Like no one's watching...

you can buy this print HERE

So, I've been on Etsy a little bit this morning looking for some quotes and this one kept coming up.  Then, after the billionth time seeing it, it hit me, instead of that sign, someone needs to make a sign that says,

LIVE! like no one's watching.

I mean, sure, we should dance like no one's watching  - but more importantly, we should live like no one's watching. 

I think lots of us make choices based off what people will think of us...   Some people blog based on what others will think of them....  We may choose what to put on from our closets based on what others might think of us...  What we drive.... What we plant in our front yards... What comes out of our mouths... What we buy... What cell phone we use... Where we go... Etc... Etc... Etc...   You get the idea.

Really, who cares what other people think of us? 

We should always be true to ourselves and LIVE like no one's watching...





I am Woman

hear me roar. (Two posts in one month with a Helen Reddy reference...)

Last night, before heading up the stairs to shower, my belly was going to drive me insane with it's itchiness! With skin stretched to the max, this is a common occurrence. The itching was on the very underside of my belly; the part I can't see, the part that touches my thighs when sitting, or walking up stairs.

I remove my clothes to get in the shower, and I find blood on them, a warning sign for any pregnant woman. Upon closer examination, it looked like the bleeding came from my thigh. I looked at my thigh and saw a trace of blood, but no wound. I called John up the stairs to investigate. I couldn't see the underside of my belly, so someone had to check it out.

In my efforts to relieve the itching, I had scratched myself raw in one area, and when climbing the stairs, the place where my belly and thigh met was where the blood rubbed off.

As my husband got me some toilet paper to hold on my scratch, I was feeling a little annoyed (from a scratch?!).

"Please tell me," I ask him in an annoyed tone, "what do men have to go through, or put up with? What pains do you have to bear in this life?"

He paused at the entrance of our bathroom, "Ummm... we deal with hormones." He smiled.

"Your own?" I ask, "Try again."

"We have to deal with teenagers." he said.

I roll my eyes, and just look at him.

"We have to work." he said.

"Yeah, women work too - and have babies, and periods, and deal with other womanly issues, all at the same time. Cry me a river."

He could tell there would be no good answers in this conversation, and as he walked out of our bedroom, he said, "Hey, Eve ate the apple first..."

"Thanks!" I called after him. While I showered, I thought about how easy men have it.

It's funny that that was my evening, and then this morning, I read this post on this blog. Read it. You can even read it now, and come back here if you'd like. It's about being a woman, and the divinity within women. I loved it. Really, we women are awesome, the potential we have within each of us is amazing. I mean, hello, we can multi-task for heaven's sake!

Seriously, I think women are so powerful! We were divinely designed to be powerful.

One of my favorite quotes from the post I read this morning was this:

"She isn't less than, or more than, the next woman or man. She is her own entity which becomes cheapened when compared to others. When following the promptings inside of her soul to do whatever is important for her own life plan she simply has no equal."

I've felt that way for a long time now. I stopped comparing myself to others a long time ago, because I realized there is no other woman like me, and there is no other woman like you. There is no one to impress, but yourself. There is no one to compete with, but the forces trying to make you not follow the promptings you receive. I've been given a special set of talents, and you've been given a special set of talents, and when we follow through with those we have "no equal" because we don't share the same set of talents to compare. When we follow through with our talents, potential, and the "promptings inside our soul," we might as well be wearing our super woman capes.

Because, we really are super women.

And, occasionally, super women forget they are super women, and whine about scratches on the underside of their ginormous pregnant bellies.

I decided

Vision Board Highlight: Believe you can


I am reading (and loving) this book right now:

And early this morning I decided to be wealthy (one of the five lessons).

"(Psychologists have proven that the simple act of writing down an intention-even if you don’t fully believe it- can yield powerful psychological results.)"

So I wrote it down for all to see.

