I Am So Blessed

I got up today without an alarm, as is my usual practice. Dressed, cooked breakfast and brewed coffee. Ate while I caught up on my emails. Then made a grocery run. I like to go weekday mornings to avoid busy times. I remember, in yesteryears, driving home from downtown Dallas, reaching my neighborhood about 7:00 p.m., yet I was with a mob of other people at the market, just wanting to be home already. So I like to avoid those after-work hours to give the nine-to-fivers one less person in their way.

Now I'm home, groceries in their proper places, my hot Café Bustelo espresso at hand, my cats within petting distance and my windows open to enjoy the breeze and sounds of nature. Even though it may reach a tad over ninety degrees today, that is way better than the one-hundred-plus heat of not too many days ago. I'm seated at my computer and can see outside, which may or may not be a good thing. I happen to think it is okay, as long as I pay more attention to my screen than the goings-on in my yard.

I'm in black flip-flops, a taupe prairie skirt topped by a man's white cotton undershirt (love those!). I think I need red nails to match my outfit. So later I'll give myself a mani-pedi. Meanwhile, frozen chicken breasts are thawing, to be breaded and baked for dinner.

And I'm at work.

Yes, too glorious to be true, but it is nonetheless. I am my best boss ever--ha!

I'm an author. And when not creating, I'm a freelance copy editor for two large publishers. Either way, my computer and I are inseparable. I love my profession so much that I work holidays, weekends, my birthday, Christmas, New Year's.

I work probably eleven hours a day. Most days. Now I don't get paid for all that, as I love to research, to read, to learn more about my craft and then to blog about what I've found. I enjoy every bit of it. With no commute, I saved myself fifteen hours a week. And have put them to better use than by incurring a three-thousand-mile oil change every season.

Now there was one day I did copy edit for eleven hours. That was a brutal day. My mind is not set up for that. But I can weather six to eight hours, seven days a week. I happen to think I'm very productive in that mode.

I wish everyone had the freedom I do. To work those sleepless nights from 2:00 a.m. to 6:00 a.m. and then sleep to noon to be revived to resume work from noon to six that evening. To work around errands. To work outside once the weather gets comfortably into the seventies and hopefully the mosquitoes are gone.

For that matter, if money were no object, I could work at the beach, in a woodsy cabin or on a boat I suppose. As long as I have battery power and an occasional internet connection, I'm golden.

It took me several years to reach this glorious pinnacle, but it was worth every bump. In this my new career, worry is such a waste of energy. It stifles the creativity. And things usually work out. Granted I had to get a McJob in two really lean times, but I'm fully at home now. With steady work and expected earnings that exceed my monthly bills. That, along with my health, is my definition of wealth.

I've never been more broke nor as happy--except at the birth of my son. That remains the ultimate high. But these days, they are right on up there. And now that I've done without for a period, I'm ever-so-grateful for the plenty on its way. And will be a better steward of it because of my new heightened insight.

So, Happy Friday, all! I wish you manifold blessings.

Denise Barker, author, blogger, copy editor

. . . Like You Are On Vacation

I just revised my blog header to include a new quote by me, which incidentally is now the closing line before my email signature.  "If your vocation isn't a vacation, then quit, leap, change careers."

Since I work at home a lot, I tend to just "throw something on"--if cool outside, something to keep me warm; if warm outside, something to keep me cool.  Utilitarian.  Practical.  Yet . . . why can't I dress like I'm on vacation?  Wearing those things that bring me joy, make me feel great, cause me to smile and inspire me?

Like I would on vacation.



Why do we save stuff for later?  Save stuff for company?  Save stuff for special occasions?  We should dress everyday like we are on vacation.  Wearing the best of the best our wardrobes offer.

Do not run to the nearest mall.  Unless you have excess cash.  Just go shopping in your own closet; go treasure hunting in your own armoire.

Take that mind-set another step further.  Why can't our residence--in my case, my one and only--be our vacation home?  I subscribe to FLYLady.net and she posts occasionally this great email she received from one of her members.  It was about this wonderful bed-and-breakfast she stayed at.

Come to find out, it was her home.  All organized, decluttered, using her best linens, her wedding china, etc.  Isn't that happiness personified?  That's what I aspire to.  The decluttering part will take me a while as I am a pack rat when it comes to information.  Data.  I save it in bankers boxes.  Many bankers boxes.  It's fuel for my writing.

I have travel tips for various European nations.  I have pictures of homes, people, cars--all in want of a story to be told.  Of course, I collect quotations and favorite Bible verses and recipes.  It's all very important to me.  And it entails time to read through what I've amassed to find the nugget therein.

As per FLYLady, I'll do it fifteen minutes at a time (hopefully twice daily as she recommends).  Her website is in my sidebar under Favorite Links.

Getting back on my main theme here, let's continue with this vacation thinking.  Specifically:  Money.  On a vacation, do you worry about paying your rent, your mortgage?  You probably did that beforehand, calculating whether the old budget could handle this trip and still meet that major obligation.

So, I figure for a vacation to be a true vacation, you aren't worrying about the monthly bills.  You are focused on TODAY.  What to eat with joy and abandon TODAY.  No nagging thoughts about calories or counting carbs.  Well, maybe a few in the mental background.

