I was thinking the other day about all those women on the Titanic who passed up dessert at dinner that fateful night in an effort to cut back. From then on, I’ve tried to be a little more flexible.

How many people out there will eat at home because their spouse didn’t suggest going out to dinner until after something had been thawed? Does the word ‘refrigeration’ mean nothing to you?

How often has someone dropped in to talk and they sat in silence while you watched television?

I cannot count the times I called my sister and said, ‘How about going to lunch in a half hour?’ She would gas up and stammer, ‘I can’t. I have clothes on the line. My hair is dirty. I wish I had known yesterday, I had a late breakfast, It looks like rain.’ And my personal favorite: ‘It’s Monday.’ She died a few weeks ago. We never did have lunch together.

Because we cram so much into our lives, we tend to schedule our headaches. We live on a sparse diet of promises we make to ourselves when all the conditions are perfect!

We’ll go back and visit the grandparents when we get the baby toilet-trained. We’ll entertain when we replace the living-room carpet… We’ll go on a second honeymoon when we get two more kids out of college.

Life has a way of accelerating as we get older. The days get shorter, and the list of promises to ourselves gets longer. Time flies… One morning, we awaken, and all we have to show for our lives is a litany of ‘I’m going to’s,’ ‘I plan on’s,’ and ‘Someday, I’ll’s.’

When anyone calls my ‘seize the moment’ friend, she is open to adventure and available for trips. She keeps an open mind on new ideas. Her enthusiasm for life is contagious. You talk with her for five minutes, and you’re ready to trade your bad feet for a pair of Roller blades and skip an elevator for a bungee cord…

My lips had not touched ice cream in 10 years… I love ice cream! It’s just that I might as well apply it directly to my stomach with a spatula and eliminate the digestive process. The other day, I stopped the car and bought a triple-decker ice-cream cone. If my car had hit an iceberg on the way home, I would have died happy.

Now… go on and have a nice day. Do something you WANT to… not something you just think you ‘SHOULD DO’. If you were going to die soon and had only one phone call you could make, who would you call? And what would you say? And, more importantly… why are you waiting?

Have you ever watched kids playing on a merry go round or listened to the rain lapping on the ground? Ever followed a butterfly’s erratic flight or gazed at the sun into the fading night? Do you run through each day on the fly? When you ask ‘ How are you?’ Do you hear the reply?

When the day is done, do you lie in your bed with the next hundred chores running through your head? Ever told your child, ‘We’ll do it tomorrow.’ And in your haste, not see his sorrow? Ever lost touch? Let a good friendship die? Just call to say ‘Hi?

Sometimes forgiveness can be a gift you give to yourself, when we get offended at someone’s thoughtless comments, or hurtful acts, give them the benefit of the doubt… forgive them, and move on.

Life is way too short to hold a grudge… anger is like a poison that you drink, expecting the other person to get sick… it hurts you the most… and also those you love who miss out of all that love and energy that you wasted.

When you worry and hurry through your day, it is like an unopened gift… Thrown away… Life is not a race. Take it slower. Hear the music before the song is over.
To those I have sent this to… I cherish our friendship and appreciate all you do.

If I don’t call you… call me! If you would like to hear from someone, call them, and don’t keep score. Enlightenment is the equivalent to joy in the practical sense, and you get more joy in life from giving love, forgiving thoughtlessness (including your own), and stepping forward toward the happiness that you want right now…

Life may not be the party we hoped for… but while we are here we might as well dance!

I have tried many different dieting methods, from raw food, to vegan to vegetarian, to carnivore, and none of these ways of eating have brought me the energy that eating a traditional nutrient dense diet has.

One of the areas that I will be focusing on in this blog will be the methods of eating and preparing foods based upon the ideas found in this book.  If you are looking for a well balanced, healthy and highly energy creating diet, look no further.  Go out today and buy this book.

One of the changes to my diet over the past several months has been the introduction to lacto-fermented foods, I have been making my own Kefir, and Kombucha Tea, as well as using Water Kefir Grains to make nutritious soda drinks… the kids don’t love them yet, but they are getting a bit more adventurous, as my skills and timing improve in the making of these amazingly healthful foods.

