Becoming the Queen of Happiness

Saying Goodbye to Who I've Been

2010-04-19T18:06:00.000-07:00

For years I have craved attention and affection, and true to type married someone who is not the type to give much in the way of attention or affection unless you get him upset; then you get attention! As my finances collapsed around me, I realized I was doing things, buying things even overdrawing my bank account to get his attention. What a waste of resources! Today is the shift, the realization that I can plant my own garden and decorate my own soul, I don't have to wait on anyone else to give me flowers or gifts.

I thought I would totally fall apart at the thought that my marriage is falling apart, but as I really face the feelings, I am just sad. I'm sad that I spent so much time and energy trying to get from someone else what I should have been giving my self. Also sad that I let pride get in the way of resolving this a long time ago. I deserve to be happy and so does he. If he wants to stay in the marriage, that is fine. I now know that he only holds the keys to his own happiness and I have to hold the keys to mine.

Family Implosions and Working at Keeping Happy

2009-06-16T23:06:00.000-07:00

Parts of our life seem to be falling apart around us, and it is very easy to get pulled into the emotions of it all! I have been listening to some podcasts and training material and a discussion popped out at me. They were talking about Tar Babies and how easily we become stuck in a behavior or pattern that creates our own personal Tar Baby. Really struck me as I have spent hours of my day stewing about a family member's marriage literally collapsing. It puts us in that awful spot of having them mad at us if we do anything for the other or if we don't do anything at all.

Why I even talk about it is that as we put together the information from the past four years, we can see how they went from a fun, loving couple to very hurt, bitter, angry people. It really wasn't big things, it was lots and lots of little comments, attitudes, and hurts that built up until it imploded around us. At the same time I've been watching another marriage which had as much if not more stress in it from dealing with a child who has been at time critically ill as they built each other up one little comment at a time. They have taken time for each other, for them selves and for their extended family; but they never put their extended family as more important than their immediate family. They still get mad at each other, say hurtful things, and disagree; but they put together a plan so that they always had a way back. They monthly work out their budget as they work to pay off the thousands of dollars in medical bills. They celebrate little things and big things with their extended family and they are each other's close friend.

The lesson for me has been to not listen to rumors and partial truths, even if it makes me "right". Right does not make might, it usually is that step just before landing in the manure pile or mud puddle!. Taking four or five bits of information and putting them together usually ends up with a mess. It may sound like you have the right answer, but you usually don't or it is only partially correct and ends up making you look like an absolute nut case!

The biggest lesson though has been to consider the Tar Baby. Is this where I want my energy focused? On gossip, rumors, and put downs? If I am going to be stuck in a situation, I think I would prefer it to be all about being at one with God, caring for each other and lifting each others needs and love language at least at high as my own wants and desires for love.

I wrote a book and I'm giving it away!!!

2009-06-04T21:57:00.000-07:00

I can't believe that I actually finished a small eBook!!! I have four of them that I am working on in addition the one I finished! Thriving Through Unemployement is available for free at http://homebasedjob.info/thriving and you can get 6 months of the newsletter and membership site for free, just for downloading the book.

I started compiling the various tidbits of notes and essays I had on my computers. As I worked I realized that they logically fell into small books. Thriving Through Unemployment is the first one. Recycled Living is next. I have decided on the name for the Recipe Book, as well as a book on the Theology and Lifestyle of Enough. The last book will take the most time as it involves family research. Some of the pictures that set the book in motion are at www.leckeys.net in the area labeled The Matriarch's Box. It is a journey through the contradictions of being a woman in the late 1800's and early 1900's and the transition into some of the vital feminist issues which are now becoming simply human issues as they should be. It is a series of essays about the pictures and newspaper clippings in the box as well as the people in the pictures.

Oh and I made it to the paper for something other than being the mother of the big accident victim. http://www.westlinntidings.com/features/story.php?story_id=124406761996855500 .

Getting Back to Basics

2008-10-05T21:49:00.000-07:00

Yesterday we had a great afternoon, my son needed some school clothes and my husband needed clothes for hunting. We hit the local thrift stores and found what they needed for $56.00. My son then had me use the rest of his clothing money to buy AIG stock. He and his high school friends think that if everybody in the country took even as little as $10 and bought stock in some company that they believe in, that we could turn around a lot of the economy. They feel that the administration and Congress are selling their future rather than rallying the country. I don't think any of us know the answer. I just know that we rather than the government needs to be doing something. We need to be teaching about debt free living and self sufficiency. How to invest in each other rather than worrying about what the government is going to be is another course we need to teach in school.

