From Detroit to Pittsburgh with Love

Yahoo! Sports has an interesting and inspiring story about Sean McHugh, reserve fullback for the Super Bowl heading Steelers. Sean was cut by the Detroit Lions for not being good enough for the team, then three days later he was picked up by the Steelers.

Now he is headed to the Super Bowl and a chance to be a part of history.

The article is a testament to working hard and not giving up. As a lover of quotes, I found two in this article that pertain to life in general. They are:

"For people who work hard, things all seem to work out" Dan Campbell

"A door closed, and a world opened." Sean McHugh

I think those two quotes could provide encouragement to a lot of people during these tough times. Just because someone lost their job, doesn't mean it's the end of the road. For those who work hard, something will come up that could turn out better than where they were at in the first place.

Click on this link to read the inspirational article ==> Steelers McHugh Catches Break.

Have you caught a break in life that you are willing to share? We could all use an inspirational lift today. Thanks for sharing.

Port Aransas, Texas - My Next Home

Sometimes in the midst of frigid weather, less than stellar living arrangements, and frustrating situations, one needs reassurance that better times are ahead. This is my carrot-at-the-end-of-the-stick for the future.

More pics forthcoming. In the meantime, to see more of Port Aransas click here.

Healthy Living Coming Soon to Elder Care Cafe

Tomorrow morning at the Elder Care Cafe, a post will announce the upcoming 2009 healthy living initiative. The initiative will include regular posts highlighting living a healthy lifestyle - body, soul, and spirit. A newsletter sent directly to your email box is in the development stage and will kick-off in 2009. Yet to be determined is the frequency of the newsletter - never daily, but may arrive weekly or monthly.

I'm excited about the upgrade Elder Care Cafe has received lately. It was a much needed refreshing and repairing of the site, and now it is ready to enter the new year in style.

If you have any questions or topic suggestions, feel free to leave a comment on the site.

Elder Care Cafe is geared towards the elderly and those who care for them, but any baby boomer or senior citizen will find interesting articles.

We at the Elder Care Cafe, both on the 'net and here on blogger, are looking forward to a fun, healthy, and prosperous new year.

How about you? What are your plans for the new year? Do your plans include living healthy?

Can't We Just All Get Along?

Late last week I ran across a surprising rudeness in a writing forum. Normally I don't hang out in forums anyway, too much on my plate, but I had the desire to connect with other writers on that website.

The attitude of some of the people and how they were treating others was so disturbing, I made the decision over the weekend to not participate or even read the posts from that site.

This morning when I woke up, the overall growing rudeness of society was on my mind. I revved up the computer, opened my email, and lo and behold, I had received Cheryl Richardson's weekly newsletter.

Her topic? "Speak Up: Are You Tolerating Bad Behavior?" Hmmm! God and the whole universe must have heard my concerns.

Here is an excerpt from her newsletter: "Use your voice. Speak up. Tell your truth. Stop tolerating less than what the wisest part of you knows you deserve. These are some of the messages woven into my next book, The Art of Extreme Self Care: Transform Your Life One Month at a Time."

Following a story of a young mother with two children, Cheryl further notes, "When we learn to speak up for ourselves, for example, we feel compelled to speak up for others who haven't yet found their voice. When we learn to stop tolerating bad behavior, we have a hard time allowing that same bad behavior to happen to others as well. When we start to accept a higher standard of living, we can't help but want that same standard for others, too. And, most important, when we learn these lessons that raise our level of consciousness, we begin to understand that we are all connected and that we have a responsibility to care for one another."

Cheryl's Take Action Challenge is, "This week, practice speaking up to insure that you have the skills to not only take good care of yourself, but also care for others as well. Look for at least one opportunity a day to use your voice. Offer your opinion during a meeting, tell your partner what you need to feel more supported, or set limits with a friend who drains your energy with her constant complaining. When you learn to speak up in little ways each day, you'll find that you can count on your voice to be there when you need it most."

In this particular forum, there were comments about the number of people no longer participating in the forum. Gosh, I wonder why!

It isn't just this one forum, I have seen this in a number of areas on the web and in society around us. It isn't just because of the economic crisis either, this has been going on for a while. I started noticing a rudeness somewhere around the mid-1990's in the workplace, and at church, of all places.

I was taught to live by the golden rule, do unto others... but, unfortunately, quite a number of people didn't seem to have that kind of "bringing up" causing them to miss an opportunity to be kind to one another, make a positive difference in someone else's life.

As sad as it is to walk away from a forum that actually had people with experience and knowledge they were willing to share, I know in my life I am not willing to pay the price of experiencing their negativity to gain that knowledge.

What do you think? Have you experienced a growing rudeness around you? How are you treating others? Are you willing to take Cheryl's challenge this week?

Quotes as a Motivational Tool

"Nothing can add more power to your life than concentrating

all of your energies on a limited set of targets."

-Nido Qubien

Author, consultant, motivational speaker

"When we combine Divine Timing with action steps

that honor our soul, things often fall into place."

-Cheryl Richardson

Motivational Coach

I absolutely love quotes! They are kept in a very safe place - my commonplace book.

According to Wikipedia, the commonplace books surfaced in the 15th century. Several famous people who kept commonplace books were Francis Bacon, John Milton, Bronson Alcott, Benjamin Franklin, Mark Twain and Virginia Woolf.

In Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events a number of charcters kept a commonplace book.

By definition they are a way to compile knowledge by writing information into books. I use mine for the numerous quotes I come across. Also I have lists of books to read and movies to see. After six years, I have a surprising number of quotes, although I also have quite a large number cut from various magazines or other places, in a special tin box.

The particular book I use has a quote by Maya Angelou on the front cover, "The desire to reach for the stars is ambitious. The desire to reach hearts is wise."

The quote on the bookmark, also from Ms. Angelou, states: "Women should be tough, tender, laugh as much as possible, and live long lives."

Sometimes I read through several pages, and always my spirit is lifted. For me, quotes are motivational, inspiring, encouraging, and fun to read. Some are humorous, others thoughtful, but if they are boring, they do not make it into my special book.

Every once in a while a duplicate shows up, and I realize I must have needed to read it again.

What favorite quote have you written somewhere? Do you keep a commonplace book? Are you inspired by the words of others?