 6 months
5 people --- 3 months
6 people --- 1 month
7 people --- 2 weeks
8 people --- 1 week
9 people --- 5 days
10 people --- 3 days
12 people --- 2 days
15 people --- 1 day
20 people --- 3 hours

If you delete this after you read it . you will have 1 year of bad luck!

But .. if you send it 2 of your friends you will automatically have 3 years of good luck!!! :-)

AND MY RESPONSE WAS:

Yeah, and if you actually consider sending it even though you don't think these things really work, but you decide to go ahead and send it because your luck has been crap lately and you need all the help you can get, but your boss walks up just as you are pasting the last email address in the To line, and you try to close the email window, but you only succeed in making it bigger and then you can't get it to minimize and your boss is standing there talking to you and glancing at your pc every few minutes and you know he's reading the email you were going to send and you realize it's probably very obvious to him that it's personal stuff on company time, and then your boss walks away and you just know he's thinking you're more of a fruitloop than he did ten minutes ago, and so you not only close the email without sending it, but you also mark it for deletion and then empty it from your email account completely, which means you don't end up sending it to anyone, and according to the email you will now have an additional year of bad luck, and then you realize that one more year doesn't really matter because you're used to bad luck, so you get up from your chair and leave your office to go get coffee and then you feel something around your ankles and you look down and your panties are resting happily on top of your shoes...and you realize that today you wore your sleazy red thong panties...and you look up and your boss is standing there because he was talking to one of your coworkers in the hallway...and now they're both gaping at you...and you wish that the ground would just open up and swallow you...but of course it doesn't...and you realize that you should have just told your boss to hold on a minute while you hit the Send button...

Mikey Says

"I got my anger from my dad...and my strength and toughness from my dad. And I got the power to control all of it from my mom."

And he's nine. And he's mine.

Thank God he's mine.

Happy Birthday to Me!

Things I Love About Me:

* My hands
* I'm a great mom
* I have pretty green eyes
* I love a wide variety of music
* I have a great job
* I'm friendly and enjoy being around people
* I am kind to others
* I love children
* I'm funny and quick to laugh
* I sing in the shower
* I am a good sleeper

Have a great day, me!

If I Had My VERY OWN Life to Live Over . . .

I would have:

* Spent more time with my grandma Reka and asked her more questions about her childhood
* Worried less about sleep and more about how fortunate I was to have little people who woke me up in the wee hours of the morning
* Been more selective in my choice of husbands
* Discovered earlier that I am a good woman
* Listened to my mother more often
* Studied harder in school
* Danced at high school parties
* Stuck with playing the trumpet
* Given more attention to the world around me
* Burned less bridges
* Kept in close contact with my Aunt Sonnie
* Listened more closely to the lessons my Grandpa McKee taught me
* Not worried that I was a little overweight
* Never gone to live with my biological father when I was 18
* Told my GG just one more time that I love her and that it made me laugh we she called peeing "going tinkle"
* Committed to memory every moment of my life from birth to age five (it was fabulous being me during that time!)
* Understood how very much my grandparents and great-grandparents loved me
* Not fallen in love with every boy or man who gave me the time of day

NOW...Things I wouldn't change for anything...

* Joel, my first-born, music-technology-alien-loving, graphic designer, computer freaky son
* Sammy, my energetic, intelligent, video gamer, student of life, I Am My Own Person son
* Rachel, my spiritual, inspirational lover of life, Get Involved With People and Projects angel of a daughter
* Mikey, my Work In Progress, army-man, football player, funny and smart and We'll See What Comes Our Way son
* My talented and loving mother, who never ceases to amaze me
* My beautiful sister Rachel, who is the best mother on the planet
* My extremely talented brother Cameron, who just became a daddy
* Having Mark for a stepdad - the lessons were intense and valuable
* We Love Phil, my mother's hubby - more good qualities than I can list here
* My friends
* The hard times
* The good times

If I Had My Life to Live Over

I would have talked less and listened more.
I would have invited friends over to dinner even if the carpet was stained, or the sofa faded.
I would have eaten popcorn in the 'good' living room and worried much less about the dirt when someone wanted to light a fire in the fireplace.
I would have taken the time to listen to my grandfather ramble about his youth.
I would never have insisted the car windows be rolled up on a summer day because my hair had just been teased and sprayed.
I would have burned the pink candle sculpted like a rose before it melted in storage.
I would have sat on the lawn with my children and not worried about grass stains.
I would have cried and laughed less while watching television-and more while watching life.
I would have shared more of the responsibility carried by my husband.
I would have gone to bed when I was sick instead of pretending the earth would go into a holding pattern if I weren't there for the day.
I would never have bought anything just because it was practical, wouldn't show soil, or was guaranteed to last a lifetime.
Instead of wishing away nine months of pregnancy, I'd have cherished every moment and realized that the wonderment growing inside me was the only chance in life to assist God in a miracle.
When my kids kissed me impetuously, I would never have said, "Later. Now go get washed up for dinner."
There would have been more "I love you's"... more "I'm sorry's" ... but mostly, given another shot at life, I would seize every minute ... look at it and really see it ... live it ... and never give it back.

