Adina's Cute & Perky Blog!

I will remember…

Adina — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 15:45:13 +0000

I had the opportunity to listen to someone tell his story the other day.

A man came in my office to take care of some business, but he left a story with me that I’m sure will stay in my heart for a long time.

A few months ago, he lost his wife of twenty-seven years.

He was only forty-five years old. That seemed so young to be married for such a long time.

But he went on to tell me that she was fourteen and he was eighteen when they married! Wow!

For all intents and purposes, they had raised each other.

And after a lengthy battle, she succumbed to cancer just a few months ago.

He stood there for the longest time talking about her.

Regina.

The love of his life.

He loved her.

He loved her with a love so deep, I felt like I could see it. Love you could see in action, word, and deed.

Love must look like the look he had on his face when he said her name.

He told me how hard it was to open the closet and see her clothes, shoes, and purses. Things that brought her joy at the time, but that he doesn’t know what to do with.

And then of course, everything reminds him of her.

He talked about trying to sit down and write thank-you notes for the flowers and kind gestures, but the box of notes has her picture on it.

When he opens it up, a flood of memories hit him. So he closes it.

He didn’t cry during the entire time he was talking to me, but you could see the tears were there.

He wanted to cry.

Wanted to.

But what he said sticks with me.

“I could feel sorry for myself, but I don’t. I figure I had something most people search for, but never find.

I remind myself of that when I feel kind of down.

We had our arguments like other married people do, but we were always OK when the sun went down.”

And even in death, his wife did not feel sorry for herself.

He told me:

“She would have bad days and snap. Then as quick as that, it was over. She would look at me and say, ‘I’m sorry. You didn’t deserve that.’

But I would tell her if you want to lay down on the floor and cry, I’ll lay there next to you and cry with you. If anyone’s earned the right to feel sorry for themselves, you have.”

He stayed a while longer and never did shed a tear.

I wanted to crawl under my desk and bawl. His words made my heart ache for him.

But he would not want me to feel sorry for him, and I will remember that this week and in the weeks to some.

I will remember not to feel sorry for myself.

Because she didn’t and never does he.

And what is going on in my own life that even compares?

Sunday Quotes

Adina — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 04:15:25 +0000

The greatest mistake you can make in life is to be continually fearing you will make one. ~Elbert Hubbard, The Note Book, 1927Mistakes are part of the dues one pays for a full life. ~Sophia Loren

It was when I found out I could make mistakes that I knew I was on to something. ~Ornette Coleman

I never make stupid mistakes. Only very, very clever ones. ~John Peel

Never say, “oops.” Always say, “Ah, interesting.” ~Author Unknown

If you don’t make mistakes, you’re not working on hard enough problems. And that’s a big mistake. ~F. Wikzek

Saturday Quotes

Adina — Sat, 19 Sep 2009 18:11:10 +0000

Football games on Thursday and Friday.

UFC 103 tonight - hoping for lots of blood and knockouts.

Olympia next weekend.

I think I’m officially a guy!!!

I paint objects as I think them, not as I see them.
Pablo Picasso

I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free.
Michelangelo

If everyone is thinking alike, then somebody isn’t thinking.
George S. Patton

It’s not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see.
Henry David Thoreau

Live out of your imagination, not your history.
Stephen Covey

Saturday Quote for the Day!

Adina — Sat, 19 Sep 2009 18:10:51 +0000

Football games on Thursday and Friday.

UFC 103 tonight - hoping for lots of blood and knockouts.

Olympia next weekend.

I think I’m officially a guy!!!

I paint objects as I think them, not as I see them.
Pablo Picasso

I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free.
Michelangelo

If everyone is thinking alike, then somebody isn’t thinking.
George S. Patton

It’s not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see.
Henry David Thoreau

Live out of your imagination, not your history.
Stephen Covey

Low Battery Blog

Adina — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 16:15:56 +0000

This is my official low battery blog!

I brought my laptop to the ballgame to write during the time between games. Jonah is in the band, so I get to stay through all of them.

Can you feel the joy here?

Four junior high football games in a row! Oh, the joy! Somebody hold me down. I might float away from the joy!

And OK, I won’t lie. I brought my wireless card so I could surf between games too. That’s a lot of football goodness, y’all! My people can’t sit idly for that long. We’re not wired that way. We’re just wired!

