Category Archives: grace

Take pause and give strength

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My blog, From Here to Me, is really just a journal where I keep my thoughts and experiences as I go through this journey called life.  I have made a lot of changes over the past year and a half, I have failed at some goals, and far exceeded my expectations for others.  When I fail I have become much better at getting back up and trying again; when I succeed I feel great.

My journey is personal and a choice I have made for my life.  During this journey I have become more aware of others life experiences; some are on a journey not of their choosing, and others, like me, have chosen change, but may be struggling in ways that I am not.  The strength in the human spirit is remarkable!

Since I truly believe that there is strength in numbers and strength in positive thoughts I am going to share with you some information on folks that I know need strength.  I am asking you to offer a brief positive thought, or if you are so inclined, a prayer, for each of these folks and anyone you may know that needs this strength.  You could even share and add my strength to your list of folks in need.

Right now I know someone who is –

  • Trying to bring hope and a new life to a child in a bad situation
  • Watching their child lose her battle with cancer
  • Struggling with her loss of physical well-being and her marriage
  • Mourning the loss of her husband
  • Hurting because a relationship has ended
  • Dealing with excessive pain
  • Putting her life in order after getting laid off a job she has had for over a decade
  • A couple overwhelmed with debt because of recent illness

These experiences and journeys are all very different from mine and likely from yours; yet they are still similar and very human.

Take a moment today, pause, and send positive thoughts.  I will do the same for you.

 

One More Day with Charlie

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Hi everyone!  I have not posted recently, been pretty busy training for my next half in September.  I have not posted mostly because my running has not motivated me to post.  Not that I am not running, that is happening for sure; had one of my best runs ever last weekend.  It is just that I have not been motivated to post about running.

When I started this blog I did it with the intent of blogging mostly about my journey “From Here to Me” and right now involves a lot of running and lifestyle changes.  For some reason I have not been able to write about these things lately; so I am thinking maybe a change for a bit.

Maybe I will post what it is like to be a peri-menopausal 49-year old with the goal of sliding into fifty fit, fabulous, and sane :).

Today my post is going to be about Charlie.  Charlie is our 15-year old Russian Blue, he is affectionately known as Charlie Man around the house.  Charlie came to us about 4-years ago when a neighbor of ours passed away.  Timmons’ (our neighbor) family did not want him and asked if we would take him.  Being an animal rescue household, we were not going to say no; and every day since has been a joy.

I want to tell you first about Timmons, our fantastic neighbor.  Timmons was a WWII vet who had been a prisoner of war in Germany, as a career (he was long since retired when we met him) he was an Ad Man, you know in the 50s and 60s like on Madmen, after retirement he became a fixture in the Louisville area social scene.

Timmons was also married for over 30 years and had children.  30 years into his marriage he let everyone know that he preferred the company of a male partner and from that day forward was able to live his life with a man he loved; they were together for over 30 years.  We loved Timmons and miss him dearly.

Back to Charlie – when we first took Charlie we also took a chair from Timmons family and a pair of Timmons pants.  For a month Charlie laid in our bedroom on that chair and pair of pants.  It took my daughter visiting from college to bring him out of the room.  Since that time we have all fallen in love with Charlie and his charming ways.  A few days ago Charlie, who has been getting thinner, was showing distress in his breathing so we took him to the vet.  It turns out his lungs were full of fluid; so we had the vet drain the fluid and brought him home.  The vet said with medication, which we started that next day, and follow-up he could be fine.

Well, last night Charlie had a seizure, it was scary and sad.  My daughter works part-time at the local animal shelter and she was working today, so we thought we might decide to put him down.  She was working until 6 pm so she asked that we wait until the end of her shift.  But today Charlie had a good day.  He ate some, laid with me while I napped and laid with my husband a bit, this is pretty much his normal routine at 15-years old.  We decided not to take him to the shelter, and I took the day off tomorrow to see how he does tonight and tomorrow.

My daughter’s other job is at a Vets office, so she will talk to them on Monday and see what they say.

We never want to see him suffer, but we certainly do not want to take away his life if he is feeling better.  This is a really tough decision; how do we decide when quality of life is not good and it is time to end it?  I am really struggling with this decision.  We love our animals like family, so on one hand we do not want them to suffer, on the other, we do not want to lose them.

