Attracting Wayne Newton

okay, not that way.

i'm sure he's a fine fella and all, but i'm setting my intention on attracting wayne newton in to my life for one reason and one reason only ...

my grandmother's 90th birthday in april 2008.

when she turned 75 mom and i took her to branson for a "girl's weekend" to see good ole wayne.

while it always surprised me that she took such a liking to wayne newton, or any other star for that matter given her good ole "dustbowl no frills" upbringing in oklahoma, we indulged her with an evening at wayne's palace in the ozarks.

flashing lights ... i think there was even a little spaceship landing on stage ... "danke schein" ...

she was in heaven.

still keeps the little scrapbook i put together for her right by her chair and thumbs through it often.

now her 90th is coming up fast (she reminds us with near daily countdowns - 8 months 5 days to be exact) and frequently her conversations veer toward the "who what where whens" of her big bash.

we already know the big WHY.

so, as best as we can tell, this is what she wants:

to be QUEEN for the day.
to have the most loved people in her life (her family and her bridge friends) there ...
to enjoy good food (right now she's leaning towards BBQ)
to be the birthday girl complete with fancy hat (i'm thinking a tiara would fit nicely)

good for her.

she deserves it.

when my parents divorced i was 16 years old.

grandma moved 5 hours north to step in and keep our household running while my mom went back to college and got a job.

she left her home. her friends. her life to be there for us when we were just a fractured little family.

she made life work for us.

i remember spreading a load of dirt with her in our front yard.

she's never been afraid to get her hands dirty in service to others.

now, it's our turn.

her 90th birthday is a celebration for us all.

she's still sharp.

she's still funny.

she's got my kids today ... they LOVE hanging out with her.

so this is my intention:

i want a VIDEO BIRTHDAY GREETING from wayne newton. or more (if he showed up in person that would be AWESOME).

we head to las vegas in a couple of weeks to meet up with others in our incredible personal development business ... ideally i would run in to wayne on the strip with my handy camera in tow.

i've sent a request through his fan website.

but now i'm enlisting the assistance of YOU.

if anyone has a remote connection to wayne newton, or know of someone who does, please forward their information on to me.

we're not asking for much ... just to give a fabulous 90 year old woman the birthday party of her dreams!

so that's my intention ... i'm putting it out there and trusting that i will attract certain key individuals in to my life that can help me put the cherry on top of this big bash in april!

danke schein~

Showering With Strangers

i showered with a stranger this morning.

i should have expected it, having witnessed the Law of Attraction at work and all ...

you see, i spent the weekend at a family reunion in oklahoma.

got to hang out with my very cool, rodeo-ing 18-year-old nephew ben.

we gave him his high school graduation gift - new macbook with all the bells and whistles.

seeing the look on his face when he realized he wasn't JUST getting the 5 dollar sonic giftcard was priceless.

so he loaded up his new laptop with some songs from his phone's mp3 player ... stuff i hadn't heard before as i'm not really all that in to country music. and he grew up and continues to reside in oklahoma.

'nuff said.

so ben's playing for me his favorites, one of which is a song by brad paisley titled "ticks".

and i must say it's danged funny.

we sat by the pool watching the "young-uns" swim in the dark and by the glow of his laptop i learned the lyrics, which we then sang out LOUD until i couldn't get them out of my head ...

"cause i'd like to see you out in the moonlight
i'd like to kiss you way back in the sticks
i'd like to walk you through a field of wildflowers
and i'd like to check you for ticks"

so you've probably guessed it - the small, dark and decidedly repulsive stranger i discovered in my shower this morning was, yes, a TICK.

all together now ... eeeeewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww

he was strategically located on my hip, just far enough around that i'd need the flexibility of an owl to get a good look at him.

so i called in the big guns.

john. a lighter. a pair of needle-nose pliers.

i don't really want to go in to the details. suffice it to say, this morning's tick removal wasn't pretty.

but DANG, i have no idea where he came from, all i know is i haven't had a tick since i was like 10 years old and boom, two days after belting out tick lyrics for a whole weekend i got one setting up house on my hindquarters.

i almost hated to post this blog. if i had one of those little flashy thingies the Men in Black used in the movie "Men In Black", i'd embed it here for immediate removal of all tick conversation lest you discover one in YOUR shower tomorrow morning ...

