Welcome to My Monday, Funday...Blog about Someday...

Hope you like Howie Day's "You and I Collide"....someone shared it with me, I liked it and shall share it with all of you today.  I've got new things on my blog - you can stay and visit with a little "wic wac woe", which is actually tic-tac-toe...or pinball...or listen to some music while you read if you can effectively "twofer"...

It's Monday, November 15th and my boys are out hunting...opening day deer season is a long held tradition in my family and I hope they enjoy the outdoors.

Take a minute and review an excerpt from an upcoming article I am writing for Working Mother Magazine.  It is an interview I was able to obtain with a new author (new to me), Walter Rhein.  His new book, The Bone Sword, was available November 1, 2010 and is a sci-fi/fantasy...if that's your genre for book reading (think Harry Potter), this is a really good read.

I was really impressed with Walter..and I'm embarrassed to say, he's the closest thing I've come to meeting a "real celebrity" (unless you count Channel 3 Clubhouse), let along have a chance to interview him...I was nervous, afraid of looking stupid, and not at all sure what I was doing interviewing him in the first place.  I found out, he's just an average guy, married, new baby, writer, taking college classes so he can get "a real job" teaching English in school and raise his family.  He is such a down to earth kind of guy, willing to share details of his life, his 10-years he spent traveling in Lima, Peru (where he met his wife) and how wonderful it has been to become a new father (his new daughter Sofia is beautiful).  This proud daddy literally exudes with love for his new daughter and he has truly enjoyed his time parenting her while his wife works part-time.
They currently live in Wisconsin and, his wife Zulma, has had a little difficulty adjusting to the Wisconsin winters which are much like Michigan (since it nevers hows in Peru, this last year was her first white Christmas)!

Anyway, if you'd like an inside look at this up and coming author, I will be posting a full interview and where you can find access to his books.  He also has a great website about Lima, Peru and if you are ever interested in travel, this looks like a beautiful part of the world to visit.  It's interesting to not that in Peru, the culture is significantly different than in the states.  Children actually live with their parents until they marry...this culture thrives on raising their young until they are ready to start their own family.  They reach responsibility and children are expected to contribute financially to the family unit as well as for themselves...what a unique concept!  I personally think 18-years of age (while it may define an adult) is still an age where there is a whole lot of growing up to do..not to mention the economics of paying for college and the benefits of living at home while this is accomplished.

In the past two weeks, I've managed to step out of my comfort zone and start blogging about things that people really want to read and I hope I'm slowly getting there.  I have found it is very difficult to find my "true voice"...something that I have practiced keeping quiet for so long, I'm having trouble hearing it.  Strangely, at the encouragement of my two teenagers, to just "say it as it is" is what seems to work the best. There is a lot of room for improvement..appreciate your comments and assistance.

My website is under construction, but soon to be available and I am excited to have one central place to categorize blogging for technical issues relating to resistance welding cables, book reviews, an ongoing babble about the vertically challenged (notes from the tall girl side..my own frustrations with being a little too tall) and hopefully a few issues that empower us to be a little better or just consider it.

Have a great Monday, wishing all the deer hunters good luck..."if it's brown, it's down"...as my son says!

Becoming In Sync With Your Passionate Side

I truly believe that we all have a deep-seated memory that whispers within us that tells us why we were born and what we came into this wonderful life to experience. I also perceive this embedded echo within our soul as our "true voice" which is the guidance we follow to life out our life's passion. As grow older; however, marry, have children, work/family responsibilities the white-noise in our daily lives pushes our "true voice" back somewhere, so far away, that we cannot hear it anymore. The result? We become less passionate in our lives or worse yet, forget what our passions once were.

So...why bother finding passion?

What's the point in identifying passion in our lives and living these out? I guess you have to ask yourself if you believe that your life is truly filled with joy, meaning and improves your health, relationships, self-image, creativity and maybe even your income?

Understanding or being in touch with what we are passionate about helps find a source of joy, inner peace, inspiration, success, improves our relationships with others and points us in the direction of a positive outlook.

In the book, The Last Lecture, by Randy Pausch he made a number of compelling observations in his own life...one of which was something like this.. "Brick walls are there to help us know how bad we want something?" I added the question mark so you might ask yourself if this is true..and I think it is.

Passion Has Its own energy... Passion is a gift of the spirit combined with the totality of all the experiences we have lived through...each of us is endowed with the power to live and communicate with unbridled enthusiasm. Passion is most evident when the mind, body and spirit work with each other to create, develop and articulate feelings and ideas. Passion will enable you to overcome obstacles (real or imagined) and to see the world as a place of infinite potential.

