One Month to Live Day #1

I'm reading the book "One Month to Live" by Kerry and Chris Shook. I started it a few months ago and got to day 12 I think and then went out of town and never got back to it. So, I am starting again along with a couple of friends.

I think the overall message of the book is to live your life to the fullest and make everyday count. I will turn 40 in August of this year and January of next year marks my 20th year of having diabetes. So, it will not be long before I will have lived more of my life WITH diabetes than without it.

When I look back over my life I realize how often I have let things hold me back in life. I see myself sitting on the sidelines WAY too often. I think I am slowly learning to live a bit more and enjoy life. Too often I have let my shyness, or my weight, or my thinking it wasn't the right time to do/have something (like pets), etc. get in the way of really getting in the game of life and enjoying it.

The first quote in chapter one of the OMTL book is "Death is more universal than life; everyone dies but not everyone lives." - Alan Sachs

From the book - when most people are faced with terminal condtions, they make radical changes as a result of their awareness of their terminal condition. They take license to say what they really feel and do what they really want. They ask for forgiveness and forgive others. They no longer think only of themselves but reach out to those they love and let them know how much they mean. They take risks they never would have taken before and allow themselves to lay worry aside and gratefully accept each new day. They seem to gain a new clarity about their priorities like their relationship with God and leaving legacies that will endure.

Wouldn't it be wonderful to spend your life so that if you discovered you only had a month t live, you wouldn't need to change a thing?

Be brutally honest with yourself. Your time on earth is limited. Shouldn't you start making the most of it? If you knew you had one month to live, you would look at everything from a different perspective. Many of the things you do now that seem so important would immediately become meaningless. You would have total clarity about what matters most, and you wouldn't hesitate to be spontaneous and risk your heart. You wouldn't wait until tomorrow to do what you need to do today. The way you lived that month would be the way you wished you had lived your whole life.

If you knew you had one month to live, your life would be radically transformed. But why do we wait until we're diagnosed with cancer or we lose a loved one to accept this knowledge and allow it to free us? Don't we weant all that life has to offer? Don't we want to fulfill the purpose for which we were created? Wouldn't life be a lot more satisfying if we lived this way?

One of today's challenges it to quickly without thinking about it too much make a list of 5 things you would change about your life if you knew you only had a month to live. Choose one to begin changing today.

Rafting fun

Whitewater rafting is AWESOME! I was kind of sad when it was over. The river was packed that day too so the guide couldn't do as much as he could if it wasn't so packed but we had a lot of fun. I even got out of the raft and into the water when he said we could go in! The water was cool and it felt so wonderful. We are talking about going back to do the full river trip. We had one person go into the water when she wasn't planning to but everyone else stayed in except when they wanted to be out of the raft. There were two opportunities to get out. The first one was in calm water to just swim/float around and the second was at a rapid where you could climb on this big rock and jump into the rapid and it would take you under and spit you back out. The current would carry you a ways down from the raft if you couldn't swim pretty strong to get out of it.

In the pictures Carlos is 'riding the bull' as they call it sitting up front in the raft. There were two opportunities to do that. Maybe one day I will try that???

I'm ready for the next trip! It was a blast!

Who knew????

Who knew marshmellows and duffel bags could be so much fun!

I was eating some marshmellows tonight and I typically let the cats sniff what I am eating as they always act like they are just SO deprived to not eat what I am. Usually they just sniff and walk away but they were a bit more interested in the marshmellows. Chance wasn't quite sure what to do with his but finally decided it was good for eating. Gracie thought hers was good for playing but she must have licked it or something as it kept getting stuck on her foot and she kept trying to sling it off and then when she would get it slung off she would go chase it and bat it and chase it again. She kept stopping to look at Chance eating his like she was wondering why he was eating a perfectly good toy. It was funny to watch them but I didn't get any good pics of that. Didn't think about the camera soon enough. :(


The picture below is Gracie in one of my duffel bags. I did NOT put her in there. She just got in herself and scrambled around awhile trying to get comfy I guess. You couldn't even tell she was in there until she stuck her head out to look around.



The cats sure have changed things around here!

Family

This is my nieces and nephews with their great-grandparents. I thought the picture turned out pretty good. The kids seem to be getting SO big lately. My grandparents have aged a good bit in the last few years - especially gramma.

Ever have days like these???

I LOVE this! It just cracks me up! I remember this going around by email some time back and I just saw it on someone's facebook tonight. Too funny.