Guest Post: Bliss

Here's another wonderful guest post by the lovely Christina over at IamthatIam. Please make her feel welcome!




Now is the only time we feel - and the screwed up thing is, when we choose (yep, choose) to feel good, better, happy and pleased, around people who don't like our mood, something strange happens.




Guilt.








Has it happened to you?




Have you held back, just a little, on your Bliss, to accommodate the mood of those people who aren't feeling what you're feeling? Have you noticed them not enjoying your presence (that would be your "presents," too) because you are on a roll of Bliss?




We do it to children when we aren't feeling cheery. We want them to "calm down" and "be still" - and "deal" with our grim moods. I think that's where we learned it - as children - to feel guilty for being Blissful.




I have great news for your Bliss - You are officially off the hook for any guilt people try to throw on you for being YOU. Happy, peaceful, joyful and giddy are now forever allowed when gloom is in the room.




That's their decision. There is nothing you can do for them, except be you. They can choose to leave, right? Or they can choose to change and feel good.




Guilt is wasting the moment - and your friends, the people at work or anyone who wants you to feel bad because of them doesn't have a way to give you back your moments. They only try to steal them from you. Kind of insane, isn't it?




They can feel guilt free happiness anytime they choose to. You don't have to wait, or feel guilty for feeling it NOW.

--
Christina
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Guest Post: My Cajun Life

First, I want to thank Overthinking Mama for the opportunity to write a guest post. Her blog is one of the first blogs I visited when I came to blogger. Her creativity caught my eye. She is a sweet genuine person. I wish we would live closer so I could really get to know her and her kids.

When I read her post requesting guest posts I thought, what could I write on her blog? I don't consider myself as talented as she is. It is hard forming ideas for my own blog. She told me it could be about anything. So I thought about it. Like magic, I received a sign.

Saturday I received a letter from Big Brothers Big Sisters stating that I have been qualified and they are looking for a LITTLE especially for me!

I had applied to be a BIG a couple of months back. Why?  I love helping people.I want to make a difference in someone's life. 

While my MyLove works outside the home  I am home being the dutiful house partner. It is rewarding but it gets stagnant. I get bored and the walls start to close in on me. One day it was getting bad and I told MyLove  I needed to do something with myself. I didn't want to commit myself to much volunteer because I did that with the church years ago and all of a sudden I was overwhelmed with numerous phone calls for everything else. 

I toyed with the Big Brother/Big Sister idea for quite a while. However, I was afraid they would not accept me as I do have an obvious physical limitation.  I think it was the fear of rejection. 

I thought I am a mother who conceived and raised an independent well adjusted child.  I've overcome obstacles throughout my life when "experts" would say I would fail. I have faced challenges and pushed through them. Why would this be any different? That nagging feeling of being rejected ate at me though.

I pondered and researched Big Brothers/Big Sisters. On a "I can do anything day"  I made a simple inquiry by email. They responded telling me they accept many people as BIG and LITTLE. I went fill out the application and had an interview shortly thereafter.

I was able to talk frankly with the Administrator about my concerns. She, along with her staff reassured me that I could qualify regardless of physical limitation. They do all they can to make a match between the Little and Big interests.

It was a long process but I understood. Most of the kids come from broken or troubled homes so they have to be careful and do a full background check. I had to give three references and I know they checked them because my sister, friend and MyLove told me. HA!

There are two kinds of volunteers.  The school based where the BIG joins the Little at a specified time at school and help the child with school work, play games etc. The community based is where the BIG makes plans for the LITTLE to go elsewhere outside of school like the park or wherever their interest leads them.

Both require as little as an hour a week with your LITTLE.

I decided on the school based because I want to get my feet wet first. My visits will be strictly during the school hours. If my LITTLE  and I agrees later on, we  can move to community based.

I am sure I will be writing about my BIG experience on my blog when I get matched. If you want to read my experience with being a BIG as well as my crazy Cajun life as a disabled person, stop by my blog:My Cajun Life, after you read Overthinking Mama of course. 

Guest Post: I dont see pop-ups, just forgotten Graves

Hello, I'm Betty from over at " Just Thoughts on a Blog" 

Sarah, aka...Over Thinking Mama asked for volunteers to be her guests and blog for her while she is on vacation this week. I love her blog and really have found that she is a caring, responsible, single mother who is raising her children in a christian based home.  She loves God and her family and it shows in her writings. While your here, read some of her old posts found in her archives, leave a comment or two, and if your not following her, take the time to do so.