But when I fired it up my laptop, I realized my son had been using it at home sans plugging it in.

I had only 27% battery power left to make it through four games.

And so I had some decisions to make.

What becomes the priority when you only have 27% of your power but 100% things you need to do?

I could go answer those two facebook comments I’m dying to reply to.

I could check my E-mail.I could look for a recipe for homemade protein bars or check what’s going on at MD.

Or….I could write my Blog. The thing that makes me happy and starts my day off right.

There’s always choices.

Kind of like whether or not to do to the gym every day.

Some days are just 27% days.

Some days you only have time to get in 27% of what you need to do.

And well, during all this thinking time, my circumstances have changed.

I’m now down to 24%!

Oh…no!

I’m still thinking at this point…

Then I start weighing things out.

If I choose to do search and look, I’ll be thinking about my Blog and wishing I had done it.

And if that battery goes out, I’ll wish I did it.

But…I just looked and I’m at 24% still.

And you know, I can play on my Blackberry once I get this written.

Because…

If I don’t do it, I’ll spend all my battery time thinking about it.

I’ll end up thinking about it for longer than it would take to actually do it.

And then where would I be?

No battery and no Blog.

Because I’m at 23% now!

Time is wasting.

And…wait…it’s done!

Hmm…

Like with so many other things, it’s best to do what needs to be done first.

Because I still have battery power left to do other things.

And I won’t look back and wish I had played first when I go to bed with it done.

After you do all the things you need to do and have to do, there is usually plenty of play time left. Maybe not every day, but on most.

You just have to stop thinking everything takes so much of your battery…because some things that seem so big only take 4%.

And if you add up the 24 hours in a day…an hour at the gym is right at 4%.

And don’t we all have that?

The Race

Adina — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 00:13:34 +0000

I got just about the funniest text message I have ever received last night!

I was texting back and forth with a friend who was telling me something that was bothering him.

In response, I tell him, “I have a strange amount of sources for a regular girl. I can always fix things like that for you.”

I thought the conversation was over, so I set down my Blackberry.

(Side note: I love my Blackberry!)

Anyway…

A few minutes later I look down to see where I have missed a message from him.

And all I can see is, “How dare you…”

My heart sank.

I panicked, thinking, what did I say?

So I grabbed the phone to click the message open and see that he has said.

What I thought was bad, was really sweet.

“How dare you call yourself regular!”

And I don’t know why, but that made me laugh so hard!

That’s even what I told him, “I laughed so hard you’d be ashamed!”

And I’m sure he laughed too!

But you know what?

It took me a long time to learn to surround myself with people who don’t treat me like I’m a regular girl.

I mean, I am a regular girl to most of the world. That much is true.

But shouldn’t we all have the small group that treats us like we are irregular?

OK, well maybe that wasn’t the word I was looking for, but you get what I mean!

To this friend I am usually Chula. Sometime Mami.

I don’t even know what either one means, but I can tell they are good by how he says them.

And I used to push those people away and try to convince others to treat me special.

Until I learned to recognize the good around me. Recognize and accept it. No longer chasing what I did not need.

Like with my father for instance. I chased after that love for years. And it was just not to be.

And while I was busy doing that, I was missing out on so many of the joys of life.

Joy that was there all along.

Joy that I could not see because I was turned around running in the wrong direction.

You may cross the finish line if you run backwards long enough, but you’ll never win the race.

My Inner Guy

Adina — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 17:16:18 +0000

I am in touch with my inner guy this week.

I’ve got a football game to go to Friday.

Then I go to a UFC fight on Saturday.

We might squeeze a Ranger game in on Sunday, and then I go to the Olympia next week!

My, what a difference a few years can make!

I don’t have to look back very far to find a time when I would have worded it more like this…

I have an icky football game, a hot baseball game, and a gross bodybuilding show. And don’t even talk to me about a fight! That is out of the question!

So…what made the difference?

My son is now on the football team.

Magically, someone you love on the field can make you an instant fan of any sport. Go Bulldogs!

And baseball is not quite as hot anymore. It’s amazing how losing a hundred pound coat will cool you off! I enjoy going just to sit there and not sweat! I don’t even have to have a drink to cool me down!

Those UFC Fights aren’t bad either, because my sons enjoy them. I will never forget the excitement in the faces and voices of my sons that first fight. The tickets were expensive. The trip was expensive. But the experience was priceless.