"cause i'd like to see you out in the moonlight
i'd like to kiss you way back in the sticks
i'd like to walk you through a field of wildflowers
and i'd like to check you for TICKS"

***

p.s. - aunt bea says "hey"

Attracting A Pool

if you've been following this blog, you know our move down here to texas was just short of magic.

we got the price we wanted on our home in colorado with the perfect closing date.

sometimes, however, things unfold a little different than expected.

for instance, when we visited in march our intention was to lease a home, buy a lot and build our next home.

i'd been cutting out pictures of exactly what i envisioned our new home to look like.

one of the things i really wanted was a pool.

never had one. always wanted one. decided it was time to get one.

i had this vision of sitting on a porch doing a little business while my kids play in the pool.

so i started purchasing pool/deck/spa magazines and books and cutting out pictures of my dream pool backyard. i put them in a binder labeled "my next house" (you know me, i'm all about the organizing thing!) and i put them on my dream board.

the one that really lit my fire was a pool and backyard landscaped by "River Oaks Pools". i only know that because their logo was so prominently placed on the photograph that i had to include it when i cut out the picture or i'd lose the really juicy parts of the photo.

keep in mind, these magazines include pools from all over the world, built by companies all over the world.

so the transition of homes was a little different than expected. we could find nothing that was suitable to lease while we built so we returned to colorado in march without a place to live.

ahhhh, but the Law of Attraction kicked in and a very nice realtor called us up and told us "I think I've found something."

a home in the very neighborhood we'd considered purchasing a lot in ... five bedrooms ... a pool ... a covered porch ... a pool ... a large office ... a pool ... more than an acre of tree-covered yard backing up to an enormous working ranch (i.e. privacy) ... a pool.

did i mention it had a pool?

it was only 4 years old, the sellers were splitting up and highly motivated.

we looked at it online ... my mom walked through with a camera and her cellphone ... and ultimately we put an offer on it sight unseen.

john came down for the inspection in april and i came down a few weeks later.

new carpet, new paint, new patio, some TLC in the landscaping and it's a great house.

so we bought it, moved in, everyone loves their space and we're gradually making it our own.

but yesterday i was thumbing through a stack of owner's manuals, warranties & paperwork for appliances, etc. left behind by the previous owners.

(actually, i hadn't figured out how to operate the new-fangled Thermador cooktop yet ... which isn't all bad as we've eaten out a lot ... except it's difficult to get anything but chicken-fried-anything down here in the Texas Hill Country and after a month of that we decided some vegetables and healthy meals were in order!)

and there it was. the pool paperwork.

you can probably guess what i'm about to tell you as our pool in our new home was built by ...

RIVER OAKS POOLS

it took my breath away.

when i cut that picture out i didn't even know they were in texas, much less the san antonio area!

decide what you want.
focus on that and only that. draw mental pictures in your head and see them everyday.
get emotionally involved.
trust your emotional guidance system and adjust your course as necessary.
watch the magic of your life unfold.

it's that simple.

and with that, i'm going swimming.

i just bought a nifty little raft that allows me to sit and make a few phone calls while i drift around the pool and throw stuff in for my kids and my dog to retrieve.

it's a good life, this personal development business we have.

check out our video on the left and give us a call sometime!

Got My Kid Back!

we just returned from a marathon roadtrip ... southern texas all the way to missouri to pick up riley at kanakuk, where she spent 2 glorious weeks just being a kid.

that's 4 states in 1 day.

i unpacked her trunk this morning and for a brief moment was horrified.

"how is it possible that there are still 10 pairs of underwear neatly folded in the bottom of the trunk?" i asked myself.

then i got grossed out.

then i let it go.

ahhh, well, if she wore dirty underwear for 2 weeks i'm glad she was there, not here.

dirty laundry aside, i'm in the process of hiring a virtual assistant, which is very exciting.

i must admit, this is a big step for me, a recovering perfectionist.

but i was inspired by timothy ferriss' book "The 4 Hour Workweek", which is an awesome and highly recommended read by the way. one of his "get out of your comfort zone" exercises is to hire a virtual assistant. he recommends a firm based in india. i believe i've found someone in the U.S. to do it for the same price.

so what am i off-loading?

health insurance research, travel arrangements for several upcoming trips, etc.

none of it earth-shattering stuff but here's the key:

i stopped and asked myself: if all the "have to's" of my life were taken care of, how would i spend my day?

answer (and maybe you'll see a little bit of yourself here): "well, gee, there's a couple of things i know i'd do every day or i'd like to do every day but there's also a bit of a big, scary void when i consider eliminating all the chores and have to's"

so this is where that thinking takes us: we fill up our life with little things in order to avoid figuring out what the big things are.

we play small rather than figure out what the big game is.

(yep, i ended with a preposition there.)

if you're task-oriented, like me, this is how you win the daily game.

i made a list. i got it done. score 1 for me.

the sad reality here is, however, that there's nothing fulfilling about a life of completed chores. not at the end.

i want the big, juicy life with a grand finale.

first we must see the little games we're playing and then we have to kick our imagination in to high gear to figure out what our big games are.

hiring a virtual assistant is the next step for me. housekeepers keep our household running smoothly but a virtual assistant will free me up even more to focus on the big games in life, like my family and our personal development business that's given us untold freedoms and luxuries.

now those are games worthy of this short time we have in this life.

so my question for you is this: what would your day look like if money was not an issue and you had no chores. how would you spend your time? what would you do? what would you create?