Stop sweating the small stuff. Don't worry about who doesn't like you, who has more, or who's doing what. Instead, let's cherish the relationships we have with those who do love us. Let's think about what God has blessed us with and what we are doing each day to promote ourselves mentally, physically, emotionally, as well as spiritually. Life is too short to let it pass you by.

We only have one shot at this life and then it's gone.

- Erma Bombeck

Finding Strength

Although it is hard for me to hear women justify their reasons for staying with abusive men, I have been there and I understand. There are so many of us out here - we have so much in common. But, it is embarrassing and socially unacceptable to talk about the real issues involved with domestic violence.

We dance around the abuse and call our husbands controlling, jealous or say they are penny pinchers. We accept the fact that they read our mail, listen to our voicemail, go through our personal belongings, check our pagers and caller id's, but we would never have accepted that nosiness from our parents when we were teenagers.

We allow them to scream accusations and obscenities at us and call us horrible, filthy names, with their faces inches from ours, feeling the heat of their anger and rage.

And we lie to ourselves. We tell ourselves it's okay, because they love us, it only happens sometimes, he always says he's sorry, my children need their father, I don't want to be alone, I need the money, I don't want to lose my home, what will my parents think, he's a good provider, the good times are so good, he's so handsome, etc.

But, we would never let our children or a stranger on the street talk to us that way.

Yet, we accept those things from the person closest to us, whatever you want to call them, they are our husbands --- our partners --- the fathers of our children --- our best friends --- lover --- confidant --- trusted friend.

And, when it's over they apologize and we forgive them --- tell them we understand --- make them dinner --- share their beds --- love them. And we promise ourselves that we will be more careful, never say "that" again, never ask that question again, never get that look on our faces again, never confront him again, never spend that much money again. And we walk on eggshells, watching how we talk, dress, act, sit, think, and eat.

And they think it's okay. And when we watch them pretend like nothing ever happened, calling us honey, baby and sweetie a little piece of us dies. A little bit of that beautiful flower our mothers and fathers planted inside us long ago wilts, and over the years the beauty fades, the self esteem goes, the smiles turn to frowns, and our hopes and dreams are a distant memory.

What is it in us that we make the unacceptable become acceptable for them? How can we trick ourselves so successfully into believing that they have our best interests in mind? How can we keep smiling, holding down good jobs, raising kids, while all the while we live a lie on the inside?

How? Because we are strong women. Imagine if we focused that strength on OURSELVES instead of on them.

Just imagine...

Confession

I have made a mess of my life.

Every thought that turned to action and every thought that put me at an impasse, causing me to not act at all, has brought me to where I am right at this very moment. It's 6:14pm by my clock, at my desk, in my house, on my street, in my town.

As I move my fingers over the keys on this keyboard in repeated patterns I learned years ago, my thoughts and feeling are recorded. Well, at least a part of them is recorded. Because even as I think and write my most conscious thoughts, there are a multitude of other thoughts racing around behind the scenes, refusing to slow down long enough for me to catch and record them.

I mean, have you ever tried to make your mind go completely blank? Ever consciously tried to not think? I have tried so many times and always, just when I think I've done it, I realize that I am thinking I've done it and I blow the whole thing.

So, anyhow, back to my life... Yes. It's a mess. A carefully crafted tower of cards that appears to be solidly built by anyone on the outside looking in, but one that I am fairly certain is going to cause me to have some serious conversations with God or Buddah or Allah or Darth Vader, or whomever decided up there in The Cosmos that this soul that inhabits my body is capable of enduring the endless thick coating of bullshit that has been slathered on me by my own two hands for most of my sad, miserable, and somehow oddly enjoyable 37 years.

I don't really blame any Higher Power, but it sure would be nice to know was She was thinking when She mapped out a plan for My Life. It must have been Her off day, because from what I can see, She did a pretty good job with the people around me.

Yes, She does have a sense of humor, because just look at me. I mean really. What's up with this? In all honesty, good things DO happen to me. Sometimes. I mean, the laws of probability say so, right??? Maybe today's lesson is that I need to make good things happen and not just sit around waiting.

Okay, so my confession. Lately, I've been catching these fleeting feelings of happiness or peace of mind or security (not sure exactly what I'm catching) but it's just beyond my reach. Sometimes, it's a smile or a sound or something I see that reminds me of a way I felt a long time ago when life was safe and predictable...peaceful, serene...just really okay and alright. Before my life became a mess.

Oh, yeah. Fasten your seatbelt. I'll blog about that next time.