Gratitude, Coffee And Staying Motivated

Coffee Poster

Welcome to our weekly coffee share session. I am always looking forward to seeing you. Come on in, the  coffee is hot and fresh, but I also got tea, and some vegan cranberry chocolate chip oatmeal cookies, if you want some. Help yourself.

If you were here with me I would greet you with a smile, and tell you how grateful I am to have a quiet home at the moment. Half of the family is doing their own thing, so the noise level is way down. My head is grateful too, as I need space to think, quiet company and one on one conversations, rather than music or television in the background. Makes it easier to focus on what is important. You would probably notice my gratitude journal on my table. Do you write in a gratitude journal on a regular basis? Today I mentioned my family, the cool breezes of the last few days, the great lunch I had yesterday with my hubby, and of course, coffee.

Never Quit

If you were here with me, I would ask you if you are working on your dreams and goals, and how you stay motivated. Is it easy for you to stay on track with your goals, or do you have to drag yourself to take the necessary steps? If you are dragging, I would ask you what your reasons behind your goals are. A great why helps to pull you along, even when the day is tough.

What is your biggest, most outrages dream? I would share it with you – owning a home in  Hollywood Hills is mine – and hope you would share your dream with me. No dreams are too big, too outrageous if you are willing to work for them. I am. Are you? What are you doing right now to make them happen?

As you can tell, I love helping others reach their goals and dreams. A part of me is always going to be a motivational life coach, even if I have given up my practice a few years ago (it has been that long already? Wow, time flies when you’re having fun). Maybe that is the reason why I love helping other designers, creatives and writers succeed. It’s my thing, I guess.

What are you currently reading? Are you reading something that can help you along in your career, or business? Gary Vaynerchuck’s Crush It is currently on my Kindle. I am a fan of Gary’s videos, if you have not heard about him, I suggest you check him out. Very motivational.

I am glad you stopped by and we had a chance to talk. If you get a moment, check out all of the other participants of the Weekend Coffee Share and those who post as a part of the Celebrate The Small Things Blog hop. They would appreciate your visit.

See you next week – oh, but please feel free to drop by anytime. I always have something to share!

Blessings

Claudia

 

Weekly Gratitude Post – Burned Truck Edition

One Step At A Time

What do I mean “Burned Truck Edition”?

Well, my husband was transporting a load of hay this week, and it caught the truck on fire – the entire truck – and I am not talking about a pickup truck, but a Semi. There is nothing left of that darn thing, the entire cab of the truck including all of it that was in it burned to the ground within minutes.

What I am grateful for is, that my husband did not get hurt, minus a few scratches and a small burn on his arm. His stuff is gone, paperwork, credit cards, navigator, and all of the other stuff that make life a little easier when traveling, those are burned to ashes.  Those can be replaced. They do not matter. He does. For the rest, there is insurance.

So, I am celebrating him being in one piece and  home for a few days until he gets into the new truck next week.

I hope whatever you are grateful for this week is a lot less stressful and has a lot less danger involved.

– This blog post is a part of the weekly “Celebrate The Small Things” Blog Hop, hosted by the wonderful Lexa Cain. Why not join us and connect with her and all of the other wonderful bloggers who participate?

Blessings!

Claudia

Celebrate The Small Things – Rose Edition

White Rose by Claudia H. Blanton

Hi,  everyone! It is time again to celebrate all that we are thankful for. Please stop by to say hi to Lexa Cain, our wonderful host of the “Celebrate The Small Things” Blog Hop. As always, it is time to share our gratitude, and I hope you will join us!

What am I grateful for this week?

I am grateful that I have had the opportunity to express myself creatively via my art this week, working mainly with flowers, but other subjects as well. I find roses to be my favorite flower to work with. It has been a lot of fun!

Lotus In Blue by Claudia H. Blanton

I am grateful that a very unique Asian supermarket opened its door in our neighborhood. Their vegetable and fruit selections are enormous, and as vegetarians and vegans our family goes through a lot of vegetables. We are so excited about that. (well, we are foodies, all of us. We used to own a restaurant, so there is no getting us away from food).

I am also grateful that we had a couple days of cooler weather, even though it is back in the mid 90’s, at least we had some heat relief for a brief moment.

What are you grateful for this week? Why not write about it, and share your link with us here. Blessings!