You cannot fake passion...we sense it in the lack of sincerity, authenticity or lack of quality in a product...the power of passion forces us to see others for who they are, who they are becoming and often...and unfortunately, who they can never be.

Many men and women run from personal or professional passion for fear of being hurt. Past experiences dwell deep within each of us as a reminder of the searing pain of being hurt or burned and rears its ugly head in relationships, love and work. Sometimes, we become afrraid to take risks that come with living life to its fullest.

Most people, I think, when they have touched the fringes of true passion in their lives, if only for the briefest moment, at the most unexpected juncture in their lives, having the chance to inhale the "aroma of chance", "caressed themselves with the true passion of genuine affection"...we experience a glimpse of what passion has the potential to claim in our lives..

Which is frightening...

And some choose not to return to passion, staying far away, opting for the...predictable existence without passion.

Rather than taking a leap of faith...

Immersing yourself in the waters of the deepest joys...

Insisting instead on the safest "bubble"

That becomes...a sanitary, loveless, lifeless, colorless world where nothing new ever happens...day after day..month after month...year after year....until we forget what passion in our lives has the potential to become...

Imagine...instead....how much more meaningful your life would be with passion...as a person, as a lover, as a friend, as a business owner, employee, writer, artist, musician, husband, wife....

Imagine, for a moment...a world where we lived for the moment, spending more time enjoing reality than trying to escape it...a place where we don't need lawyers to stand before judges, psychologists to tell us we have emotional problems, or clergy to talk to the God on our behalf...

Living With Passion...Daily... The real sin in life is lacking the courage to express our convictions and zest for life....it should be a crime to bottle up passion you have once felt in order to "bottle it up" in a controlled fashion of literal non-existence.

In fact, I can't think of a worse existence than one where we are unable or refusing the things in life that need to be said, not singing what needs to be sung or forcing ourselves to no longer feel what was intended to be felt.

PASSION..shapes our existence and fuels the fire of inspiration and makes the heart and mind open up to change. It is fuel for the soul...a spark that illuminates our purpose.

Passion is yours to experience and revel in...even if it causes you to fall down and scrape your elbow ..in this world called "life", passion is your birthright..it is within you..it is yours to discover and master...it is yours to share with the world to make it a better place.

Passion...in love...is sparked by desire, fueled by love, sustained by hope, and re-defines itself over time to become stronger, deeper and more satisfying...passion in love is necessary to maintain a solid relationship between a man and a woman. When one or both loses passion, a significant link is broken and if broken over a long period of time becomes buried in the mundane activities of daily life until it dims to literal non-existence. Passion in love is what drew a man and a woman together in the first place...love is what sustains passion over time and differentiates itself between the impatience and "have to have it now" demands of lust. A relationship without passion, changes the definition of love and instead of being "in love"...we co-exist with love for another..they are two very different things much like empathy and sympathy. Living a lifetime without passion can seem more of a dull existence or become a "sentence" than choosing one with passion.

Passion in our daily lives with work or creative outlets is fuled by passion. Many people walk through the phases of life where their ideals, goals and desires change...everyone has a "fuel" for living..it is not something that is slapped into our genes by evolution (also known as survival)...we all want to survive! What is survival though if we are unfulfilled? What are we passionate enough about to feed our souls? At some point in life, each and every one of us may ask the silent question... what is my purpose? This is probably one of the most well-known rhetorical questions of the universe.

Writing is a creative outlook I have developed a passion for over the years..it is only recently I made the conscious choice to find my "true voice", buried deep within years of practiced "blocking" to accomplish the goal of meeting survival needs in my own life (providing income, child-rearing, maid, nurse, friend, mother, daughter, employee....). I ask myself, just how difficult is it to take a giant leap of faith, to listen keenly to a voice that has become so distant it is a soft whisper...to begin to hear it come closer and more audible?

Living Passion ....Discover what matters the most to you...passion is what you hunger to do, life is your blank canvas to create a masterpiece. Make the decision to choose in FAVOR of passion...opportunities that come your way, make a selection in the honor of your passion in your personal life and your work life.

Understand that we all have limitations, fears, moments of confusion and paths to take to arrive at chosen or preferred destinations...it takes time to heal, to transform ourselves to achieve these objectives. Rather than stall in your tracks...find the resources that will reveal the passions for your ideal life.