Last night (or I should say very early this morning) on page 63 I came across a section I must share:

"One of the traits I often find women guilty of is undervaluing their abilities and talents (I think we are all guilty). While it’s common to find people with great talents who take their abilities for granted, women seem to be especially susceptible. “What I do is no big deal,” they tell themselves. “Anyone can do it.” The truth is, everyone can’t. (Where would Debbie Fields be if she had thought, “Anyone can bake a cookie”?) (Mrs. Fields cookies)

We’re the same way about our ideas. All too often we discount them, storing them in the bargain bins of our minds just because they seem obvious or simple to us. In doing so we forget that the most brilliant of ideas are almost always simple in concept. Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “None of us will ever accomplish anything excellent or commanding except when (she) listens to this whisper which is heard by (her) alone.” "

I just need to say “AMEN!” I loved this! I had a friend that went to culinary arts school and I was telling her awesome I thought she was, and she replied, "It's nothing special, everyone can cook." Sure, anyone can follow a recipe, but not everyone can cook and put it together just like she could. We should embrace our talents, and believe we can! (I'm also so guilty of this by the way, and am sure many of you are too) It reminded me of this book I read while in Hawaii:

I loved this part of the book,

"I’m reminded of a scene from my army days. I was on the parade ground, watching a regiment drill in formation. Of the one hundred men marching, ninety-nine were in step, but one poor guy was off. “Look at him,” I remember saying to a friend, “they’re all in step except for that one guy.”

My friend studied the formation. “You’re wrong. Look closely. They’re all out of step. He’s the only one marching right-left, right-left to the sound of the drum as he should. He knows what he’s doing.”

Sometimes in life, everyone will act like you’re out of step. It’s okay to believe if for a while, but you must learn when you’re the one in step, driven by the beat of the drummer in your head, and everyone else is off." (p.99)

He (Mark Burnett) compared this to before he started filming Survivor he had a vision of interviewing the castaways a certain way, but other producers told him that it just was not the way it was done. But, he stuck to his guns, and tried it, and found it to be very effective, and “on the fly” interviews were created.

“Bottom line: believe in yourself. Your opinions and ideas are far more valuable than you give them credit for.” - Richard Paul Evans

Blogging Book Club Review Post

Okay, so I picked a book a lot of you had read already, you can still leave your thoughts if you'd like though.

Because we have unlimited funds for this blogging book club, I decided for this book club party review post we are flying to Europe. We'll visit World War II sites and visit the Hiding Place Museum in Holland. We'll discuss the book in flight while enjoying our peanuts and ginger ale.

I love good books that have a good message, and inspire me - this book did not let me down. I expected this book to be about Corrie ten Boom and how great she was helping the Jews escape, and what great faith she had. Though, the message I thought to be the strongest in this book was really about Corrie learning from her sister Betsie. For, Betsie was an amazing person loving unconditionally, and she had such great faith.

On the night World War II arrived in Holland, Corrie and Betsie had leaped from bed at the sound of explosions coming from outside, and they knelt to pray together,

Betsie and I knelt down by the piano bench. For what seemed hours we prayed for our country, for the dead and injured tonight, for the Queen. And then, incredibly, Betsie began to pray for the Germans, up there in the planes, caught in the fist of the giant evil loose in Germany. I looked at my sister kneeling beside me in the light of burning Holland. "Oh Lord, " I whispered, "listen to Betsie, not me, because I cannot pray for those men at all." (p.79)

It was the end of a long day of standing, marching and waiting to get into the bunkers of another camp,

"Betsie!" I wailed, "how long will it take?"

"Perhaps a long, long time. Perhaps many years. But what better way could there be to spend our lives?"

I turned to stare at her. "Whatever are you talking about?"

"These young women. That girl back at the bunkers. Corrie if people can be taught to hate, they can be taught to love! We must find the way, you and I, no matter how long it takes..."

She went on, almost forgetting in her excitement to keep her voice to a whisper, while I slowly took in the fact that she was talking about our guards. I glanced at the matron seated at the desk ahead of us. I saw a gray uniform and a visored hat; Betsie saw a wounded human being.

And I wondered, not for the first time, what sort of person she was, this sister of mine... what kind of road she followed while I trudged beside her on the all-too-solid earth. (p. 188)

In another part of the book, Betsie and Corrie moved into new barracks at Ravensbruck, an extermination camp for women, and they had been reading the Bible (they were able to keep one hidden almost the whole time they were in these camps and read it and share it with those around them) and they read in First Thessalonian that they need to give thanks in all circumstances,

"That's it, Corrie! That's His answer. 'Give thanks in all circumstances!' That's what we can do. We can start right now to thank God for every single thing about this new barracks!"

