Monthly Archives: January 2010

100 lists challenge writers, clear thoughts, inspire and motivate. Just like that.

Posted on January 20, 2010 | 4 Comments

Serving a fresh brewed pot of hot delicious blog content for your reading pleasure.

Here is my 2nd list of 100. My first was my first blog post in October. The idea is to get all of your thoughts on the page. There are only two rules. The first is to start all entries with the number 100. The 2nd is to write it all out in one sitting. I made it only to 80 then took a break before coming back to finish and edit.

Frills.

The reason this works is that it brainstorms to get all of your thoughts on the page. Then the benefit is that everyone can write a list and one day you can expand on one of your ideas. Or maybe someone else will. Also it provides a nice story of where you are in your life today.

1. 100 new ideas.
2. 100 reasons I love to blog.
3. 100 smiles.
4. 100 things I’d like to do right now.
5. 100 students who make me laugh.
6. 100 best paintings.
7. 100 pages.
8. 100 sweet things.
9. 100 rooms.
10. 100 fears of change.

11. 100 reasons change is good.
12. 100 comments on 100 blogs.
13. 100 best all time films.
14. 100 best all time books.
15. 100 times over.
16. 100 songs I love.
17. 100 books to read.
18. 100 ways to motivate you now.
19. 100 ways to write new rules.
20. 100 students who are going to ask me why.

21. 100 calls to my mom.
22. 100 beautiful people inside and out.
23. 100 friends I’ve reconnected with.
24. 100 best cities to visit.
25. 100 new words to learn.
26. 100 jokes.
27. 100 tickles for my kids.
28. 100 dinners I’d like to try cooking.
If. I. had. the. time. and. the. desire.
29. 100 ways to learn to love cooking.

30. 100 things I wish I knew before starting this blog.

Travel in style.

31. 100 excuses I’ve heard.
32. 100 excuses I’ve made.
33. 100 places to publish your work.
34. 100 days on a cruise.
35. 100 animals I’d like to hold.
36. 100 kids who need help now.
37. 100 places who could use your help now.
38. 100 ways I’ve learned to give.
39. 100 ways to be generous.
without. spending. a. cent.

40. 100 ways to improve your writing.
41. 100 colors on my paintings.
42. 100 flowers in my garden.
waiting. for. spring. to. come.
43. 100 sounds in a symphony.
44. 100 yoga stretches.
45. 100 people I love.
46. 100 random thoughts.
47. 100 deep breaths.
48. 100 apples on 100 trees.
49. 100 places to go running.
50. 100 blogs to read.

51. 100 reasons writing a 100 list works.
52. 100 people who have influenced me.
53. 3 people who have influenced me most.

Be inspiring.

54. 100 dinners to serve.
55. 100 reasons I’m happy to be involved in community projects.
56. 100 quotes to sprinkle around.
57. 100 voices that sound like vanilla cinnamon.
58. 100 best metaphors.
59. 100 file folders neatly organized.
60. 100 stories in the news I hardly believe.

61. 100 great motivational words like inspire and empower.
62. 100 babies who are all grown up.
63. 100 adults who act like kids.
64. 100 years of happiness.
65. 100 types of love.
66. 100 upside down tickles.
67. 100 silly memories from my childhood.
68. 100 years of solitude.
69. 100 things I wish my teachers told me.
70. 100 things my teachers taught me.

simplicity

71. 100 sports that make you strong.
72. 100 best all time athletes.
73. 100 best cities to live in.
74. 100 best quotations.
75. 100 best bible versus.
76. 100 best all time gadgets.
77. 100 things to give to charity.
78. 100 top wines.
79. 100 cool things to write on the back of sweat pants.
80. 100 all time best you tube videos.

81. 100 words that can change lives.
82. 100 minute lunch break.
83. 100 minute work out.
84. 100 best nature walks.
85. 100 countries in need.
86. 100 reasons to thrive today.
87. 100 pieces of wood to stack.
88. 100 ways to be a better person.
89. 100 people who are reading this.
90. 100 favorite restaurants.

