Penny For My Thoughts

I found a penny on the street today.  At first I passed it by, but I walked a few steps back to retrieve it.  Why?  Let me share a brief tale.

Recently I read a book by Peter Shankman (Can We Do That?! Outrageous PR Stunts That Work - And Why Your Company Needs Them).  The book wasn't really in my wheel house, and for the life of me I can't remember why I bought it...oh, I remember, but I won't say why in this post.  Anyway.  I read the book twice.  It's about PR stunts, but what makes it relevant to me is that it's all about creativity.  How do you come up with creative ideas for PR stunts.  Part of the book said to do something different.  I don't care how many books you read on doing things different, you forget.  The routine takes over and you just do it.  I'm a little ashamed that with my new creative bent vis-a-vis my new writing career I got into a rut, but there it is.

So in the book is the advice to do something new, specifically getting off at a different subway stop.  I did the same thing yesterday, but the driving rain had my creative butt right back at a stop where I could get to work halfway dry.  Mission was not accomplished.  So I did it again today and ran into one of my old colleagues.  He and I were talking about my great life and his new political career.  Guess what?!  He is looking for a speech writer!  One of the dreams I have is to be the poet laureate like Maya Angelou was for the Clinton administration.  So teaming up with politics is right up there on my list.  So we keep talking and his birthday is coming up.  The big 4-0.  Well, also as a part of the book Peter gives this example of how he created a great bday party.  So I tell this guy how he can hook up the party with sponsors, local venues, and freebies!  He can tie everything into the community and get his voters out while getting his name out and then celebrating his birthday!  How cool...and just from changing my subway stop!  Oh, and reading the book, and hooking up with Rene who took me to Disney Social Media Moms where I heard Peter speak.  LOL  It goes way back.

So as I was beaming from all of that, I walk to my job which is on Wall Street.  As I'm walking I see this bright, shiny new penny.  Now I usually pic them up, but today I kind of passed it by.  I don't know why. The reason I pick them up is because it is a sign to the universe that you want the small things; that you take the gift no matter what it is.  I read that in a book, too.  And did you know Donald Trump collects pennies that he finds?  Yup!  Well, today while riding my high...I found this penny in front of TRUMP TOWER!  Whoo hoo!  That's why I had to pick it up.  I came out of my stupor for about ten seconds and realized what this penny actually meant TO ME.  It was just serendipitous.

And then to top off the day...and you can't get higher than this...I found in my inbox the Groupon for today was skydiving!  I'm afraid of heights, but I've always wanted to go.  I've heard so much about how if you jump from a plane everything else becomes easier in life.  You make quicker decisions because what decision is more critical than when your feet leave a plane and there is no jetway on the other side!  LOL  Whoa.  I can't believe it, but I did it.  And this may have been the first "major" purchase I had since I started working that I didn't have to even check my account or where money even had to be a consideration.  Life sure is getting better.

I just want to put out there that I don't believe in lucky pennies, but I do believe in symbolic memorabilia.  I'll try to keep that penny, but it doesn't matter.  The fact that I have one from in front of the Trump Tower on such a great day was enough.  (Oh, and the fact that I have two seconds to write about this the same day is a topper.)

Joelle and the Oreo

This is my first production! I'm so freaking excited. About to chop up everything I can find...

Bumps In The Road

Ah... I'm going to try to post more.  Once a week sounds like a good amount, but I'll try to do more.  I feel pretty blessed, and as a writer (yay!) the best way to become better is to write.  Use your instrument.

I was pretty excited the other day when singlemomweekly.com contacted me.  See, each ripple in the pond creates a bigger ripple, and I appreciate that, but it got me thinking as I do about the bumps in the road.  Every bump can stop you, but if you push through it, there is that other side that can give you some momentum.  It's like that for runners who have to take a hill at the beginning of a run and then coast down the other side.  Everything we do is like that.  We just have to make it through the grueling parts and just that one tweet from April at Single Mom Weekly has me moving a little better this week.

That's where my life is now.  And just like it is the darkest before the dawn...the bottom of those bumps are easy.  It's when you get to the top and can see that you might make it that your body, mind and spirit get weak and you think, "I can't," but "I CAN" and am.  This is probably my worst bump yet, and I need that momentum, but I'm getting stronger every day.  Of course, I want to be one of those people that doesn't have regrets, but I do.  I wish I had built my muscles that are impervious to pain and failure a lot sooner.  I've come back from zero so many times before, but never did I have another person's welfare intwined with my success schedule.  They say the first five years of a child's life is so important. I wish that I could lavish her for the first five before she's bogged down by school and such.  But on the other side I'm so proud that she can tell people, "My Mommy worked with me pulling on her breasts 90% of the time."  That would be cool if kids talked that way :-)

Anyway.  I'm just glad that I've made a small impact and thanks to April Storm at SingleMomWeekly for reaching out to me.  It is definitely part of the light I see at the very very very far end of the tunnel.  I don't consider myself a single mom, but I'll give you guys a glimpse of why and how I'm coming to terms of that in my next post.