One of the sites I'm using to get myself out of the corporate rat race is one of the unique resources used by universities and businesses as well as the small Internet businesses. Site Build It has allowed me to learn the basic of good marketing as well as the concepts involved in turning my hobbies and interests into viable internet businesses! The basic question that needs to be answered is "What are you passionate about?" . .

Kasey
www.homebasedjob.info and www.leckeys.com

Back on track

2007-04-23T19:14:00.000-07:00

Easter and the following week seemed to vacuum my time from any outside activities! Between Joey's rehearsals and performances and our granddaughter's first birthday party, we spent hours on the road. I love driving my little car, it's a 93 Subaru Loyale sedan. In my favorite teal color and the seat and wheel fits my body perfectly. While all my friends driving SUV's are having to do serious readjustments of their budgets to afford gas, I have had to give up one cup of coffee a week and since I decided to switch to tea and water, it has had no impact on my budget! We drove through beautiful farm and forest land with a view of Mt. St. Helen's and then went to the coast of Oregon. I became aware of how rich I am. I have views that people budget their entire vacation funds to come and see. I daily walk through green spaces rather than cement and asphalt paths. I have neighbors who even though they may not like my farming in the backyard of a city lot, still stop and visit and smell my lilacs.

I am investigating ways of working from home. Not through the online scams but with spending more time working on my books and self publishing them as well as some other friends works. We are looking at mainly ebook production. I am also preparing to totally redo my web site and everything concerning the Holiday Grand Plan. I am studying at the feet of the masters. Napolean Hill, Jack Canfield, Bob Proctor, Wayne Dyer and God. I am finding the greatest words of wisdom in the Bible and writing by people who have found a deep relationship with our Eternal Father, Creator and Redeemer.

I am also looking at how to improve my health and body. After investigating my body type I have decided to use the Apple Patch Diet, not as much for the weight loss properties as for the constant reminder that the patch will give me to think about my food choices. It will remind me that I can have any food I desire as long as I eat in moderation. I have started walking on my breaks. I can get half an hour of relaxing exercise, get my heart rate up and avoid negative conversations without taking away any of the rest of my day.

At home I have restarted my home clear out. 5 boxes of papers down 8 more to go. Why did I have to chose paper to be my first clear out?!!! I am also getting rid of clothes, anything that makes me feel dumpy or drab. I am pulling out my good dress suits and realizing that I am within an inch of fitting in to several of them again. I barely believed that just thinking of being trim, healthy and energetic creates this, but it does. It doesn't need a gigantic belief system. Just that still calm thought that God will provide if I will just ask and allow the universe to act.

Katie
http://thesgrprogram.com/special.php?a_id=12653
www.leckeys.com

Easter Eve and the Great Vigil

2007-04-07T23:09:00.000-07:00

I have just returned from watching eight beautiful children become members of Christ's family. The symbolism of the Easter Vigil as we listen to the stories of the history of our faith and celebration around the first fire. If you half close your eyes as you sing and listen, you can be taken back two to three thousand years and feel that you are around the camp fires of the nomadic tribes of Israel as they told their stories and sang the songs of praise. You feel the awe of the news that the tomb is empty as you enter the church that has magically changed from the dark dreary empty place of grief to a glowing, flower filled sanctuary filled with the excitement that the Lord has returned to life and is among us again. It is still that guarded excitement, as we sing The Strife is O'er, The Battle Done. Tomorrow is the full excitement, with He is Risen and Bells and Incense. But tonight it is about New Life.

I feel it is so appropriate that we made the decision to return to our Simpler Lifestyle this past week. I could experience the week in a whole new way as we started to process to get rid of the burden of Affluenza with its clutter and overwhelming emptiness. Joy is filling the house where emptiness ruled.

Alleluia, The Lord is Risen!!! The Lord is Risen Indeed, Alleluia!!

Good Friday

2007-04-06T22:30:00.000-07:00

After growing up in an area where Good Friday and Passover were taken very seriously, it amazes me how many people don't have a clue about their importance, not just in the religious sense but in the history of the world. So much of what happens in the middle east is tied back to those two events and the people involved. But more than that is the understanding of true abundance in the stories. Traveling for years with always enough to eat, but no more as long as you followed some basic rules. Don't take more than you and your family will eat in one day, remember to thank the provider, and stay true to your God. Then several centuries later, someone saying that there is an abundance of love available to us, we just need to accept the invitation to be truly forgiven and loved. It just boggles my mind that God feels that way about us. As I sat listening to the Crucifixion story again tonight I did it from a feeling of gratitude and heard an entirely different message than usual. I didn't hear about our sin, but about GOD Love. I didn't hear how we daily put Christ. to death, but about how we daily change for the better when we keep a conversation going with GOD.

