I hope you are blessed with many gatherings of friends and family this holiday season. Any holiday is a good excuse to bring family together and be grateful for what we have. If you are celebrating today I want to wish you a Merry Christmas. I wish you all a wonderful holiday season and the happiest new year!
“Holidays–any holiday–are such a great opportunity to focus on bringing the family together.”
–Lidia Bastianich
Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash
Christmas Eve is when My Rock and I celebrate with my family. It has been a tradition since I was little to celebrate the Polish tradition of Wigilia on Christmas Eve. We always helped Gram, Our Matriarch make pierogies the day before. Then they would chill in the garage because it was always cold enough in northwest Pennsylvania to leave them there. Traditionally, we would make potato and sauerkraut, mushroom, and cottage cheese. Eventually, we started cheating a bit and added in cheddar cheese and bacon pierogies, even though you are not supposed to eat meat on Christmas Eve.
Our Wigilia dinner is supposed to have 12 dishes to symbolize the 12 apostles although I don’t remember eating 12 things. We always had cream of mushroom soup, haddock, sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes, corn, green bean casserole, and pie for dessert. But my memory may be fading so those dishes may have been on Christmas Day as well! We all loved Red Lobster, so at some point we added in shrimp scampi and even lobster tails for a few years.
Before we eat we go around to each person breaking the opłatek, which is a Christmas wafer to symbolize the gift of daily bread. We wish everyone a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. Wikipedia also states “there is in places a belief that whatever happens on Wigilia affects the incoming year; if a quarrel should arise, it foretells a quarrelsome and troublesome year.” Let’s hope that everyone has a peaceful day and no quarrels arise.
I always remember on Christmas morning my sister and I would wake up super early and head downstairs, wide-eyed to see the beautiful tree and all the gifts from Santa. I love waking up to Christmas tree lights. It’s my absolute favorite. We couldn’t open gifts until Gram and Gramps got there, which usually didn’t take long as they were only two blocks away.
After our gifts, we would get dressed and head up to my grandparents. We would eat the traditional Polish breakfast of kielbasa and eggs. Then we would finally get to open gifts at Gram’s.
As I am sure most kids did, we played with toys, tried on new clothes, and celebrated with family. But we also went up to the Alliance College gym and jumped on the trampoline or played basketball. I was obsessed when I was little.
Since 2012 most of our Christmases have been in Virginia. My sister had given birth to my niece and I lived there as well. Dad had passed, therefore mom would drive my grandparents down to Virginia. After Christmas, they would continue to Fort Myers to Gram’s Condo.
Although we continue to celebrate in Virginia with the kids, life has changed. We no longer have my grandparents or my sister but we have a bonus family of my brother-in-law’s girlfriend and her three children. We celebrate Wigilia at my mom’s and then head to church. We finally get to open presents on Christmas Eve (which I always wanted to do!).
Whatever your holiday traditions are I hope you have a wonderful Christmas Eve and a Merry Christmas! I hope Santa is good to you this year.
This holiday season I wish the best for you all.
“May your walls know joy, may every room hold laughter, and every window open to great possibility.” –
~Mary Anne Radmacher
Photo by Preslie Hirsch on Unsplash
I saw this on social media the other day. I believe it is one hundred percent accurate. Many of us what for things to happen to be happy. We wait for the right time, the right place, or the right people. But what we need to learn is happiness depends on us. We are in control of our lives and our happiness. Let’s make it happen.
If you want to be happy, have zero expectations of others, take 100% responsibility for your life, and be grateful for what you have.
-unknown
Photo by Antonino Visalli on Unsplash
Today would have been my grandpa’s 99th birthday. It’s hard to believe he’s been gone eight years now. He lived a wonderful life of 90 years. He was a teacher, a coach, and a mentor. He coached golf, baseball, and basketball. He was the coach and athletic director for Alliance College, which was a small Polish college in Cambridge Springs, PA. He also coached many of my friends and me in middle school basketball and helped with our high school softball team.
Not only was my grandpa the patriarch of our family, he was a father figure to many of the players he coached. He had a coaching style similar to that of Bobby Knight of Indiana. He was all business. He had high expectations of all of his players. He expected us to perform well on and off the court. He pushed us to be the best players and students we could be. He. also expected us to follow the rules.
My Heart and I still keep in touch with some of his old players and since we live in the house where he and Sweet Gram lived for about 50 years, we get visitors from time to time. We love hearing stories of Grandpa. A lot of his players talk about how he was a huge influence on their lives. They talk about how Grandpa and Gram would invite them to dinner if they couldn’t go home for the holidays. They talk about how my grandparents encouraged them to stay in school and work hard on the court and in their academics. Some talk about how they saved their lives in one form or another.
I looked up to my grandparents as a child which turned into a deep respect as I grew into an adult. Maybe some of his techniques would be frowned upon today but he made a difference. I am lucky that I lived two blocks from my grandparents as a child and lived with Gram for five years as an adult. I believe everyone who knew them feels blessed to have been a part of their lives.
