Updates and On my Mind

Greetings readers and friends-
I have been absent from the blog for a while doing other soul searching and making some lifestyle changes. I have some great ideas for something new and have been concentrating my energies on finding funding for the project. It will take between $30,000 and $50,000 to shoot a pilot for an interactive virtual exercise program. My ideal is to contract with Sony-Play Station to make it and it will work on any kind of home exercise equipment, but I have to jump thru some hoops of fire, cross my "t's" and dot my "i's" and find them to do all of that in order to get this idea benefiting many people and many programs. I find out about many different programs that are benefiting certain charities and once I get the idea going, it will benefit a non-profit organization - that of the National Parks System - but I have to manifest the program.

Part of this idea would be very valuable for the effort to stop obesity in children. I know that the school systems are responsible for a large part of a child's day, but the real place that diet and exercise start is AT HOME. Parents must take responsibility to change their own diets and exercise habits and not depend on the schools to take care of the obesity problem. BUT it doesn't have to be gym type exercise that only 12% of society uses. It is a big task but all of society will benefit if we ALL start eating better, stop eating junk food, and start growing healthier children. It is also true that when we adults eat cleaner whole foods that we think more clearly and feel younger, look healthier, and make better decisions. It all works together.

I would like to find supporters - both financial and moral for these ideas. Good diet an exercise starts at home and I have some ideas of how parents can do more at home. I am also looking for contacts with Sony - Play Station, with Michelle Obama, with some of these successful business men and corporations that look for philanthropic causes. I have a good idea and want to find a way to present it without worrying that someone will steal the idea from me. If you have some connections or ideas, please let me here from you.

Happy New Year

I'm back to the blog and have many things to talk about but the first thing is to say to all Happy New Year. As we start the new year with resolutions and dreams and hopes to see the economy improve and our own individual circumstances, I am reminded that one of the ways to keep the flow going is to be grateful. It is important to make a list daily of what we are thankful for. Start with the easy stuff and keep writing until you have said thank you God for everything.

Thank you God: for a warm home, electricity, natural gas, water, a bed, a computer, a TV, music, food and coffee.
Thank you God: for my family, my cats and my dog, for my children, and adopted son's son who has brought joy to the whole family.
Thank you God for Love, for Peace, for Joy, for prosperity, for abundance, for sunshine on a cold day, for sunshine every day, for the bird that wakes me every morning even though it seems so cold outside you would think it wouldn't be happy - but still it sings its morning song - thank you God. Thank you God for the blue jays and crows who seem to be around a lot keeping watch over my yard and me.
Thank you God for the rest of the family that help us through these lean times.
Thank you God for my friends and my spiritual community, SLCA, and for every blessing I receive from that big group of happy non-judgmental people.
Thank you God for my education, for my dreams and thoughts and ideas. Thank you God for the opportunity to grow and to learn and to share with others and to get better and better. Thank you God for Love and for showing me how to give love to others.
Thank you God for my good automobiles, for the city and state who provides good roads and good utilities. Thank you for my cell phone and the internet. Thank you for good books and good music.
Thank you God for good and perfect health for me, for my family, especially for my pets as they age.
Thank you God, Thank you God, Thank you God for everything for I KNOW that God is all there is. God IS ALL there is! It is so.

Mistakes and Moving Forward

MISTAKES and Moving Forward

Everyone makes mistakes. That is called being human. Many things others do are regarded as mistakes when there is just lack of understanding. Unless any of us are as famous as Michael Jackson, no one can know what his life was like. I remember a person once that told my parents all sorts of things about me that were nonsense because the person did not understand what we were doing.

People read things that are assumptions by a reporter in the newspapers or magazines and then gossip about what they read – not knowing the whole story and what really happened. They tell others and they tell others and each time the story is repeated, it changes – we all like to tell a good story. Do we all remember playing the game of Gossip when we were kids? The end story was always different .

The story may have been years ago but these talkers keep talking about what they think they know wanting to sound important not thinking how their words are hurting others and in turn hurting them. But these are mistakes also and we all make mistakes.

I think about some times when I lost it, or had a meltdown. I don’t like myself very much for being so over the top. Of course, in a heated argument we justify our behaviors and say that the unkind things we said or did were justified or provoked. But is it ever okay to spew hurtful words or do anything to invade the space of another being? [It doesn’t have to be another person as it could be a pet or even a plant.]

We are tired or stressed out. We don’t think clearly and do something unkind or inconsiderate. Sometimes, the act is so bad that the consequences are major, even life changing. But life goes on and one has to move on. It isn’t easy to forgive yourself and then there are those pesky gossips that just won’t let it be in the past. I want to yell at them – let the PAST go people – see me or see us as we are now and see how much I have changed. I know I have grown. I know what I did wrong and I am committed to not repeating those errors again. But if I bring up the past trying to get them to let it go, then I am guilty of living in the past. I am whole, perfect, and complete and I live in the now with love. I learned from my mistakes and grow. Today I am loving and kind and artistic. I move on!

Look at the One in the Mirror and Make a Change

It's 9-11-09, eight years after the terrorist attacks on New York. So much has happened since then. It was so surreal and you kept asking "Is this really happening? It just can't be real, but it is real. And what's going to happen next?"