After leaving Church, I had another abundance event. I stopped at the store for toilet paper and walked past the meat counter. They had the nearly $3.00 ground meat marked down to $.99 a pound. So the money I had budgeted for 3 pounds of meat, bought 9! This means that the food budget for next week will be available to pay down medical bills. As I tally this, it means that in the past two days I have received the equivalent of nearly $200 just by doing the daily things I normally do, but thinking about each activity with Thanksgiving and positive thoughts.

Maunday Thursday

2007-04-05T22:06:00.000-07:00

This has to be the church service that pulls at my heart strings the most. I am an Episcopalian so we have traditions that go back to the time of Christ. We gather and sing, then wash each other's feet, then continue with the Last Supper. At the end of the service those of us in the choir quietly leave and the priest, deacon and acolytes with the help of the Altar guild strip and wash the altar, blow out the candle that signals that the Sacrament is there and in this parish, literally pushes the altar to the side as they set up a place to sit and pray through the night. Tomorrow we go through Good Friday with it's stark images of Christ giving the ultimate sacrifice for my eternal soul. I have to remember that He thinks I am worth it, even when I have trouble with that concept. This is the perfect time to reflect and learn the difference between happiness and Joy. I am finding that Joy is not dependent on my job, my family, or anything except my learning to forgive others and myself, to let go of the past and embrace the now. Happiness comes from reaching goals, helping others, playing with my children and grandchildren. Joy comes from letting go of those things that separate us from God.

We had manifestation of abundance this evening. As I got home from church, my eldest son, his wife and children were in front of our house unloading 5 boxes of food. I have spent the week knowing that we had less than $10 in our bank accounts and almost every cent from my paycheck has to go to standard bills and medical bills that have accumulated. Every time I would feel the panic start to rise, I say: "I have money in the bank and my supplies are overflowing with abundance so we can share with our neighbors." So we now have 20 pounds of avocados and another 15 pounds of tomatoes! We also have rice and potatoes enough to share. Other than milk and our Easter Ham, I do not need to purchase any food for at least two weeks!

Praise be to God!

Day 2 Attack of the Negatives

2007-04-04T18:47:00.000-07:00

Day 2 of my journey. Someone once told me that if you start a new path or journey and immediately get attacked by the negative, that you are probably on exactly the right path. I woke up this morning and was immediately hit with sharp pain. Arthritis, sinus, and my husband suddenly having nerve inflamation at the site of his back surgery, which meant I missed a day of work and by work standards lost a vacation day. I could spend hours and days complaining about this morning, but I glanced at my bedside table and saw my lists. My gratitude list and my Goal list. I knew I would spend part of the day dealing with doctors and medical tests for my husband, so I grabbed my planning notebook, my ipod and pencils and worked on a few pages of my books. Affluenza, Barrier to living the True Abundant Life is moving along; Whole Year GrandPlan is a bit slower as I get stuck on summer months; and my unnamed book about my personal dream, helping develop urban homesteads as a "cool" way of life for the future is starting to get an outline developed. The more I research, the more I become convinced that these books need to start as ebooks and possibly never go to full printing. How can I write about decreasing my impact on the environment and then kill 20 trees to print it out for sales!

When we got home, I put the energy to work on our front and side yards. Because of our schedules and illnesses the yard had become little more than a trash heap. My husband did what he could by sorting things that had gathered in the space. I lifted and pushed, raked and shoveled. After four hours of working, I could see the vision of parties on the patio much more clearly. I can hardly wait to get home from work tomorrow to finish planting the garden pots. The flow of the day reminded me that I must put my energies towards this as at work I am a hexagon in a round hole. I fit, but it sure isn't where I am supposed to be!

Day One

2007-04-03T16:18:00.000-07:00

I have decided to document my journey as I change my life view. After more years than I can count as the victim, then survivor it is time to be fully alive and happy. I have been studying The Secret, Napolean Hill's writings, Biblical references and the lives of intelligent, happy and at times wealthy people. Each day I am going to chose a habit to work on, a goal to work towards and a thought to add to my list of alternate things to think about when I start to worry, stew or think negative thoughts.

My habit to start today is journalizing my journey.
My goal is to have 10 things listed on either ebay or Craigs list by Saturday.

Thought One: I am so thankful to have a husband who loves me, four wonderfully intelligent and funny children, two, nearly three children in-law, and 3 grandchildren.