Please Wear A Poppy

Let us remember those who have given their lives for us, those who have been wounded physically and mentally in their acts of service, and those who came back whole.

Lest we forget.....

PLEASE WEAR A POPPY

"Please wear a poppy," the lady said
And held one forth, but I shook my head.
Then I stopped and watched as she offered them there,
And her face was old and lined with care;
But beneath the scars the years had made
There remained a smile that refused to fade.

A boy came whistling down the street,
Bouncing along on care-free feet.
His smile was full of joy and fun,
"Lady," said he, "may I have one?"
When she's pinned in on he turned to say,
"Why do we wear a poppy today?"

The lady smiled in her wistful way
And answered, "This is Remembrance Day,
And the poppy there is the symbol for
The gallant men who died in war.
And because they did, you and I are free -
That's why we wear a poppy, you see.

"I had a boy about your size,
With golden hair and big blue eyes.
He loved to play and jump and shout,
Free as a bird he would race about.
As the years went by he learned and grew
and became a man - as you will, too.

"He was fine and strong, with a boyish smile,
But he'd seemed with us such a little while
When war broke out and he went away.
I still remember his face that day
When he smiled at me and said, Goodbye,
I'll be back soon, Mom, so please don't cry.

"But the war went on and he had to stay,
And all I could do was wait and pray.
His letters told of the awful fight,
(I can see it still in my dreams at night),
With the tanks and guns and cruel barbed wire,
And the mines and bullets, the bombs and fire.

"Till at last, at last, the war was won-
And that's why we wear a poppy son."
The small boy turned as if to go,
Then said, "Thanks, lady, I'm glad to know.
That sure did sound like an awful fight,
But your son - did he come back all right?"

A tear rolled down each faded check;
She shook her head, but didn't speak.
I slunk away in a sort of shame,
And if you were me you'd have done the same;
For our thanks, in giving, if oft delayed,
Thought our freedom was bought - and thousands paid!

And so when we see a poppy worn,
Let us reflect on the burden borne,
By those who gave their very all
When asked to answer their country's call
That we at home in peace might live.
Then wear a poppy! Remember - and give!

by Don Crawford


I share this to bless all who serve...wherever they may be.

Fran

Life Lesson - Fix it before it fixes You

There are so many things that this life lesson can apply to. Our vehicles, our relationships, our houses and much more. In my case it applied to a job I have been putting off for quite a while.

On Saturday I was working around my house cleaning up and putting away things in the garage and then trying to fix the door on my garage. After I examined the old door which wasn't fitting properly, I realized that I needed to cut a portion off the post which attached to the outside wall and so I carried the door and frame over to the top of my dug well where I had some support.

I wasn't really looking where I was going and as I stepped onto the well, I stepped on a rotten board on the top of my well which broke. My right leg fell through and was hanging inside the well just above the water. Luckily for me my left leg was still on the cement and the next board was still solid.

I pulled myself out, a little bruised and sore, but I then continued with my project, put the door back on the garage, put the chairs in the garage, went to the dump and then came home and changed my clothes.

It wasn't until later that I realized how lucky I really was.

I realized that If the second board had also been rotten, I would have fallen right into the well which was about 15-20 feet deep and filled with water. There was no way for me to get out.

My boyfriend had gone to get his mom from the hospital, so he didn't get home until around 6:00 pm. He would have called me, wondered where I was, but he wouldn't have looked for me until about 8:00 - 9 hours after I would have fallen in. I live in the country and my closest neighbour was gone hunting, so there was no one nearby. I had no cell phone with me to call 911. There was no way to climb out of the well.

I realized that if I had fallen in, I probably would not be here to tell the tale.

We had talked often about putting something more over the well, filling the well, etc. but hadn't gotten around to it.

Often in our relationships we talk around a problem, but fail to actually deal with it until it becomes much worse.

Sometimes with our vehicle we hear a funny noise, but we wait for a while before we take it to the garage and what might have been a $20 part has now turned into a $500 (or more) repair.

There is a saying that applies here: "A stitch in time saves nine."

Before I left I put a flat over the top of the well. My grandson suggested putting some stakes around it with rope - a good idea.

Luckily I am here. The life lesson - take care of things before they become dangerous - or fix it before it fixes you - and watch where you walk.

BANABU

Fran

SARK

My experience depends on my perception. Today I will walk slowly and find between the hours just what my day needs.


Last night I attened a Mini-Vacation Seminar with SARK. I have been participaing in SARK's Awesome Adventure for the past month and she invited participants to join her in a Mini-Vacation.

If you have heard of SARK, you know about her brightly coloured books and you will be interested in seeing her site. Click here to visit Planet SARK.

If you have never heard of SARK, you are in for a treat. Don't waste any more time, just run on over and Click here to visit Planet SARK.

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Have a Succulent SARK day.


