Sometimes I am the mouse, sometimes I am the cheese….
Tag Archives: thankful
Courage, birthday candles and love
I am taking a weekend off from this huge Moving Difference project. Yup, this weekend….
I am sure that you all will survive one weekend…. if not, email me on Monday. Ha!
The love of my life is celebrating his milestone of a birthday on Saturday.
Yes, he is the love of my life, the guy that is there for all the stuff that happens and even for yet another idea of mine.
I am proud of him. He is an amazing person and then he does some pretty cool stuff with his profession and other interests.
He is what courage is all about. He has the courage to be himself and the courage to stand up for those who can’t.
He is a friend, a colleague, a person, a brother, an uncle, a nephew, a son and a legal professional.
His dreams are mind-blowing, his laughter I could live in, his hopes are simple and his love is wide.
I am so lucky that he shares this crazy life with me, I am thankful for all of the moments and all of the starlight, both in the sky and in our hair….
To the love of my life – happy birthday!
I love you so much. J
To the rest of you – The best lines from Easyrider (the movie) and catch you all on Monday!
Easyrider scene (link to the scene)
George Hanson: You know, this used to be a helluva good country. I can’t understand what’s gone wrong with it.
Billy: Man, everybody got chicken, that’s what happened. Hey, we can’t even get into like, a second-rate hotel, I mean, a second-rate motel, you dig? They think we’re gonna cut their throat or somethin’. They’re scared, man.
George Hanson: They’re not scared of you. They’re scared of what you represent to ’em.
Billy: Hey, man. All we represent to them, man, is somebody who needs a haircut.
George Hanson: Oh, no. What you represent to them is freedom.
Billy: What the hell is wrong with freedom? That’s what it’s all about.
George Hanson: Oh, yeah, that’s right. That’s what’s it’s all about, all right. But talkin’ about it and bein’ it, that’s two different things. I mean, it’s real hard to be free when you are bought and sold in the marketplace. Of course, don’t ever tell anybody that they’re not free, ’cause then they’re gonna get real busy killin’ and maimin’ to prove to you that they are. Oh, yeah, they’re gonna talk to you, and talk to you, and talk to you about individual freedom. But they see a free individual, it’s gonna scare ’em.
Billy: Well, it don’t make ’em runnin’ scared.
George Hanson: No, it makes ’em dangerous. Buh, neh! Neh! Neh! Neh! Swamp!
#Sunday Thought
Summer is starting to truly heat up!!!
Thank you for all the hours that you have done this far!!
(Keep sending your hours in!! -With the subject line “reporting hours”)
The quote for this delightful Sunday is:
It does not matter how slowly you go as long as you do not stop. –Confucius
Keeping going – keep doing – YOU ARE A MOVING DIFFERENCE!!!
#Throwback Wednesday/Thursday
Instead of a guest blogger this week, we are doing a throwback post from our very first Moving Difference year…. yup – 2012.
It seems like yesterday, but the truth is two years has flashed by and we are now here in this moment… the current moment.
If this is your first time reading this post, welcome and enjoy – if you remember it from years ago, then it is a friendly reminder to update your wishes…
And as always, be bold.
Originally posted in July 22, 2012
Let my life speak for itself.
Sometimes in my life, I take on the world and lose. Sometimes in my life, I take on the world and win, all of the rest of the time are a draw.
But it is my life and I live it to the fullest, all throttle and on the fringes just about everyday. There are a lot of things that many people don’t know about me, and that is fine with me. You don’t need to know me to know that I will gladly help you if I can, you just need to know that you can get help when you need it. I live my life as close to no regrets, some mercy, full justice and simple compassion as I can get.
I tell you this because none of us know the future. Card readers, horoscopes even trick knees can only paint what might happen to us each in the future. The future actually lies in us and what we do in our lives to that last moment can speak volumes about our lives themselves.
That is what I want to talk to you about – that last moment. The moment where death happens, where a shell of a body and a soul separate, where you go wherever you are to go and you are gone.
Death- a subject that something happy like the Moving Difference project probably shouldn’t talk about. Wrong! Death, like time, tide and taxes happen. It happens to each of us at some point, and it will happen, you and I can’t change that fact.
So why bring death up? Because in my life, I have known a great number of people that always put off what they should have taken care of today and I still know a few. I know people that are afraid of death, even I am. I know that the only way sometimes with something like death is to meet it head on and deal with it.
Here is the thing: This is a very personal side of me that I am going to share with you. It isn’t easy but if it helps one person out, then it was worth it.
I know that death will happen to me, I don’t know the when and where and I am not certainly encouraging it to come pay me a visit. But I have sat down and I thought about organ donation, about donating my body and about what to do with my remains.