Claudia

A Moment Of Gratitude – A Celebrate The Small Things Blog Post

Las Vegas aerial view taken from a blimp by DanitaDelimont
Poster is available via Zazzle

It is time again to join Lexa Cain for her weekly blog hop “Celebrate The Small Things” You can join this ever-growing list of gratitude practitioners there. Remember, when you look close enough, you will always find something to be grateful for.

This week I am grateful that our move is now in it’s final stages, and we are actually getting on the road on Tuesday. I am looking forward to finally moving out of here, and toward the West, something we all have been looking forward to for a while now. Las Vegas, here we come!

I am grateful that I am getting better at moving efficiently and in a more organized manner. This will come in handy in the near future again, our stay in Las Vegas is limited to about 6 months. So, basically as soon as we unpacked, we are going to re-pack. I better have that down to a science by then!

I am grateful that I have chosen to take the next few days off, and that I am flexible enough to do so. It is so much harder when your schedule is dictated by a typical job. I am glad that I am in charge of my own schedule.

I am grateful that found some baby pictures of my daughter, I did not remember we had. Somehow they got mixed in with some tax papers (I don’t know how that happened), but they are adorable, and put a smile on my face. I can’t wait to tease her with them later on today.

Speaking of pictures, going through all of our stuff, I also came across my own basic training pictures. Now there is something to scare the kids with. Is it a bad thing to be grateful for having been hurt bad enough in basic training to receive a medical discharge? Well, I am, because it brought me to this time and place, something that might have never happened would I have actually been physically able to stay. I guess it is possible to be grateful for torn ligaments and improper medical treatment after all. Was not that much fun when it happened, though.

What are you grateful for this week? I hope you take the time to write a blog post, and join the hop, or create a list in your journal. Gratitude is a practice that should be held sacred by everyone, no matter which spiritual background or the lack thereof  one comes from.

Have a great weekend!

Claudia

P.S. I will not be a part of next weeks hop. Monday will be the last day I will be on this blog until end of June. See you in July!

Gratitude – A Celebrate The Small Things Blog Post

It has been way too long since I have participated in the “Celebrate The Small Things” blog hop, even though I think it is one of the most positive link ups around. So without further ado, this shall be remedied today.

There is so much to be grateful for anyway. We are finally getting over whatever this viral infection was, that the entire family suffered from for almost two weeks. It feels good to be able to breathe, without coughing my lungs out. I am very grateful for that.

My dog (the hyper- allergic one I wrote about before) is getting her fur back! That took a while, but it is all coming back now, finally. She has made such a tremendous improvement since we went all crazy and changed, well just about everything, including me making her dog food from scratch.

I am grateful for the fact that the design part of our business is working well. I got more ideas than I know what to do with (which is a normal state for me), and I am itching to implement every single one of them.

I am also grateful that I am writing again like crazy, not just flash fiction and haiku, but also on the trilogy, but I know better to even try to come up with a publication schedule until after the move. While I do not mind taking on a lot of work, I know better than to overdo what I put upon myself. After all, we still have the transportation aspect of our business to run, and I do homeschool both of my kids.

I am grateful that I have come across so many different cool bloggers over the last  few weeks, and I had a chance to learn so much from them. Implementing these lessons will take me a little while, but that is okay. There is always something to learn, isn’t there?

So, now I am wondering what you are grateful for? What have you come across this week, that made you appreciate the world around you just a little more? Oh, and check out the other bloggers participating in this link up here! 

Looking forward to hearing from you!

Blessings

Claudia

Persistence And Passion – A Celebrate The Small Things Blog Post

There is always something to be grateful for. This week I am focused on the fact that I am grateful to have found my passion in life. I know I have a lot to learn about writing, and a lot to learn about creating meaningful content, but I am grateful for every day, I get to write, to explore a story or an interesting subject through words.
I am also grateful to have witnessed the power of persistence. I have seen people I know, finish their books, worked through the difficult parts of creating a story and emerged at the other end victoriously. Thanks to them, I am inspired to do the same, and repeating the process, until I reach the desired success.

Passion and persistence are the key ingredients to making it in any field. It is what makes my husband go work with passion on our business, overcoming all of the obstacles that come with being your own boss. It is what carries you through sleepless nights, and long hours – knowing that you are doing what you love. I hope you take the time to explore what your passion is and that you find the strength within yourself to be persistent, to see it through.

Check out this link to find what the other participants of this blog hop are grateful for this week.

