Welcome back! Coffee's always on around here. Pull up your favorite chair and a grab a cup. Enjoy your visit today! And don't forget to stop back by again soon.

In part one of this series from Thursday, I left you with the thought that we can get beyond the stories by realizing that change is possible. Change is ok – it helps us grow, share and can even help us become stronger. It’s like a tool, if you will.

The first step to embracing change is trusting that the Universe knows exactly what it’s doing. At every moment, it’s operating just as it should be. There is an underlying balance and order to all things, a cycle of life that continues on and on. We must trust, then, trust that the Universe (or God or whatever you wish to call it) is answering your every question, your every thought, your every whim. You just haven’t caught up with some of them yet.

As a result of this cycle, you must understand that at every moment, you have a choice. You can choose to be happy, to be sad, to be angry, to be worried, to be anxious or whatever other emotion you care to attach. It’s your choice.

Let me tell you here and now – happiness IS a choice. It is not something that happens to you. It is not something outside of you. It is not caused by something or someone else. It comes from within – a choice you consciously choose at any given moment.

And this is one fundamental truth that must be acknowledged.

Your state of being is directly related to YOUR OWN INNER COMPASS. Your own thoughts. Your own will power. Your own consciousness. Nothing else. It does not live outside of you. It only dwells within. You can be happy simply because you decide to.

Imagine that!

No matter what else is going on in your life, you can learn to trust the process and know that whatever happens, is happening for a reason. There are no accidents, no coincidences. And when you begin to take this to heart, you will learn to become peaceful. You will find joy.

And then, an interesting thing will begin to happen – when we operate our daily lives from a place of joy, trusting in the Universe for our every need, things begin to come our way. All the things we truly desire and wish for, begin to appear in our lives. It’s almost as if we’ve found luck.

But really, it was there all along, simply waiting for us to open up and embrace it.

In other words, stories don’t have to rule our lives. We don’t have to let them encumber us, weigh us down, make us heavy and depressed. We can acknowledge the bad along with the good and find joy in the learning. We can find joy in simplicity. We can find joy simply because we can!

This is one of the greatest things about being human – we have our own thoughts, our own will. And we are free to use it. When we use our free will while trusting in the Universe, miracles and magic happens. Doors open.

You have a door open before you today. The door of inner peace. Of inner joy. Walk through it and empower your life.

Start by choosing to be happy.

Next time, we’ll talk about how to be happy when we’d rather be sad.

In the arena,

Make $10k in a weekend – “Too good to be true.” That’s the first thing I said when
I heard of http://tinyurl.com/5lq2g4. You can’t REALLY make $10K in a weekend. But I quickly bit my tongue once I saw the content. . .

Annie Anderson is a freelance copywriter and graphic designer specializing in the small business and real estate markets. Her tagline “Making your business, my business” means that she’ll take the utmost care when creating words and images for your business – just as if it were her own.

I finally had a chance to get some hemp milk. It was a pain finding some locally. I wanted to try it before I ordered it from Amazon on their auto ship feature to be sure I actually liked it. Even though I could have cancelled the auto ship if I didn’t like it, I wanted to check it out beforehand mostly so I could read the ingredients and other nutrition information.

The natural foods co-op had 2 brands, both from Canada (of course) – the Living Harvest as well as the Manitoba Harvest – and both came in plain, vanilla and chocolate. I bought both in vanilla. I haven’t tried the Manitoba Harvest yet, but the Living Harvest is delicious! It’s very smooth and flavorful. I think I like it better than the almond milk, even. And I definitely like both the hemp and almond milks better than soy. Neither of them seem to cause gas which is a nice bonus.

Smoothies are incredible with the hemp milk as are protein shakes. I do plan plan to try the other flavors – well, the chocolate, anyway. Probably not the plain. I also plan to start using it in place of regular milk when cooking and see if the kids notice a difference. Actually, in that case, maybe I will get the plain. Macaroni and cheese with vanilla flavoring might taste a bit odd.

The final conclusion is that if you’re looking for an alternative to soy, try hemp. Technically, hemp is a seed (like sunflower seed) so those with allergies to tree nuts might be ok with it. Be sure to check with your doctor if you do have such allergies to be on the safe side before you try it, though.

What do you use instead of regular milk? Do you have a favorite? Please share!

Talk to you next time!