Now stop freaking out – this is important. This is being a moving difference way after I am gone. Taking the hour to think about this, to write down wishes and to have the forethought to face death with a positive is courageous. It is time to be bold.
For me personally, I have decided that if my organs can be used to help someone else, then please take them. I don’t need them at that point and if they help someone else, great! After that, please ship my body to medical students to learn on. Have those future brains of tomorrow poke, test and learn. I can only hope that they find the solutions to the diseases of the world. And after that, cremated me. There is no reason for my whole body to be put in a box and put in the earth. Ashes are just fine. In fact, I am going to have my ashes put in a man-made concrete reef, and then that reef goes out to one of the eroding coast lines to help stop the wave erosion. The fishes and other aquatic life forms get to feed and live in that reef as it protects the shoreline.
For me, there is no reason to be a named slab in a garden of stone. I don’t want people to visit me and put more dead things on my grave after I am gone. It would be a waste, because I am not there. At that point, I have lived my life, and you knew me or you didn’t, either way I probably will not be interested in what kind of flowers you bring. See when I am gone, I am gone, I either did my life right or not. The simple fact remains there are no reasons for me not to have my body go forward to help others – humans or animals or the world.
Let’s face it; no one wants to talk about death. Death of themselves, or a loved one or any one, it is a scary subject. It is a hard subject no matter your beliefs, but it is a subject that should be thought about and discussed. I hope you have the courage to think about it, to discuss it and write down your decisions in a timely fashion.
My decisions are written down and written above. They are extremely personal to me. They are extremely hard to make public too. I share these decisions with you not to make you fearful. I share so that you will stop and think about it. See, I don’t want to leave this life that I have, I love my life, I love many things in it but in that same moment, I know that I will face death someday, so I am going to deal with it and move on. I know that by me taking the time and making these decisions, by thinking about that unpleasant thought of death, I am staying true to myself, to my entire life’s work and even into the future. I am taking away the unknown, and making it a known. I don’t know when that last moment is coming – asleep on the couch; in a hospital; skydiving or whenever. I might be scared out of my mind or laughing, I don’t know. Yet when that last moment of my life happens, I am going to go into it knowing that I have done everything that I could to let my life speak for itself. I am going to go on giving and be a difference even after my death. There is strength and comfort in knowing that death doesn’t have any power over me. Bottom line is even death isn’t going to stop me from doing what I already do every day – be a Moving Difference.
Be bold, my friends, live life to the fullest every day.
Reasons – Reasons – Reasons
We all have our reasons why we do something and why we don’t do something, but do we have a reason to search for a reason?
It is a rather interesting question.
I give this example that happened just today.
We are waiting at a stop light, traffic is bad, there is a man, he has a sign that says he is hungry.
We only have $5 between us in cash, just a $5 and that is it. We don’t usually give more than $2 dollars, but there was something in the actions of the man and in the eyes, you could tell he was hungry.
The traffic is still bad, we haven’t moved, we talked to each other and it is decided that the best use of this $5 right then and there, was to give it to the guy. The reason – we had food at home, he didn’t. We had a home, he had a backpack and it was in that moment – we knew….
This isn’t the happily ever after story – this is the part of the story where it gets weird.
We roll down the window and call the man over in a friendly manner, with the $5 in hand to give to him.
We smile, we say this is all we have, hope it helps, the man asks if we are Christians- puzzled by the question, we reply no but here is some money to help with that hunger, the man asks if we are Jewish, mmm no – we are not religious is our reply – the man starts to rant at us that he has given all his worldly possessions away to follow Christ – our reply is okay – awkward pause – the man continues to tell us that he has been robbed, molested and a few other things in his journey across the country…another awkward silence… then the rant goes to the gold standard and the Nixon era… awkward is an understatement at this point.
Finally I ask – do you want the money or not?
The man says “no” and a few other things with regards to us needing to find Christ and walks off.
The window is back up, the a/c is on and we are still in traffic, this time stunned into the awkwardness of what just happened. The worst part is that isn’t even the strangest encounter that both of us have had.
Then we continue with traffic, trying to find the reason that just happened.
The reason.
Mental health, homeless, poverty, drugs.
We sought a reason for the strange behavior, the rant and the hat.
We wanted to explain it away, but there is no logical answer to it.
I will never know why that guy had a sign saying he was hungry but didn’t accept my monetary donation for food. I don’t see the reason, and after thinking hard about it, I don’t need a reason either.
He didn’t know my reason to give, I don’t know his reason to refuse.
