Put Some Spring in Your Step

If you're like me, you've always got good intentions: for exercise. Sigh. But one thing after the other keeps interfering.

• The electric ran in on my treadmill (don't say it, I know all about surge protectors!).
• Too much traveling.
• Too much cooking for others (temptation here, folks, temptation! Am I any better than our ancestor--what was her name? Eve, you say?)
• Too busy. Hmmm. What's that say about me?

So, consider these suggestions. Just might work, for some of us anyway. Laugh.

Get Off the Couch. You've had a long day, dinner has been cooked and cleaned up, and you've been looking forward to a good book all day. Great! Try completing one set of 20 lunges, squats, crunches, arm circles, or as many push-ups as you can each time you take a break.

Use Your Steps. While you can probably lug your overstuffed laundry basket to the washer in one trip, you'll burn extra calories by making multiple trips up and down the steps.

The Desk Workout. To strengthen calf and ab muscles—and to help with your posture—sit up straight and squeeze in your stomach as you lift up on your toes to tighten your calves. Work the calf muscles further and shape up your ankles by stretching your leg and pointing your toes forward and backward 20 times, then circle your feet and ankles 20 times on each foot.

Stand Up. Whenever you pick up your phone, stand up at your desk to give your body a stretch and an energy boost. Try to keep files you use often in an overhead compartment for which you need to stand up or reach.

Give Your Car a Vacation. Turn an ice cream excursion into walk with the family. Walk to a store to pick up groceries and snacks. Visit a nearby playground with your children and push them on the swings or do pull-ups on the bars.

Quote: I couldn't wait for success, so I went ahead without it. --Jonathan Winters

Blessings!

WHAT WILL MATTER



Ready or not, someday it will all come to an end.

There will be no more sunrises, no minutes, hours or days.

All the things you collected, whether treasured or forgotten will pass to
someone else.

Your wealth, fame and temporal power will shrivel to irrelevance.

It will not matter what you owned or what you were owed.

Your grudges, resentments, frustrations, and jealousies will finally
disappear.

So, too, your hopes, ambitions, plans, and to-do lists will expire.

The wins and losses that once seemed so important will fade away.

It won't matter where you came from, or on what side of the tracks you
lived, at the end.

It won't matter whether you were beautiful or brilliant.

Even your gender and skin color will be irrelevant.


So what will matter?

How will the value of your days be measured??

What will matter is not what you bought, but what you built; not what you
got, but what you gave!

What will matter is not your success, but your significance.

What will matter is not what you learned, but what you taught.

What will matter is every act of integrity, compassion, courage or
sacrifice that enriched, empowered or encouraged others to emulate your
example.

What will matter is not your competence, but your character.

What will matter is not how many people you knew, but how many will feel
a lasting loss when you're gone.

What will matter is not your memories, but the memories that live in
those who loved you.

What will matter is how long you will be remembered, by whom and for
what.

Living a life that matters doesn't happen by accident. It's not a matter
of circumstance but of choice.

CHOOSE TO LIVE A LIFE THAT MATTERS! --Author Michael Josephson




Quote:
However mean your life is, meet it and live it; do not shun it and call it hard names. It is not so bad as you are. The faultfinder will find faults even in Paradise. Love your life, poor as it is. --Henry David Thoreau


Blessings

Dry Spells Versus Rain

You've heard me writing about hanging out on a plateau. This is an area in writing that is discouraging, frustrating, and totally bizarre.

Here's the scenario:

You've got a good start in your novel. Skipping along comfortably with no thoughts that you're gonna reach a Rocky Mountain next week (or tomorrow). Figured out what the plot is, got the characters firmly planted in your head, wrote a super beginning hook. Whew. You're flying. Nothing's gonna stop you on this novel!

Ouch. Just stubbed my writing toe. About the eleventh chapter or so, you grind to a halt. Racking of the ole brain doesn't help. Walking a path in the floor: likewise. You could try beating your head on the wall, throwing the computer out doors, burning the whole thing. Nope, not a bit of use.

What does help when you don't know where to go from here?

For me?

• Brainstorming is a good option. I've got several wonderful critique friends that are great at brainstorming with me.
• Another trick is to think in reverse. In other words, a chapter is going in a certain direction: reverse the action. Instead of going up the stairs, what happens if you have the hero headed down them?
  
• A third option is to think about the worst thing that could happen to your poor protagonist.
  

One of these works every time for me. Might take me a week or more to figure it out, but I usually hit speed limit again. And I'm in good shape again until the rain stops and I hit a dry spell again. Then it's time to brainstorm, think in reverse, or imagine bad things for my "people."

Grin. What fun, huh?

Quote:

One third of the students will learn regardless of the teacher, One third of the students will not learn regardless of the teacher, One third will learn because of the teacher.

Blessings

More Lessons to Remember

1. The most important sex organ is the brain.
2. No one is in charge of your happiness except you.
3. Frame every so-called disaster with these words: 'In five years, will this matter?'
4. Always choose life.
5. Forgive everyone everything.
6. What other people think of you is none of your business.
7. Time heals almost everything. Give time time.
8. However good or bad a situation is, it will change.
9. Your job won't take care of you when you are sick. Your friends will. Stay in touch.
10. Believe in miracles.
11. God loves you because of who God is, not because of anything you did or didn't do.

And, eleven more:

1. Don't audit life. Show up and make the most of it now.
2. Growing old beats the alternative -- dying young.
3. Your children get only one childhood. Make it memorable.
4. All that truly matters in the end is that you loved.
5. Get outside every day. Miracles are waiting everywhere..
6. If we all threw our problems in a pile and saw everyone else's, we'd grab ours back.
7. Envy is a waste of time. You already have all you need.
8. The best is yet to come.
9. No matter how you feel, get up, dress up and show up.
10. Yield.
11. Life isn't tied with a bow, but it's still a gift

Blessings!