Things I learned in 2008

Put the cats in the bedroom BEFORE painting the inside of the cabinets. It will save you the headache of mopping up kitty footprints throughout the kitchen.

Don’t depend on others for your happiness. I will be disappointed every time. We’re only human, you know?

I must love myself before I can love others. Otherwise I won’t have anything genuine to offer anybody else.

Hard work will produce great results. Alicia showed this with the hard hours she put into Drama and they paid off with their Regional, State, and National Competition wins along with their invitation to perform in Scotland this coming August. I also experienced the wisdom of this statement with my weight loss journey. Having lost 40 pounds in 4 months, is a true miracle!

There is no time like the present. Why put off anything until tomorrow, when you can work on it today? God never promises us a tomorrow.

Weight loss is both a physical and emotional journey that can only be accomplished through a lifestyle change. Fad diets are a crock. They are only around long enough for their companies to make billions of dollars off of gullible fat people. The fat people spend all their money and still don’t lose weight, thinking it can’t POSSIBLY be as a direct result of their refusal to eat less and exercise more, so they try the next up-and-coming fad. It’s an endless cycle that I choose to no longer be a part of.

Things are closer than they appear. When Alicia and I were at a local department store (who’s logo is a red target), I got frustrated looking for sewing needles. So I finally found one of those help telephones and picked up asking for help. A sales associate showed up, and promptly showed me that the needles were in the next aisle over, on the end, less than TWO FEET from where I was standing. Alicia stills gives me grief about this one whenever I can’t find anything in a store.

Friends are the best things in life. When trials and tribulations come, only then can you best gauge your friendships and their strength. And I have found great solace in those friendships this past year and am blessed to have such great friends!

It’s ok to ask for help. Even though I am the one who is always trying to help others, it’s ok to be the one who needs the help. And it’s even ok to ask for it and accept it. That was a hard lesson learned after Hurricane Katrina, finally accepting a generator and some gasoline one week after Katrina. But it was something God used to reveal His mercy and grace to me, through my friends. And this year was full of times when I needed to accept love and support from my friends. And I humbly asked and received.

"Working" vacations are not true vacations. Whether at a comic book convention, standing in long, hot lines for hours obtaining autographs, or traveling 750 miles to escape Hurricane Gustav, and sitting at a laptop typing medical summaries non-stop over Labor Day weekend, neither of these are vacations. And so from this day forth, I will no longer call them as such.

It’s ok to be happy. It’s ok for me to help others, but not to the detriment of myself. I am not going to use this as an opportunity to become selfish, but I am no longer going to neglect my own needs.

Tie up the Christmas tree before the cat climbs up inside of it, toppling it. Saves time, and helps prevent breakage of ornaments. Plus your cat won’t lose one of his nine lives.

Necessity is the mother of creativity. When moving into a much smaller house, with minimal storage, and cabinets that are so high that I can only reach the bottom shelf (This is true), it’s amazing what little gadgets and things one can come up with to make live a little bit more bearable.

I am the only one responsible for my actions, even though others may be affected by those actions.

God remains in control. With this nugget, I should be able to handle anything thrown my way this year.