Seeing Your Dreams

Heat.

I weigh X amount of pounds.

Move.

Those were three things I had on my dream board about eight years ago.  I can't remember what my goal weight was at that time, but I can say that now I'm proudly 160.  That's two pounds lighter than when I got pregnant a few years ago and from what I hear that's an amazing feat.

My dream board seems pretty simple.  It's easy to get heat, I don't remember being too far from my goal weight, and moving wasn't a biggie since I didn't have a lease to break, but there were challenges in all of them.

I moved to NYC and was pretty fortunate to find my apartment.  I'll get into that in another post, but where I lived was basically a huge loft in Newark.  I was a squatter.  The building was all but abandoned and we had to actually live without permanent beds because any sign of a raid and things had to look like a business.  I had tons and tons of space and huge windows encompassing almost a whole wall.  That's a lot of heat!  My landlords/roommates tried putting plastic on the windows, but that was like putting a bandaid on ...  well, on the windows.  They gave me a space heater and I used to build forts over it to heat myself.  Of course, if I wanted to use any of the other space I had to run there, grab what I needed, and hoof it back to the fort.  And I lived this way for a couple of winters until I met a new male friend who told me he wasn't to return until I had heat!  That's when heat hit the board.  I eventually got what I wanted, but my landlords who could control the heat would turn it off at night which...once you have warmth, waking up without it would be such a bummer.

So the heat war actually led to me moving.  I moved down two floors to another space.  Since we were squatters I eventually had to leave the building altogether, and that spacious loft that at times I only paid $250/month is now selling for half a mill.  Yeah.  Once I left that building I got the kind of spot I wanted with extra space just for my aforementioned male friend's children to spend the night.  I stayed there for eight months and spent the night there three times.  I never even bothered to turn on the electric in that place.

The weight I lost, too, but I don't remember how that came to be either.  Look at how I worded the goal though.  It has to be clear, concise, and present tense.  As if you already ARE the thing.  Your subconscious mind doesn't know the difference.  This post is about dreams and I just remember that I completed each of those and that might have been one of the most memorable times I wrote what I wanted down so that I could see it and then went and got it.

Present day:  I was just looking at my daughter and realized that was a dream that lead to another dream. I never wrote down specifically that I wanted a child, but I definitely tried my best to get one.  And now that I have her it lead to me becoming a published writer.  If I wasn't a mother the conversation of "motherhood" would have never resonated with me.  I'm actually living my dream AND this April I'm going to Disney World (do you remember those commercials?)

Wow.  How crazy is it that I taped that commercial while I was pregnant!  Just realized that as I pondered whether to use Eli's old one (Go, Giants!) or to use the one that directed you to oh, so many Joelle videos.

So now I'm thinking about what else is going on my next dream board.  I'm definitely going to dream bigger.  My dreams are coming true, and I know it has to do with putting them down on paper and making strides to realize them.  That's Positive Change EVERY day!

Give and it shall be given to you, good measure, pressed down shaken together and running over shall men give into your bosom. And with the same measure you give it shall be given to you. Luke 6:38

While My Crabcake Fries

Yes, I'm making a Philips crabcake from Costcos and while I was replying to a friend I realized I'm stuck in the same rut I always didn't want to be in.  We were talking about Elmo and I remarked how he does the same thing all the time.  And I realized I'm being creative the same way every day.  The one thing I never liked about the poetry world has come back to haunt me...only this time I LOVE IT!  I learned my lesson.  I wasn't ready then.  Everything is a formula.  If it works, why not stick with it?  There are certain things I do on a regular basis that I am very loathe to change.  If someone wants to watch you, pay for you, or is entertained by you doing the same thing all the time why really change it?  At some point you can sneak something different in as long as you make it look the same.

I've watched plenty careers over the last twelve non poetic years.  Janet Jackson will be singing about "Control" the rest of her life and she has control, too.  She can stop singing that song if she wants, but we all know that is NOT going to bring in the money.

Ain't it funny what we learn, how we learn, and when that ish is gonna kick you in the butt???

As a little side note:  I always wanted one of those "routine children."  You know the ones that if you are at the circus and it's their bedtime they fall asleep with an elephant blaring in their ear?  LOL  So I know I was never reluctant to routines.  I just had to find out at the right time :-)