On the menu this week:

Note that during the week, the kids will either have cereal or oatmeal for breakfast and I will have a protein shake so I’m only listing lunch, dinner and snacks.

Monday:
AM Snack – Nectarines
Lunch - Tuna on homemade oatmeal bread, spinach salad w/raspberry vinaigrette
PM Snack – Avocado slices
Dinner - Grilled salmon filets, roasted baby red potatoes w/asparagus, spinach salad w/Asian sesame dressing

Tuesday:
AM Snack – Bananas
Lunch - Lentil soup w/homemade oatmeal bread (toasted), spinach salad w/diced tomatoes, garlic, green beans and roasted red pepper and tomato vinaigrette
PM Snack – Whole wheat Ritz crackers w/homemade red pepper and garlic hummus
Dinner – Crockpot chicken, steamed carrots and peas, wild rice

Wednesday:
AM Snack – Applesauce
Lunch – Ham and cheese sandwiches on whole wheat bread w/mustard, raw baby carrots
PM Snack – Peanut butter and celery
Dinner – Tacos w/beans, extra lean ground beef, onions, diced tomatoes, cheese

Thursday:
AM Snack - Peaches and Pears
Lunch - Individual pizzas w/sauce, onions, garlic, sun dried tomatoes and feta cheese
PM Snack - Graham crackers
Dinner - Grilled pork steaks w/applesauce, steamed broccoli and mashed potatoes

Friday:
AM Snack – Strawberries
Lunch – Split Pea soup w/sourdough bread, spinach salad w/roasted red pepper and tomato vinaigrette
PM Snack – Popcorn
Dinner – Stir fry chicken w/carrots, broccoli, pea pods, celery, slivered almonds, and cauliflower

Saturday:
Breakfast – Crockpot hashbrown casserole, homemade oatmeal bread w/strawberry jam
AM Snack – Apple slices
Lunch – Macaroni and cheese
PM Snack – Plums
Dinner – Pot stickers w/wild and brown rice

Sunday:
Breakfast – Frittata w/broccoli, onions, peppers
AM Snack – Oranges
Lunch - Turkey meatball sandwiches on rolls w/vegetarian potato salad
PM Snack – Popsicles
Dinner - Grilled chicken tenderloins w/herb seasoned penne pasta, squash, spinach salad

Yum! It’s going to be a delicious week. I’ll also be baking bread several times throughout the week including oatmeal bread, sandwich bread and whole wheat. I may even try to make some sun dried tomato and basil french bread.

I’ve been blogging for quite some time (technically since about 2002) and yet I’ve never really introduced my family. Mostly because I didn’t want to call everyone by their real names on the internet and thus, I had no idea what to the call them. But, in order to become a tad more transparent on this site – and as this site evolves – I thought perhaps now was the time to introduce everyone.

So . . .

First . . . My husband. Unlike other women/mommy bloggers, I don’t have a cute name for him like Ree over at The Pioneer Woman has for her “Marlboro Man” nor like one of those gals who calls their hubby Mr. Whatever-the-blogs-name-is (like Mrs. Flinger or OMSH). Nope. And I don’t particularly like the word “hubby” either. So, I’ll just call him my husband for now. He’s a goofy Asian Dude who was raised by an adoptive family on a farm in Minnesota, although he was born in Korea.

The kids . . .

1. Big Girl aka The Teenager. She’s 14 and a pretty darn good kid although she can have a bit of a temper now and then. She’s taller than me by at least 2 inches (so thankfully, she made it over the 5′ mark). And boy does she like to rub it in sometimes! She loves music and art, hates having her picture taken and is excited to be starting high school this fall. Her favorite colors are usually blue or red and she says she hates pink but . . . she has a surprising amount of pinkish colored things.

2. Big Boy or The Taller Dude aka G-Man. He’s 10, pretty shy, loves computer games, Lego’s, Indiana Jones, Spiderwyck Chronicles and is left-handed. His feet are nearly as big as my husbands but he’s not quite 5′ tall yet. Soon, though. Maybe even next week. I swear this kid grows an inch every stinkin’ day. Him and The Teenager do not always get along well. He likes the color orange and has always been pretty partial to green as well.

3. Little Girl. She’s 7, loves horses, animals, coloring, and watching horse related moves (like Spirit, Black Beauty, etc). Her favorite colors change regularly but usually it’s either pink or purple and sometimes yellow.

