Why am I so angry?

“Financial freedom is available to those who learn about it and work for it.”

~ Robert Kiyosaki

I have no idea why I am so angry today.

Maybe it's the weather.

It is another dreary grey day here.

I doubt that's what it is.

I actually prefer days like today. The afternoon sun takes often takes its toll on me when I drive.

I just can't seem to pinpoint where this anger is coming from.

It doesn't help that there seems to be a detour due to some sort of construction on just about every road I travel.

But seriously,this is nothing new so I should be used to it.

Why did I get angry because one of my passengers wasn't ready today and I had to make a special trip to go get her?

Again I should be used to this as it seems to happen with her at least once a week.

I got angry at the moron who poked her car into an intersection cutting off my ability to make a turn (not like this isn't a daily occurrence).

I got angry at the women standing and chatting in the middle of an intersection instead of on the curb.

I got angry at the parents dropping their kids off by the front doors at the center instead of parking and walking them in (Gee what a surprise!)

I got angry at the drivers who passed me as I inched my van over the speed bumps

(like they're more important than I am).

Once again, this happens all of the time so why am I angry about it today?

I am angry because I am relegated to driving the van as my bus is still in the shop,where it has been since last Thursday.

This following a week of me having to use the van while the other driver used my bus while his bus was in for service.

I have no idea what's behind this anger.

I just know that it's there.

The easy fix would be to stop being angry.

Sounds fairly simple ,however,for some unknown reason I just don't seem ready to do that.

I am not enjoying holding on to my anger.

It's destructive as well as counterproductive.

Still,it's there.

And it's annoying me.

So why am I choosing to hang on to it.

Even more curious to me is why I am not choosing to let go?

This certainly is not me being kind to me.

Now I find myself grappling with this quote from Rabbi Hillel:

If I am not for myself, who will be for me?

If I am not for others, what am I?

And if not now, when?

Damn good questions!

Sharing

 “Ma'aleen BaKodesh, V'lo Moridin"

"We must always elevate ourselves in holiness, not decrease it!"

-The Talmud

As you know, I love sharing emails that people are kind enough to share with me. Here's one that amused me:

Paraprosdokians (Winston Churchill loved them), are figures of speech in which the latter part of a sentence or phrase is surprising or unexpected; frequently humorous. Enjoy!

1. Where there's a will, I want to be in it.

2. The last thing I want to do is hurt you. But it's still on my list.

3. Since light travels faster than sound, some people appear bright until you hear them speak.

4. If I agreed with you, we'd both be wrong.

5. We never really grow up, we only learn how to act in public.

6. War does not determine who is right - only who is left.

7. Knowledge is knowing a tomato is a fruit.. Wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad.

8. To steal ideas from one person is plagiarism. To steal from many is research.

9. I didn't say it was your fault, I said I was blaming you.

10. In filling out an application, where it says, 'In case of emergency, Notify:' I put 'DOCTOR'.

11. Women will never be equal to men until they can walk down the street with a bald head and a beer gut, and still think they are sexy. (ever been to WALMART)

12. You do not need a parachute to skydive. You only need a parachute to skydive twice.

13. I used to be indecisive. Now I'm not so sure..

14. To be sure of hitting the target, shoot first and call whatever you hit the target.

15. Going to church doesn't make you a Christian any more than standing in a garage makes you a car.

16. You're never too old to learn something stupid.

17. I'm supposed to respect my elders, but it’s getting harder and harder for me to find one now.

Spread the Laughter

Share the Cheer

Let's Be Happy

While We're here!!

MAy Word of the Month

“When one door of happiness closes, another opens; but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one which has been opened for us.”

~ Helen Keller

May Word of the Month:

ELEVATE

transitive verb

1

: to lift up or make higher :

2

: to raise in rank or status

3

: to improve morally, intellectually, or culturally

4

: to raise the spirits of : 

I couldn't let May end without a word of the month

I know,the month is practically over.

Still,after missing most of the last few weeks with the gout,I felt that I had to keep up with what has become a monthly fixture in my life.

Why ELEVATE?

I was told a while ago, that if you want a better standard of living,get better friends.

ELEVATE!

If you want to build up your body,intensify your workouts.

ELEVATE.

If you want to eat healthier,make better food choices.

