Low Maintenance Hair Style = A More Joyous Vacation.
Archives for July 2011
Make it Happen Monday – Joy Board
Happy Monday Joy Chasers!!! It is Monday and we are Making it Happen. No Case of the Mondays for us. We have Reinvented Monday as a day for setting goals both long term and short.
Today I am not just setting some goals but also creating a visual to help me focus on them and quite frankly to make goal setting a little more fun. Melissa, a Joy Chaser, gave us the idea a few weeks ago when we were posting our weekly goals on Facebook. She told us all about her visual, which she called a Goal Board. Melissa said “I look at this daily and make sure that I try to abide by what is written on it. This is a great way to stay focused and keep one’s mind fresh when we get lost or sidetracked.”
Last week I got some materials and started making my Goal Board. I invited you all to join me by making your own Goal Board for Chasing Joy’s first craft project. Did you make one? If you did not do you plan too? It’s not too late. If you email me a picture I’ll include your Goal Board on Chasing Joy’s Facebook page. Or you can upload your own if you have already “liked” the page.
Above is a picture of my Goal Board. I decided to call mine a Joy Board. You know I’m all about JOY. Believe it or not setting goals and accomplishing them can make you feel really good. As does making the Goal Board – playing with stickers, glue, and maybe a little glitter (think back to arts and crafts class).
My Joy Bored is made of inexpensive poster board attached to a cork board. I have decorated it with stickers that say things like JOY, DREAM, GOALS, and HAPPINESS. I also found several rhinestone stickers because everything is better with a little Bling. I added dry erase white board on which I listed my short term goals which include AM workouts, packing for vacation, purchasing a new battery charger, some home maintenance, and visiting my brother. I added a small cork board as well. On the cork board I have attached Post It notes that describe my longer term goals which include my ultimate goal weight, running a 5k, cutting sugar, getting some plumbing work done, and paying of my credit cards.
I have also attached other Post It notesto the bottom of the board. One set of Post It notes has my current weight on it and I get to throw away the top sheet, revealing my new lower weight as I drop pounds. The other group of Post It notes has my running minutes goals. I get to throw away the top sheet as I build my endurance up and complete the minutes goal, revealing my new longer minutes goal. I am excited to start tearing post it’s off. I also have included several other clips and push pins to the board so that I can add new goals, pictures, or anything inspirational that will help me reaching my goals.
Tell me about your Goal Board. What do you or will you call it? What kinds of goals do you/ will you have listed on it? Do you think having a visual representation of your Goals will make you more focused and likely to achieve them?
I hope your Goal Board will bring you Joy. I think mine will.
Feel Good Friday – Versatile Blogger Award
I have not done a Feel Good Friday post in a while but I am feeling especially good this Friday. Why??? Because I have received my first Award. Chasing Joy was awarded
the Versatile Blogger Award by Camille from From Texas With Love. Yay!!!!
When you receive a fabulous award such as this there are rules that go along with it’s acceptance.
1. Thank the person who gave you the award and link back to them in your post. Thank You So Much From Texas With Love!!! Please check out her blog.
Joyful Pet pics.
A Joyful Craft Project
A while ago We Reinvented Monday turning it into Make it Happen Monday. On Make it Happen Monday we fight off coming down with a case of the Mondays by setting goals for the week and beyond. Every Monday we post our goals on the Chasing Joy Facebook page and set about making them happen.
Well a few weeks ago one Joy Chaser, Melissa, not only shared her goals but shared with us her Goal Board. She wrote, “My board is black with hot pink ruled sticky notes…..black sharpie to write my goals, ladybug and butterfly stickers for color and flare! Who can miss that! That would b awesome for joy chasers to create! It was fun and cheap! Here is my goal board…I look at this daily and make sure that I try to abide by what is written on it. This is a great way to stay focused and keep one’s mind fresh when we get lost or sidetracked” And thus Chasing Joy’s first craft project was inspired.
This week one of my goals is to create my very own Goal Board. I am challenging you to make one too. Melissa shared that her kids have their own Board. This could be a good project for your little ones to create some goals for summer. I will be posting mine here next Make it Happen Monday. I hope you accept the challenge and share a picture of your Goal Board and your kids Goal Boards on the Facebook page or email me a picture to be included here and on the Facebook page. Let’s see if we can make ours up to Melissa’s standards.
What goals are you going to include on your Goal Board? Where do you plan to hang it?
Garden of Joy
A week or so ago my job sent out an email for discounted to Longwood Gardens. I raced over to the ticket office and got tickets for my cousin and I to go. We had a really great time. Longwood Garden’s is just Beautiful! Beautiful enough for Wordful/Worless Wednesday.
There were flowers everywhere.
Outside
Some flowers and plants were really small. Like this Baby’s Breath. Have you ever seen it growing? This was my first time too.
Others were really really big. Too big even like this one that was bigger than me.
They were in every color you could imagine.