So, here we are, enjoying one more day with Charlie, and perhaps another, or maybe not.

The Most Beautiful Ruined Moment

I Love this story and I love that the man in the Jedi Master role found out about this blog and responded. Seems every time I need to be reminded there is good in the world I come across something like this :).

 

"Write!" she says.

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Dear Master Jedi,
       
       This is an open letter of deep appreciation to you. I hope that somehow it finds its way to your computer screen.

     You are an actor, and a damn funny one to boot. You’re really skilled at working with the unpredictably of kids and turning it into entertainment. I really hope that when you auditioned for and won this gig, that you’ve been as pleased with your job as your audiences have been with your performance. I also hope that this leads to bigger and better things, if that’s what you choose. You’re a supremely decent man and I’m ever in your debt for how you helped me out Tuesday, June 4th at the end of the last show of the day.

You see, during the months of planning for our Disneyworld trip, I found out about the Jedi Training Academy in Hollywood Studios…

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Oh, the Humanity!

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 http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/25/balpreet-kaur-sikh-woman-proudly-sports-facial-hair-faith_n_1913355.html

Sometimes my faith in humanity needs to be restored.  This story helped today.  My posts are usually about me, my journey, my running, etc.  I do not usually share stuff from the internet because chances are that if I found it you have already read it; but this story bears sharing and repeating.

Someone on Reddit posted the picture of this young lady with the caption – “I’m not sure what to conclude from this“.  It seems this happened months ago, like I said, if I found it, you have probably read it, I am not exactly a cutting edge internet explorer :).

The young ladies response to the original poster, and then that posters answer are priceless, hopefully real and genuine.

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It is critical that we respect one another and not judge; that we give and not take; that we love and not hate.

Anticipation…

Anticipation

I do not like anticipation, waiting, surprises; I am a person of action and these things make me crazy.  If I had to pick a weakness this would be it, I am not good at waiting.  I was the kid digging through my parent’s closet weeks before Christmas, and I am the person who hates when someone says “I have a surprise for you!”.

If I am waiting for something to happen, I want to be planning while I am waiting.  I think it is why I need a formal training program when getting ready for a race; it is also why I always need to have some sort of race scheduled at some time in the future.  I would love to say I am a dedicated athlete who has spent my life worshipping at this temple that is my body.   Truth is, that I have not done that, but at some I point realized that I am a planner who does not like to fail.  If I made my goal to get healthy, stay in shape, and train for a PR in every race, these things would keep me going until all of this healthy eating and exercising stuff just became part of who I am.

I am anticipating something different right now, something a little more personal and I am struggling with how to keep myself busy while waiting.  Any planning I have to do for this event is short and can be completed in a couple of days and the event is still a couple of weeks out from today.  So the good news, it is keeping me focused on my physical training and eating because these things keep my mind off of it.  The bad news, I would have to be running every waking hour to not think about it…Ugh!

patience

So, what I really need to do is practice patience and keep a positive attitude as I wait for the next new adventure in my life :).  And remind myself that sometimes it is OK to be the passenger and not the driver.

Altruism and Grace

I am going to forego my running updates (well at least in part, I will mention it in the end), to discuss giving and forgiving.

I had a situation this weekend where at some point I said to someone “Take off the saint hat, it does not fit”.  It was certainly a mean thing to say and I probably should have explained myself better.  So, that is going to come out here, today, in my blog.

When you choose to give, when you choose to forgive; you have to do both without expectation of something in return.  You have to decide to do each out of kindness, out of a sense of humanity, you have to be altruistic; you have to offer grace.  If that is not your intent going in, you will be disappointed.

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Altruism is about selflessness and grace about giving and forgiving without strings.  These are both hard, I think they must not come natural to a lot of people, they certainly do not come naturally to me, but every day I keep them in my mind so that I may grow into them.

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Now on to my running, something I do for myself.  I Did a couple of short runs this week and tomorrow my daughter and I are going to do a trial run on the hills that are part of the course for our race next week.  Next Saturday we run a 10-miler, the 3rd race in a three race series.

And what about altruism and grace in running?  I give my all to running, I do not expect to win every race, I do not expect to PR every time I go.  I go to give to myself and sometimes to forgive myself for that piece of cake I ate last night :).