ELEVATE.

If you want a more spiritual life,raise your level of prayer or meditation.

ELEVATE.

Over the past few days, I have had the opportunity to observe others around me.

Those who have made the effort to up their game,are experiencing huge upswings in their lives.

Those who continue to wander about doing the same things that they have day in and day out year in and year out ,well they seem to be exactly where they always have been.

Amazing how that works!

So with just a couple of days left in the month,I want to task myself with this challenge:

What can I ELEVATE in my life?

Game on!

I'm a bogg boy.....!

“Intelligence without ambition is a bird without wings.”

~ Salvador Dali

I'm a big boy now!

This morning I tied my own shoes.

While this may seem inconsequential to you, for me it's huge!

I have not been able to do that since mid April.

Thee was still a modicum of pain and it certainly took a bit of perseverance.

Still I did it all by myself and that deserves a big woo hoo!

(Seriously....gimme a woo hoo!)

Thanks!

Shabbat Shalom!

So where did I go this time........................

“Little strokes fell great oaks.”

~ Benjamin Franklin

So where did I disappear to this time?

No where.

I know it has been a couple of (5) days since I wrote to you last.

As I said last time...s#!t happens.

As my hand continues to improve daily, I find myself trying to catch up on a lot of what I had let slide during the last few weeks.

Hence, I make choices.

Life continued while I was incapacitated.

Now I have to run to catch up.

There are just so many hours in a day and a finite amount of energy that I can call upon during those hours.

Bills have to get paid.

Plans to move forward have to be made.

The house needs tending to.

You get the picture.

Over the last 5 weeks,it's not as if life stopped .

It's not asif I did nothing during that time period either.

I did as much as I possibly could, quite honestly, probably a lot more than I give myself credit for.

And as much as I would like to say that I can just get up each day and hit the ground running at full speed, the truth is I am no where near to being there yet.

So I make mindful choices.

Those choices include which things to do as well as which things will just have to wait.

Today, I chose to check back in with you.

More to follow.......guaranteed!

So what happened to yesterday?

“Your thoughts, your words, and your actions created the life you are living. You create your results—no one else.”

~ Larry Winget

After 4 days in a row of writing to you,whammo,I disappeared again.

What was that about?

Well,let's just chalk it up to s#!t happens.

Fridays are my non driving day.

I don't call them my day off since I just don't take days off!

I woke up feeling like crap.

Everything ached.

My color was poor.

I was sore all over.

Everything I did seem to suck the life out of me.

I walked from the car to the house and had to sit down.

I grocery shopped,came home,unpacked and needed a break.

Lethargic barely describes the way I was feeling.

Since I already had a doctors appointment scheduled for noon,I was content to not worry about how I was feeling.

I did notice that even my voice was very airy and had no energy behind it.

He checked me over and sent me home.

Diagnosis: who knows....just take it easy for the day.

So that's kind of what I did.

Prepared Shabbat dinner for 11 people,made 2 trips to Lowes,another trip to Home Depot,helped Becca set up our new grooming table, taking catch my breath breaks along the way.

After dinner it was 1 more trip to Lowes and then back home where I promptly said good night to Susan who I had not seen all day and went to bed,hoping that the morning would bring a new refreshed version of me.

It worked!

Shabbat Shalom!

What if.....?

"The only limits to the possibilities in your life tomorrow are the buts you use today."

~ Les Brown 

" It can't be over yet......I'm still breathing!"

As long as I open my eyes in the morning, there is always another opportunity.

This is pretty much the way I lead my life.

What if that's not true?

What if where I am today is as good as it gets?

What if it's wind down time?

What if ,in fact, it is the beginning of the end, the last chapter ?

This thought crept into my mind as I drove my bus through another rainy day earlier this week.

What if I am as good as I can be ?

What if I can no longer make a difference?

What if my "significance" has reached its apex?

Can I just slip into my easy chair and live with the resolve that this is okay?

These questions kept rattling around in my brain, intensifying the chill that was already in the air.

That chill started to creep way past my bones, heading directly to my sole.

It was frightening.

This,in my world, of course is unacceptable!

Still breathing....not done yet!

On a roll!

“There is only one thing that makes a dream impossible to achieve:

the fear of failure.”

~ Paulo Coelho

Three days in a row.......woo hooo!

