Writing Ideas

I was going through old blog drafts the other day and found this one.  Remember how I did those blog prompts last year?  Here's some more. :)

1. What inspires you at work? At home? At school?
2. Share a website you spend way too much time on, and why.
3. Talk about a special cause and why it's important to you.
4. Share tips on anything that has worked great for you (on studying, finances, fashion, etc.)
5. Project you would do if you had the money/time or still want to do? (community project, music project, art project, etc.)
6. Best *insert CMS* plug-ins that you've tried and loved
7. What are you reading right now? Would you recommend it?
8. Where do you see yourself in 5 years? 10 years?
9. The hardest lesson you've had to learn.
10. Your favorite recipe
11. Books/Movies that changed your life or stood out to you.
12. Share an anecdote from your childhood
13. Guilty pleasures: Music/Movies/TV shows/Books
14. Offline vs. Online relationships according to your own experiences
15. Memorable movie/book characters
16. Share a funny/inspiring/educational video that you've come across recently
17. Do you have any family traditions?  If so, what are they?  If not, what would you like to have?
18. Your best/worst job(s)
19. Best *insert browser* add-ons and why
20. Your Ideal Vacation
21. If you could create an internet application, what would it be?
22. What have you been listening to lately?
23. What you aspired to be when you were a child; has it changed?
24. Book vs. the Movie and your thoughts
25. Create a music mix for your visitors
26. How do you relax? Why does it help?
27. Why do you blog/paint/*insert hobby*? What got you started?
28. Hidden talents
29. Dream Job(s) and why
30. Your personal style and favorite stores
31. What are you favorite blogs of the moment?
32. Your definition of success
33. Room/House tour; show us your digs!
34. What do you frequently spend money on? Why?
35. What's your earliest memory?
36. Design/Craft tutorial
37. Favorite art/photography/design portfolios
38. Future goals and how you plan to attain them
39. Tell us a secret
40. Your ideal partner/friend/boss?

Thankful, Day One

Well, Carly "roped" me into this one, and that's fine.  I'm supposed to name 3 things I'm thankful for for 7 days. And like her, I feel like doing it. I need some more positivity in my life right now.  However, due to how much time I want to dedicate to this first one, today I'm only going to do one.  He deserves that.

1. Orion.

I think everyone could have guessed this.  And it's fitting to put this on here now because the more I've thought about it, the more I've realized that I only ever seem to put problems that I have with Orion on here.  It's not something I do all the time, but the other day when I said I didn't have any reason to believe he'd be bad for the vet, or something like that, my friend who was with me said something along the lines of, "Are you kidding? Everything I ever hear of Orion is of him being bad."    .......     Wow. That doesn't reflect on her, but it does reflect on me. I write about the bad a lot because I'm looking for advice on how to fix it, but I don't write about the good nearly enough.

I love everything about this horse, including his difficulties, but here's the thing. He came into my life at a time when I wasn't really looking for a horse. Did I want one? Hell yes. Did I think I could pull off owning one? No. I had just started a new job, which was a plus, but other than that, I still felt like my life was a mess.  I felt like a had no sense of direction and just couldn't figure out what I wanted to do with my life, something that continued until these last six months or so.  Orion was kind of dropped into my life, for cheap, and though he had problems, they weren't something I couldn't handle.  I didn't know if I'd ever be able to ride him, but that was fine. I wanted to do groundwork and aromatherapy and massage therapy, things I had read about and always wanted to try, but above all, I wanted my heart horse. That companion horse that would always be there for me that I could bond with and love and have love me back unconditionally.  I didn't know at the start if Orion would become that or not, but I hoped.  And if I couldn't ride him, it would be okay.  I could still do everything else, and I could still try to have that bond.

When I got him, he couldn't really have cared less about any one person specifically.  As long as he was cared for, he was content.  He seemed a little bitter with the world at times, but with how his legs were probably hurting him, who could blame him? I think we all get that way to an extent when we're hurting.  You could tell he appreciated what I did for him, but it took a long time to really truly bond with him and to see that manifest itself in him.  I loved the crap out of him and got to know his quirks and what worked and what didn't when working with him. We had a lot of mishaps along the way. It's been a constant learning curve, and there have been lots of challenges.

The first time he came to me in the field, on his own, was a great moment.  For at least the first year I think, he would look up at my whistle, see me coming, and go back to grazing. "Cool, you're here. Whatever. You can come to me; I'll just stay here."  Then one day, after spending about a week going out there consistently, I grabbed his halter and headed into the pasture and whistled.  His head came up from grazing, he whinnied, and trotted over to me, leaving the other horses completely behind.  He dropped his head to me and gently sniffed my hair and face, which has since become his normal greeting.  He doesn't always have this eager of a reaction, but he normally will at the very least meet me halfway.