Still, we set aside pesky internal monologues about bills, calories, and vow to live in the now, in the present, in the TODAY.  Shouldn't we do that even when NOT on vacation?  Before you correct me, yes, we should prevent disease by eating healthier and we should prepare for our future.  However, I didn't say "worry" about our future.

For example, we plant a garden, go on about our other business, reap later.  We don't worry incessantly about whether a seed really will produce a plant.  Granted, I didn't get the green thumb in my family so there have been two attempts at a garden that failed for me, but . . . if you are the same way, think of another analogy here.

Haven't we all worried for days only to have our problem "solved" in a blink later, or avoided altogether?  We wasted all those hours for what?  Stop it now.

While you live "like on vacation," you (1) appreciate more, whether the food you eat, the clothes you wear, the place you inhabit, the outdoors, the weather, etc. and (2) worry less, being more present, which is another form of both gratitude and joy and (3) smile more which makes you happier and is contagious to those around you.  Sounds pretty grand to me.

Do you have healthy loved ones; are you healthy and loved?

Consider yourself uber prosperous--because you are.

Do you have food, clothing and shelter for today?

Consider yourself wealthy--because you are.

Do you have enough money for just this twenty-four-hour period?

Consider yourself rich--because you are.

Do you need something tomorrow?  Pray.  "...yet you do not have because you do not ask."  James 4:2.  Ask of God.  Ask of your family.  Ask what you can do yourself.

Continuing on, do you feel like you are on vacation when you are at work?  I hear the collective groan.  However, I see a few grinning souls too.  Like my new header reads, "If your vocation isn't a vacation, then quit, leap, change careers."  God didn't create us to be unhappy.  God didn't spend all this time surrounding us with intricate beauty for us to be sad.  God didn't fill our lives with blessings for us to be depressed.

Have you ever stopped to inspect a butterfly?  I mean really look at all the magnificent artwork that went into decorating a butterfly's wings?  What about a lily?  Its stamen, its freckles, its tipped petals?  It is said a butterfly lives only like three days.  Yet God went to all the trouble to paint multitudes of different butterflies just so we may see at least one fly by during our day.  Are you even noticing them?  How regrettable to have missed that opportunity.

Back to your job.  If it isn't fun, if it doesn't feed your soul, if you don't begin your day thinking about the great stuff you have awaiting your talents--before you even get up out of bed--then you, my friend, need new employment.

I know, we have to pay bills.  Maybe we should think more about that before we incur them.  Keep that old car, don't buy a new one.  Look for a roommate.  Reduce the monthly expenses we do have so we can take a better job that pays less.  You'll be so much happier for it.

Live each day . . . like you are on vacation.

Repeat This Out Loud: "I Am in Charge"

It is both fearful and amazing when we realize this.  Our lives are shaped by our actions.  What we did yesterday or yesteryear is now embodied in our present.  Look around the room you are in.  If you didn't dust over the last week or month, it shows, doesn't it?  If you didn't produce daily or weekly at the office, then your in-box is probably overflowing, right?  Well, that applies to our thoughts as well.

So if you thought, I don't have time to exercise today, and repeated that thought and inaction over the last year, what are your results?  A weight gain?  Failing health?  There is a cause-and-effect law at work here.  We best honor it and take note.

For the most part, we need to see that causal link ourselves.  Why is it some people see us better than we do?  Shouldn't we ultimately know our own selves better?  You would think.  Now, on the reverse side, there are people who see us as worse than we really are.  Just be able to see the difference.  Respect the former, disregard the latter.  But to acknowledge a flaw within ourselves is the first step to changing it.  We all need such a spiritual awakening.  I would prefer that internal insight over an external intervention--ha!

There is a freeing feeling to being in charge.  I know that I much prefer working for myself than to be in the corporate environment.  I am the boss.  I am in charge.  It is that satiating, driving emotion that lends itself to much efficient production in my career.  We can also funnel it into our daily chores, our self-improvement program, our relationships.  Once we see we are indeed in charge, we escape the victim mentality.  I've always been preset to the survivor mentality so I escape the alternate mind-set.

Although we can definitely lapse into thinking that the government is in charge, that our bosses are in charge, that our spouses are in charge.  To the first, I remind myself that "we the people" are in charge and we give voice to that with our votes and letters to Congress.  For the second, if you are truly in a job that is worthy of you, I would think your opinion would be given great weight and full consideration by whoever is deemed in charge.  If not, move on, taking your many talents with you.

As for the third, any relationship should be a mutual one, albeit friends or spouses.  There should be give and take, should be an exchange of ideas and communication, should be an openness to new ideas and thoughts, as long as the foundational morals are not violated.  I don't so much think of marriage as a 50-50 proposition, but more like a 110-110 partnership spending that nets a 150-150 partnership reward.

In other words, I try to be my best for the people I live with.  I don't treat strangers better than the individuals I share every day with.  I am also free to be fully myself.  To give 110% to a marriage that would ultimately, through synergy, net me 150%.  That is my theory.  That is my opinion.  That is my outlook.  That is my goal.

Wishing you the best of careers and relationships as we come to the end of 2011 and embark on 2012.