Common Sense Living

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It’s been a weird week for me. Ads are starting for Mother’s Day, and my mother’s birthday would be this weekend. It’s especially weird this year because I am just turning the age when she died.

My mom died at age 53 from sinus cancer. It’s still pretty rare, but then it was unheard of.

My mom didn’t give herself a chance at life.

She never spent any time outdoors. She never ate fresh fruits or vegetables. She used salt like it was going out of style. She didn’t get any exercise.

She smoked 3 cartons of cigarettes a week (I kid you not), and drank.

When she was being diagnosed, I talked to the doctor in the hall before he went in to see her. I explained to him that she smoked a lot, and that she had a drinking problem that she would deny. He acted like I was lying and went in to question her.

He proceeded to ask her questions about her lifestyle. He asked her if she drank. She said yes.

He asked how much. She said 2 drinks a day.

At this point he gives me a dirty look and asks her what she drinks. She simply states, “JB.”

He says, “JB and what?” She says, “ice.”

He asks, how big a glass. She says, “oh, you know, a regular glass”, and makes motions with her hands to show the size of a regular tumbler. Like you would drink pop in.

I thought the doctor was going to fall off his chair.

She was drinking 32 oz. of straight JB a day – but in her mind, she was only drinking 2 drinks a day.

We weren’t close. My mother was abusive. I left home at 16. I was 18 when the state gave me emergency custody of my 15 year old sister.

I tried to be there for her as much as I could, but my plate was pretty full. I had my grandparents that needed help (her parents), a premature baby at home with a tracheotomy and medical equipment, an alcoholic husband, a house, a dog, a yard, and a full time job. At one point I had my grandfather in one hospital, my mom in another, and my grandmother didn’t drive. And I lived an hour away from all of them. The only help I had was my good friend who would watch my daughter because I couldn’t leave her with her dad.

The cancer was pretty awful, and quick. It ate through her esophagus so that if she drank a glass of water she would drown. It quickly spread to her brain. She was dead in 6 months.

I quit drinking after that. I eat well and take my vitamins. I get plenty of exercise. But one thing I’ve never been able to conquer is the stress in my life. My life has always been a circus. And I still smoke. I guess it’s my form of tranquilizer. (I never claimed to be perfect!)

As I come up to my mother’s birthday I wonder, will this be the year I fall over and die from the stress? Will I be one of those people that has a heart attack out of nowhere? Will I manage to live longer than my mother? Weird, isn’t it?

Turns out that I’m certainly not alone in my mother issues. Mothers have quite a hold on their children that effects them throughout life. From now until mother’s day, I’ll be writing about some of these. I think we need to address the issues we harbor within ourselves about our mothers, and try to understand how we might be affecting our kids.

And you can bet I’ll be focusing on eating even healthier than usual until the end of the year when I will have managed to live longer than my mother.

Want to join me on my eat healthy to stay alive crusade?

I hope Beth doesn’t mind, but I’m posting her question because many of you may have the same questions.

Hi Carol,

I just wanted to applaud you for making the decision to quit your job. I know that it was stressing you. Are you going to do your online business full-time now, or get another full-time J-O-B, or a part-time job and work hard on your own business? I am sure that all your readers are wondering what you are planning to do. This could motivate quite a few of your readers to follow their passions, instead of staying in situations that aren’t doing them their highest good. I know I am far happier now that I am living my virtues and dropping the activities that were literally  making me unhealthy and unhappy. You have the computer smarts and writing skills and other talents that it takes to develop a successful online business Keep up the good work! Beth in Colorado*

Wow, Beth asks some heavy questions here. While it’s one thing to make a decision for myself, it’s quite another to make the same recommendation for someone else.

You might be tempted to think that if I jumped out of the plane without a parachute, then you could too. I mean, who quits their job without have either another job lined up, or a thriving business?

In my case, I’ve been working on this for years. But working a full time job has made it difficult to do many of the things I need to do to make my business successful. I believe that with the time to do the things I want to do in my business, I could be successful in a relatively short amount of time.

But I don’t want anyone to think that they can start with no experience today, and make a living in a short amount of time. There is only one way to do that – and it costs thousands of dollars. So if you don’t have thousands of dollars that you can invest in a professional team to get your business up and running for you – you’ll have to start off like the rest of us – doing what you can in the time you have, and continually learning and trying things.

Some people can do it faster than others. I can’t write sales copy very well, and I can’t afford a high paid copywriter. My technical skills are maybe a 5 on a scale of 1-10. It’s taken me a long time to work past these issues. But I’m pretty good at other things.

Some people can write sales letters that will make you drool. Some people can whip together a website using all of the latest greats tools. Some people are naturally good at networking. If you have any of these skills and you’re not putting them to use, shame on you!

But you’re still not going to do it overnight. Please don’t believe that.

So, to answer Beth’s question – I’m going to give it my best shot. I’m not even going to take the time to think about ‘what if it doesn’t work.’

Does it feel good to follow my heart? You bet.

Am I scared? Yeah, a little.

Would I recommend following your dreams? Absolutely, But I highly suggest having a better safety net. I felt like I had to do this. But I wouldn’t recommend it for everyone.

I would recommend that you work towards your goal a little bit every single day. That I highly recommend. Then, when the time is right – jump.

I’m still at the job for another week, and it hasn’t been pleasant. And then I’ve spent every available minute trying to get the computer running OK, and make some strides in the business plan.

It’s been kind of like having a gun to your head. Make it work, or die.

I haven’t eaten well, which of course, doesn’t help. I need to listen to my own advice Getting sick would be a really bad idea right now!

