I have launched no less than five businesses in my lifetime. Well okay I had ideas for and started in my mind more like about 33. The biggest impediments to my following through with the "really good" ideas could be written on a board room wall with little room to spare. I often wondered to myself, "Why do you keep talking yourself out of this idea? What are you really afraid of?"  When I ran out of the obvious answers, no capital, don't know how to write a business plan, nobody around me rallied around me, there are too many of those type of ideas already out there for the business I am considering....then I finally wised up and listened to a very loud voice in my head that said, "STOP STARTING STUFF PLEASE." At last, I was sick of myself.  I was sick and tired of hearing my own excuses. So I/we launched our first business. My husband and I opened a pool hall, i.e., with pool tables and balls not floaters and sharks fins. After selling that business at what can be loosely described as "break even", it was I who would start the next three businesses in our marriage. So I feel qualified to share this with you.... STOP! Starting Stuff. And get going. Please!

Taken from, Six Lessons for Getting in the Right Mindset For Starting Your Own
Business by SOURCE/Colin McDougall:

Confidence/No Fear 
Early on, I realized to succeed required getting in the “right mindset” to be
my own boss.  This involved getting over self-defeating talk and convincing
myself I could do it.  There is an expression in sales if you fake it long
enough you believe it. The reasoning is that by acting confident, you become
confident. So for me it became a matter of selling my self. Like any good sales
person will tell you, to be good in sales you need to know your customers’ hot
buttons, earn their trust and value and meet their needs. I sold myself on the
idea of going into business for myself, but that didn’t take away the realistic
fears and insecurities. 

When I started the business there was no paycheck, no set date when the money
would arrive, and even worse I worried that the money might not show up at all.
This became my biggest fence to climb. 

Contending with my own self-doubt and insecurity was one thing, but hearing
the negative concerns of friends and family voiced over and over made matters
worse. In their eyes I was working a “good job”, and they didn’t understand why
I wanted to trade a secure paycheck for uncertainty.  All I heard was “you can’t
do that” and “that’s too risky”. Those kinds of comments worked against me for
the first six months and threatened to undermine the entrepreneurial “can do and
will do” attitude. 

Friends and family didn’t understand the kind of business I started known as
affiliate marketing, but they felt qualified to tell me, “If I could make money
online it would probably be illegal or at best immoral.”

What they didn’t realize is that affiliate marketing is a $14 billion
industry. (Source: Marketing Sherpa) and is expected to grow to approximately
$230 billion by 2008. (Source: Forrester Research)

I may never become super rich working for myself, who knows? But I can promise you this, having tried it my way and having the tenacity to finally STOP STARTING STUFF and start TRYING stuff has made my spirit richly satisfied.

When the going is good the good get going! But when the going is bad...the good go scramming. That is to say, nobody wants to keep company with a sinking ship. You win the lottery? Win a casino jackpot? Win a scratch off? Get a big tax return? You have friends and sometimes family that come out of the walls. "Hey cousin, Hey sister, my brother, my pal."
But you miss a bill due, lose your job, catch a common cold that lasts more than the obligatory 2.5 days, then you are ALONE on that slippery slope. A slippery slope best navigated with skis. Your skis.

The Seven Rules of Navigation:

1. Stay determined to remain on your feet
2. Grab hold of something but don't plan to make that hold a fixture in your life
3. Dress for the environment, you might be on that slope for awhile
4. Don't take the temperature every five minutes, you might be on that slope
   awhile
5. Don't look around you, look straight ahead. The elements around you are there to distract and annoy you
6. Don't stop to explain, your actions will speak louder than words
7. Don't fall apart. How you look going down the slope determines how you are perceived when you reach its bottom!

May the force be with you and the wind to your back!

Life is tough. If you say it ain't so then you have not been tested. I mean it! Life will throw you some curve balls. The true test of character, is what do you do with those balls? Do you have the b#$%% to throw back. I know, that is not the lady like thing to say. But dang we are not living in a lady like kind of world either.

Because in a man's world there is no time for crying.

The story that follows is not directly mine, but it could be any of ours. Amen?
Source: By Shauna Zamarripa 
In most professions, as a woman, being assertive is attuned to being a
five-letter word beginning with the letter "b." Yet, this is what it takes to
survive in a career field dominated by men. Mind you, I don't hate men, not by a
long shot, but dealing with upper management in my career as middle management
meant being assertive, and learning how to be overly assertive and vocal in
order to be effective. Essentially, you have to develop the persona of the
woman-no-one-wants to-mess-with. Unfortunately, for me, this process took a lot
of trial and error. 