The biggest moment I think I've had with him was when my grandma got sick a couple months before she died.  She had been like a second mom to me, and it was pretty clear that this might be the illness that finally did her in.  The doctors weren't that optimistic about her chances of recovering.  After returning from the hospital, I didn't want to go back to my mom's house. I wanted to go to the barn.  I just wanted to be alone with my horse with no other people around.  I appreciated people trying to make me feel better, but it was all either "I'm so sorry," which didn't make me feel better at all because it was a reminder of what was going on and how bad it could be, or they were overly optimistic, which didn't help either because I knew what they were saying wasn't accurate and wouldn't happen.  I just wanted silence and the unconditional love of my horse, and I just hoped he wasn't in an overly ornery mood. 

He wasn't. He was standing in the woods beside the creek, and I went out with halter and lead rope but no real intention of bringing him in.  He came right to me as I entered the treeline and pushed his nose into the halter as I put it on him.  I ended up just draping the rope over his shoulders and not holding onto it. I didn't need it. He stood still and close to me while I put my arms around his neck and cried.  He even gave me his version of a horse hug by turning and resting his muzzle against my back, so that I was folded between his face and his neck, and he stayed like that until I calmed down.  I sat down on a nearby log, and he walked over and just stood there with me. Like Carly's moment with Skip, he didn't know what was wrong, but he knew that I needed him.

There have been many other moments like this since.  Anytime I need to just get away from life (or embrace it by going somewhere away from people to at least figure stuff out), I try to go to him.  Deaths, breakups, disappointments...I go to Orion.  Yes, he's a horse, so he doesn't get why I feel the way I do, but he gets that I'm upset and is concerned about me. 

We have our ups and downs, but I really do have that bond that I always wanted with a horse with him.  He is my heart horse, and I don't know what I would ever do without him.  He's been the one constant thing in my life that loves me unconditionally and doesn't care what I do or how many times I fail. It's what makes all of this new information so hard, because I know how it will eventually end.  But that doesn't make me any less thankful for the time I've had with him or the time that remains.  I will always be thankful for the opportunity I had to buy him and everything that I have learned and experienced since, but most of all for this bond and this horse.

Wordless Wednesday- Inspiration

Loving Life

You know, not for the first time, but for the first time in a long time, I am in love with my life.  Things aren't necessarily perfect, but they are coming together for the first time in a while.  I'm on my way to being a PT.  I'm actively working on that, and I'm more confident in my decision than I have been about any potential future career in years.

I'm about to get my license, and I have a car (ok, well not officially YET, but it IS a sure thing, so I am already thinking of it as mine.)

I have a secure place to live, even if it isn't mine.  If things pan out financially, I'll get somewhere of my own, but if not, I've decided that I'm okay with staying where I am for a little longer and saving the money.  This is made okay by the fact that I'll have a car and can come and go as I please, without asking for rides or, as I more often do, just not going where I want to go because I don't want to bother people.  I'll be able to just up and go at any time, anywhere.  That is the most exciting thing I'm looking forward to in the near future.

I have Orion close to me now.  I'm injured, but I will heal and be able to start working on our newly found problems and everything else I have wanted to do.  In the meantime, during the healing process, he's still where I can easily visit him and love on him and hopefully make our bond stronger so that it's easier to gain respect and fix things in the future, in all pursuits.

I'm doing this Fiverr thing on the side, and I'm actually really loving it.  It's not a LOT of money, but so far, it's still around $100 more a month than I would have otherwise.  And it's growing.  As I get more positive reviews (I have yet to have a negative one), my gigs reach a larger audience because highly rated gigs get more attention. Since around the time of the accident, my sales have picked up A LOT.  It's been all I can do to keep up with them and still make sure I have at least a few hours in the day to myself to do what I want to do, relax, etc.  I'm finally in the homestretch of being caught up with them, which is a great feeling, but it's also a great feeling knowing that I'm doing so well with this (the majority of the orders I've had within the last week have been anywhere from $10-20 because they're larger documents, and since I'm a higher level seller than I was at the beginning, it's easier for people to order these.).  I've also JUST fulfilled the requirements (100% positive reviews and 50 gigs ordered within 2 months) to become a level two seller, which will give me even more potential to make more money and also to become a featured seller, where my gigs will be featured on the homepage and receive more traffic. (Oh, and did I mention we're only one week into this month, and I've already made $64? :))

20 Things to Blog About

I've seen people make these "Things to Blog About Lists" for themselves and their readers, and I thought it would be cool to try one for myself. So read on and let me know what you think in the comments below. And if you use one, link it back in the comment section so the rest of us can see what you wrote! :)

1. Name your favorite song or TV show and why you love it so much.

2. Top 5 Favorite TV shows and why we should check them out.

3. The most important moment of your life so far.

4. Favorite scene from a TV show or movie, ever.

5. Your favorite things about yourself.

6. Some things you might need to work on.

7. A post from your pet's POV.  Title it "A Day in the Life of *insert pet's name here*" or something like that.

8. Your most embarrassing moment.  (We all have them, and we all think they're worse than everyone else's, so don't worry!)

