Positive Hyphenation

Hello readers! Hello new year!

I began this new year doing something I should have done 9 months ago...I finally changed my name to incorporate my husband's last name! I did the not-so-modern-anymore hyphenation and now have a million letters to sign when signing my last name but I will now always still have that piece of my parent's name that is so important and pride producing for me. The reason for my delay for the change? Well, there's two reasons. 1) I wanted to wait until I was done with school because I was worried that there would be the chance of records being confused and would then be forced to spend another million years chasing my tail to graduate! AND 2) I was totally procrastinating all of the hoops I would have to jump through once the change took place.

So on January 2nd, I headed to the SS office, waited for two hours and it was over. The first 30 minutes of the wait was torturous honestly but the remaining hour and a half was rather pleasant and truly flew by. Why? Well, a young lady (I can say that because she was probably 2 or three years younger than I ;) came and sat next to me and struck up an enjoyable conversation. We talked about work, name changes, schooling, children, church, waiting, house ownership, waiting, marriage and in the last five minutes, we exchanged names. It was so much fun to meet someone I didn't know and have a true blue honest conversation about anything without any previous knowledge of each other. I'll probably never see her again but I will thank her internally (and bloggily) for befriending me during those 90 minutes and reminding me that friends are anywhere we try and seek them out.

My last post mentioned a bit of new year's resolving. Well, I've yet to learn how to prepare artichokes but in the first four days of the new year, I sure have eaten a lot of them! That's something, right? ;) I have recently realized though that I think I've been neglecting myself and my mental and emotional well-being. I talk about this and that but I don't take steps to really heal, grow and evolve. I'm not as proactive about myself as I once was. I know it's only been four days, but I've been more proactive in this regard in these past four days than I have been in a long time.

I've started reading a book called How to Want What You Have which I've read about a fifth of thus far and what little I've acquired from it thus far has been so so very eye and heart opening. The author speaks of the 'precious present' and that life on Earth as we know it is life on the 'pleasure planet' and by remembering these two principals that we will begin to see life through persistantly gracious eyes and hearts. I'm working hard to overcome my anxieties and worries and these two 'P' phrases have so far been nothing but beneficial to me. If I examine life from a good, positive, pleasurable viewpoint, I cancel out the negative and scared view I've been experiencing for too long. Not to say that I always view things negatively but when those type of thoughts sneak in, they overwhelm me and take over. I don't want to sit here and forever blog about what I'm worried about, what plagues me or what I'm scared is around the corner but rather, I want and plan to blog about what makes me happy, what beautiful sight I took in during the day and how I was positively affected through life for that day.

I grew up in the Methodist church and even though I don't profess to be Christian or to have any sort of set beliefs, I thank the church for instilling in me good morals and good memories had with close friends. When I was 12 years old, I went through confirmation and was baptised. Confirmation consisted of, among other things, a class covering beliefs of the said religion. I remember some things but one this I'll always remember was a story told of two angels sent from above to collect prayers. Each had a basket to collect a certain type of prayer - one for prayers of thanks and one for prayers of wants. There may have been a third angel with a third basket but I can't recall. Just sharing what I remember :) When the angels returned to the Heavens, the basket of wants was beyond overflowing while the basket of thanks was close to being empty. What a great reminder of the importance of giving thanks! Not just in prayer but in life everyday; in our thoughts and souls. I love this story because it doesn't just have to apply to religion and prayers but it can and should be applied to how we view and live life.

Today I am grateful for:
Long weekends
Car heaters
Lazy days
Impromptu movie watching
Creativity
Marriage
Positive words
Corrective eyewear
Cardinals
Playing fetch
Bowling
Falling in love
Dogpiles