Testing The Waters

                                                                                    Photo Credit:  Trust Your Journey When life hands you lemons (let's say it all together now) --  make lemonade! This is what we are instructed to do in times of crisis - you know those times when life hits so hard you fall to the ground with a loud thud and the pain from that hurl reverberates throughout every bone in your body. Admittedly, there are some hits that can leave you so incapacitated that, while writhing on the floor from the pain, you begin to entertain the idea of living the rest of your life face down on the asphalt. GETTING BACK UP I've always prided myself on being someone who could be body slammed onto the mat of life and still have the abil...

On every street in every neighborhood discarded Christmas tree's litter the sidewalks. Just a couple weeks before these same tree's stood in living rooms and were adorned with lights, tinsel and ornaments. Oh how the mighty have fallen! Stripped of their baubles and abandoned they now serve as harsh reminders that the holiday's are in fact over. NOW WHAT? After taking down all the decorations I looked around my home and for some reason it appeared larger in size. Why? I asked myself. I mean I knew it was the same square footage but why did it look and feel larger to me? Yes, the Christmas decorations have been taken down and the space that was once filled with Holiday adornments now seem stark and bare - which can create a more spacious feel - but I think its more than that. I think my home feels larger because it is still glowing with the Holiday Spirit. This season we entertained in our home, we hosted Thanksgiving and a couple Christmas parties as well. We ...

You've all heard the old adage, "Life is about Peaks and Valleys." Its origin is unclear but we've all heard it. It's an emotional pick me up. A motivator to keep going. I know I’ve said some derivation of it to a friend when they've needed comfort AND admittedly at times the person I’m telling it to is myself. There are different variations like: “Life ebbs and flows” “What goes up must come down” "Highs and lows"  "To and fro" "Good and bad times"  Because I'm a visual person I like the image that is created with “Peaks” and “Valleys” P eAKS are by definition the highest point. I like thinking of the summit of a mountain. Its symbolic of the times when I'm feeling positive and on top of the world. When everything I do is working. These are the "wins" in our liv es, the "high" times BUT we can not surviv e at this altitude for v ery long because a...

we've all heard this motto before - LIFE'S TOO SHORT. My question to you is do you live your life by it? I'm here to say that doing so you will enhance your life tremendously. "Life's too short" - I've experienced the truth of this statement in a very personal way.  Both of my parents died when I was very young. My dad died when I was 4 years old and my Mom when I was 5.  My dad was killed and my mom died from Lung Cancer. They were both 28 years old at the time of their deaths. Growing up my brother and I looked at our lives in a very different way than most. Since both of our parents died at 28 we literally lived thinking we have a finite amount of time on this earth - 28 years to be exact. This limited time frame motivated me at times towards taking positive actions in my life and also gave me permission to be reckless at others. When my brother and I reached the age of 29 we out lived both of our paren...