Positive Affirmations

Most blogs have covered the referral news...babies and families matched through 6/15 this time around. I'll take only a moment to say our LID is 11/24, the previous batch of referrals covered through 6/6...'nuff said about our seriously OUTTA CONTROL timeline.

In the spirit of my wandering ramblings,here's a recap of my last couple of days...

I attended a self-improvement type seminar along with all the other managers in my company. I was expecting the usual-- personality types, conflict resolution, brainstorming...yada, yada, yada (man, I really miss Seinfeld sometimes). While I sat and listened attentively, I was more or less thinking this is a load of ______ (You fill in the blank, since this is a family blog afterall.) But at some point late in Day 1 when we were discussing how the subconscious works, I believe some of what the lecturer was saying snuck into my subconscious and took root. For instance, he said you should only give 80% at work...if you give 100% what is left for you, your family, friends, etc.? Hmmmmmm....Do the bosses know they just paid someone to tell me not to work so hard? ....

Day 2 Mr. Motivation covered what basically amounted to the impact of our "self-talk" on daily living and choices. So I'm sitting there thinking this is a little too warm and fuzzy, but in the back of my mind my darn subconscious is playing out my self-talk in regards to the *big-butt-referral-wait*. For instance, he said replace I need to lose summa 'dis fat with I make healthy choices for my body That's my paraphrase of course. In reality though I do believe what we say to ourselves affects our outlook and daily interactions with others. So in the spirit of trying new things, I am replacing my bad I'm no closer to being a parent than 15 months ago self-talk with I'm taking every day for what it is and looking forward to the day I hold my daughter Sure it's a mouthful, but it sometimes takes a lot to let go of the negativity.

Day 3 Mr. I Can Move Mountains helped us focus on goal achieving. At the end of the session, we picked a 30 day goal, filled out a worksheet, visualized ourselves overcoming the obstacles to success, and wrote a letter patting ourselves on the back for achieving the goal. This will show up in my mail next month. So you want to know my goal? I'm pretty sure goals work like birthday wishes, so I can't tell you or it won't come true....but if you hear someone tapping out more than twinkle twinkle little star on the piano next month, then I did alright.

Smile.

Can you eat with chopsticks?

I'm learning to use chopsticks. I've decided this will do a couple of things. 1) My waistline should improve dramatically since I usually get tired out before my plate is empty. 2) It will continue to improve my patience...I'm mean really, rice one piece at a time?

Bobby and I took a 5 day Carnival cruise to the Bahamas to celebrate his graduation. (Nice how I benefited from this gift, right?). Every night at 5:30 the sushi bar opened near the casino. Something about the clanging and dinging of the slot machines put enough excitement in the air to drive me to try using chopsticks in public. I was a disaster. Dropped rice and dripped soy sauce everywhere. Bobby was quick to point this out to me, as if I didn't already know I needed a little practice. But I'm stubborn, so every night I kept trying and he kept laughing. If you're expecting me to say here that with a little persistence I got the hang of it, ha! fooled you. No, all I learned was lesson #2 discussed above is not learned on a 5 day cruise during sushi hour.

In any case, as rumors continue to fly about on blogs regarding possible 16 to 18 month waits, I will continue my new chopstick diet and hope patience begins to feel as comfortable wiggling bamboo in my fingers.