That has been running through my mind over and over again. Last night, I went to bed feeling so much better about life. It was as if a huge weight has been taken off my shoulders.

Both of my sister's husbands are battling life threatening issues. One has cancer, the other is in end-stage liver failure. A blogger friend of mine is currently battling breast cancer (amazingly, might I add), and well, it just seems to be everywhere. My moms cousin was killed in an auto accident last week. She had gone out for a nice dinner with her husband, and some guy was texting his mother and hit them head on. J died a short while later at the hospital, her husband laid up in the hospital with a ton of horrible injuries.

The bottom line?

LIFE IS TOO SHORT to let bullshit get in the way. For once, it is going to be ALL ABOUT ME. :)

Well, not entirely. I mean, I just know what I need to focus on to get myself where I want to be, so I can be the person that I have seemingly lost.

And with that, I need to go play with my kid. :) After that, I am going for a walk to take some pictures.

I love taking pictures. I like capturing memories. Most of my photos are not very good, but that was never my aim. Until now. For years I have had a high-falutin' expensive camera and I never really learned to use it the way that it was meant to be used. What a shame, really.

That is going to change.

Lately, I feel life slipping from my grip. I am merely a bystander. I don't like feeling like this. I have been trying for years to lose weight. I have failed. I started school HOW long ago? And I failed. I gave up, or I was too depressed.. I had wanted to be a certain kind of parent. Am I that parent? NO.

And I am TIRED of it all.

So, it was time to give myself a good, old-fashioned attitude adjustment. I was toying with a new domain name, but have since decided against it. I shall keep this one. See, I am not sure if T and I are going to survive. I do not really want to get into that here because I am trying to keep a positive outlook going here.

All I can do is work on ME.

So, a few short term goals are in order:

Go for a walk every.single.day. And move it.. get your heart rate UP and get your blood pumping.
Drink more water.
Spend more time giving thanks and noticing the little things.
Eat 3 small meals a day with HEALTHY snacks in between.
FINISH FREAKING SCHOOL ALREADY. Gosh.
Get at least 8 hours of sleep a night.
Learn more about your cameras and take pictures EVERY.SINGLE.DAY.
Find a quiet spot and spend some time meditating.
STOP with the self-deprecating comments.
Spend 24 minutes a day doing that DVD workout you love so much.
Get back to FLY'ing with the Flylady (don't laugh..that woman has it RIGHT.)


Ok, I could keep going, but that will have to do for now.
I am putting it out there.. to hopefully hold my ass accountable.

Wish me LUCK. If my past is any indication, Ima gonna need all the luck I can get.


For some long term goals?

Get better with my camera. Some day, I would like to make money with it.
Get a JOB.
Find a gym and hire a trainer.
Garden. GARDEN GARDEN GARDEN. And canning. I wanna eat my own food instead of spending money on God-only-knows what at the store.
Try to consume less packaging. Turn off the lights, conserve energy, etc. Lessen the ol' carbon footprint.
Get my mom to move here. I miss her so much when she is gone.
Volunteer. Help make my community better. GET INVOLVED.

Now, IF I can accomplish each of these goals, I will finally feel comfortable in being who I am, for I will be what I truly want to be; a loving, giving, caring, tolerant, self-sufficient individual in every sense. I will love myself, and therefore can truly love and appreciate my surroundings.

I love my mom and my daughter more than anything in this world. They inspire me. But I am not all that I can be FOR them because I am such a mess right now. So, I figured.. if I work on me, then it will all fall into place...

Right??

*sigh*

I went to bed early last night, and had the most crazy, fantastic dream I think I have ever had. Of course, I remember very little of it now. I remember waking in the middle of the night thinking "Whoah! That was insane!! MUST remember that!!", before I drifted off back to sleep. Upon awaking, I remembered very little.

I DO remember that it consisted of me and T going to the ISS. Without a shuttle. LOL. We were in these pod-like things that got launched into space using a futuristic slingshot. It was WILD. It was FUN. When we got near the space station, the CANADARM reached out with these tentacle-like appendages and pulled us in.

Clearly, I watch too much NASA and too many sci-fi movies. Haha. I wish that I could remember more! I think we actually used the pod thing to go to the moon too, because I seem to vaguely remember scooting around the moon on a rover.

Yes. Imma dork. :O)

And my kid is showing a HUGE interest in space and the shuttle. She will sit and watch the NASA channel with me. So cool. She has these space flash cards that I had nabbed out the dollar bin at Target awhile back and she can tell you the difference between a comet, an asteroid and a meteor. She can name the planets.

She thinks it is funny that we live in the 'milky way', and she always asks if it tastes like the candy bar. A comedienne in the making?

I like it that M is interesting. She is quirky and silly and fun. I squished her much this morning, telling her what an awesome kid she is. She just smiled and said "I know mommy!"
Eep! I don't want to breed conceit. I just do not want her to ever have self-esteem issues like I have. I am almost 40 and I still have awful issues. I am working very hard to change that though.

Take this morning, for example. I slept great. I woke up to a gray, gloomy, rainy day. Usually that would get me down right away. But as I sit here and type, listening to the birds chirping happily outside, I REFUSE to let the weather get me down. Today WILL be a great day! I WILL get certain things accomplished! The first of which being coffee and a healthy breakfast!!

Be nice today for no reason. Do a little something unexpected for someone. SMILE.

:D