We mourned. We came together and helped each other. And many, many good things have happened since then as well as many not so good. Many changes have come about because of it but it wasn't necessary to kill innocent people to bring about those changes. But people still don't get it.

Hatred never is necessary, but yet people still choose to hate, to be intolerant, to hold on to bigotry, racism and judgments, to work for separatism, to destroy, to act like they can tell others what to believe, what to listen to, who to love. But it is not just the "other" places. It is just as prevalent here in this country - in some cases more so. Can't they see that the very hatred they are angry about is their own hatred reflected back to them?

One of the Michael Jackson songs I continue to hear is the "Man in the Mirror". The best way to make a change is to change yourself. I personally like President Obama and I think he really is sincere. The medical system needs change and I ask readers, what are you doing to make the change? Fighting these new ideas is not helping unless you can suggest something better.

What are you doing to make the change about hatred and intolerance? Are you still being judgmental about people being judgmental? Am I? Are you giving love and respect because you want to be loved and respected or are you expecting it without giving it out? Do we stop anymore 9-1-1 attacks by war and more hatred or do we stop them before they happen by opening our eyes and making changes inside?

I hear people on Facebook looking for every reason they can to put our President down. I guess I was guilty of that with President Bush as I did not like his politics. (Although I would NEVER have been disrespectful if I had met him. He WAS the President of the United States, an honor.) These people who find loopholes in the health care ideas are the very ones that have suffered many health problems because the health care was not adequate for their problems.

I think of it like unions. There were these big companies that followed big plantation owners that got big and powerful by using/abusing the laborers. The unions came into power to protect the laborers. Then the power structure swung the other way. The unions became corrupt and too powerful. Either way, the government has had to step in. On the plantations, slave labor was wrong and eventually the society and the government stopped it - for then.

Big corporations and big medicine and big pharmaceutical companies have been making their money and the individual has suffered. The government is having to stop the Bernie Madoff's and the insurance companies but they aren't attacking the drug companies. Some effort to stop the current cheap labor also known as slave labor is coming around in the effort to stop illegal aliens from taking away the jobs of natural born Americans - but the real issue is SLAVE labor! But the media isn't saying let's stop slave labor because the politicians and lawyers and people with money like their cheap - slave - labor. They defend their rights to only want to pay a grown man $60 a day for hard work when they are getting $250/hour or more.

We are spending over $18,000 a year for insurance. The deductible is very high. Benefits have been reduced because our children are not in college and over the age limits. And we are healthy and spend less than $200 a year on health matters. But we have to keep the insurance because we might have an emergency even though we don't go to the doctor because we can't afford it because of the high deductible.

The corporations and high medical care have gotten us into these problems because of their greed. The government is stepping in to try to help the whole of society. You can label it socialized medicine or attack it because you are a Republican or a downright bigot. Maybe you talk a liberal talk but just plain walk a path of intolerance and fixed ideas you don't want to change. Your life is unhappy and unhealthy but you don't want to let that Black president come up with a new idea. It doesn't matter. You and I are all entitled to our own opinions.

But then that is a big part of why 9-1-1 happened. We ARE allowed to have our own opinions. We have so much to be grateful for. We have the government that will step in and try to do what it takes to protect the people of this wonderful country rather than continue to allow the government to suppress, control, and deny individuals their right of birth to choose and control their own destinies. We have all heard that, "You can't fight city hall - they make the rules and only they can change them." Well, that is the bottom line. City hall or the government itself is the only way that the government can change BUT we do have the way to get the government to make it change itself. It is NOT by hatred, more judgments, narrow-mindedness, and terrorist attacks. It is not by disrespectful behaviors liking screaming out at President Obama or teaching our children that is it okay to be rude to the President of the United States. It is not by telling more lies and undermining all attempts to make some changes by manipulating the media and the American public.

I'm looking at the one in the mirror. If you want to make a difference, look at the man in the mirror and make a change in what you see. Thank you, Michael, for reminding me what I NEED to DO.

Why Do People Want to get Rich?

Why do people want to get rich?

I think the main reason is:
1. People want to do what they want to do when they want to do it, buying what they want when they want to. And they want to pay someone else to do what they don't want to do.

The altruistic answer is:
2. They want to help others - but ultimately they still want #1

The self serving answer is:
3. They want "things" and "To Travel" - but #1 still comes first.

I'll be honest. I want to make money. I want to see 4 to 6 clients a day and get paid for my writing. I enjoy what I do. I love life and I am on a Spiritual path. But Spiritual people have to pay the same for food and utilities and gasoline and insurance, etc., pay rent or a mortgage, as everyone else. It's hogwash when someone says Spiritual people shouldn't get money if they are Spiritual.

Are you honest about money?
Can you say, "Yes, I want to make money."
It's okay, you know. We can enjoy life as much as we can envision and that can include money.
Think about it.
Why do you make money? Why do you want to make money?
It's on everyone's mind these days, so let's take a honest, straight forward approach about it and work together to move forward.
It is an avenue of exchange. I can't grow my own food, make my own clothes and electricity and do what I do best.

Why do YOU want to make a lot of money?