A Time For Everything

I missed a few topics in my January edition of Miscellaneous Monday...so here's a bit of a catch up as well as some new random bits.

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My oldest is coming for a visit on the 15th for a few days. I haven't seen her since Christmas 2021, although we chat via text a lot along with her soul mate and her sister. She's been living the good life, mostly, since taking up residence in the Centennial State, and it'll be good to see her again.

Her birthday is at the beginning of March, so we'll probably do a small b-day celebration while she's here. (Note to self: better put cake mix on the grocery list.)

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We had a snow (ice) "week" last week. Everyone went home early on Monday, came in for a few hours early on Tuesday--for me to create and them to pick-up paychecks--before heading back home to work from home. Bad timing there, Mother Nature! And then worked from home Wednesday and half of Thursday, before returning to the office mid-day Thursday and all of Friday.

I used to be super excited about snow days, but when they go on for too long (what's too long? three days) then they muck up schedules and routines and aren't really worth it.

And also--the dogs, especially the little one, had a hard time navigating the ice rink that was our back yard. He just didn't have the weight to get any traction. Even Rayna's 50-ish pounds had a hard time with it.

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Speaking of Rayna, she's still alive and kicking around. Although in the couple of weeks, she's had some rough days, and I'm wondering if this is the beginning of the end. If you remember, she was diagnosed October 10th, and I thought we'd have had to put her down by now.

Rest assured, I'm always on the watch for her mental and physical well-being. I don't want to put her down prematurely, but I don't want her to suffer unnecessarily either. So we're being vigilant to her indications of "okay-ness" vs pain / miserableness. I don't believe she's quite there yet, but it may be looming. If you're a pet owner who's faced this kind of thing, you know what I'm talking about. The animal will tell you when it's time to go.

Most of the time she's back to sleeping on Sonshine's old bed that became Mom's bed, with a mattress upgrade from futon mattress to regular mattress. It's no doubt way more comfortable for her.

Now instead of having run of the kitchen and my home office while I'm at work, we've given her the run of the back of the house with access to that bedroom. It has a big window and faces south, so lots of bright light during the day to help keep her mentally peppy as well.

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In very belated news, Mom's house ended up not selling. Due to an issue of their own making (probably inadvertently, but nevertheless), the sellers were unable to come up with the full, agreed upon price. That was after they'd asked for two discounts. Which I had agreed to since I'd wanted to have that one major "thing" off my plate.

After realizing what they'd caused for themselves, they came back and asked for another drop in price. I just couldn't agree to that. It's cheaper for me to pay the bills for three or four months than to give up the amount of money they wanted me to.

But ugh.

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I'd fallen off the de-cluttering wagon... but I'm trying to climb back on. I think I just forgot, what with the busyness of the holidays, but I want to keep going, keep simplifying, keep reducing the number of things I have to clean or keep track of.

I've penciled into my chore chart twice a week that I have to go in search of something to give away or throw away. I have a list and I keep it updated. I'm at 50-ish items for this go-round, which started October 2nd.

The goal is 100 items out of my house by the end of the first quarter. :0)

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January was a tough month for me. As a business owner, there are all kinds of "end of year" things to do as well as "beginning of year" things to do. All of that on top regular monthly tasks. Add in the end of a fireworks season and the things that have to happen with that.

I was already pooped from the excitement and work of the holidays. And then there's me trying to wrangle plans for fresh start goals into submission as well as dealing with three fur babies, between whom I have to juggle time and attention.

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Remember my no-spend challenge? I have several events on the books that I want to fund in advance, so there's another chain of tasks I've penciled in -- listing stuff Facebook Marketplace and eventually eBay and then shipping or delivering said items.

FB Marketplace has not been kind to me this go round. I've successfully bought two dryers for cheap that I've been extremely pleased with, but my foray as a seller rather than a buyer has been frustrating.

First, they rejected my listing of mom's walker--that she never used--because it falls under the "medical device" umbrella despite the fact that it doesn't diagnose nor treat nor attempt to cure any sort of condition.

Then I got duped into a Zelle scam. Stupid me. But here...

And then people keep offering me less money for my stuff. If I were willing to take less money (right now), I would have asked for less money. Grrrr...

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Well, that's a decent list of randomness, wouldn't you say? I've revisited this post-in-progress several times hoping to remember any other bits and pieces I've wanted to share or document, but I'm tapped out for the time being.

Here's to a great week and a February as equally abundant as January. Take care.

Image courtesy of IMGBIN.

While I'm not quite swimming in gold coins yet, January was filled with some abundance:

• time
• energy
• productivity
• wealth

Are you wondering how? Well, certainly not in the way you would expect. But let's see...

I certainly wasn't pleased about getting woken up a full hour before my alarm went off several mornings from mid-month onward, but I got up and put that time to good use. I also found myself with small pockets of time to do random things.

For example--I took the "pre-lit" lights off my Christmas tree. They all died over the course of the last two Christmases, but the tree itself is still perfectly fine.

So before I put the tree into storage for the year, I decided to remove the dead strings of lights.

There were several days where I had time to kill, so I started in on those lights. I figured out the pattern of how the lights were strung and then gleefully took some sharp cutters and started snipping wires. It's not as tedious as I imagined, but it is mindless, so I just put on some TV and got several branches done in 45-minute increments.