I started a new beverage that I found in Nourishing Traditions called Beet Kvass, it didn’t sound very good, but I had a few beets that were about to turn, so I thought, what the heck, I’ll give it a shot… the Beet Kvass, was salty, and tasted like watered down beets, but I drank a small glass of it this morning, and I will drink a bit everyday and see what happens.

This book should be in every household in the world.  If we followed this counsel we would all be much healthier.

I saw many different ways of presenting the same basic theme, and I was inspired by the creativity that many of the students put into the creation of their Vision Boards.  The process that each of the students went through was very similar to what I’ll show you here… hopefully if you have not already created a Vision Board you will take the time to create one soon, the power that can come from the visual representations of your goals and dreams is incredible.  Here is the simple step by step that I did in creating my own Vision Board, and what I show others how to create it as well.

All you will need for this powerful exercise is a poster board, or a large frame that you can get at any discount store, a bunch (dozens) of old magazines, a glue stick, a pair of scissors and some time (about 2-4 hour).

1.     Create a list of 100+ Dreams, write as fast as you can, and just write them down.  Here is a small sample of some of the dreams on my list:

• To be financially free
• To have excellent physical health
• To be a persuasive, powerful, and motivating speaker
• To have friends all over the world
• To be licensed to fly airplanes
• To be licensed to fly helicopters
• To fly a hot air balloon
• To SCUBA dive in beautiful places all over the world
• To go skydiving
• To produce all my own organic food
• To visit every country in the world
• To speak before 25,000 people at one time
• To write a best selling book
• To complete an Ironman while in my 40′s
• To control at least $10 Million in assets
• To build a beautiful barn in one day… Amish style
• To build a beautiful home on our farm that runs completely off the grid
• To walk barefoot on a bed of hot coals
• To touch peoples lives in a deep, powerful and lasting way for good
• To participate in or ignite an American free market revolution toward decentralization
• To save at least one farm animal breed from extinction
• To live healthy, strong and lucid until I am 125 years old

2.    Look over your list of Dreams, and write down a visual representation of that dream, for example, if one of your dreams was to speak to a large audience, then a picture of an audience would possibly be a great visual cue for you.  If your dream was to own a 2009 BMW 760 Li, then a picture of that car in your favorite color would be perfect.

3.    Next, what I have done with several groups (as well as myself) is scour dozens of magazines looking for pictures that represent the visual cues that I wrote down.  Cut out those pictures, and start to collect them.  Also look for words that inspire you and for ideas represented in photos.  For example, on of my desires is to be thick skinned, so that I wont choose to be offended easily, and I thought that a rhinoceros would perfectly illustrate that idea, so I found a picture of a rhinoceros, and I cut it out.  Freedom was also an ideal for me, and a herd of wild mustangs communicated that feeling very well.  You can also search the Internet for pictures and just print them off.

4.    Next what you do is look at the blank canvas that will become your Vision Board, and plan out in your mind where you would like certain things to be, you can divide up the board based on area of your life, such as Spiritual, Emotional, Intellectual, Physical and Financial, or on some other criteria.  The all you do is start gluing the pictures to the board, do not stress over how it will look, it will turn out perfectly.  Cut out quotes that have deep meaning to you, put pictures of important people in your life, such as family, friends, religious figures, pictures of nature and things that help you feel prosperous, such as luxury cars, beautiful homes and fertile farmland.

5.     When your Vision Board is complete, hang it on a wall where you will see it for a large part of your day, or at least when you first wake up in the morning, and make it a part of your early morning ritual to look at the board, and visualize yourself accomplishing the dreams that are represented by the images on the Board.

One of the main reasons that I am in the process of shifting careers from business consultant to organic farmer at 42 years old was in large part to the experience of creating my Vision Board, and making sure that my experience truly represented what I really, really, really wanted out of my life.

Enjoy creating the life that YOU TRULY WANT!!!