Fran

P.S. Make the most of yourself for that is all there is to you. (Emerson)

Dreams and Goals

Goals and Dreams

Don't underestimate the value of a few seconds. As Benjamin Franklin said, "If we take care of the minutes, the years will take care of themselves."

Quotes from Will Rogers “Our smallest actions may have tremendous repercussions”
“Our today is what it is because of what we did yesterday. “
“We need to be conscious of what we are doing or not doing.”
“If you don't take advantage of an opportunity when it comes, you may miss it for eternity -- grab hold and don't let go -- seize it now. “
“Nothing worthwhile is easy - you have to work at everything."

All too often as women we get sidetracked by the various demands of our life – our husbands/boyfriends, our children, our parents, our jobs… We forget that we too are allowed to have dreams and goals, that we are important and that our lives are important to us as well as to others.

How many times have you been going to do something for yourself – even if it was only to sit quietly with a cup of tea or coffee – when someone came by or called and asked you to do something? When this happens, more often than not, you sighed a little and then said, “ok” or “no problem, I can do that”. You likely didn’t say: “I’m sorry I don’t have the time at the moment”, or “Let me get back to you.”, even though that might have been what you wanted to say. Or, we just sit down and then we jump up, remembering one more thing that needs doing, and then we’ll just sit down and relax.

For instance, as I was writing this I sat down with my Chai tea, picked up my pen and started to write. Then I realized I hadn’t eaten anything yet, so I got myself a bowl of cooked cabbage, which I had just finished making, and then I went to rinse the dish and thought, “Oh, I should do these dishes.”, so I did. Then I came back to the table, to my cold Chai tea and an unfinished article, so I took my tea and put it in the microwave and picked up my pen. As soon as I’m finished writing I will go upstairs, put on some make up and head off to the church hall with my six pies and see what they need help with for our church supper.

But back to goals and dreams… How often have you let the busyness of your life interfere with achieving a goal or a dream? How often have you used the excuse, “I just don’t have the time to…”? (You supply the goal or dream.) I know I used that excuse far too often.

The truth is, you will never “find” the time, you have to “make time” for it to happen.

There have been times in the past when I pursued my goal straight out and others when I meandered my way along. I achieved my goal of a university degree in 2000 after 13 years of distance education. I started when I was 38 years old. I set my sights on 2000 and finished my final course in August 2000, in time to graduate and attend the ceremonies in October. Nine years later that is till one of my proudest moments.

My very first goal as a child was to become a mother. I didn’t want to be a pilot, a teacher, or anything else. Just a mom. I was married at 18 but the kids didn’t come along for 5 more years. I had 4 – boy, girl, girl, boy – and I’m proud to say that they are ALL wonderful, responsible, intelligent, caring human beings. If you have read my bio you will know that I officially became a single mom when my oldest was 14 and my youngest 3, although I had spent a great deal of time on my own as we had separated several times.

I found that it is important to keep on setting new goals or else you run into the problem of just sitting around wondering what you should be doing. That was my dilemma from the time my kids were born until I became a single parent and set my goal to achieve my degree.

A few years ago I decided that I wanted to make money on the internet. I had dreams of raking in “big bucks”. After all, that’s what all the ads say you can do. So I signed up for this offer and that offer and I bought this course and that course, but I didn’t have a plan. I didn’t set up mini goals and time lines and so I have been floundering. (I did make at least one wise purchase - Rosalind Gardner's Super Affiliate Handbook.)

I purchased the woman-2-woman domain several years ago when I was writing articles on a regular basis, but life got in the way and I never got set up. This week I decided that now is the time. I would just get it up and add to it each week. I will be adding info on Affiliate Marketing, Traffic Exchanges and Personal Growth with links you can use. Most will be women as that is my main focus, but there have been several men whom I have found very helpful, so I will share that info as well.

My goal for this website is to have a list of at least 5 items in each section by mid November. If you have some suggestions, please let me know.

I look forward to hearing from you. Check on how I’m doing by coming to my website http://www.woman-2-woman.info

See you later

Fran
P.S. Interested in Affiliate Marketing? Learn from the best.

Are You Enough??

"The Universe provides for us all every day, no matter how much we have or don't have. We deserve to feel that we are, have and do enough in our lives."
--SARK

Susan talks about being who we are in many of her books and she has recently begun an online Adventure. I have been a fan of SARK since I first read one of her books in the late 1990's. I was excited fo find our about her latest venture and I would like to invite you to come along for the ride with us.

