Uncategorized

The Perfect Vacation

my13daychallenge

Walking

I had a perfect weekend. It was the type of vacation that I wish I could bottle up for those days that aren’t so fun. I spent time with dear friends and family just enjoying the simple things in life. Celebrating my cousin’s graduation. Eating Indian food. I love Indian food. Going for a walk around a lovely park. Laughing. Loving life. Singing Beatles songs where the Beatles actually sang their songs.  Listening to stories and telling a few of my own. I love stories. Eating more food. Can you tell I like eating food with the people I love? Watching people get chopped on a reality TV cooking shows. Going to a book store and just browsing. Getting back in time from vacation to attend church. Laughing some more while viewing the photos. And not checking my work e-mail for 3 whole days. It’s amazing what not checking your work e-mail messages does for your emotional health. This was a perfect vacation.

Cousin Carrie

If you haven’t taken a perfect vacation for a while, my challenge for you is to go take one. Every body needs a day off.

Musings

My Back to School Photo

my13daychallenge

Social media is full of back to school pictures. I love seeing all the cute little kids with their new clothes and bright backpacks. There’s something exciting about starting a new school year. It’s a chance to start over, change, grow and become your best self.  I get so excited getting my class ready and meeting my students.

In honor of going back to school, here is my back to school photo. I’m relaxing after a wonderful (but very busy) first day of school.

DSCN4262

 

 

Challenges · Musings

Last Place Ribbon

my13daychallenge1 Comment

When I was in 3rd grade, my teacher told us a story about a man who came in last place in a race.  The entire crowd stayed and cheered for him. He won even though he lost. I have sad news for everyone. In real life, the race organizers start cleaning up the track behind you when you are the last one. I know that because I was literally the last person to finish a 4th of July 5K race this month. I could see the workers in their clean up van taking down cones behind me. They offered me a ride back to the finish line several times.  I told them no several times.

I  took a wrong turn at one point, because those overzealous race organizers took down the directional signs  before they realized I was still on the course. It’s really easy to get lost when you are far away from home and running in a city you’ve never been to before.  I had to ask a friendly neighbor how to get back to the course. Lucky, he knew the way and I  managed to make it to the end before they took down the big “FINISH” sign.

Race

I may not have come in first place,but I’m happy to say that I finished the race. My sweet Mom and kind sister were there waiting for me and they cheered when I came in. Everybody else had gone home.  The clean up van followed soon after me.

It makes a great story and some day when I come in 2nd to the last place I will stay and cheer for the person who comes in last.

 

 

 

create · Musings

Fun Times

my13daychallenge1 Comment

When I was younger, I really wanted a sister. Every time my Mom went to the hospital, she brought me home a little brother.  I loved my brothers and we had many adventures together.  I kept hoping for a sister. My wish came true when I was 11. Jenny was born.

Cute sistersSistersSilly Sisters

I did my best to spoil her. It’s been a real delight getting to know my sister as an adult. It turns out we both have a silly side.

I think we get it from Dad.

My Dad

Fun Times!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Musings

Romantic Movie Night

my13daychallenge

control

I’m training for a 10K. I’m sure I will write a post about that soon, but right now I want to write about my movie night.  Today I felt like watching a romantic movie. I had a problem though. I couldn’t decide which one to watch so I watched every romantic movie I own. All 10 of them!  Just the romantic parts though.  I used my magic remote control to fast forward through all the drama. There were no disagreements, no struggles and no heartache. It was quite delightful. By the end of my 90 minutes of romantic movie therapy, I was in a really good mood. Who wouldn’t be after seeing 10 couples get together and live happily ever after. Yes, I know it’s not realistic for every single moment in your life to be chocolates, long glances and sweet confessions of love but for 90 minutes it was fun to pretend.

It was so easy for me to just move to the next scene in the movie. I literally skipped all the hard stuff with one click of a button. If I was given a magic remote control to fast forward my life, would I do it? Would I skip the hard segments and go straight for the good stuff? What would you do? The philosopher in me says that life needs a mixture of both sweet and sour and that we wouldn’t appreciate sun unless we had felt the rain. The Saint in me believes that  verse in Isaiah 61 that there will be beauty for ashes and the oil of joy for mourning.

My romantic side though loves the idea of a remote control. It would be awfully helpful some times. If I should happen to find the magic remote, I promise I won’t hog it. I’ll let any of my friends borrow it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Musings

Technology Fast Update

my13daychallenge

I just finished my one-week technology fast.  I avoided social media, blogs, music channels and news web sites. My hope was to give my mind a break from being a consumer of information and become a creator. I wanted to relight the flame of my creative soul and use the week to jump start some project that would change the world. Sometimes my really great day dreams come face-to-face with the harsh reality of every day life.  Last week, it was the last week of school. Most of my creative energy was spent finishing report cards, telling kids goodbye and cleaning out my desk.  When I got home from work each night, I was too tired to be creative. I was still tempted though to log into CNN and see what exciting things were happening in the world.  When I was tempted to break my fast, I did laundry. I did a lot of laundry last week.