And those bodybuilding shows…

What made me change my mind?

Truly, I remember looking at my first mag and finding it all odd.

But I would look.

Eventually, I bought one just to learn some new exercise.

I found myself going back for more new exercises.

One by one the lifters started catching my eye.

What once was strange became what I couldn’t get enough of!

And all of these changes occurred because I stepped outside my box!

I went to things and tried things with an open mind and came away with new love and appreciation for what I did not previously understand.

When I’m sitting in that auditorium barely a week from now, I don’t think I will be sitting there thinking, “I wish I had stayed in my box.”

Box over there…auditorium full of hot oiled up men in thongs over here.

Really…you should get out and try something new today.

You have no idea where you might end up!

Is your car OK?

Adina — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 15:28:07 +0000

I didn’t tell too many people about by birthday fender bender, because it wasn’t that big of a deal.

But…

There were a few I told because there would be trouble if I didn’t!

I sent out a quick letting-you-know message to two of the people who needed to know. Simply because I knew I would be in trouble if they saw my damaged car and I had not told them.

The responses could not have been more different.

One responded with, “Are you OK?”

The other with, “Is your car OK?”

HMMM…

I answered the first right away. I didn’t want him to worry. And the whole reason I told him in the first place was because he would know anyway! He just always knows.

The second?

I just let it hover there.

Unanswered.

I really wasn’t sure how to answer him.

I mean, do I say, “Yes. My car made it just fine. Thanks for asking?”

To be honest, it stung just a little bit.

But a few minutes later he sent me a text at work that said, “Answer your E-mail.”

Yeah…we do each other that way!

And then I looked at my work E-mail and there was a message there too. Basically asking the same thing, in the same insensitive way.

But…

I stopped and thought it through.

I considered his consistency in checking.

And I just had to chalk it up to the fact that the man just didn’t know how to ask.

Because some people just don’t, y’all!

And I was glad I had not responded to his first message yet…

Yet, I tell you!

Y’all want to think I let that one go, but I did not!

After the text and the work E-mail, I went back to that first message of the day and replied, “The car is fine. I am sore.”

Then came the call!

I got my point across!

And you know, I could have gone ahead and answered him right off the bat.

But somewhere in there, it mattered to me the way he asked. Basic human kindness always matters to me.

And I can hold off on answering any questions until it is displayed!

But just for fun, today I will send him a message asking, “Is your car OK?”

Choices

Adina — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 17:13:23 +0000

I’m not one to put much stock in horoscopes, but I do like to read them for my jollies from time to time. Especially on my birthday!

Yesterday, mine said:

Sometimes when our friends see us making serious progress towards our goals, they get a little upset because they think they might be losing us. This may be what is beginning today Virgo, in terms of their irritation. There could be one of two things happening with them: either they have lower standards and don’t want to change, or they are trying to make changes themselves but suffer from a fear of losing the old reliable comfort zone. There are two things you can do: either let them go or pull them up with you. At least you have a choice that does not compromise your own goals. They might tell you that it’s lonely at the top, but the truth is that it’s not: it’s just more crowded at the bottom.

I thought about those words for a while.

That last part got me.

They might tell you that it’s lonely at the top, but the truth is that it’s not: it’s just more crowded at the bottom.

I thought about the struggles I went through to make it to this point in my life.

And I thought about the friendships I have lost along the way.

Yes. I have lost some.

I lost some when I ceased to be fun to eat out with, because I only ordered healthy food.

Others when I decided to turn some of my friend time into gym time.

And believe it or not, I even lost a few over this Blog!

Keeping this Blog keeps me grounded.

Accountable.

So, I keep it.

There have been times I arrived late or left early to make sure I did got it written.

And two friends in particular did not like this new habit.

Not at all.

They see it as pointless.

Pointless, because it doesn’t mean anything to them.

Although it should, because it means I am happy!

And one of those two wants…to write.

But has yet to put the pen to the paper or the fingers to the keyboard.

But what did that horoscope say?

There are two things you can do: either let them go or pull them up with you.

I tried for a long time to pull some people with me.

But when I have to pull, that means I’m turned around backwards.

Dug in.

At a standstill.

Trying so hard to pull, that I am no longer pushing forward.

And while it hurts to let go, it would hurt more to let go of myself.

Some choices are not easy to make, but at least there are choices to be had.