4. Little Man aka The Short Dude. He’s going to be 4 next Friday, is finally (nearly 100%) potty trained and loves trains, especially Thomas the Tank Engine & Friends. His favorite train from the series is Gordon although he really like Henry, too. He still takes naps, loves popsicles – which he calls “posscabulls” -and kitties and loves playing ponies with Little Girl. He seems to like orange best, too, though he does like brown and green as well.

Gramma . . .

And then there’s The Lady aka Gramma. She’s my mom. When I was growing up (and even still), she would NOT let me call her by her first name. If I couldn’t get her attention, I better find something else to call her so I started calling her “Hey Lady!” And it stuck. I still call her that when she’s being obstinate or isn’t fully paying attention. She’s a little thing – barely 5′ tall and weighs less a 100 lbs soaking wet with clothes on. And no, I am not exaggerating. But she’s a firecracker when necessary and yet, she’s very sweet, too. A remarkable woman who beat the odds more than once and whom I love dearly. In fact, when I grow up, I want to be just like her. She lives at The Farm I grew up on about 3 miles from us with her two cows and sometimes, the neighbors orange cat.

Furry pals . . .

• Maximillion aka Max Man. He’s a long-haired black cat with Amber/Green eyes. He loves to play, is rather whiney, a bit picky and sleeps on my legs every night. Sometimes he thinks my hands and arms are chew toys. It’s not always fun.
• Stardust aka Star or Star-D. She’s a short-haired dark gray cat and Max’s sister. She has a tiny little voice, is very, very sweet and is a great fly catcher. She likes to sleep on the porch. And like Max, has Amber/Green eyes.
• Annie aka Annie Potts or Miss Potts. (No, she isn’t named after me. Annie was her name when we got her and it seemed to fit her well. We couldn’t think of another name, so it stuck.) She’s Max and Star’s sister and like Max, she’s a long-haired black ball of fur with mostly Amber eyes. She loves to purr, is afraid of nearly everything and is a bit loony. We think she must have been dropped on her head as a youngin’. She likes to sleep in my cupboard in the mixing bowl. In fact, that’s how she got the name of Potts.

I hope you’ve enjoyed getting to know everyone. The picture was taken in August of 2007 when we went to Seattle and rode the Ducks.

In the arena,

Make $10k in a weekend – “Too good to be true.” That’s the first thing I said when
I heard of http://tinyurl.com/5lq2g4. You can’t REALLY make $10K in a weekend. But I quickly bit my tongue once I saw the content. . .

Annie Anderson is a freelance copywriter and graphic designer specializing in the small business and real estate markets. Her tagline “Making your business, my business” means that she’ll take the utmost care when creating words and images for your business – just as if it were her own.

Stories make us who we are. Yes, it’s true. They certainly do. But, we must realize we are so much more than those stories. We must learn to move beyond the stories and just Be. And we must understand – we are NOT our stories. They do not have to define who we are. Each of us has a unique gift, something to share with the world around us. In the hubbub of every day life, sometimes those gifts get lost or buried under all those stories and as a result we can’t find our way.

I really got to thinking about this last night when I was in the walk-in clinic with my husband who tried to take off his thumb at work. Ok, well, it wasn’t quite that bad. But it sure was nasty.

He was holding a granite slab and his boss, who was on the forklift, was getting ready to clamp onto the slab so they could move it around the warehouse. Well, somehow – nobody is quite sure – the clamp grazed his hand, pulling the thumbnail nearly off and causing a hell of a lot of blood. Just before quitting time, of course.

So he got home last night, hand all bandaged up and tried to tough it out. I called my mom (a radiologist) to ask her about meds (he’d taken aspirin which hadn’t put a dent in his discomfort) and she promptly put together a package of gauze and tape and bandage-y type stuff and brought them over. While she was on her way, we rinsed it well with sea salt water and once she got here, we decided he should see a doctor. Mostly because he looked rather peaked and was having trouble processing his thoughts coherently. (I’m guessing he was in a heck of a lot more pain than he let on which is unusual for him because he’s quite the whiner when he’s ill or hurt. )

I guess the admin gals at the front desk thought he looked a bit worse for ware, too, because we were ushered in to see the intake nurse within just a couple of minutes. I hadn’t even finished filling out his paperwork.