Allow me to explain. I worked for a propriety tech school that specialized in IT certifications  (man's world squared). From admissions (sales), I worked my way up the corporate  ladder to Campus Director in an unheard of one year. I was one of only three  women directors in the company (out of 32), and I was a woman you didn't want to  reckon with. However, because I had some staff with extraordinarily poor
communication skills and subversive personal agendas, I had to deal with upper
management in the face of ridiculous complaints not founded in fact. My upper
management took it upon themselves to contrive data and information from the
most unreliable of people and bring it to me as fact, not fiction. Had I been a
male in this company, these issues and complaints would have been brushed aside
like a displaced hair on a forehead. Because I was female, however, these
"concerns" were met with a very unjust recompense. 

Regardless of circumstances, I remained assertive and strong. I didn't let
upper managements attitude or suggestions bring me down. This is rule number
one. 

Be prepared
I remember it as if it were yesterday. I was called to the corporate office
to discuss the "issues" within my center. I replied to the email with a response
of, "Should I bring anything with me?" The response was a terse, "No." 

Regardless of the subpar evaluations and information I had in my possession,
my upper management had no interest in seeing it. Had I been smarter and more
savvy back in those days, I would have prepared this information in printed
format and brought it along anyway. Sometimes, hindsight is 20/20. Yet, I
attended the symposium, took my licks and didn't retort. I had a mission I was
given to complete and had every intention of completing it, without upper
management hearing my side over a round of golf. 

Do what you are told, but keep records
In a man's world, men fail to understand anything other than a man's most
primal language: action. I did as instructed, yet, upper management still
undermined me at every turn. They took away my ability to lead, they said,
"contact me if -- " and all of a sudden, all of my authority had disappeared.
The issue, when all was said and done, was not with me, but with my upper
management. 

In fear of my job, I took the correspondence and information to my state
workforce commission. It was here that I was told I had a major case for
wrongful termination should they wish to pursue that route. Unfortunately, for
me, my heart got the better of me, since I knew the CEO and his family quite
well and did not want to drag them through a legal quagmire. I opted not to
pursue this claim, and chose, instead, to submit my resignation and pursue
career options elsewhere. However, when I left, I did so with a scathing
reprimand to upper management regarding the falseness of the claims against me,
the records I had kept of every employee who had complained (and who only
complained due to their poor skill set), as well as a string of emails and
records proving my innocence. This "man's world" that I left behind wound up
firing these folks in upper management in coming months. Justice was indeed
done. 

However, allow mine to be a truly cautionary tale. When it comes to doing
business in a man's world, a woman has to be ultra-cautious, ultra conservative
and ultra-assertive in order to be successful.

That about covers it! Anybody have a Kleenex? Better yet, toss me your balls!

No doubt, life is a day by day experiment of self determination and perseverance. Particularly when one is trying to change or make better something about themselves or in their environment, it takes real conviction and sometimes blinders from what is going on around you. Yes a tunnel vision that places you on this path of propulsion toward a singular goal that wont' go down easily.  For sure, not everyone wants to see you succeed. That is human nature I suppose. So in the end, when you it is just you alone with your thoughts, it will take you in your SPOTLIGHT to make it through. The spotlight represents the things you know about you that are completely non negotiable. Those characteristics you carry with you each day and even when others try to dim it, you know better. Your spotlight belongs to you. 

Following are my SPOTLIGHTS, what are yours?

1. I like to lead by example and not afraid to get into the weeds of the thing
2. I am usually very successful at the things I do. I am hard on
   myself
3. I am my own best critique but I welcome feedback
   especially among those who have been there done that
4. I like leading and actually prefer it over following
5. There is no such thing as being bad at something, though there is a wide canvas for getting better at it
6. I do better with positive reinforcement and treat others like I want to be treated
7. I am smart, smart enough to know I don't know everything
8. When I have made a mistake, it probably started in the details
9. I need people around me to survive. They must be really good people to get close.
10. I can't fail if I keep my sense of humor. Put others first when it won't hurt me or mine, and at the end of the day, I can't think too much of myself. I am not God.

So are you living in your SPOTLIGHTS?