91. 100 ways to cook potatoes.
92. 100 different sports.
93. 100 miracles.
94. 100 stories to tell.
95. 100 people who have linked me to their site.
96. 100 uplifting positive things to say.
97. 100 people making a difference in this world.
98. 100 things to do before I die.
99. 100 ways to be excellent.
100. 100 discoveries.

101. 100 ways to go the extra mile.
102. 100 things to learn.
103. 100 toys.
104. 100 best cars ever.
105. 100 of my favorite stories.
106. 100 kinds of spices.
107. 100 ways to make cookies.
108. 100 ways to cook vegetables.
109 100 gallons of water.
110. 100 trips to Florence.

Like I said, I like to put in a little big extra. That’s why I wrote a little bit more.

Hope you are well. Thanks for visiting. Please feel free to comment.
Julie

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Posted in happiness, Inspiration, journal, learning, lists, motivation

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74th day blogging with 1650+ visitors. WT? Cranking out fresh smiley blog content daily.

Posted on January 12, 2010 | 3 Comments

I’m going to remove my blog stats feature from my blog about Italy. Blogging has taken over my life. I’m going to try to only check my blog visitor stats once a month. Uh huh. Yeah. Right.

Love life! painted by yours truly Julie.

I just want to let my nice readers know how I appreciate each and every click you have made. I have a feeling it’s probably just one crazy maniac who wants me to think I’ve got a cool blog and has nothing better to do so he/she is clicking endlessly on my site. Thanks maniac. You’re keeping me sane.

Today’s theme is going to be about multi-tasking and/or doing one thing at a time. How many things can you do at once? Or is it better to do one thing at a time?

I feel alive when I am doing a zillion things at once. I can have two chats going on in facebook, the phone up on my ear as I’m skyping with my mom watching my children and husband play, listening to a cd while the television is on in the background and the teapot is about to whistle that the water is ready. I’ve also got 10 windows open on my computer and am reading, writing and watching a youtube video. Did she really just say that?

On the other hand I consider myself an entirely simplistic person. Breathe in, count to 10, hold, count to 20, breathe out count to five, repeat. Relax, eat well, do yoga. You can only do one thing at a time if you want to do it well so stay in the moment and concentrate, right? Focus. I’d call this a dichotomy if I knew what it meant. It’s sounds like a fitting word, doesn’t it?

I just looked up dichotomy in wikipedia. It’s actually fitting. Take that Mr. ‘I’m moving on’ blog spam man.

Surprise!

What do you prefer? Everything at once or just one thing at a time?

Hey kids! How are you?! Great to see you. Guess what we did AGAIN today? Yes, we went to the theater in the center of town and got a tour back stage. I went with two shiny teachers and a class of 22 bright students. All the world is a stage. I’m singing and dancing. I happily volunteered to go on stage while the lighting technician showed us how the spot lights work. I must be attention starved because before you knew it a girl named Giada and I were making up a dance routine.

We got booed. We bowed.

Arena del Sole

Tomorrow evening we will all be attending a show. It looks interesting considering the main actor is a man dressed as a woman. Is this appropriate for teenagers? We learnt that the theater used to be a convent with nuns then Napolean was in town about 200 years ago (uh huh) – anyone checking this for correctness? Then the theater got auctioned off to a crazy man who sold leather goods. At least that’s what our guide said.

As far as multi tasking in concerned.

For some psychotic reason I decided to write a guide ebook to getting your blog started and how to make it bloom. I noticed some people are having a hard time getting their blog off the ground so I wanted to share that information. Then I started writing it. It’s not a bad book by any means but still? In Italian they have a saying called ‘chi melo fa fare?’ It means who is forcing me? Everyone I’ve ever met in my life is writing a book so what? The world needs MY information? I don’t think so. And secondly, why would I do that? To prove I can? Breathe Julie Breathe.