Id like to share with you one of my hobbies that I do and tell you a little bit about why I get such a blessing doing this for others....

   I am a member of FaG as a volunteer to take photos for grave markers of strangers loved ones who do not live in this area. How it works is ,I get emails from Find a Grave telling me there is a request for a photo from someone ,and it tells me the graveyard and name they are looking for. Should I choose to fulfill that request, I go in and claim it, travel to that graveyard, walk the entire yard until I find that persons grave marker. Then I take a photo and email  it threw FaG to the memorial sat up for that person.

Sarah, aka Over thinking Mama, had asked for volunteers to be Guest Posts while she is on vacation this week. I love her blog and reading about her real life raising her children as a single mother. 

Why do I do this? You may find this a strange hobby, but I love it. After doing genealogy now for the last twenty years, I started doing this first for my family tree and then decided I would give it a try as a volunteer. You don't get paid for this with money, but it is very rewarding. That's all it took, I was hooked. Anytime I go to a town I am visiting , I look up to see what graveyards are in that town and see if there are requests made that no one has claimed. Its that easy!
You will be surprised how many graveyards that are not being taken care of and how many forgotten graves of someone's loved ones that aren't being taken care of. I hope when I and my husband are gone that someone will care enough to keep our headstone clean or the weeds from growing around us. I see broken markers and many laying on the ground where they were knocked over. I have seen graves that are really cluttered with old flowers or trinkets that are left by people and piling up like a garage sale. Those graves need to be cleaned up now and then, store away the oldest trinkets, maybe leaving two or three. And I also see where a grave may have been there for about two or three months, and nobody went back and decluttered the dead arrangements and wire stands left from the funeral. I have seen some that had mail boxes for notes, Fire pits, chairs and tables as if they have people sit around all day. I have seen very large, beautiful, gravestones. I've seen rocks as markers, wood signs, or metal. Those  make  you think about how their loved one maybe couldnt afford a headstone, but they cared to mark the grave the best way they could. I see many where the headstones are there with only names and Birthdates. Those are the ones you know are in waiting for the day that person will die. That is what my husband and I are doing. We are designing our stone now to be placed on our plots so all our children have to do is have the grave death dates.
Doing this for people I have never met and will never meet in my lifetime has really been awarding in itself. I get some really nice post from people I have fulfilled their request. I know when someone fills one for me that I cant travel to, I feel so appreciative of the time they took to walk around looking for my love one. This is also a great way for birth dates , death dates , maiden names, and marriage dates to be updated on someone's genealogy. There really is so much  a Headstone tells about a person. Some show scenes of that persons hobby, what they did for a living, or a photo of the person who lies there.
The saddest is how many children have died. You know where they are thou. They were never accountable for a sinful life. They are innocent, little angels that God had a plan for early in their life.
This is not a scary hobby! I haven't seen any pop-ups yet! I only feel the people saying thank you for visiting me today!
In a Nut shell……We Are The Story Tellers……We are the chosen. My feelings are, in each family, there is one who seems called to find the ancestors. To put flesh on their bones and make them live again, to tell the family story and to feel that somehow they know and approve. To me, doing genealogy is not a cold gathering of facts but, instead, breathing life into all those who have gone before. We are the storytellers of the tribe. All tribes have one. We have been called, as it were, by our genes. Those who have gone before cry out to us: Tell our story.


Dear Ancestor ,
Your tombstone stands among the rest; In this field of green. The name and date are chiseled out For all the world to see. It reaches out to all who care, It is too late to mourn. You did not know that I'd exist, You died long before I was born. Yet we are of one, you and I, in flesh, in blood, in bone. Our blood contracts and beats a pulse Entirely not our own. Dear Ancestor, the life you lived one hundred years ago spreads out among the ones you left who would have loved you so. I wonder if you lived and loved, I wonder if you knew that someday I would find this spot, And come to visit you.

 

Betty Ann

Help Wanted...

I am going out of town for a week in August.  I would love to have guest posts done to post during my vacation. If you would be interested in doing a guest post, please let me know. It can be about pretty much anything you would like- just keep it family friendly. :-) 


Thanks ya'll

Blessings N Love
Overthinking Mama

Guest posting

I  did a guest post over at The Young Mommy Life… make sure you go and check it out!!!

God Bless

Overthinking Mama