For better or for worse.  For richer or for poorer. In sickness and in health. Til death do us part. No one said anything about cancer. Well at least until now and at least according to one recently published report that everyone is talking about. Some people marry for money. How about being married to live.

Being married may significantly improve the likelihood of surviving cancer, researchers say.

Source:- CNN Medical Producer: John Bonifield
In a new study of  700,000 people with diagnoses of the most deadly  cancers in the United States, patients who were married were more likely to  detect their disease early, receive potentially curable treatments and live  longer. The study was published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology. The researchers observed a 20% reduction in deaths among the patients who  were married compared to unmarried patients - a benefit bigger than several  kinds of chemotherapy used for treating cancer.  “It is pretty astonishing,” Dr. Paul Nguyen, the  study’s senior author, said. “There’s something about the social support that you get within a marriage that leads to better survival.”

 While the study found a strong link, researchers did not show that marriage
directly causes better survival among cancer patients. The study examined
associations between marital status and cancer outcomes. 
In the study, people who were on their own were 17% more likely to have
cancer that had spread beyond its original site.

Unmarried patients in the study were also 53% less likely to receive
appropriate therapies. Nguyen, who is a radiation oncologist at Brigham and
Women's Hospital in Boston, said spouses can help patients get the treatments
they need.

The perks of being married seem to continue as patients undergo their cancer
treatments, which can often be painful and difficult to endure, Nguyen said.

The results also support findings from a 2005 study showing that older
married women with breast cancer had a lower risk of mortality after diagnosis
than their unmarried counterparts.

 “Whatever it is about a marriage that helps people live longer and make it
through their cancer, it might very well be that any friend, any loved one can
do that for a patient with cancer,” he said.

 That may be especially true for men, who seemed to benefit more from marriage
in the study than women. “An unmarried guy might be much more of loner about his healthcare,” Nguyen
said.

Our marriage, our cancer. That is just the way marriage is supposed to be.

Ever consider starting your own business? I did. In many ways I thought about it as early back as my elementary school. Yep, the lemonade stand, the garage sale, the even Steven  trade with the neighborhood kids.  "If you give me this, I will give you that." Minding a business I started has indeed been on my mind for decades.

What's on your mind? Tired of working for someone else? Willing to step out there on your own? Well it is almost never to late. Late is when you are out of time, out of interest. If any of this pulls at you, then consider the follwing when minding your business.

Source: Lifehacker Australia: Consider the Pros and Cons of Working for Yourself. The first big question you'll need to answer is whether the benefits of being your own boss truly outweigh the disadvantages.

Pros: The pros are pretty obvious, since they're the reasons millions of people dream about ditching their conventional jobs. Your reasons for starting a business should include several of these motivations, rather than, say, just doing it for the money opportunity:

• You can make a living doing what you love (or at least what interests you).
  
  
• You're in control of every aspect of your work life, from when you work to where and with whom.
  
  
• You can choose which clients to work with and which projects or what kinds of business to go after.
  
  
• You might find better work/life balance and can even work with your family (although that's a whole other situation).
  
  
• You may get things done faster and better when you're free from office politics and red tape.
  
  
• You have a chance to earn more than you would working for someone else. The money you have been making for others now shifts to yourself.
  
  
• You'll have greater job security. That might sound counter-intuitive, but business owners typically have multiple clients, which lessens the pain if you lose one of them. Employees, on the other hand, have only one "client," their employer.
  
  
• You build something that's all your own, which gives you a great sense of accomplishment and also life purpose.
  
  

Cons: There's a flip side to every coin. Which of the disadvantages below will really trouble you?

• You'll have to deal with an uncertain income and possible cash flow problems ("feast or famine" describes it pretty well).
  
  
• Finances overall will be more complicated (hello crazy tax laws!). Also, if you want to get a mortgage or other loan, banks will look at you differently and you'll have to meet higher criteria.
  
  
• You have to be a self-starter every single day you work.
  
  
• You have to do everything yourself (or hire someone to help you). "Everything" includes: managing the business' finances, marketing your products or services, organizing paperwork, dealing with lawyers, and chasing clients for money owed to you.
  
  
• If you want them, you now have to pony up for the paid benefits you once got as an employee. These benefits can be very expensive, especially health insurance or even taking a vacation. (Business owners learn the true meaning of "time is money" when they try to take time off.)
  
  
• You may be more likely to overwork and burn out.
  