What a glorious day!

The Sun is shining (we have had rain for 26 out of the last 32 days),my hand is on the mend and I just heard from a long lost friend.

Life is full of gifts!

It still amazes me.

No matter how many times I see it happen, when you make small changes everyday the results can't be denied!

The Universe wants to help you build on success.

(It will also smack you around when you don't put forth any effort to make yourself better!)

Incremental changes.

Eat a little bit better.

Get an extra hour of sleep.

Be more active.

Smile.

Save a dollar here and a dollar there.

Waste a little less.

Pick up after yourself.

Little changes yield huge results.

(Read Darren Hardy's The Compound Effect or The Slight Edge by Jeff Olson)

Heck.....just read a book....even if it's only 1 page a day to start!

All really great advice.

Advice that I have to remind myself of every single day.

Getting better every day

“The best way to stay healthy is to talk to your body first.”

~ Sonia Choquette

I didn't think I would have the opportunity to write to you today.

I was supposed to take the nursery school kids from the JCC on their first class trip today.

Somehow there was a break down in communication and in the end 2 busses showed up,mine and the one they hired from an outside agency.

Given that they were committed to paying for the other vehicle, I found myself as the odd man out .

A couple of hours of lost pay vs. some unexpected free time.

One of life's glass half something situations!

So with the few minutes that I gained for myself, I now have the chance to keep the proverbial ball rolling and write for the second day in a row.

The hand is improving a little bit every day. I can actually use my thumb to push the shift key on the keyboard today.

HOORAY FOR CAPITAL LETTERS!

Not that this latest bout with the gout has kept me from accomplishing things.

It has slowed me down.

I have been REALLY uncomfortable.

It has been draining and I have only been able to do as much as I can before collapsing.

That "as much as I can" has included driving my bus daily, taking up and disposing of all of the flooring in our dining room, family room, kitchen and 2 hallways,shopping for and preparing meals, taking down our pool and mulching the 20' x 20' square where the pool once sat along with a number of other varied chores.

Quitting or just doing nothing has never been and will never be an option!

I do look forward to the time in the very near future that I can resume normal activities,without pain and not draining my resources to the edge of the point of no return.

Until then, I do what I can.

Not because I have to.

Well maybe just because I have to?

That's just me.

Almost 4 Weeks!

“Success is the sum of small efforts -

repeated day in and day out.”

~ Robert Collier

Yes,it has been almost 4 weeks since the last time I wrote to you.

Not that I haven't wanted to,I just couldn't.

You may be wondering why.

Well let me share what has been going on.

Let me backtrack to 10/29/2014.

It was the morning of my 60th birthday.

As was my practice at that time, I was at the gym at 6 a.m with my daughter Becca.

I pointed out to her that my right elbow seemed swollen.

It felt like there was a ball of fluid wrapped around it.

By late afternoon that day, the swelling had spread all the way down to my fingertips.

The pain was excruciating.

After a few days,I couldn't stand the pain anymore and went to the doctor's office.

"Tennis elbow!" he proclaimed assuredly.

No treatment offered,just stop using the arm until it heals up.

He said it may take 6-8 weeks.

He was close .

I lost over 2 months to this mallady.

Over the next 4 1/2 years, I had multiple repeat episodes of this tendinitis,each lasting almost 2 months.

During that time period, I have lost over a year of my life to this.

On the morning of April 14th, I had felt another bout coming on.

A week later,I found myself at the local urgent care facility.

I related my past experiences with this and the accompanying diagnosis from each of the doctors I had seen on previous occasions.

The doctor took one look at my swollen hand,touched her's to mine and noticed just how hot my arm was.

"This is not tendinitis" she said. "Tendinitis would not get hot like this.....have you ever had the Gout?"

And there it was!

I had been suggesting this to each of the doctors I had seen on previous occasions each time being told no....tendinitis.

She did blood work to confirm her suspicions but wasted no time starting me on meds.

With in a few days, the pain began to subside.

It's a very slow process and while I still don't have use of my left arm, I am well on my way to recovery.

Well enough to at least be able to rest my arm on the desk while I hunt and peck at the keyboard with my good hand!

I'm back.

That makes me happy.

And hopefully in the next few days life will become normal again.

Have a great day!