I stared at her, than around me at the dark, foul-aired room.

"Such as?" I said.

"Such as being assigned her together."

I bit my lip. "Oh yes, Lord Jesus!"

"Such as what you're holding in your hands."

I looked down at the Bible. "Yes! Thank You, dear Lord, that there was no inspection when we entered here! Thank You for all the women, here in this room, who will meet You in these pages."

"Yes," said Betsie. "Thank you for the very crowding here. Since we're packed so close, that many more will hear!" She looked at me expectantly. "Corrie!" she prodded.

"Oh, all right. Thank You for the jammed, crammed, stuffed, packed, suffocating crowds."

"Thank You," Betsie went on serenely, "for the fleas and for-"

The fleas! This was too much. "Betsie, there's no way even God can make me grateful for a flea."

"Give thanks in all circumstances," she quoted. "It doesn't say 'pleasant circumstances.' Fleas are part of this place where God has put us."

And so we stood between piers of bunks and gave thanks for fleas. But this time I was sure Betsie was wrong. (p.210)

A little while later Corrie returned to her barracks after a days work at the camp to find Betsie's eyes twinkling,

"You're looking extraordinarily pleased with yourself," I told her.

"You know we've never understood why we had so much freedom in the big room," she said. (She would take the Bible in there and read while others worked because she knitted so fast and would reach her quota so quickly.) "Well - I've found out."

That afternoon, she said, there'd been confusion in her knitting group about sock sizes and they'd asked the supervisor to come and settle it.

"But, she wouldn't. She wouldn't step through the door and neither would the guards. And you know why?"

Betsie could not keep the triumph for her voice: "Because of the fleas! That's what she said, 'That place is crawling with fleas!'"

My mind rushed back to our first hour in this place. I remembered Betsie's bowed head, remembered her thanks to God for creatures I could see no use for. (p. 220)

Corrie eventually was assigned to work in this big room with Betsie, and she described it as the most "joyous weeks" while in Ravensbruck. They shared the Bible with the women in that room, and prayed together.

"And as we prayed, God spoke to us about the world after the war. It was extraordinary; in this place where whistles and loudspeakers took the place of decisions, God asked us what we were going to do in the years ahead." (p. 222)

Betsie had the answer, they were going to have a large home where people who had been damaged by concentration-camp life would come until they felt ready to live again in the normal world again. Betsie would describe this house very specifically, as if she had been there before.

In one of their last conversations before Betsie died, she was telling Corrie about the home they were going to have and the work that they had to do together, and Betsie talked about the people that would come would plant flowers and garden,

"It will be so good for them... watching things grow. People can learn to love, from flowers..."

I knew by now which people she meant. The German people.

"... It's ready and waiting for us... such tall, tall windows! The sun is streaming in." Betsie told her. (p.226)

Betsie died in camp, and after the war, when Corrie had been home a while someone approached her about using their home for Corries efforts. Corrie went to check out the house,

I didn't answer. I was staring up at the gabled roof and the leaded windows. Such tall, tall windows....

"Are there-" my throat was dry. "Are there inlaid floors inside..."

She then asked the lady if there were the other same features that Betsie had described to her back in the concentration camp.

Mrs. Bierens de Haan looked at me in surprise. "You've been here then! I don't recall-"

"No," I said, "I heard about it from-"

I stopped. How could I explain what I did not understand?

"From someone who's been here," she finished simply, not understanding my perplexity.

"Yes," I said "From someone who's been here."

I loved this book. There are so many great messages and stories in this book, I didn't even scratch the surface, I may blog about some more of them some other time.

I just loved the example of these two Ten Boom sisters. Had I been placed in this situation, I know I would not have been able to look at things so positively as Betsie did, and see the good in even her prison guards.

If we were all only a little more like Betsie and Corrie Ten Boom...

Thoughts of the day

I'm going to share one of my birthday presents with you for the thought/s of the day.

GO HERE

I hope you have some tissues handy.

Happy Saturday!

Soaring Soul

Remember when I posted this video about creating? I came across another video on this blog, and LOVED it! I love seeing people's creativity. That's one reason why I love commercials, billboards, and advertisements! I love to see the results of another person's creative process. Seriously. It makes my soul soar.

It gave me goosebumps

"Don't let the voice of critics paralyze you."

I loved this.