Happy Birthday, Grandpa! We love and miss you!
I believe we can all relate to this quote. We don’t need to be perfect. We shouldn’t even strive for perfection. But let’s realize that we are human. We make mistakes. Let’s learn from them and strive to be an excellent human being.
“Take the opportunity to learn from your mistakes: find the cause of your problem and eliminate it. Don’t try to be perfect; just be an excellent example of being human.”
—Tony Robbins
Photo by Jose Vazquez on Unsplash
“Gratitude can transform common days into thanksgivings, turn routine jobs into joy, and change ordinary opportunities into blessings.”
— William Arthur Ward
Photo by Alfred Schrock on Unsplash
For today’s workout, you will do the moves like the song of 12 Days of Christmas. You will start with 1. Then do two then one. Then three then two then one. Work all the way up to 12 and down to 1. For example, 1 sumo deadlift high pull. Then two cossack squats and one high pull. Then three push-ups, two cossack squats and one high pull.
Movements:
For the video of movements click here. Remember there are always modifications. Let me know if you need help or suggestions. Don’t forget the warm-up. Make this workout work for you!
Photo by Scott Webb on Unsplash
Let’s stop worrying about what other people think of us and be ourselves. Let’s be 1% better every day only compared to ourselves of yesterday. Only compare yourself to who you used to be.
“The minute you start caring about what other people think, is the minute you stop being yourself”
— Meryl Streep
Friendships come in all shapes and sizes. They say people come into your life for a reason, a season, or a lifetime. As you have read, my husband and I are truly blessed with amazing friends and family. We love all of you, but today, I want to talk about one special couple who inspired me to take chances.
“True friendship resists time, distance and silence”
A few weeks ago My Rock and I made our annual road trip from Pennsylvania back to Florida. We stayed with a couple that we usually stay with up and down the coast. I have known him since I was five years old and her since I was in sixth grade. My Prince just met them in 2017 and luckily everyone gets along very well, probably too well (lol). Even though we live 5 hours away from each other, and only get together a few times a year, when we get together it is so easy. I leave every weekend with them with my cheeks hurting from the smiling, laughter, and shenanigans we end up getting into. These weekends are absolutely some of my favorite times.
I reconnected with the couple after a pretty long hiatus because we both moved away from our small town. The story is one of randomness and chance happenings. My mom was driving my grandparents home from their condo in Fort Myers to Pennsylvania when their car broke down in northern Florida. They decided to rent a car in Florida and drive to my sister and me in Virginia. Once the repairs were done, someone had to go back to Florida to get the car.
Even though I hadn’t talked to my childhood friends in a long time, we were from the same small town. We had been good friends back then because our parents were friends, too. To me, we had a bond and it didn’t matter how long it had been since we had talked. I asked if we could stay with them for a night to break up the trip while my mom and I headed back to Florida to get this car. They kindly opened their house to us.
We reconnected as if no time had passed. We learned about each other as adults and reminisced about our childhoods. It was one of my favorite nights.
I learned they were selling their house and most of their possessions and buying an RV. They were huge mountain biking enthusiasts and in their mid 30’s they felt they needed to go. They had saved money and made a plan. They were leaving from Florida, traveling up the east coast then heading out west. I thought it sounded amazing even if I wasn’t into camping or mountain biking. I was so proud of them for taking the Leap of Faith and going on their adventure. Most people wait for retirement to do all the things they’ve ever wanted to do. And sometimes, like my Dad, retirement is too late.
On their way up the coast, they stopped to see us in Richmond. We had a fire and had a great time catching up. They visited our houses, and we spent some time at their campground. I have to say they were part of the inspiration that lead me to quit my job that fall and go to Thailand to teach English. If my grandparents’ car hadn’t broken down and my mom wouldn’t have left it in Florida or if I didn’t have the guts to give them a call, I wonder where I would be and where our friendship would be today. What opportunities would I have missed out on? Things happen for a reason, my friends.
Since that phone call in the spring of 2015, we have stayed in touch and seen each other two to three times per year. They have welcomed us into their house each time we drive up and down the east coast. They were even generous enough to open their home to Sweet Gram and the cat! We don’t need to call each other every day or check in every weekend. We send texts when we miss each other, and we make plans when we want to get together.
I am truly blessed to have this couple in my life, along with so many others that make friendships and life easy. I believe our small-town childhood created deep bonds within us. I believe that friendships should bring you joy. Friendships should make you laugh. We need to remember that we are all busy. We may not hear from our friends as much as we want to at any given moment but we need to not take it personally. We can’t make assumptions unless we are assuming our friend loves us and just can’t get back to us right now.
Anyway, I hope you are blessed with a few easy friendships where you can catch up and laugh your face off until all hours in the morning. I hope you have people in your life that make it easy, that support you, and that love you. So Happy Halloween, my friends! Although we aren’t dressing up, we are off to Las Vegas to spend another weekend with these amazing friends.