When I woke up this morning, I was excited to check my Facebook feed. What happened while I was gone? I rolled out of bed and got my phone and went to the Facebook app.  It was so slow that I decided just to close it. I got this message. “Forcing an app closed will cause it to misbehave”.  I started picturing a whole bunch of little apps hoping outside of my cell phone and finding ways to misbehave.  I imagined  my apps littering, talking back to me, sharing hairbrushes and a host of other things.  I forced that app closed just so I could see what naughty things apps do when they misbehave.  Then I waited for all craziness to break loose. Nothing happened. The Facebook app closed and my cell phone continued to make a humming sound. I was a little bit disappointed. I really would have liked to see the YouTube app do the crazy chicken dance or my Bible  app get into a debate with my banking app about money.

 

Challenge: Create · Musings

Technology Fast

my13daychallenge

Last night, I dreamed I was a hero trying to slay a dragon who was threatening to destroy a cute village. In the middle of the battle, I pulled out my cell phone and started updating Facebook about the battle. The entire village burned to the ground.

I know what the dream means. It’s time for me to take another technology fast. Last June, I did a challenge where I took a week off from social media and all blogs.  It was a great week.  I thought deep thoughts, read books, wrote a lot in my journal, spent time with friends, rediscovered my CD collection and found out that the world does not revolve around me commenting on every issue.  I’m doing my technology fast again.  I will be offline from June 3-June 10. The only exception is that when I go to work I have to use e-mail and web-based tools.  I’m actually looking forward to my technology fast. Last year, it was like my brain reset itself after my fast. I came back energized and so creative.

At the least, I hope this fast will convince my dreaming brain that the next time dragons decide to invade a cute village that warrior Amee needs to leave her cell phone at home.

Wonder Women

Wonder Woman: Meet Anita

my13daychallenge

Have you ever met an accountant? I have. Her name is Anita.

Anita

As a girl, Anita enjoyed math. Her love for math eventually led her to college where she studied accounting. Anita has worked for both private and government organizations. Her ability to collect, organize and analyze data to find out what really counts has earned her recognition and respect.  I could end this Wonder Woman post right here. Anita’s professional success as a Certified Public Accountant has been noteworthy.

Anita is not just any Wonder Woman though. She’s my Wonder Woman. She taught me what counts.

I met Anita when I was a teen. She was a volunteer youth mentor at my church. One day we had an activity where a painting instructor came to help the girls make cute decorations for their bedrooms. There were many oohs and ahhs as the instructor held up a wooden  heart washed in white paint. In the middle of the white heart, red calligraphy said “Love One Another”.  The other girls quickly started following the instructor’s directions and their hearts were soon bathing in white paint. I had a problem though. I didn’t want a white heart. I wanted a red heart with white polka dots. The instructor wasn’t very happy with me. My heart wasn’t going to look like the other hearts. It didn’t match the example and would look horrible on my bedroom wall.

I’ll never forgot what Anita said to the painting instructor.  “Amee can paint her heart whatever color she wants. It’s her heart”.  I painted the heart red. After I made the white polka dots, I kept going with the color theme. I added blue boxes, rainbows, green fishes and smiley faces to my heart creation. The poor painting instructor looked a little stressed as I wrote “Love One Another” in black paint at the center of my little heart and then flipped the heart over and wrote “Live Long and Prosper” on the other side.  My heart didn’t look at all like the other girl’s hearts.  My heart would never be held up as the example to follow for future artists to copy and I didn’t care. It was my heart and I loved it.  And I loved Anita for letting me be myself.

Anita taught me something that day. She taught me what really counts.

Anita is a Wonder Woman.

 

Challenge 14: Gratitude · Musings

Posterity

my13daychallenge

Bird photo

I saw a baby bird and a mama bird chirping in a nest this week. Being somewhat of a philosopher at heart, I started thinking about how  the  baby bird has the mother’s DNA  pursing through its little veins. Someday that little bird will grow up and have babies herself. There will be many birds from this one bird and a long chain of posterity will have the genetic memories of that first mother bird. It was all theoretical and very interesting to think  about until it suddenly got very personal.

If your DNA dies with you, who is your posterity?

You don’t have one. The definition of posterity is all the descendants of one person. I probably won’t have children. Most days I’m okay with the body I have. I can attend a friend’s baby shower and not feel that God has let me down.  I still felt a little sad though when I considered that there are no baby birds who look like me. Then I remembered the second definition of the word posterity.

Posterity is the succeeding future generations collectively. 

So, in my own philosophical way,  I guess the entire succeeding or future generations on Planet Earth could collectively be my posterity.  I better start doing something to make the world a better place to live.  I don’t want to let the posterity down.