  
• You're exposed to the same problems that trouble those who work from home: isolation, pressure, and loneliness.
  
  
• All of this can be much more stressful than working for someone else.
  
  

The good news, if you have read this post and are still interested, then you are on your way.

Whether you travel a lot of just occasionally there are some helpful travel tips that can both save you money and perhaps earn you some real value for later excursions like vacation. For example, when booking your travel, two weeks or more in advance of course, use a credit card, join the airlines frequency program and book online versus calling the airline.

1. USING a credit card that is associated with an airline e.g. AMEX/DELTA you earn miles that add up pretty quickly. Not only do you earn miles when you travel, but you earn miles when you use the card on ongoing transactions like groceries and gas. CAUTION: Pay your credit card off every month or you will nullify the benefits you are achieving using the card to SAVE MONEY by paying the interest and fees the credit card charges.
2. JOINING  the airlines frequency program allows you to start earning miles right away. No harm in joining multiple carrier's programs.
3. BOOKING online almost always yields a less expensive ticket. Be careful though, you will have to own any mistakes that are made. Look at the airport codes carefully. I once wanted to go to San Francisco and ended up booking online a ticket going to San Diego. I had to re ticket at my expense! Yikes.

One last tip. When you do earn that ticket, don't redeem on short excursions. Atlanta to Raleigh. Get the biggest bang for your efforts. Go somewhere that really makes the miles work harder for you e.g. bicoastal perhaps.

In any case, happy travels. See you at some airport perhaps!!

So you thought you could change him? Well there is a bridge in  Brooklyn I could sell you. People don't change much after they become adults. And they especially don't change just because they are told to. Think of it this way. How many times have you been told what to do by someone and thought, I am a grown woman. I don't have to do that unless I want to do that!
Same in relationships. Unless it is criminal, not much behavioral modification once you  put a ring on it. The most you can hope for is enough mutual adoration and respect for one another that you can live together peacefully. In general, people resent the mere thought of being asked to change. Who can blame them.

Once I asked my husband of 21 years to change something about himself and his response, "Where did that come from?" He followed up with, "Can I pull out my list too?" I quickly got the picture. 

So now when I feel inclined to bring up the change subject, I just say to myself., "Well you knew that when you married him." I am still tempted to ask, but then I get this pesty visual of "his list" on crispy white paper and think, "I will wait til it really bothers me, then tell him". I guess I just don't want to see his list. I am a grown woman after all.

Taken from an article on emotional competency, I especially like what this writer had to say about changing someone. You can describe how you would like the person to change, why you believe it would be beneficial, and ask them to change. Engage them in a dialogue about the benefits of the change. Perhaps they will agree with your thinking and grant your request.

How you treat another person certainly affects how they behave, and how they treat you. When you treat someone respectfully as an intelligent peer, they are likely to respond similarly to you. If you treat them disrespectfully, they are likely to retaliate in some way. Both parties participate in each relationship. Perhaps the best way to get someone to change is to change how you treat them.


Maybe that is why I don' t want to see that white paper.

That is what a seven year old boy said to me earlier this year when I asked him what promise is he willing to make in 2013 and keep. He looked up at me and through these big blue eyes and said, "I PROMISE TO HOLD GOD TO HIS PROMISES".

And I think God is OK with that. Our God is a promise keeper. All we need is faith and belief in HIM. We need true inner peace about what we are expecting from our relationship. We need an expecting spirit blanketed in calm anticipation. AMEN.

Overcoming Faith
We were created to be in a relationship with God; and when we take that relationship to an intimate level, it bonds us not only to His presence but also to His strength. Prayers that express our hearts and emotions are most assuredly welcomed by God because they demonstrate our trust in Him. We will  often find perspective, and nearly always come away comforted, knowing we've entrusted the things that are troubling us- whether criticism or deep desires-to the One who is best able to sort through them.- Randy Kilgore-

The kindest Friend I've ever had is one I cannot see,
Yet one in whom I can confide, who loves and blesses me.

Say it out loud, Say it proud,
My love is a gift not to be parceled.

Another child, taken. This time from her bed, in her pajamas. When will this end? If you are a parent the very thought of your child being abducted cuts so deep into your soul your very sprit is tested. What about our children? Who is looking out for our babies?