I could just take off the picture and that would be that. Only problem is that I’ve already written about 24 pages. Once I start doing something I like to follow through. I just don’t want to put out a mediocre product. I’ll let you know.

Hope all of you are fine out there. Have a great day. Be inspirational. Make the changes you want. Be the change you want. Believe in yourself. You can do it. I know you can.

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You make me smile.

Posted on January 6, 2010 | 4 Comments

Inspired choices.

I hesitate to post because I love looking at my paintings on the blog when I open my site but the show must go on. I can always repost them. It took me about six hours to upload all of those pictures so I don’t plan on doing that again any time soon.

I just wanted to say a big huge thank you to my regular visitors. I see you. I see you coming back. I know you want to know which one is the oil painting. It’s Anne Marie’s. If you follow my blog you guys know that Anne Marie is my best friend and has been for over 20 years. This summer I gave her a framed flower picture for her birthday and she loved it. She gave me the biggest compliment a girl could get and it was these words:

“I’m giving you your first commission. Please paint me some sunflowers.”

I did so happily and with a full, thankful and loving heart.

As you can see I’ve added an ebook link to a book I’m writing to get new bloggers helped started. I’m not an expert by ANY means but it did take some figuring out. I just want to share some of my knowledge. I don’t even know if there’s a market in that. I had two better titles. One was SEO WTF, but I didn’t want to use curse words. And the other was

If you don’t know what you are doing stand next to someone who looks like they do.
 but It think that might be too long.

I actually need your input. For one I still can’t decide on a name for this blog. Do you think I need to drop the .wordpress to make it seem more professional?

I also need to decide which way to head, motivation, art, or Italy journal. I spoke to my life coach Adam and he asked if I have any plans or measurable goals. He’s just amazing. I do. I sent them all in a detailed outlined letter.

I believe in something I read in Napolean Hill’s book called Think and Grow Rich were he describes what is called a Mastermind. The idea is that we all work together for a greater good. That’s my interpretation. That’s why I’m asking your guys’ thoughts.

I had this idea to have a contest, sweepstakes, giveaway where I would give away one of my pictures. It’s drying. It’s an oil paint and it has taken four days to dry. What do you guys think? My idea was to have you write between 50-200 words describing either:

1) Someone who motivates you and why. (or)
2) Someone who you have motivated and how.

What do you think? Should I just do it? Have I got nothing to lose? I don’t even know if I like the new painting. It looks so pretty in person but when I look at it in a thumbnail picture I’m not certain. Don’t ask me to upload it!

And finally I have to confess something. You know how when you have to study for an exam all of the sudden you find time to clean your entire house and organize every sock drawer by color? Well, I have the same thing going on in my life.

I’m supposed to be looking for a bigger house for my family. This is my procrastination. I’ve procrastinated for two years and I’ve never considered my self one to put off doing things.. I need to focus on that. (Or)… I could work more on my blog (or) I could try to stop wanting and start accepting. If I knew the answers! If I only knew.

In the mean time, today I’ll stick with the title Serendipity which means something to the tune of a positive unexpected outcome.

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Life is participation.

Posted on January 5, 2010 | 6 Comments

♥Take me out to the ballgame♥

I don’t know about you but I keep coming across one crazier story than the next. Humanity always seems to surprise me. For example, I’m reading stories about real stalkers, robbers, ATM blow ups, unfortunate home violence, earthquakes, and flying machines. Yeah right.

I started this blog four months ago and either I think I’m Crazy News Central or my readers do. Welcome. You might be new here, so please make sure to add a bookmark above, follow me on facebook or follow me on twitter.

I KEEP getting some fairly random messages and emails, one more surprising than the last. It must be me. I attract the nutters? Not you, obviously, them. Let’s try to get it on the page and make some sense of it all.

How are you? How are you doing these days? You look great. Really. Strong and Lovely.