9. Where do you see yourself in 5 years? 10 years?

10. Your favorite month, and why?

11. Your favorite memory.

12. Your first love.

13. Got any blogging tips for your fellow bloggers?

14. How do you make sure you're living your life to the fullest?

15. What was the last thing you did that was completely unnecessary and just for you?

16. Readers! What do you prefer, Kindle, Nook, or some other device?

17. What's your favorite genre to read?  Suggest a book from that genre for us to read!

18. Favorite outdoor activity.

19. Favorite indoor activity.

20. Your favorite meal or food to cook.  Maybe provide a recipe for us?

Never Stop

Getting to the Best

Truth

Success

Make Them Count

Make A Choice

Be Strong

Lose That Fear

Good Things

Be In Love With Your Life

Some good things to remember...

Ideas

Hey everyone! So, I've been trying to come up with some different, interesting blog ideas lately.  I keep coming back to this one:  I'd like to do some essay/scientific paper-like entries about issues in our world today.

Before you protest how boring that might sound, hear me out.  I will be choosing things relative to other topics I have posted on here in the past, as well as things that are brought to my attention and learned about in some of my classes.  I think it would be a good way to learn more about things that I'm interested in and to bring that knowledge to anyone who reads this and thinks it might be interesting as well.  

So, that's some of what you'll be seeing here in the next couple of months or so (hopefully, as of right now).  I'll also be continuing the oil posts every Monday.  I'm going to write some up ahead of time so that I don't get behind again, haha.

That's all for now, so give me some feedback and let me know what you think.  And if you have any ideas, feel free to post them below.  I just might pick yours. :)

One Tree Hill

This is my favorite show. Ever. Period.  I love it more than I can say.

Heartland is a close second, and Private Practice would have to be third (yes, Grey's Anatomy is in there too, but I'm not as into it as I used to be).

With that being said, One Tree Hill has always been famous for its voice-overs at the ends of it's episodes.

Here's a few that I found when browsing OTH stuff on Pinterest...

These are part of what makes this show great (the bolded ones are my favorite favorites):

"Happiness is not a destination.  It is not a mood.  It is not permanent.  It comes and goes, and if more people thought that way, then maybe more people would find happiness."

"You ever look at a picture of yourself and see a stranger in the background?  It makes you wonder how many strangers have pictures of you.   How many moments of other people's lives have we been in?  Were we a part of someone's life when their dreams came true, or were we there when their dream died?  Did we keep trying to get in, as if we were somehow destined to be there, or did the shot take us by surprise?  Just think, you could be a big part of someone else's life and not even know it."

"Life kicks you around sometimes.  It scares you and it beats you up.  But there's one day when you realize you're not just a survivor.  You're a fighter.  You're tougher than anything life throws your way.  And you are."

"Because sometimes you have to step outside the person you've been and remember the person you were meant to be, the person you want to be, the person that you are."

"Now is the time for us to shine.  The time when our dreams are within reach and possibilities are vast.  Now is the time for all of us to become the people we've always dreamed of being.  This is your life.  You're here.  You matter.  And the world is waiting."

"I believe in true love.  I believe in love at first sight.  I believe that love conquers all.  And that doesn't mean there won't be hard days or difficult things to deal with, because there will be.  But finding that person who does it for you and knowing that person loves you back, just makes everything so much easier."

"Life is too short to wake up in the morning with regrets, so love the people and treat you right and forget the ones that don't, and believe that everything happens for a reason.  If you get a chance, take it.  If it changes your life, let it.  Nobody said that it'd be easy, they just promised that it would be worth it."

"If you look close enough to the world around you, you might find someone like you.  Someone trying to find their way.  Someone trying to find their self.  Sometimes it seems like you are the only one in the world who's struggling, who's frustrated, unsatisfied, barely getting by, but that feeling's a lie.  And if you just hold on, just find the courage to face it all for another day, someone or something will find you and make it all okay.  Because we all need a little help sometimes.  We need someone to remind us that it won't always be this way.  That someone is out there and that someone will find you."


"Every once in a while, people step up, they rise above themselves.  Sometimes they surprise you, and sometimes they fall short.  Life is funny sometimes, it can push pretty hard, but if you look close enough you find hope in the words of children, in the bars of a song and in the eyes of someone you love.  And if you're lucky, and if you're the luckiest person on this entire planet, the person you love decides to love you back."


"Cause you know what? Tragedies happen.  What are you gonna do, give up? Quit?  No.  I realize now that when your heart breaks, you've got to fight like hell to make sure you're still alive.  Because you are.  And that pain you feel?  That's life."


"The important thing is not to be bitter over life's disappointments.  Learn to let go of the past and realize that every day won't be sunny.  And when you find yourself lost in the darkness of despair, remember: it's only in the black of night that you see the stars, and those stars lead you back home."


"At this moment there are 6,470,818,671 people in the world.  Some are running scared.  Some are coming home.  Some tell lies, just to make it through the day.  Others are just now facing the truth.  Some are evil men, at war with good, and some are good, struggling with evil.  Six billion people in the world, six billion souls, and sometimes all you need is one."


"Sometimes people put up walls, not to keep people away, but to see who cares enough  to tear those walls down."