What vibrant activies have you always wanted to try???? Try them now! Come along with us. See where the road leads. Click here to view more details

Achieving Goals

Brian Tracy is one of America's leading authorities on the development of the human potential. He is the best selling author of 23 books and has trained 2 million people in 23 countries. http://www.mp3motivators.com/tracy.htm?KBID=2786

How to Achieve a Goal by Brian Tracy

The starting point of great success and achievement has always been the same. It is for you to dream big dreams. There is nothing more important, and nothing that works faster than for you to cast off your own limitations than for you to begin dreaming and fantasizing about the wonderful things that you can become, have, and do.
As a wise man once said, “You must dream big dreams, for only big dreams have the power to move the minds of men." When you begin to dream big dreams, your levels of self-esteem and self-confidence will go up immediately. You will feel more powerful about yourself and your ability to deal with what happens to you. The reason so many people accomplish so little is because they never allow themselves to lean back and imagine the kind of life that is possible for them.

A powerful principle that you can use to dream big dreams and live without limits is contained in what Elihu Goldratt calls the “Theory of Constraints." This is one of the greatest breakthroughs in modern thinking. What Goldratt has found is that in every process, in accomplishing any goal, there is a bottleneck or choke cord that serves as a constraint on the process. This constraint then sets the speed at which you achieve any particular goal.

What Goldratt found is that if you concentrate all of your creative energies and attention on alleviating the constraint, you can speed up the process faster than by doing any other single thing.

How to achieve a goal

Let me give you an example. Let us say that you want to double your income. What is the critical constraint or the limiting factor that holds you back? Well, you know that your income is a direct reward for the quality and quantity of the services you render to your world. Whatever field you are in, if you want to double your income, you simply have to double the quality and quantity of what you do for that income. Or you have to change activities and occupations so that what you are doing is worth twice as much. But you must always ask yourself, “What is the critical constraint that holds me back or sets the speed on how fast I double my income?"

A friend of mine is one of the highest-paid commission professionals in the United States. One of his goals was to double his income over the next three to five years.

He applied the 80/20 rule to his client base. He found that 20 percent of his clients contributed 80 percent of his profits, and that the amount of time spent on a high-profit client was pretty much the same amount of time spent on a low-profit client. In other words, he was dividing his time equally over the number of tasks that he does while only 20 percent of those items contributes 80 percent of his results.

So he drew a line on his list of clients under those who represented the top 20 percent and then called in other professionals in his industry and very carefully, politely, and strategically handed off the 80 percent of his clients that only represented 20 percent of his business. He then put together a profile of his top clients and began looking in the marketplace exclusively for the type of client who fit the profile; in other words, one who could become a major profit contributor to his organization, and whom he in turn could serve with the level of excellence that his clients were accustomed to. And instead of doubling his income in three to five years, he doubled it in the first year!

So what is holding you back? Is it your level of education or skill? Is it your current occupation or job? Is it your current environment or level of health? Is it the situations that you are in today? What is setting the speed for you achieving your goal?

Remember, whatever you have learned, you can unlearn. Whatever situation you have gotten yourself into, you can probably get yourself out of. If your real goal is to dream big dreams and to live without limits, you can set this as your standard and compare everything that you do against it.

The three keys to living without limits have always been the same. They are clarity, competence, and concentration.

Clarity means that you are absolutely clear about who you are, what you want, and where you're going. You write down your goals and you make plans to accomplish them. You set very careful priorities and you do something every day to move you toward your goals. And the more progress you make toward accomplishing things that are important to you, the greater self-confidence and self-belief you have, and the more convinced you become that there are no limits on what you can achieve.

Competence means that you begin to become very, very good in the key result areas of your chosen field. You apply the 80/20 rule to everything you do and you focus on becoming outstanding in the 20 percent of tasks that contribute to 80 percent of your results. You dedicate yourself to continuous learning. You never stop growing. You realize that excellence is a moving target. And you commit yourself to doing something every day that enables you to become better and better at doing the most important things in your field. Concentration is having the self-discipline to force yourself to concentrate single-mindedly on one thing, the most important thing, and stay with it until it's complete.

The two key words for success have always been focus and concentration. Focus is knowing exactly what you want to be, have, and do. Concentration is persevering, without diversion or distraction, in a straight line toward accomplishing the things that can make a real difference in your life.

When you allow yourself to begin to dream big dreams, creatively abandon the activities that are taking up too much of your time, and focus your inward energies on alleviating your main constraints, you start to feel an incredible sense of power and confidence. As you focus on doing what you love to do and becoming excellent in those few areas that can make a real difference in your life, you begin to think in terms of possibilities rather than impossibilities, and you move ever closer toward the realization of your full potential.

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I hope you enjoyed this article.

For more information on Brian and his books, click here

Fran

P.S. Want a Free Think and Grow Rich Book?
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www.FreeTGRbook.com/franwatson

Awesome Anytime Adventures

Are you ready for the ride of your life? Join SARK and I on an awesome adventure. You never know where you will end up, but it will always lead to a Sweet Spot. Click here to visit Planet SARK.

What vibrant activies have you always wanted to try???? Try them now! Come along with us. See where the road leads. Click here to view more details

Looking forward to seeing you on the journey

Fran

P.S. Click here to view even more details