Happiness…bliss…what is it? Really? What does it look like? This is what bliss looks like to me. This is my daughter, Christina. On top of her world…touching the sky…a smile so big you can’t help but smile back…she embodies bliss…doing what she loves and loving what she does.
May your day be as grand as this…no matter what you’re doing!
Christina Campbell, On Top of The World, Vail, Colorado ~ 2010
Snow on Birch © Peggy Nolan 2009
“And the Grinch, with his Grinch-feet ice cold in the snow,
stood puzzling and puzzling, how could it be so? It came without ribbons.
It came without tags. It came without packages, boxes or bags.
And he puzzled and puzzled ’till his puzzler was sore.
Then the Grinch thought of something he hadn’t before.
What if Christmas, he thought, doesn’t come from a store.
What if Christmas, perhaps, means a little bit more.”
~ Dr. Seuss
A very special Congratulations to my friend, Angelia Sims
I wish you and Jason happiness and joy!
Christmas is just around the corner and this year I’m sending everyone in my blog community a Christmas Card! Ok – think of it as a cyber card filled with lots of love and happy wishes for a peaceful and abundant New Year!
See my blog roll for a special shout out to my favorite blogs – I try to visit each one as often as I can. Some I read more than others, some I comment on more than others, but please know that if I’ve linked to you it’s because you offer so much in your daily or weekly postings!
One new blogging community that I’m new to, is SITS – or The Secrets in the Sauce (see the little widget thingee on to the right). I already know a few SITStas like Angelia Sims, Mrs. Scribe, and Becky Lippett and I hope to get to know a lot more!
My family grew in 2009 with the addition of my beautiful grand daughter, Olivia and my new son-in-law, Jon. In 2010 I will see two more daughters get married, one in April or as she says “sometime in 2010″ and the other in July.
Oliva Grace, born June 15, 2009
Jon and Katie, getting hitched on August 28, 2009
No year, in my mind, is complete without a vacation somewhere WARM…
Richard and I spent a lovely time in the Turks and Caicos in May with my two sisters, their husbands, and my mom and her husband…
(I’m in the pink bathing suit, Richard’s behind me)
I’m looking forward to 2010…are you?
Merry Christmas
&
Happy New Year
Lots of blog love,
Peggy
I’ll give you one red light cycle to figure out the license plate I saw yesterday.
[Humming the theme song from Jeopardy!]
Finally Happy.
It got me thinking…why did it take so long? What are you happy about? As I waited for the light to turn green, I wanted to ask the driver from where did he or she find happiness. Inside or outside? Inner or outer? Internally or externally? Did you connect your mind with the seat of your soul or was it a connection between a thing and your credit card?
Finally Happy.
So much is written about finding happiness. I subscribe to a few blogs that talk about cultivating happiness. Ten steps to happiness! Start your own Happiness Project! Happiness for sale! Don’t Worry ~ Be Happy!
Finally Happy.
What works for me may not work for you. I’m an inside girl. But I wasn’t always an inside girl. I used to travel frequently for business…and for me it was like a free pass to run away from home. A home that was tainted with infidelity and divorce. It didn’t matter that my ex-husband had long since gone. Everytime I walked through the front door it was as if the dark cloud of doom and gloom followed me inside and took up permanent residence.
I sold the house and nearly everything in it. “A fresh start,” I thought.
I remember thinking that as soon as I moved from “the house of pain” into my brand new home my life would be so much better.
Only it wasn’t.
Because I discovered that no matter where I went, my life followed me. All my pain, all my suffering, all my fears jumped into my suitcases and moving boxes and moved into my new house.
Finally Happy.
I unpacked the nooks and crannies of my life, set up a new house, and plastered a smile on my face when all I wanted to do was crawl into a fetal position, suck my thumb and tell the world to go away. How could I quit? How could I just give up? Throw in the towel? That’s just not in my vocabulary. I was emotionally sick. I was physically tired. I was sick and tired of being sick and tired.
“E.N.O.U.G.H.” I wrote in bright red lipstick on my bathroom. Enough already.
Like the cyrsallis, no one could help me find my wings. No one could do my mental and emotional pushups. No one could help me pull myself up by my combat bootstraps. No one could do for me that which I was fully capable and responsible to do on my own.
Finally Happy.
It started with my choice to no longer be miserable.
If it’s Twosday I must be in Belgium…
An excerpt from my article, which appears in the July issue of the StepMom Magazine!
Danger! ExpectationsIn my life outside of being a stepmom, I am a systems project manager for a major financial company. As a PM, I understand all too well that poorly defined and / or ever changing requirements lead to miscommunication, misunderstanding, double the work in development, constant re-testing and all too often, the end result and the client’s expectations are farther apart than the next nearest galaxy. The customer is disappointed (or has cancelled any remaining business with us) and the project team is in analysis paralysis trying to figure out what went wrong.
Sound familiar? I bet you’ve seen this scenario or something similar play out in your work place. If you think something like this only happens at work, you’re wrong. It happens inside your home, too. Yes, that’s right. It happens right under your own roof.
In my line of work, a requirement is nothing more than a need or a problem that needs to be fixed or solved. As women married to men with kids from a prior relationship, we stepmoms have needs, issues, and problems that need to be addressed. Only they don’t get addressed for the very same reason that project requirements don’t get addressed.
I’ve worked on projects where team members will discuss among themselves a poorly defined requirement. They’ll come up with all kinds of ideas, prototypes, options, and sometimes they’ll just commiserate with each other because they need to let off steam because, gosh darn it, how are they supposed to solve a problem that they’re missing parts of the puzzle to? Did it ever occur to someone on the project team to pick up the phone and call the client to get clarification? That’s almost too easy.
Ladies – we do the same thing. The most common problem I’ve experienced and see with my sister stepmoms is that we have poorly defined needs, issues and problems that we try to solve amongst ourselves and we wonder “why don’t our husbands just ‘get it?’”
Whether it’s in the workplace or your home, it boils down to expectations. And as stepmoms we have some magical expectations…at least I know I started out with them!
For example, when I married my husband and his four kids, I had pie-in-the-sky expectations that everything was going to be wonderful. I already got along with his ex-wife and her entire family. I loved his kids, I loved my kids, I loved him – life was good.
Until…
To read the rest of my article, make sure you log into the StepMom Magazine tomorrow! And if you haven’t subscribed yet, I strongly encourage it! StepMom Magazine is by StepMoms for StepMoms!
A new blog by my sister-in-law, Missy Bell, as she embarks on her gastric by-pass surgery and weight loss journey. I love Missy to pieces and would love it if you could visit her BLOG and wish her a safe journey!
Here’s to a healthy, lean and fit Missy!