So wonderful to see you. Thank you for dropping in for some blog copycoffee. Happy? Well fed? Smiling? Living, loving? Being a good person? Aiming at being a better person?

♥Without my readers I'd only be writing to my cat.♥

I had a talk yesterday with one of my best friends about having over 300 friends on facebook. She said I think you should just stick to a core group of friends.

Hmmm. Made me think.

When I started this blog I had 200 friends, now I have over 300. I’m still the same person sitting at my macbook type typing away. When I started this blog I was writing to my cat. I now have 6,000+ visitors.

After I thought about it I got back to her and told her, Yes, you’re right, you must know who your true friends are. However, I do believe that with internet our lives have become more global. We have to now think in new shiny ways. We are no longer limited to our direct surroundings.

The world is getting smaller. Heck, you can book your own travel. Now THAT’S what I call progress.

What really amazes me is how these names and profile pictures are ACTUALLY real truly wonderful people who have taken a minute out of their day to read my blog. I thank you for that.

You meet them, you share part of your life with them, and believe it or not, you both influence each other and the lives of people around you. Are our comments just random thoughts in each other’s lives? Or, do you think about them, mull them over in your head during the day or before going to sleep?

Making any sense?

As my mom friend put it, Julie, you really are busy. :)

Well, I meet wonderful people in my circle of friends.

Team Update ~ ♥l i t t l e p u n e y♥ ideas ~ BIG results.

Keep hitting the clear history option in my internet browser, but my history is still there. ;) Anyone have a quick fix, life hack?

By the way, we are doing really well on promoting our little event in our little town. So far we have organized a little stand with coffee, water, drinks, ice cream, and a little bbq with hamburgers and hotdogs. That’s it. That’s the big plan.

The parents have offered to man the booth if I can figure out how to set up the gazebo thing~a~ma~jig. One sweet grandpa in particular is bringing an air popper for popcorn.

Another has offered to donate a coffee machine. My friend and I are painting park benches the worst color or rust I have ever seen.* The mayor of our little town is going to throw the first pitch of the season. He’s hot a handsome gentleman by the way, in case you haven’t noticed.

We’ve organized the event for May 1st, 4:00 p.m. Come!

Now that it’s all organized and going well, I can’t help but think, was it worth all of the trouble? Many words, hours, meetings, fun, ideas, new jackets, pictures and press are all flying about. But seriously, folks, haven’t we got better things to do? Apparently not.

Now it’s your turn. What do you think?

Do you agree with me that life is participation and it is better to be involved and make things a little bit better? Or, do you think life is strictly a spectators sport? Should we just go, grab a drink, have a laugh, watch and cheer as the others run about? Or maybe it’s better to come up with a good idea and try to implement it? Hmmm.

Let me know. Leave a comment.

I hope this message finds you happy and well where ever you are. Be a leader. Change by doing. Smile. Enjoy life. Laugh a little, for goodness sakes. Muah.

You’re gorgeous.

Julie

* It was in my garage for three years. Wrong choice of colors. Don’t ask.

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Posted in happiness, Inspiration, Italy, learning, motivation, relationships, travel, writing

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Julie’s Art Gallery – Can you tell which one is an oil painting?

Posted on January 4, 2010 | 11 Comments

Lisa's

Todd's

Diana's

Kelli's

Lisa's

 

Mika's

 

Anne Marie's

 

My favorite

 

Chassity's

 

Gigi's

Shoe Cabinet

My living room.

Hi friends and welcome back. Today I’m sharing my art work with you. I started painting about two years ago when I was in the art room at a Middle School here in Italy. I was helping this sweet girl named Khadija who needed help with her Italian because both her parents speak Arabic. We ended up in the art room a lot.

Each of us has an artistic innate talent, like writing, singing, taking pictures, or playing music. What’s yours? Try to guess which one is the oil painting.

My facebook comments are viewable here:

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Posted in art gallery - if you're new start here, Inspiration, Italy, motivation

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