50 Things About Me You Probably Don't Need To Know...

I woke up this morning and it was freezing out, so as usual went to pour myself a cup of hot coffee to get myself moving except there was none. Frustrated and not even remotely excited about a run to the grocery store with my wrinkled jammies on and cookie crumbs stuck to the front of my shirt I make a mental list of a few things we need just in case....so this gets me thinking about lists in general. Lists are pretty helpful at work, the infamous grocery list (see above), don't forget the spelling lists in grade school so..why not a blog list about myself? Can't hurt..probably won't help...may make you laugh or see a little bit of yourself? I hope so! Well, here we go...
1. My hair color is naturally brown.

2. It is now whatever "natural color" is on the box on the shelf at Walmart.

3. I am a closet lover of Barry Manilow's music... (Remember Mandy?)

4. And, of course David Cassidy (I think I love you), Elton John and Neil Young (Harvest Moon)

5. I try to read as many books as I can.

6. I try to exercise, if you call racing through the grocery store, fighting through a herd of women at a JC Penney sale and running the sweeper on three household floors (including steps) exercise.

7. My first job was as a receptionist in a beauty shop.

8. I really need to spend more time in the beauty shop.

9. I once ran over a goose driving downtown near the ponds. Although I cried, I didn't report it...and years later I'm told it is a punishable crime...so I cried again and still don't think I've recovered.

10. My best friend dated my first boyfriend in high school.

11. We're still best friends, but neither of us is still dating him.

12. I annoy my friends with advice on medical issues/health, relationships, and the like. It helps to always have a listening ear and I get a lot of blog topic ideas.

13. A therapist would probably love me.

14. My father and step father died within two months of each other in 2005.

15. I will never completely recover nor will my life ever be the same. I am still coming to terms with this while everyone else has moved on.

16. I lost a piece of myself that year, forgot how to fall asleep without the television on because the feeling of being alone was as palpable as a pulse.

17. A therapist would probably love me.

18. Five years later and I am starting to heal. Healing feels good.

19. I love to take pictures.

20. I am horrible at taking pictures.

21. I love to crochet and sew. I figure I'm an old grannie at heart and yet I neither crochet or sew well. Case in point, my oldest took his varisty football jersey to the local cleaners who had a seamstress he paid to sew his nameplate on....lest I sew it crooked.

22. I am lucky enough to have a few really good friends.

23. One of them lives far away.

24. I miss her.

25. I love Victoria's Secret.

26. I only buy the Victoria's Secret perfume or wait to get it at Christmas or birthday as a gift.

27. I don't do justice to the "lingerie" as pictured in the catalog, even though after having four kids I finally can vouch for having boobs now.

28. My boobs sag and droop southward since I have had four kids. Thankful for the "push-ups" and I am not talking about the ice cream.

29. I love chocolate and wine.

30. Together or separate.

31. I once got so many parking tickets from the local university I was banned from parking on campus. Might have helped had I paid them.

32. I am a crybaby...cry on cue at movies, a good book, my daughter's essays, Mother's Day Cards, Father's Day Cards, birthday cards, weddings, funerals...well you get the idea.

33. I am not smarter than a 5th grader.. I've seen the show and I apparently am dumber every day.

34. We have over 300 channels on cable television. Can't get Internet unless you buy the "package".

35. I don't like television except for the occasional good movie...I'd rather read a book or sit outside in the sun and take a nap.

36. I can bake a really mean apple pie, can my own jelly, pickles, salsa, applesauce.

37. This usually indicates I have too much time on my hands.

38. My children are my happiness.

39. I would love to go to Italy.

40. I decided that after I saw Julia Roberts in the movie Eat, Pray, Love.

41. I can cook a turkey.

42. Would rather go to mom's and eat her turkey - it's always better when someone else cooks for you..not talking about Little Ceasars.

43. I do love to grow things...kids, flowers, shrubbery.

44. The kids are growing okay, flowers and shrubbery never made it.

45. We have three cats and a new puppy which we did not need since we are trying to sell our house; however, it was important to my daughter so I caved in.

46. Need my carpets cleaned BADLY (see 45).

47. I gave my oldest child the middle name "Patrick". He was born on St. Patrick's day and after 72 hours of grueling labor, a kind anesthesiologist put me out of my misery with this wonderful invention called an EPIDURAL....

48. I miss my father's voice every day.

49. Learning to live with loss is a part of my journey and has had a part in making me who I am today....Healing is a good thing and writing a blog has proven very therapeutic at times as well as a bit humorous.

50. A therapist would probably love me!


I wasn't sure if I had 50-things...probably could have kept going. The Internet is a vast sea of blogs and some are so well written and thought out they make me sit up and take stock. HOW do they share their experiences and write them with such clarity? I think you have to start within and build off of your own experiences....even a silly list like this one builds on the fact that I, like you, am an original and each of us as a story to tell....tell me yours?