Creative Inspiration for Passionate Living

Today my oldest daughter shared sad news.  Her track coach lost his mother, her trainer lost his grandmother and her father's co-worker lost a loved one.  There's nothing like death to put life into perspective. Today's Inspiration Don't Let Life Pass You While You're Making Plans to Live It We are where we are, we are who we are.  That truth comes with a set of circumstances - some favorable, some we could live without.  In either case, we must make the best of every set-back and give praise for our portion of grace.  Note: all set-backs are set-ups for blessings.   Because each of us has an unknown, finite number of days to walk this earth and share our gifts, we cannot afford to paralyze ourselves by waiting for the world to be perfect before we shift from existing to thriving. Get up, take action and make moves today.  It doesn't matter if your plans are perfect.  An imperfect plan in action yields more than an unexecuted, perf...

I recently realized that I am a busy body - especially when I'm completing household chores.  On one particular Saturday, I started cleaning my bedroom - it was the start of Spring and I wanted everything to look and feel as fresh as the season - I had music playing and I was ready to go. When I went downstairs to fetch the broom, I stopped to wipe off the kitchen counter top, pulled out meat to thaw for dinner, swept the kitchen floor then sat down in the family room for a bit.  At the end of the night, after dinner and a dozen other errands, I finally made it back to my bedroom feeling spent.  I couldn't believe just how little progress I made toward the main room I intended to clean. Today's Inspiration Though We Can Go Anywhere, We Cannot Go Everywhere At The Same Time  When we visit amusement parks with children, the adults are usually very organized.  We synchronize watches, utilize maps and set out on a redetermined cour...

I got into work this morning and realized my computer mouse wasn't working properly.  I wiggled it around, checked the connection to my laptop dock and hit it against the desk a couple of times but couldn't get the cursor on my screen to move.  Finally, after unsuccessful attempts at trouble-shooting the problem, I turned the mouse upside down.   Ah Ha! A very nice coworker of mine placed a post-it note on the bottom of my computer mouse that read "April Fools Day" - indeed it is.  April 1st is considered the ultimate day for playing pranks and practical jokes but it also marks the beginning of the second quarter of the year. Today's Resolution Regularly Check Progress to Ensure Success For those who set an annual goal this year, whether it be a New Years resolution or any other commitment, April first is the perfect time to check progress against goals.  The year is broken into four periods of 3 months each.  Within each ...

I laugh inside every time I ask my children to do their chores.  For hours they walk to and fro moving items around, shifting dirt and decorating rather than focusing on the task at hand.  I can recall one hilarious ocassion where my youngest daughter, the future fashion designer, spent an entire afternoon cleaning her room.  When I came in to check on her, she had carefully hung Disney Channel posters,  organized her vast finger nail polish collection and even moved her bed to a better location.  I was really proud of the changes she made with exception for one.  After all that activity and all the changes, she still failed to meet the ONLY objective - cleaning the room.  Cereal bowls, snack plates and juice boxes were spread throughout the room.  The carpet needed serious attention and piles of clothes (clean mixed with dirty) filled every corner yet she was completely astonished to find that I was less than imp...

Anyone remember being asked 'what do you want to be when you grow up?' My 1st Grade teacher posed this question but asked us to answer it by drawing it instead of writing - uh oh! I pondered my options as she passed out the art supplies.  I'm nobody's artist in case you hadn't guessed.   By the time we had to stand before class and explain our picture, I believed, with my whole 6 year old heart, that I wanted to be a clown. Yes I said clown (it is ok to laugh, I still laugh too). My decision was completely influenced by what I could depict artistically rather than my real desire but for that day, I was happy about my future with the circus! Many of us have dreams, goals and aspirations. Some are able to burst out of the starting gates of life focused on precise steps that help them bring dreams to fruition, to make desires reality. If they can do it, what about the rest of us? Have you ever felt like your chances of being a clown (literally and figuratively) ...