See, my reason to give is equally as valuable as his reason to refuse.
It doesn’t matter if I am Jewish, Black, Christian, Hispanic, Muslim, Woman, White, Man, alien, something else, all of it, or none of it. What matters is that I didn’t turn the search for the reason into an excuse not to try again to help someone else or to justify this man’s actions.
Everybody has the right to refuse accepting help whether poor or rich or in-between.
Everybody has the privilege to give what they wish whether poor or rich or in-between.
It took me several hours to stop looking for a reason in this guy’s actions, and start thinking -I hope finds what he is looking for- and let it go. Moving on the next thing in life….
We all have our reasons, our beliefs, our thoughts, our hopes and even our excuses.
I leave you with this –
“For every action there is an equal and opposite re-action.” Newton’s Third Law on Motion.
AND the lyrics from an old Buddy Guy song….
I sat my little child down
when he was old enough to know
I said I fell in this big wide world
You’re gonna meet all kinds of folks
I said son it all comes down to just one simple rule
That you treat everybody just the way
You want them to treat you
Yeah
Skin Deep Skin Deep
Underneath we’re all the same
Skin Deep
Skin Deep
Underneath we’re all the same
We’re all of the same
#Sunday Thought Week 4
Straight up – simple thought for Sunday!
Do what you can, where you are, with what you have. –Teddy Roosevelt
#Guest Blogger A view of afar
Hey MDY3ers,
This week has been crazy personally for me and for those who do everything and the kitchen sink, you understand. The week started with best intentions and somewhere by Sunday afternoon, it went into crisis mode and stayed there.
And for doing everything for MDY3 from my kitchen table to the virtual world to MDY3 staffers’ kitchen tables, well, the pile only got higher and deeper – and the rest of the world stuff was on top of it…. so very early this morning (Saturday) I started attacking the piles and that leads us here…
Our guest bloggers for this week are Sonja and Mike. They live in Venezuela and they are some of the kindest people I know. They did what many can only dream of, they made caring their life work. By walking away from the legal and construction fields to start a lifetime of caring for kids in a different country. They learned more of a new language & made family and financial sacrifices all in the pursuit to care a bit deep and to love stronger – to give forward.
Please read and enjoy and then do something….. 🙂
Create Ripples. I Double-Dog Dare You!
If there is anyone more renowned than Mother Teresa for their personal sacrifice to help others, their name escapes me. She once said “I alone cannot change the world, but I can cast a stone across the waters to create many ripples.” The “Missionaries of Charity” began with a small band of 12 nuns in 1950 and grew to over 4, 500 operating orphanages in 133 countries around the world. There’s no way to count (or at least no public record) of the number of volunteers who are working diligently on a daily basis or those who might visit for shorter periods of time. But I think it’s safe to say, there are literally millions of people involved with this organization.
Okay, so maybe living a life of avowed poverty on the dirty streets of Calcutta isn’t for everyone. I get that. We have lives. Families. Hobbies. You don’t have to have a passport to make a difference. But you do have to a purpose–a reason, a resolve and an intention.
When my step-son was in middle school and then high school, he was required to complete several hours of community service in order to graduate. Now, as any good parent would do, we asked Jon where he’d like to volunteer his time. His top two choices were the Humane Society and Habit for Humanity. Excellent. But both of those organizations required–you guessed it–parental supervision!
Kitty Kuddlers and Dog Walkers unite!
With school, homework, sports, our jobs, lots of family and myriad of other activities it was difficult to find the time. But we made it work, and we had fun doing it. When the hours were completed, we tried other things. Like volunteering to serve Thanksgiving dinners at a local rescue mission or helping a single-moms ministry. There were lots of opportunities to help others in the community.
Eventually, my husband got to go on a short term missions trip to Prague. A team member couldn’t go at the last minute, and Mike was asked to replace him. It was a great experience and one that he enjoyed so much, when the next trip was announced to El Salvador, he didn’t hesitate to sign up! After he returned, he encouraged me to join a medical team that was going to the same area. That started our love affair with missions that landed us in Venezuela full time working at a children’s home called Samuel’s House!
Some of the kids here come from atrocious circumstances. One boy’s head was essentially used as a “dart board”, only they were sharpened pencils thrown at him. Others were permitted to be raped in exchange for drugs or other things. But this stuff is not limited to Venezuela or other developing countries.
The US Department of State estimates between 14,500-17,500 people (mainly women and children) are trafficked to the US. There are over 100,000 children in the foster care system waiting to be adopted and every year, more than 20,000 “age out” of the system. One-forth of our nations children grow up without learning to read. And this directly relates to high juvenile crime, welfare, and teen-age pregnancy rates.