A nationwide Amber Alert has been issued for a 14-year-old Georgia girl kidnapped  by two gunmen who shot the family dog during a home invasion robbery, police  said. Ayvani  Hope Perez — last seen wearing blue and gray Star Wars pajama pants and a superhero shirt — is believed to be "in harm's way," Clayton County Police Lt. Marc Richards said Tuesday afternoon. "We've been receiving numerous tips," he said. "The investigation is fluid."

Authorities said the victim was snatched about 2 a.m. Tuesday after two armed men broke into her home in Ellenwood, a suburb of Atlanta, though the back door.
 "The mother actually tried to hide the two kids," Clayton County police Officer Phong Nguyen told NBC affiliate WXIA. "There was a little dog in the house, and it started barking, so the intruders shot the dog. They demanded money and jewelry from the mother," he added.

This morning sweet Ayvani, the same age as my 14 year old daughter, should be racing for the school bus or huddling with friends in first period. Instead two bad people broke into her new home and snatched away her innocence. Thirty six hours later this young lady was found and reunited with her family. Her life forever altered. Her sleep will never be the same. Life as she knew it muddied. 

This story has a happy ending. But there are many more stories just like it developing and sadly we will find ourselves in this horrific place again. 

What about our children? Who is protecting our children?

Ever play "Two truths and a lie" at a social event? It is an icebreaker and a good way for everyone to get to know each other. A person tells two truths about themselves and one lie. Others must guess the lie. I have met a few truly good liars along the way. It is fun in those settings. Mine were, I grew  up in Salt Lake City, In my twenties, I once climbed 3 base camps toward Mt. Everest,  and I was crowned Miss Utah as a teenager. Unanimously the group yelled, "You were definitely never crowned Miss Utah!" How wrong they were.

In life, living two truths and a lie won't work, can't work. Something about lies, even if always outnumbered by truths, they weigh more. Lies never sleep. Lies have a way of being unwanted company and I have never met a happy lie.

Getting to the truth. There are many articles written on the subject of lying. My favorites are the ones that don't scold or expose. I learn more from the articles that enlighten and expand the "why" behind why things are done. For those interested here is a link to one such article. In the article, 'The Truth About Lying' by Allison Komet, it says, the people least likely to lie are those who score high on psychological scales of responsibility and those with meaningful same-sex friendships.

I will end with what the bible says. Leviticus 19:11, "Ye shall not steal, neither deal falsely, neither lie one to another.

And this is my truth.

Rehoming is a term most commonly used with pets. Bringing that cuddly darling of a puppy or kitten home only to discover they poop, pee, shed, chew, stink, nip, scratch and may need obedience training. They were cute as a button with the red bow around their tiny little necks in the pet store or kennel. After a few months of living in their new home, their novelty has worn off. Those things that made them adorably irresistible are now unnerving, teeth chattering, and irritatingly hair pulling. Something has gotta give.

Rehoming in 2013 is actually a term used for returning an adopted child. This is often done with without government regulation or supervision. Rehoming is an underground movement for guilty adoptive parents with adoption regret. The adopted children are often born over seas. Many have health disabilities, known and unknown at the time of adoption.

An American couple allegedly turned over custody of their adopted Liberian daughter to unfit parents, according to an investigative report on an underground adoption network for unwanted children that operates via online groups.
Todd and Melissa Puchalla of Wisconsin struggled for two years to  raise Quita, a troubled teenager they had adopted from the West  African nation. However, after failing to cope with Quita’s  health and behavioral disorders, they posted an advertisement for  her adoption online. Within weeks, the couple had packed Quita into their car and made  the six-hour drive from their home to Westville, Illinois, where   – on October 4,  2008 - the young girl would meet her new family. 
Quita’s case and others like it are the subject of a new report  from
Reuters, which chronicles the growing world of underground  adoptions, or
“re-homing.” Parents who regret adopting  their children simply post an
ad for the child on the internet  and grant custody to new parents, all without
the necessary  safety oversight or background checks provided by government 
agents. Quita met her new parents Nicole and Calvin Eason, both in their  30s, in a
trailer park. The meeting lasted for just a few hours  and included the signing
of a notarized statement which granted  the Eason’s guardianship over Quita.
There were no attorneys,  welfare officials, or agents from Child Protective
Services on  hand. 

Quita, now 21, told reporters that she still cannot believe what happened. “How would you give me up when you brought me to be  yours?”  she stated. Source:RT 9/13