New Year, New Life, New Perspective in Life

So today is the last day of the year 2013, my favorite year. Why is it my favorite year? First of all my favorite number is 13!! Second of all, I believe this year has brought many beautiful things in my life along with some not so beautiful, like my divorce, but with every thing that happens, good or bad there is always something that we learn and that we get out of every experience.

This was the year that my first born turned 13 and I am glad to have been able to give her a birthday party even though she wasn't going to be with me on her actual birthday. Just like my babies will not be with me as the year comes to an end and a new one begins, but come January 2nd my babies will be back with me once more.

I want to take the time to Thank God for everything he has given me this year.

Thank you God for:

My beautiful daughters, they are my life and without them I would be lost. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to have them with me and be healthy and happy and help me raise them good, with good values and love for you God.

Thank you for providing me with a nice home, big enough for us and that we have nice things.

Thank you for my job God, for my co-workers, and my boss. Thank you for letting me know that at my job I have a second family and because it provides me with challenges and enough money to sustain myself and my daughters.

Thanks God for my family, because I have my grandparents still alive and they are still strong at 91. Thank you for my mom, and my aunt and my cousins and my brother and my sister and my dad and everyone else who can be considered my family, may it be by blood or not, because family are those who you keep in your heart.

God Thanks for my Church, because I have found an amazing Church with an Amazing Pastor, because I can truly say that he is honest and a true man of God. Someone I can look up to for advice and for support and for encouragement and because he's a great role model.

God, thanks for my car, even though I have a love/hate relationship with it, it has helped me to get to and from places and it has facilitated many great moments with my family and friends.

Thanks God for my Best Friends, Tania, Nancy and Vini because they have been there for me in good times and bad times. And this past week when I have been alone without my girls on the holidays they have helped me have a GREAT time. I love you guys!!

Thank you God, for all these things, and for the Sky, and the clouds and for Manta Rays and for Music and Photography and Internet and Life!

God, I am really grateful for what you have given me this year, for every smile, and every tear, for every tiny bit of happiness and every great and amazing moment when you have allowed me to feel loved even if just for a moment.

Thank you Lord, for with you all things are possible!!!

May the new year bring many blessings to all and may you be able to Thank God yourself for all the blessings he will give you.

What are you grateful for coming the new Year?

Being Thankful and Other Things

 

This is the Season, the Holidays are right around the corner and we just finished celebrating Thanksgiving, and with that I think that comes a time of Reflection on what are we Thankful for.

Today at Church the Pastor talked about how we should be thankful for God's Grace and do so with out grumbling. He discussed the scripture John 5:1-15 that talks about a man who was at a Healing Pool and he had been ill for 38 years, when asked he started putting blame on others John 5:7 , then Jesus heals him and he walks away, without saying Thanks, and then when the Religious Leaders scold him for carrying a mat on the Sabbath, he has no problem throwing Jesus under the bus by directing to him the "Fault" of why he was carrying the mat  John 5:9-11. Basically he grumbled. He was not grateful and he redirected blame on others for whatever happened to him.

What am I trying to get at here? We Should Not Grumble. I have a really good friend who woke up today grumbling, he had stuffy nose, tooth ache, he had to go to work, he complained about this, and that. When I showed him a picture of the amazingly beautiful sky he got upset because he hasn't been able to take a picture with that kind of sky as a background. He was grumbling. I tried to change his mood, or at least get him distracted from his grumpiness and told him to think about how amazing his pictures will be when he does take those pictures with that kind of sky as a background. Then I changed the subject, and I think it worked because he did not grumble any more after that. :)

The curious thing is that I experienced this with him in the morning before Church and then at Church I hear this message that helped me notice this and  then I started thinking that I don't grumble. I'm grateful every day for everything. I don't complain.  But then I begin to grumble myself.  I grumble when I see happy couples because I am transitioning into divorce and I see these four couples that I know closely that are also recently divorced and they are currently with a new partner, and seem to be extremely happy.  But I'm not. I grumble because I can't understand how can a couple break up and soon after be in an amazing relationship, and why I am not in a wonderful relationship. I grumble when I see these couples posting pictures of themselves on facebook, hugging, smiling, in gatherings. Bleh!!! It makes me want to puke!! But that's just what I say on the outside. Because the truth is that I want that! I want the wonderful relationship just like them.  But at the same time I realize that all these couples seem to be best friends, and I never had that. In all my years of life I have never had a partner who started off being my best friend. Never! Can you believe that? I can't! But I believe that is the KEY! I need to learn to have a best friend first so it can end up in a relationship.I must say that before my husband left, I did not have any best friends since middle school. After he left, I found several amazing people who are my Best Friends! 