Hunger. Juvenile delinquency. Teen pregnancy. Eating disorders. Alcohol abuse and binge drinking. Texting while driving. Environmental issues. Animal rights. For just about every problem, there is a “cause” purporting to have the solution. “The greatness of a society is measured by how it treats its weakest members.” I believe people were not intended to live in isolation. We were meant to live in community. To me, this implies shared responsibility. Responsibility not only for the mess we’re in, but also responsibility to clean up after ourselves.
You can’t do it all, but you can do something. Pick up a stone and wing it. Cause some ripples. You could start at your local library. Or maybe a nearby senior center. We are an aging society and many of our elderly are left without friends and family. Feeding centers or food banks; a local rescue mission; a nearby school. Make an investment of your time, your expertise. You can reap great rewards.
#Sunday Thought Week 3
After a VERY busy Fourth of July Weekend, I am glad it is actually Sunday.
I need a nap from all this weekend activities!
But alas, last night as the skies unfold until an array of twinkling lights….I think of this past week and the words of Dr. Mae Jemison the First African-American Woman in Space…..
“It’s your place in the world; it’s your life. Go on and do all you can with it, and make it the life you want to live.”
I think I will skip the nap and go help out on a few Moving Difference projects happening in the area! 🙂
Hope to see you out there!!
Happy long weekend? #MDY3
Hey MDY3ers!
Since MDY3 is an international thing, it is hard to wish a Happy Fourth of July to the world, but if you aren’t in America, then you might be taking the special long summer escape or watching the World Cup from your desk…. so with this in mind, the MDY3 headquarters voted to just wish everybody no matter where in the world they are a great weekend…. nice huh?
So have a great weekend!
Be safe, do good and love life a bit more!
And keep reporting those lovely hours – it is so wonderful to read all the good happening in the world because of people like you….
Thanks from everybody at MDY3!!!
Thanks!!
A view from a different brain #Guest Blogger
Hello MDY3ers!!!
Thank you for all the wonderful emails and the amazing amount of hours that you ALL are putting in!!
We have another Guest Blogger!! This week’s guest blogger is the talented Theresa of Tess & Co.. And we are very lucky to have her as her talents keep her super-duper busy!!! So read her guest blog on what giving is all about to Ms. Theresa….
P.S. you can follow her on twitter or check out her website!!
Take it away Ms. Theresa!!!
Hi! It’s the Fourth of July – and one of my favorite holidays! There’s just so much to celebrate: happiness, good food, family, fireworks, brass bands, bunting, honor, sacrifice and strength. It is a wonderful gift to be a part of the greatest nation on earth. It’s a nation that generations of people have spent or given their lives to build – and now it’s our turn, our privilege.
It is exciting to think that we have a chance to take our turn at service. And there is so much to do! That might make you think of grand, big things like non-profit organizations and benefits and children’s hospitals. But I think the first thing, and greatest thing, is to change the way you think.
You are a force for change in this world. Why not make it a positive one?
When 9/11 happened, my choice was to join the US Air Force and do what I could to make that change happen. I’ve served in deployments around the world, taken enemy mortar fire, planned troop operations to stop those that kill, and I’ve hugged little girls with tears in their eyes because they held a book in their hands for the first time.
I think every moment is made of active choices. The choice to smile instead of frown, to give instead of take. And it’s your choice. That’s a freedom you have. I heard someone once say that they wanted to live their life in such a way as to get a good obituary at the end of it. How much better to build yourself a ‘living obituary’? I mean, what if you lived each day in the manner in which you want to be remembered?
A smile for a smile, enjoyed between you right now, not after you’re gone.
Or, a smile for a frown, which turns to a smile tomorrow – and you were there to see it.
Let’s enjoy each day we’ve been given – no matter what it looks like! One of the greatest freedoms we have is our mental choice to make it a great day – a positive day. Life is so much more than ‘just get through it’.
I’ve seen so many deployments come and go – for others and for me. You usually start with ‘just get through it’ and get back home. Those are always the hardest to bear. Every day is painful, every day feels longer than the last. The odd thing is that you enjoy, you live, you truly grow in a deployment if you make it about each moment. And the more you live this way, the more people you collect around you that think the same.
In my deployment to Afghanistan, I saw my small effort of a few children’s blankets in my off-duty hours turn into 6 tons of supplies shipped in from all over the world. We came up with so much to give, that it took a joint military & Afghan government operation to deliver our pallets of positive change.
One change in how you think can create a new kind of world. Do it!
(Photographs courtesy of Tess and Co., all rights reserved.)
Moving Difference 