Ah the peace one feels after a good workout It’s simply priceless!!

Mirrored from z's bubbles 2.

Today we had the farewell lunch for Julius and Fred who are going back to the Philippines soon. Amol had picked this Indian restaurant at Custer and Arapaho. I got there first as I found out when I entered the empty restaurant, but as I turned to leave again, they all showed up. It was a fairly nice clean restaurant. The food was good… Not many people were there and I think we all had a good social time there.

The funny part was as we went to leave, I was the last one as I sat in the corner, the waitress, a middle-aged Indian woman came over to me and said “I have to say, I think you’re cute” with a heavy indian accent. I was so taken aback that all I could do was mutter a thank you…

It was only in the car on the way back that I realized that this had NEVER happned to me before LOL!

Mirrored from z's bubbles 2.

When I picked up this book from my book shelf, I did not want to. And that’s stil an understatement. The only reason I did so anyway is because for the last 2 or 3 months, the title came up again and again from various people that I look up to in some way.

So I did…

And the first few pages were painful. I felt like I had read it before (which I’m not too sure of anymore) and that it would just be another to-do list book: a list of steps to follow to achieve this or that goal in your life. But I stand corrected.

What I got out of it was hope: hope that no matter where you start, you can finish better than where you are now. Hope that I’m not the only one who struggles with getting out of the starting blocks; that others had the same challenge and they still succeeded in life. And hope that the fear of having to have the perfect, failure proof plan can be overcome.

It was a good read. In ways it leaves me feeling the same way after watching a movie that ended on a really positive note; the feeling that the world is just beyond my doorstep and that I too can carve a piece of it!

Mirrored from z's bubbles 2.

It is interesting, yet scary, how sometimes we feel like we’ve been somewhere before. Earlier I noted to Ruth that it felt like this year has gone by extremely quickly. Well, shortly thereafter feelings and thoughts of being lost, of general inadequacy and failure came back. Yes, watching a movie about a love that can’t be didn’t help. No, not in the slightest.

But then I sat here in the living room contemplating things. And there it was… I had been here before. Yes, it’s not exactly the same but in some ways it is. And that is not good. Not to mention the whole if-you’re-not-moving-forward-then-you-are-slipping-backwards thing. It’s true! So many things are SO MUCH harder now than they seemed before.

But this thing… the act to “take control of your life”, it’s not as easy as it sounds. Yes, for you cholerics out there it might be, but for some of us more… peaceful… personalities, it’s an entirely big (and intimidating) bag of beans…

Mirrored from z's bubbles 2.

Some things are just really surprising… And those things seem to have this urge of just… sneak out of the darkness and JUMP AT YOU!. Sometimes they are good though. Sometimes they can even be good and interesting.

For instance, I was briefly, VERY briefly, glancing over some older (private ) musings of mine. And there it was. A brick thrown out of nowhere. A rake that I stepped on. Could it really be that the most helpful book, the one that will have made more of a difference in me this year than almost anything else was The 5 Love Languages Men’s Edition? Really? It can’t be. I mean at this time, it would be ranked up there with Zig Ziglar’s autobiography and our old copy of How to Win Friends and Influence People. C’mon, it can’t be!!!

But there it was… the understanding of love. And (oh, yes, this is going to sound every so incredibly corny!!!), the progression from the in-love infatuation to the love that truly moves mountains.

See, I did say it was going to sound corny. But it is interesting that that would be the one.

And this is so not what I had in mind when I opened this to write

Anyway. So this week’s officially over. The work-week part anyway. And it is GOOD!!! Now a short weekend is around and with it come lots of possibilities and opportunities. I wonder which adventures will cross my path…

Mirrored from z's bubbles 2.

This weekend was a mess. Yes it was a short one, but still, it shouldn’t have been a mess. But it was.

