One Wonderful Year

It's hard to believe I started Love-It-All in honor of Lent season last year, and here we are again one Ash Wednesday later. This evening I read through all of my posts, and was overwhelmed with happiness as I recollected writing each one of them, the circumstances around them, and the sense of joy I had as each post came together. I can honestly say the writing I've done since Ash Wednesday 2011 has been one of my favorite accomplishments. I started a second blog (http://morethanattic.blogspot.com/) and even started taking action towards my dream of writing children's books (which you'll find more about in the new blog so check it out!).

Since Love-It-All started with Lent, I think it's appropriate to mention what I'm doing this year. First, I will work to incorporate more acts of kindness into my daily life, even if it's just a kind e-mail or text.  And I have given myself a laptop limit, so every evening I am only allowed ten total minutes on Pinterest, Facebook, etc. I'll spend that time doing something constructive that will ultimately lead to a less stressful work week. Plus, I think I'll find myself paying more attention to my wonderful fiance since I won't be completely engulfed in pinning or photo stalking my friends. The one exception to the laptop limit is my writing of course- I can be on the computer as much as I need as long as I'm working on one of my books. I also hope to maintain both of my blogs, so we shall see! 

I'm so glad one year ago I started this blog and began really focusing on living a happy, healthy life. I know it's helped me stay focused on what I want to accomplish, and the kind of life I want to live. Here's to another Love-It-All type of year!

Like Today

One of my new favorite addictions is the online pinboard, Pinterest. One of my new favorite people is my perfect, beautiful, baby niece that was born today, 11.22.11.

When I got home from visiting the baby girl and her parents in the hospital naturally I logged onto Pinterest, and this was the first pin I saw, "Nothing in the past or future ever will feel like today." I couldn't have said it better myself!

Welcome to the world Mackenzie Rain!

Work It Out

LoveItAll was created when I became inspired during the Lent season this year to acknowledge and celebrate being healthy and happy. And I have to say (and high-five myself) that I think I've done a relatively good job sticking with that theme. Of course there have been months I've slacked on posting, but I'm revamping my dedication to LoveItAll and will be posting more! (I was going to write 'will try to be posting more' but my fiance's favorite quote stopped me from typing 'try.' The quote is from Yoda from Star Wars, "Do or do not. There is no try.") So I WILL be posting more.

Looking at previous entries, I find it hard to believe that I've only mentioned my favorite workout of all time once or twice when talking about health and happiness. After high school when my basketball and volleyball days ended, I struggled with finding ways to stay in shape. Before college my workouts were structured, scheduled, and not optional. In college they were trying this and that (yoga to abs classes) and were few and far between. I can honestly say until I found TITLE Boxing Club, I was in a work out rutttt (One 't' didn't make the five year rut seem long enough so I added a few extra).

My whole point is not how awesome TITLE is and how I don't know how I functioned before without my kickboxing classes since they have improved every area of my life from fitness, to sleeping, to diet, to happiness, although I could go on and on. My point and advice is to find something you ENJOY doing and work it out. Let's face it- working out is hard, as it should be. You simply will not stick with something challenging if you don't enjoy it. So go find your work out niche. Whether it's running or walking or an at home video like P90X or old school Tae-Bo, just work it out and have fun. The ripple effects of enjoying yourself while getting in shape will pleasantly surprise you!

You gotta have faith

I've been thinking a lot about faith lately. One of my favorite real life examples of someone who walks by faith is my amazing soon-to-be sister-in-law, who has also become one of my great friends.

She is weeks away from giving birth to her first baby- a perfect little girl named Mackenzie. Rewind nine months to when she and her husband first found out she was pregnant: it was just days after they received news that one of her surgeries to remove cancerous lymph nodes was not successful. Rewind a couple years back and see that she has been battling Thyroid cancer and all the effects of surgeries, radiation, and healing on her body. Rewind even further and see her husband surviving life threatening melanoma, and going through chemotherapy for over a year. Because of these and other factors, the pregnancy was diagnosed as high risk early on.

When I asked her if she was scared, and how she was feeling about everything, she just looked at me and said, "You know, for me it's a total faith walk." And that's been her mentality her entire journey- from cancer, to pregnancy, and all of  life's challenges, she has continued to keep the faith. Which has inspired me to not only continue to keep the faith in God, but in others, and in myself. After all if we view life as one great faith walk, there really is nothing to be scared about.

Blame It On The Block

In all the books about writing I've read, (On Writing by Stephen King tops my favorites list), I inevitably come across a chapter on writer's block. As an on and off, okay more off than on, creative writer and blogger, I never experienced what is referred to as writer's block. Not until recently. And only recently have I realized that the frustrating, headaching, curse of writer's block and more importantly, the desire to get over it's hump and untangle the knot that forms in the mind and stomach of those who suffer from it, can actually be experienced in a bigger, meaner form: life's block.

As a naturally happy, positive, let's face it, Love-It-All-type of person, I can make sense of difficult events and trying periods. I find gratefulness and lessons in sorrowful events, and am genetically empathetic to a fault. These statements I would have sworn true two months ago. Lately I seem to repeat them as some sort of affirmations.

I know I'm happy, truly truly blessed, and am grateful every day for my life. I just find myself wondering sometimes why I can say those words without feeling or applying them the way I used to. And the most difficult part has been that I acknowledge the block I've put on my mind and heart, but true to reputation, neither writer's nor your life's block goes away when you beg it to. Day by day, ideas, feelings, sentences, and memories appear and with each one the knots are loosened. Before you know it, you can breathe deeper and truer than you have in weeks, and you start to recognize your mind and heart back in your control. Day by day. And on the great days the happy, positive, gratefulness returns. And so does the writing.

Get Your Gwapes

I love clean jokes: the cheesey, play-on-word jokes you can tell around children or your pastor without being inappropriate. One of my all-time favorites is ultimately about persistence, and knowing what you want. It's also just plain cute.

A duck walked into a bar and said to the bartender, "Hey, got any gwapes?"
The bartender said no, so the duck left.

The next day, the duck walked into the same bar and asked the bartender, "Hey, got any gwapes?"
The bartender said just shook his head, and said, "Nope." So the duck left.

Still determined the next day, the duck walked into the bar, and asked the bartender, "Hey,  got any gwapes?"
Visibly annoyed, the bartender said, "No, we don't have any grapes, and if you come in here and ask me that one more time, I'm going to staple your beak shut."
So the duck put his head down and waddled out of the bar.

The next day, the duck walked into the bar, right up to the bartender, and said, "Hey, got any staples?"
The bartender, fed up, said, "No, we don't have any staples."
So the duck looked around, then back to the bartender, and said, "Okay.... Got any gwapes?"

A Week

It’s been a week.

It’s been a week in which happiness doesn’t feel quite as happy.

It’s been a week of cliché songs on the radio about life not sounding so cliché anymore.

It’s been a week of  finding ourselves thinking over and over, “I wish it was this time this many days ago.”

It’s been a week to be grateful for the many thoughtless actions we’ve walked away from unscathed.

It’s been a week of being reminded of loyalty, trust, and friendship.  

It’s been a week where many lives have been forever changed.

It’s been a week full of prayer.

It’s only been a week.