Almost everything was beautiful but a some things were a little creepy.
Here are some of my favorites.
I’d like to do something like this one day.
There was also lots and lots of water features.
Did I mention there was also a tree house.?
This is just a small sampling of what we saw. A Joyful time was definately had.
Have you ever been to Longwood Gardens or anyplace like it? Do you have your own beautiful garden that gives you an atmosphere of Joy?
Joy on TV
I was not going to do this weeks writing prompt from Mamakat. But I was having so much fun reading others’ prompts I decided to go ahead and do my own. So here are ten tv shows that can be watched as a family that gave and continue to (thanks to Netflix and reruns) give me Joy. In no particular order:
Colombo -> I love the mystery and hardly ever figure it out before the end.
Murder She Wrote -> These mysteries were simple enough for me to follow as a kid and they still keep me entertained as an adult only now I also appreciate the small town vibe.
A Different World -> This Cosby Show spin off made me want to go to college.
Sisters-> Growing up with 3 brothers I could not get enough of this show and how the sisters both fought and supported each other.
Any and all after school specials -> These used to drive my brothers crazy.
Do you like any of these shows? What TV shows did or do fill you with Joy???
Breaking Free to Chase Joy
100 things about me # 75 was I don’t like going to church and #76 was I
hope that changes. So twice in a year is great for me.
It being Independence/4th of July weekend and all, the pastor’s sermon
was about Freedom. He went through several Bible verses that detail all
of the things that we are free from: sin, death, fear, guilt, etc, etc,
etc… I’m not going to cover those verses here. I’ll leave that to
someone more qualified like my brother who studied at the seminary and who
has talked about starting his very own blog.
Anyway, the sermon did leave me thinking about my (our) own freedom to
Chase Joy. On July 4th 1776 it was declared one of our unalienable
Rights. “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are
created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain
unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the PURSUIT
OF HAPPINESS.”
So if it is my (our) legal right to Chase Joy, and my spirituality/faith
grants me (us) the freedom to Chase Joy. Why haven’t I (we) caught
it???? Am I not Chasing it as rigorously as I think? Am I only barley
grasping at Joy as it whizzes by lapping me on the track of life? Am I not
giving it my all? Or am I giving it all I’ve got but still being held
back by invisible shackles of fear that deny me the Freedom to Chase Joy
with all my might??? Shackles that keep me chained in a cell we often
misleadingly call our comfort zone?
How do I get these chains off me? God has told me I’m free. My country
has told me It is my unalienable right. So the only thing holding me
back is myself, (and maybe a few Joy Thieves but I know what to do with
them), specifically my FEARS. I am afraid of embarrassment. I am afraid of disappointing others. I am afraid of being disappointed. I fear the changes that come with success. I fear the consequences of failure. I am afraid of opening my heart. I am afraid of loneliness. The good thing about fear is the more you talk (or blog) about it the less power it has over
you. When you put them out there you see how silly they are.
So start picking that lock on the invisible shackles that hold you back. What are you afraid of? What Fears do you need to become independent of to Freely Chase Joy???
Giving Joy – And the Winner Is…
Thank you for participating in my first giveaway/joint venture with Janice the Jewelry Lady of Premier Designs. What a great turnout! 13 comments were received at the time the giveaway ended. I think this is the most comments ever received on a single post. This is largely due to my first time being featured on #commenthour (find out more about it here). Also, I did receive great support in promoting the giveaway. The Jewelry Lady of Premier Designs invited her clients to Chase Joy with me. Check out her page here. If you are in the Philadelphia or Maryland area and think you would like to have a Premier Designs party shoot the Jewelry Lady an email (ladyjjeweler@gmail.com). Two Lovely Lady Bloggers invited their followers to Chase Joy with me. Moms In Boyland has a great funny and informative blog about being the Mom of 3 boys (check it out here). Curvey Journeys is a self esteem boosting page about women being encouraged to show a healthy, more curvaceous figure to the world (check it out here). Please check out both of their pages.
The two questions you had to answer to be in the running for the giveaway were:
1) What is your favorite piece of jewelry or (something else) that you wear regularly that fills you with Joy and
2) Which of my past posts is your favorite and why?
Of the comments received, 6 were eligible for the Giveaway. I put the names into the list randomizer on http://www.random.org/. Results are as follows:
List Randomizer
There were 6 items in your list. Here they are in random
order:1.bam
2.Maria
3.bam
4.lynettesjobs
5.beautifulspitup
6.GiftedChecky
Timestamp: 2011-07-02 04:09:11 UTC
We have a winner! bam will be notified and have 48 hours to reply with acknowledgement. If, for some crazy reason she does not acknowledge or declines her prize I’ll contact the next name from the Randomizer results.
Thank you all for Participating in my 1st giveaway. Who knew giving out free stuff would give me a little Joy.
If you blog do you or will you have any kind of giveaway? Why or why not?