But the house is clean. You might think that’s weird, but it helps keep the stress levels down. My home is calm and soothing. Everyone says so.

I’m going to take a lot of time to play around with my daughter this weekend. We’re both off Monday, so our weekend will be Sunday and Monday. And since it’s probably the last really nice weekend we’ll have – I’m going to make sure to take advantage of it and spend some time getting rejuvenated and ready for the next battle. The next couple of weeks promise to be quite harrowing.

I haven’t told anyone except my sister. I can’t afford to listen to any negative talk right now – and I don’t want my daughter to worry. Watch, this will be the one time she reads the blog…

I’ll have some new stuff to show you soon. In the meantime – wish me luck!

We’ll talk soon –

Carole

This was going to be a wonderfully productive day – or so I thought.

My new hard drive was supposed to be here today. My computer is so overloaded, it will hardly do anything. Remember the old days where you could click and go to lunch? It’s almost that bad.

So I ordered that hot new external hard drive everyone is raving about. Office Depot had it on sale for $89.99 – and free delivery. But I was really disappointed when it didn’t come today.

Then, there were a couple of things I intended to do today, and I suddenly backed out on both of them. I’m not sure why, but I figure I’ll wait until I feel better about it.

Don’t get me wrong, the day wasn’t a total wash. I got other pesky work done. It’s just when things don’t go the way you plan, you have to reconfigure your brain.

I was reading some of the stuff about the economic bailout. Boy, that’s encouraging, isn’t it? NOT!

You know, if you have a blog about parenting, or lifestyle, or diet, or even some aspect of time management – there is an affiliate program for my products. And I will be adding at least one more line of products in the near future that I’m pretty excited about.

It’s not a big time program, I mean, the whole company is just me. But I have a couple of people who have said that they’ve made more money with my rinky dink program than with any other. If you’re interested in making a few bucks, you can find the CommonSenseLiving Affiliate Program here >>>

I’m off to finish up a few things before hitting the sack. I’ll be glad when this week is over. How about you?

At least the weather’s been great. Last few days to enjoy… We won’t be seeing any more 80 degree days this year.

I guess that means we’d better get it in gear and get to work. The holidays will be here in a flash!

OK, I’m signing off…

Carole

Hooray! It’s Friday!

I’ve been a busy little beaver. Worked the job, which is going to be a nightmare for the foreseeable future. And working on the business – which I won’t bore you with – but I’ve got to get it in gear and start making some real money so I can quit the job. I did a lot this week, so we’ll see if it pays off!

The house is clean, the shopping is done, and the spaghetti sauce is made. You know, spaghetti sauce is always better the next day. I don’t like the noodles left over. How about you?

Car is filled up, ready for whatever Emma has in store for me. She needs driving practice. I guess we could get 42 hours in this weekend? We’ve both been a little leery of her driving the 5 speed, but it’s a good thing for her to learn. I’ll just come back with a full head of gray hair and a nervous tick. Just kidding – I hope… I was hoping to manifest a new car by now, but it hasn’t panned out. I’ll rant on that topic next week.

Have a great weekend. Make it a point to get outdoors. It won’t be too long before the snow is flyin’.

You know, I’ve had more people talking about how they have their Christmas shopping almost done. Is that incredible? People are getting smart and picking things up on sale, or in the case of us collectors and antique nuts, picking up cools things as we see them.

Kids are a little harder. They keep changing their minds about what their into.

Enough about Christmas! I want to enjoy being outdoors this weekend!

If you are an email subscriber – post your answer to this weeks question to win a $25 Restaurant Gift Certificate!

Have a great weekend J

Carole

It starts in the lab.

People want foods that are easy to prepare, and cheap. But to create a packaged real food would be nearly impossible. So they create foods using chemicals. These chemical ‘foods’ are cheap to manufacture.

They load these fake foods with corn syrup and salt to make them taste better. Their taste buds become used to these foreign flavors after a while. In your mind, you think you’ve eaten good food. But your body? As the old saying goes, you can’t fool mother nature.

Your body starts to break down. It has to. No living creature was ever meant to eat these foreign substances. Not one. Not dogs, cats, fish, birds, cows, chickens, or humans.

People start to get lethargic and lazy. There’s no fuel to keep the body running. Energy diminishes to the point where people can barely make it through the day. They are fatigued and depressed.

People begin to get fat. They have to. It’s only natural. They’re eating foods filled with corn syrup, and not getting exercise because they have no energy or motivation to do anything.

Having no energy, people sit in front of the TV or the Internet, or play video games – where the system can continually fill their minds with whatever they want them to think.

Large numbers of people begin to get sick.

The pharmaceutical industry comes to the rescue!

“Don’t you worry about a thing, we’ve got a pill to solve every problem.”

“Come one, come all! We’ve got pills to cure your depression, give you energy, help you lose weight, and relieve the symptoms of any illness you have developed!”

But that doesn’t work for long. The pills only treat symptoms – they don’t cure the problems. They can’t. The problems are caused by lack of nutrition. You’ve heard of drug-resistant bacteria, super-bugs, and now drug-resistant hypertension, right? Yep, even the blood pressure meds aren’t working anymore. Drugs don’t cure the problem, they only mask it. 

Next people are shuffled into medical ‘treatments’, stints, bypasses, transplants, chemo, radiation…

Eventually people will die, either from the original disease, or the ‘treatments’ themselves. But that’s OK with the system. It was never about people. The system is only in place to make money. Period. And now they’ve got the kids in their clutches.

The cycle continues.

Tune in tomorrow for crisis in the boardroom.

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Are you ready to escape “The System”?