Last night, Einstein was a bit more rambunctious than usual and I had to tell him "get out of there" or "leave that alone" a few times. He's normally extremely well behaved, but I think he was frustrated with me because I'd ignored him most of the day (you know, to make money to pay for his KIBBLE!)

At one point, I yelled, "Casey! Cut it out!"

Casey is the name of my second son.

Yeah- I called my dog by my son's name. I think the lines are getting blurred.

I use this example from the teachings of the New Testament: "With God, all things are possible." Now, what does that leave out? All things means all things. Excuses are thoughts that tell you what you can't do, how difficult something will be for you, that it will take too long or that you don't have the luck or the ability to create the life you want.

By thinking in awareness, you correct your mind and allow all the things you need to show up in order to have your life work the way you want it to. This kind of thinking will remind you that you do exist in a place where all things are possible. I encourage you to apply this consciousness to all of your old thinking habits.
~ Dr. Wayne Dyer

I can't begin to say how much I love this quote:

Expecting the world to treat you fairly because you are good is like expecting the bull not to charge because you are a vegetarian.
~Dennis Wholey

I mentioned a few weeks ago that I'm the first to roll out the story-catching service that our Hospice organization is offering. In theory, I'd meet with a patient whose family has requested this service and record a story on a little recorder; put the story on CD and present it to the patient and their family. It's not supposed to be an interview and you shouldn't hear my voice (much). Just the patient telling their story for about 20 minutes or so. In THEORY it should be an easy transition of sitting down, giving a brief introduction on the recorder of the patient's name and date and keeping the patient on track.

After reading a brief summary of what the patient wanted to share, I knew that it was going to be more than 20 minutes. No problem. The recording device has a lot of capacity.

To say this man was ready for the interview is an understatement. He started talking from the moment I walked into the door and I had trouble finding a gracious way of saying, "hey- we need to start the recorder." So much for graceful.

Twenty minutes went by.... then another twenty... and another twenty.... until we were up to three hours worth of 20 minute stories.

This man's eighty-something years of life have been amazing. Three hours wasn't enough, so I made an appointment to meet with him again. That was yesterday.

Again, I was off to a completely ungraceful start. I just decided to turn on the recorder as soon as I could- even though he was in the middle of a story. We spent another three hours together and I still feel that he had more to share, but it's important that we get this finished and presented to the family. My volunteer coordinator is under pressure to get our first story finished so the social workers will feel comfortable in referring the (totally free) service to more people.

I told my new friend that we had to wrap this up, and told him what would happen next. And then I did something I wasn't really expecting. I told him that I wanted to continue visiting him even though our project was complete, which really put a smile on his face (mine too!) I really had/have no intention of volunteering in the patient-care side of Hospice, but there's something about this amazing man that made me want to see him again. I called the volunteer coordinator and asked him if I could be assigned as this man's volunteer.

I promised the coordinator that I wouldn't 'adopt' everyone whose story I would be recording. Besides, when will I have time? I've also signed up to be in the new Hospice Ambassador program. Public speaking to create awareness about Hospice and what it has to offer.

Man, it's a good thing I don't have a job.

::KIDDING:: But I do need to make sure that I keep this balanced. Balanced? What is that?

When I write my book, this quote is going in it:

I believe luck is preparation meeting opportunity. If you hadn't been prepared when the opportunity came along, you wouldn't have been 'lucky.' — Oprah