Despite the early mornings and occasional later nights, my energy levels have been good. That one I can't entirely explain right now other than to say good sleep, good food, some exercise, and good productive days make you feel good and it's a self-perpetuating cycle.

As for productivity...well, the lists and the planners and the chore chart all helped, but so did the extra time, which fed the feel-good vibes from getting stuff done, which feeds the energy levels, which makes you want to cross more stuff off that to-do list and well, it's a self-perpetuating cycle...

And the literal wealth...well, that's kinda separate. We started a new investment program, which I won't go into detail about right now, but suffice to say, the value of our portfolio has increased. Which tickles me pink, which cycles that good energy back into the other things.

But this all needed a catalyst, right?

I think I figured out what it was. And it may cycle back to...

If you said Personality Strengths, you'd be correct. :0)

A couple of weeks ago, I received a newsletter from Chief Strengths guru, Becca, and she does a thing called "Dear Becca." People who are a part of her Strengths family, at any level, can send her questions and she'll answer the really impactful one or the mass-applicable ones in the newsletter.

Someone asked if particular Strengths, especially ones that are lower in the top-ten lineup can be more hungry than higher ranked Strengths. The question-asker said that she'd doubled her reading volume and, as a result, her writing output rose by 30% and asked if that tracked since input for her was "only 9th" and she had all those other really dominant Strengths at the top. The specific Strength she asked about was Input, which ranks 9th for her and which ranks 8th for me. We shared two other Strengths in the top ten...

Anyway, both the question and the answer really hit home for me. The answer was basically yes.

Now, Input as a Strength manifests itself in just the way you might think--it wants input. TV, radio, pod casts, books, articles, movies, etc...

I tend to read a lot and I listen to a lot of pod casts and I read a lot of hockey-related articles. And lately, I've been Inputting a lot more than I have in a while and certainly more than I was able to last year. Not only that, but my head space is clearer now. I can better absorb the information I'm taking in as well.

As a result, I'm feeling more energetic and more myself, which feeds the productivity, which feeds the feeling of well-being, which feeds the...

Well, you get my drift. :0)

I really need to get to those Strengths books I have lined up to read, don't I?

Have a great weekend. Catch you Monday.

Happy New Year, my dear followers. Hope your weekend was what you needed and wanted it to be. Mine was.

I'm not heading right into my specific goals for 2023 just yet. First, I'm gonna talk about some general tenets I'm going to adopt.

So...

Over the course of 2021-2022, I read the book "Remembering Wholeness" by Carol Tuttle. My Amazon order history shows I ordered it at the very end of 2020 (!!), and I probably started reading it right away because I do remember practicing some of Ms. Tuttle's recommendations.

But somewhere along the way, I put the book aside. Then 2022 happened and there was no time or brain power until the last few months of the year. But I kept seeing it on my shelf and kept thinking I needed to finish it. Eventually I pulled it off the shelf and started reading again.

Let me preface the rest of this post with some backstory. A dear friend of mine has had various struggles most of the years I've known her, which is better than a decade now. She's a beautiful woman inside and out, and these struggles were through no fault of her own. At some point, however, she realized she needed to take control of her destiny and that of her family.

So back in 2018/2019/2020, utilizing some of Carol Tuttle's recommended practices, mostly regarding various types of prayer, my friend was able to turn things around. Since she read the book, she's realized all her original intentions and has, of course, moved on to bigger and better goals and new intentions.

I was impressed and envious and asked her how she made things happen. She pointed me to the book and so I bought it.

Now a caveat--Carol Tuttle is woman of strong faith, so most of her recommendations are faith- and prayer-based. If prayer is not your thing, then this may not be a book for you. It's also a tiny bit of an infomercial kind of thing. She has (had? it's an old book) some sort counseling practice going on that she mentions. And the technique she practiced sounded a little "out there." But who am I to judge? I, too, march to the beat of my own drummer.

Some of her stuff was a little too odd for me, but, on the other hand, some of it resonated strongly.

In writers circles, there's a saying, especially in regards to advice or editorial suggestions: "Take what works for you, and ignore the rest."

Although I made a lot of notes along the way, I applied that advice to this book. When I asked my friend about it, she felt the same. Use what works, and don't worry about the rest.

I should probably go back through my notes and see how many of those things still resonate.

There were a couple chapters there at the end that really got me, and one of those is where the title of today's post comes from.  "The Universe is Abundant." Ms. Tuttle's belief is just that. There's enough of everything for everyone. Even enough money.

One of the recurring threads of the book is that the universe only gives one back what one puts into it. So, theoretically, if someone complains about about a bad situation, they're going to keep experiencing that bad situation because they keep putting it out there in a negative way. Conversely, if someone puts good, positive thoughts into the universe, then they would get good, positive things back.

Nothing's free, of course. You do have to do some work. My friend went back to school and got a new job in her quest for a better life and a better income. But the universe aligned the cogs to help her make those things happen. She's even a homeowner again.

So all that to say, I'm putting putting positive things into the ether this year. I'm going to be grateful for:

An abundance of  TIME.

An abundance of  LOVE.

An abundance of  MONEY.

An abundance of  FAMILY.

An abundance of  ENERGY.

An abundance of  SUCCESS.

An abundance of  HEALING.

Here's to an ABUNDANT 2023.

Take care and I'll talk you soon.