We should be grateful, everyday. We should notice when good things are happening to us, and be grateful. Now it's my turn, because I am now grateful that I have been experiencing what true friendship is. Whether it be with a girl or a guy, these friendships that I have developed are helping me learn to deal with other people, to know what a close knit friend is. And they have become my family, my extended family.

I thank God for allowing me to learn from my experiences, so that I can evolve into the person I am supposed to be. Because by being a better person, and a better friend, I will open up the path to a new partner in my life.

What are you Thankful for? In which ways do you sometimes grumble? What steps can you take to stop grumbling and start being grateful?

Back from our Holiday Weekend in Rhode Island

Like you must already know, we weren't able to spend the Thanksgiving with my husband, but my friend April invited us to spend it with her family in Rhode Island since her sister was getting married. I agreed and we headed out to Rhode Island from Brooklyn and it took us approximately 4 hours.

April had a full schedule out for us, unfortunately I woke up a bit sick that day and I ended up getting worse as we drove, and by the time we got to Rhode Island I was out of voice (and still am).

We got to a place where we met with April's family, they were all gathered eating Thanksgiving Dinner, we ate and met some of the family as they were quite a bit of people. After dinner we went to April's mom's house and got settled in, and waited anxiously for the next day.

We woke up and had breakfast and headed out for some shopping at a Thrift Store called Savers, the girls got a few things to entertain themselves and then we headed out to have Lunch at a cool small town place and then we went Ice Skating. The very first time we ever Ice Skate, even though we have an Ice Skating Rink right here in NYC. But I guess we had to travel across several states to do this. I never expected to be able to do it, as it seemed to be so hard, but quickly we were able to get the hang of it and have fun in the ice, even 5 y/o Elsie was able to move in the ice with grace.

After going Ice Skating we stopped at the house for a minute and then we got ready to go to La Sallette Shrine it is an AMAZING place, it's all filled with lights and it's breathtaking, there is no way to describe the beauty of it all. But it is a place I highly recomend.

We did so much in this long 4 day weekend that I'm not going to go into details but let's just say that we had fun, and then on Saturday we went to Elizabeth's wedding and then after the wedding we drove back home, and stopped at Friendly's on our way and ate some Ice Cream.

We got home at 2:30am and spent most of the day on Sunday in bed watching TV, but we were all feeling sick so we decided to go to the doctor and in fact we all had throat infections and are taking on one more day of  rest at home.

So this was our Thanksgiving Weekend! What did you guys all do?

What does Thanksgiving mean to you?

Source: womansday.com via Elle on Pinterest

Well, Thanksgiving is fast approaching and I still have Halloween decorations on my walls and I started thinking about what this holiday means to me.

Lately I have been hearing about people who totally bash the holiday due to the Historical associations, but to me, Thanksgiving is not a day where I remember the pilgrims or the Indians or anything like that, to me is a day to sit down with family and friends to eat Turkey. :)

But it is not just about Turkey (now writing about it it's making me hungry) it's about taking the time to think about all the things that we are grateful for. And I must say I am sad that I will not have my family with me this Thanksgiving, but I will spend Wednesday with my sister-in-law and my cousin-in law to have dinner and then on Thursday I will be going to my friend's family's house to have Thanksgiving Dinner and the next day to her sister's wedding.

I am sad that my husband is going to be out of town for Thanksgiving, and I miss him so much. But I am grateful to have him as my husband and the father of my daughters and I know that we will be spending Christmas together and that makes me happy.

What does Thanksgiving mean to you? Do you celebrate it? Is it just about the turkey? Or do you take the time to be grateful for all the blessings that you have?