It felt like every time I finally got myself to doing something, something else went wrong. There was Cora who didn’t want to be by herself. There’s my car and it’s alarm which goes off when the battery dies, which is every 12-18 hours or so. There’s the fact that nobody picks up after themselves… The list goes on…

But now that everyone is asleep and settled, that Ruth’s grill is lit (yest at 11pm), that I know my car will still start in the morning, that I am too tired mentally to start anything anew, that I can finally find some resemblance of peace.

And have some thoughts.

Over the past weeks, I’ve been toying more and more with the idea of working more freelance. My mother would scoff since I still need to finish her store which has been in works for what… 3 years now?

But it is intimidating. After all, what do I have to offer that someone else can’t do better, bigger, cheaper and quicker? It’s a tough sell. But then, it’s like that with everything… there will always be someone. And that has always stopped me. Well, not always, but many a time in my life so far: that I had this feeling of not measuring up.

As I was sitting here at my desk, wallowing in my negativity, I stumbled upon an (old) article which shall remain anonymous and uncredited about the process of a site redesign. And as the author went through the steps… I had to chuckle… That is what one calls a web-designer? It sounded more like a project manager… there was no coding, no drawing, no rendering… It all boiled down to paying someone for a graphic set, pasting it all into frontpage and calling it a day.

Unfortunately most of the images were gone by now, but the “finished product” was still there, seemingly untouched over the last 8 years as the header graphic still fit the description the author had provided.

Sad…

I do make my life and my goals a lot more complicated looking (and feeling!) then they really are.

And I don’t mean to sound condescending towards anyone mentioned above. Far from it. I am sure they all do a great job at what they provide; and that is a different aspect for each of us. Some may be looking for a hand to hold, some may be looking for eye-candy. Some just want to be heard, and some just want it to “work”…

Faith would be something that would help, wouldn’t it? Faith in myself? Faith in that it can be done?

Interesting indeed. It always comes full-circle

Mirrored from z's bubbles 2.

It is interesting to observe the dynamics of relationships; how we gravitate towards some, away from others, only to find ourselves doing the opposite a few days/weeks/months later.

This aside, life is rather interesting. Not boring to say the least.

Work is absolutely crazy. Not really in a good way, but in lots-of-fires-to-put-out way. Ah well, it makes for short work days.

The children are great, though the lack of sleep that has been plaguing them lately does, as Ruth pointed out, seem to affect their listening skills. Though all of us are holding up through the summer rather well. Last year was definitely not this smooth. By far!!!

However there are some areas I really need to work on. Personal organization is the biggest as the others (fitness, reading, work) revolve around it. What I currently do is not working for me at all!! Though I am thinking of kissing Outlook goodbye for good in favor of something web-based… But I’ll need to think that over.

Mirrored from z's bubbles 2.

Today we went to the funeral of one of Ruth’s childhood friends. It was heartbreaking as Rachel left behind parents, 3 sibilings and a baby daughter.

One thing to take away from it was the power of self-esteem, be it high or low. Low self-esteem will undermine everything we do; whereas a healthy high self-esteem will multiply our strengths.

In this case, it would be safe to say that low self-esteem is what took this young woman from us and we’re left wondering what-if.

Willie’s words come to mind: treat each moment as if this is the only chance you have to make an impact in someone’s life; the only chance to tell them they are special and that someone truly cares.

Because let’s face it, most of us truly do care. We just don’t allow it to show…

Mirrored from z's bubbles 2.

Oh how I’ve missed these long weekends!!! It’s nice to be back on compressed shift. Yes, there are some challenges of course, and it will take some getting used to again, but… boy it’s nice to be away from work!!! Really nice

Mirrored from z's bubbles 2.

Today was a lot more fun than expected, and still productive

Between doing some more cleaning in the office and getting rid of some boxes, playing DOTT on Wii , the water slide, finally REALLY retiring moonrover (it had become unstable), getting the living room clean…

It was a nice day

Mirrored from z's bubbles 2.