Get Up! A Great Story!

Each week I try to send our team at work a little weekly inspiration to start the week of right.  I sent this to our team a few weeks back and had to share it with everyone today.  I think it is a great story with an important message for all of us.  Everyone needs to continue to dream big in this day and age, life is not easy but if you set your eyes on a goal or a dream and keep trying for it then it will come true.  It's about your internal self saying "Let's go, and keep on keeping on" when you are down or something doesn't go your way. Interestingly enough I have found that despite being an emotional person I feel like when something is not going right or something bad happens that I am good at handling crisis's.  The reason is because when something happens instead of feeling bad for myself, I say " How can I make this better".  The power of attitude is an amazing thing, now mind you depending on what it is I will complain to someone about it but normally just try to fix it and move on.  Enjoy the day!

Get Up

Bringing a giraffe into the world is a tall order. A baby giraffe falls 10 feet from its mother's womb and usually lands on its back. Within seconds it rolls over and tucks its legs under its body. From this position it considers the world for the first time and shakes off the last vestiges of the birthing fluid from its eyes and ears. Then the mother giraffe rudely introduces its offspring to the reality of life.

In his book, "A View from the Zoo", Gary Richmond describes how a newborn giraffe learns its first lesson.
The mother giraffe lowers her head long enough to take a quick look. Then she positions herself directly over her calf. She waits for about a minute, and then she does the most unreasonable thing. She swings her long, pendulous leg outward and kicks her baby, so that it is sent sprawling head over heels.

When it doesn't get up, the violent process is repeated over and over again. The struggle to rise is momentous. As the baby calf grows tired, the mother kicks it again to stimulate its efforts. Finally, the calf stands for the first time on its wobbly legs.

Then the mother giraffe does the most remarkable thing. She kicks it off its feet again. Why? She wants it to remember how it got up. In the wild, baby giraffes must be able to get up as quickly as possible to stay with the herd, where there is safety. Lions, hyenas, leopards, and wild hunting dogs all enjoy young giraffes, and they'd get it too, if the mother didn't teach her calf to get up quickly and get with it.

The late Irving Stone understood this. He spent a lifetime studying greatness, writing novelized biographies of such men as Michelangelo, Vincent van Gogh, Sigmund Freud, and Charles Darwin.

Stone was once asked if he had found a thread that runs through the lives of all these exceptional people. He said, "I write about people who sometime in their life have a vision or dream of something that should be accomplished and they go to work.

"They are beaten over the head, knocked down, vilified, and for years they get nowhere. But every time they're knocked down they stand up. You cannot destroy these people. And at the end of their lives they've accomplished some modest part of what they set out to do."

- Craig B. LarsonIllustrations for Preaching & Teaching from Leadership Journal

Love & Babies

Well I am failing miserabley on one of my very important  New Years goals to stay consistent with my blog.  I have not written since January 18th, and for somewhat good reason.  I have been trying to just relax, and rest.  January 19th was the magical day when we found out that we are expecting our first miracle baby.  Now going into my 14th week I am still in shock about this entire experience, but embracing every moment  and the rollercoaster of emotions that goes along with knowing that there is this small little person growing inside of me.  I have been so fortunate throughout the past eight weeks to have no morning sickness, only occasional bouts of nauseau, and really an overall good level of energy.  Now mind you I have not been able to avoid all of the early symptoms of  pregnancy and I will refrain from sharing the other "symptoms" on this blog. Yet to say the least it has not been 100% perfect but pretty close.  I feel so, so, so, so, so, a million times fortunate for this, since I have heard so many difficult stories from close friends about how sick they were in their first trimester.  Traveling as much as I do, I don't know how I would have dealt with the sickness.  One of the things I believe has helped has been working out regularly, it has helped my energy and kept my spirits up when my raging hormones have left me feeling blah.  We heard the babys heartbeat at 9 weeks, and had our second ultrasound just this past week and it is now starting to really hit me.  Just writing this brings tears to my eyes, (well pretty much everything does at this point in time).  It was the most amazing feeling to hear the babys heartbeat, and see its tiny little body taking shape in my stomach.  For a girl that once said five years ago " I am never having children" it makes me laugh at my naiveness, and feel so blessed for this miracle.  To lead off of that I will share some thoughts that  I have been wanting to write even before we knew we were going to be bringing a little munchkin into this world and it is my theory on love and babies.

One of the most interesting things I have noticed in sharing the news with people is how they want to know whether or not John and I were "trying to have a baby".  That leads me to my theory on first love, and then I will tell you my theory on babies.  I guess some would say I am a  hopeless romantic, but I am one that believes that all of us truly has someone out there that is their soulmate.  Lucky for me I found my soulmate a long time ago, and thank god everyday for finding this amazing person to share my life with.  But my theory is as follows.  In order to truly love someone else fully, I believe you have to be happy with who you are as a person, love yourself first, and be happy with where you are going in your life.  This is what happened with JMS and I, we were friends first, grew apart, and then grew together.  Through those growth experiences I believe it has helped us have a stronger friendship, marriage and love for one another. 
             Now you are probably wondering how this ties into the "were you trying" question.  My theory has always been that when you are happy and satisfied with your marriage and your goals are aligned that is when you can start to think about having a baby.  Well obviously a baby is an entirely different ball game. Conversations about bringing a baby into this world were a regular occurence for JMS and I since before we had even tied the knot.  We had always known we wanted to start a family in time, but JMS is the one that pointed out the day he believed that he knew we were ready or I was ready to have a baby.  That day was January 9th, 2011.  My biggest fear like many out there was bringing a baby into this world that we live in, with violence, and hatred, and all of the bad things we hear about everyday on TV. That scared me to death, we repeatedly hear from people all around us that the world is a different place now then ever before.  When the shootings happened in Tucson, and the little 9 year old girl was killed there was a news clipping about how she was "Involved in everything in her school, and wanted to be a politician" Something hit me with that story and JMS and I were driving home from dinner one night talking about this devastating tragedy and I said "I am ready to have a baby because I want us to bring a person into this world that is going to make it a better place"  and JMS looked at me and said "You're ready to have a baby" and he was right.  At that point whenever we found out we were going to have a baby it was going to be perfect, I can say we didn't necesarrily think ten days later we would be jumping around our bedroom on a Weds. morning saying "We're having a baby".   Although the next six months will be filled with emotions, excitement and anxiety being at the top of the list I am mentally prepared for our little bundle of joy to make our lives that much sweeter, and for us to teach our child all of the things that we can to make them the best person they can be and to make our world a better, brighter place in the future.