Fortunately, since it was obviously draining, there wasn’t a need to drill the nail to release the pressure or anything but because of the clamp situation, he was given a tetanus shot as well as antibiotics. The doctor cleaned it up some more and dressed it all with ointment and a pressure bandage. And he’ll have to change the bandage every day at least once, if not twice, for the next several weeks until the new nail takes form.

Anyway, this all got me to thinking about stories and getting rid of things in our lives which don’t work or changing our course just a little bit so they do. I began thinking how our stories shape how we think, how we feel, what we do (or don’t do) and where our lives ultimately lead.

It became clear to me how my husbands childhood thoroughly affected how he handled the situation. He treated it like one of those, “ignore it and it will go away” things. Not me. I went into what my family calls “fix it mode.”

Now, when I was growing up, my mom was much the same way. She just gets in there and automatically, somehow, knows exactly what needs to be done. No wavering, no worrying, no wondering what should be done. It just gets done. And that’s what I do, too. We don’t freak out, we don’t get upset or angry or emotional. (Until it’s over, anyway!)

I began to wonder what stories made my husband react and act how he did. What caused him to downplay (in his own mind) the severity of the injury and his resistance to doing anything about it. He didn’t even seem to know what nearly anyone who’s ever had any kind of injury knows – to elevate the injured body part.

The good news is – we can learn to get beyond the stories. We can learn to accept that just because a certain thing happened in our past, doesn’t mean we have to continue on that way. We can change our world for the better.

And it starts by realizing that change is possible.

(Stay tuned for part 2.)

Oh – and by the way – I haven’t forgotten about my before and after office pics. Just haven’t had time with all the other fun stuff going on to get them out of the camera. Hopefully this weekend will slow down a bit. Or probably not. It’s my mom’s birthday Sunday.

In the arena,

Make $10k in a weekend – “Too good to be true.” That’s the first thing I said when
I heard of http://tinyurl.com/5lq2g4. You can’t REALLY make $10K in a weekend. But I quickly bit my tongue once I saw the content. . .

Annie Anderson is a freelance copywriter and graphic designer specializing in the small business and real estate markets. Her tagline “Making your business, my business” means that she’ll take the utmost care when creating words and images for your business – just as if it were her own.

I’m so far behind on the Challenge . . . I’m still on Day 2. Hopefully I can finish it today as well as Days 3 and possibly 4. I think Day 5 will have to wait until tomorrow.

So far, the Market Samurai looks like an awesome tool. I’ve watched about the half of the Day 2 videos with GuruBob. It looks amazing! I can’t wait to get the point where I can try it out. Hopefully soon.

I’ve put my little guy (who is going to be 4 next week!!!) down for a nap and the other kids are all occupied with activities and I put some chicken in the crockpot for dinner so I can concentrate on the 30dc this afternoon with – hopefully – no interruptions.

Hey, it could happen . . .

Experiencing the awesomeness,

(lsandrsn on the 30dc forum)
Why not check out the 30dc for yourself?
====================
You can also find me here:
FriendFeed
As well as writing on the following Blogs:
Writing Notes|
Main Website|
Weight Loss Blog

My mom doesn’t eat eggs or dairy products due to food allergies so she cooks a lot vegetarian dishes (although she is not vegetarian in any other way, lol) and this is one of my favorites.

Vegetarian Potato Salad

• 1/2 cup of vegan mayonnaise
• 1/2 cup of dijon style mustard (you can cut this to 1/4 if mustard isn’t your thing)
• 3-4 large potatoes, cooked but still firm and cubed
• 1 package of penne pasta, cooked to desired doneness
• 3-4 green onions, minced
• 3 tbsp Vinegar
• 1/4 tsp Black Pepper
• 1/4 tsp Turmeric

As noted in ingredients, cook potatoes and cut into bite size cubes. Cook pasta to desired doneness. Once potatoes and pasta have cooled, toss together with remaining ingredients and let chill in refrigerator for 3-4 hours before serving.

And that’s it. It’s very good. Not sure it’s entirely diet friendly if you’re trying to stay away from “white” foods like potatoes and such but it sure is good.

Hope you’ve been enjoying your summer. I’ve been busy with lots of things and am currently participating in the 2008 Thirty Day Challenge. You can read my progress here and if you really can’t enough of my writing, you can peruse my main blog for everything from real estate to writing to design and even more.

See you again soon!

Bye for now!