Friday Gratitude: 5 Reasons To Be Grateful – A Celebrate The Small Things Post

I found myself looking forward to this post “Celebrate The Small Things” (via dear Lexa Cain)  post this week because there is so much to celebrate!

1. The #MarWritingChallenge is going great! Everyone who is participating is doing such a great job, and I am honored that I am the one to guide them through it this month. This is definitely something I will do again in the near future.

2. Avalon-Media – our soon to be new business adventure is beginning to take shape. I will not reveal too many details, as these can and may change a little, but essentially speaking, we will be offering our own e-books, positive resources and down the line some e-courses. By we – I mean, my husband and I.

3. I am getting better at managing my dogs severe allergies. Well, only one of them has allergies, the other one suffers from anxiety – always has – as a result of the shelter and the too early separation from her mother. My allergy-dog had to be switched to home-cooked foods and has to stay away from even the tiniest flea – which is a chore in Florida. But we are getting there.

4. I love creating posters, infographics and all of that stuff via canva.com. I have been learning a few things from their extensive tutorials, as well as some wonderful people who share their thoughts via YouTube, and I love creating with it. So no more boring pictures!

I hope you all had a wonderful week! Looking forward to reading what you were grateful for!

Better Late Than Never – Celebrate The Small Things

I am so behind on blog hops this week! But I think I have a reasonable excuse, considering that I have been writing up a storm. Besides working on reviews (thank you for everyone who has sent me copies of their work, I love you all, and will post the reviews soon), and writing on my own Fantasy series (not sure yet, it if would fit more into Urban Fantasy, or Dark Fantasy, well the books will help me discover how dark I am going to go with this), I have been slammed busy.Oh and we are planning for my daughter’s prom (her boyfriend’s prom, actually – we home school, so no actual prom here), a move, running our business, and yes, I got to edit a freaky little horror script I just finished writing.

I am utterly and happily grateful for all of the above! This might be crazy, but I actually like being busy. I did forget to mention, that I was chosen to lead the #MarWritingChallenge on Twitter! Yay! Basically the concept behind that is, that we encourage others that sign up to write at least 500 words per day, or edit their projects for one hour a day, and log their process for accountability. I am basically the lead-cheerleader on Twitter, but we do also have a Facebook group. I am so grateful to be a part of this! (for more info check out our main site http://writingchallenge.org)

It has warmed up! Finally the weather resembles some kind of Florida spring – which supposed to mean, I am supposed to be sweating, and hiding by the air-conditioner. That has not happened until yesterday. I loved turning on the AC! Felt like winning. We can not complain here, because our weather was not marginally as bad as for the rest of the East Coast, but I am reveling in the warmth right now.

So, I hope you had a great week too. What did you guys do, and what are you grateful for?

P.S. I am also grateful that people I rooted for, won at the Oscars! Yay to winning!

Express Yourself – And Gratitude

This week I am doing another blog hop mash up: Express Yourself and Celebrate The Small Things, in order to participate in all of the wonderful blog hops that happen to be on at the end of each week!

Express Yourself asks what our favorite movie of 2014 was? Ah, I love movies – after all I am a Screenwriter, so that is kind of a job requirement – so I could make a list. But the ultimate favorite movie of last year, well that was “Lucy”, a movie with Scarlett Johansen, that flew a little bit under the radar. Here is the trailer:

Which brings me to gratitude. I am grateful for movies, and how many wonderful movie theaters are in our area.

I am grateful for the way they make me feel, and inspire me in return to want to make an audience feel. That to me is ultimate entertainment, to arouse some kind of emotional responds, may it be the one I intend, or one unintended. Either way.

I am grateful for the Authors and Artists I have spoken to this week, some of which I am interviewing for this blog, and for Medium, and some of who’s work I will share here as Guest bloggers – which is a new thing I am about to start on Avalon.

I am grateful that I have ideas, and even if they are sometimes scary to pull off, I am grateful that I am not shrinking back from the opportunities.

I am grateful to be an Artist.

I am grateful that we have a successful business which allows me to explore my art, without having to worry about the bills being paid, or if there is food on the table.

I am grateful for having a wonderful and supportive husband, great employees, and loving kids.

Enough about what I am grateful for, what are you grateful for this week? I hope you all had a wonderful week, and I am looking forward to sharing again with you next week – blessings!

Claudia

Gratitude Summer Edition

Where ever you go, go with all your heart – Confucius

Gratitude is one way to be present wherever you are, and while I try to live in Gratitude, I do fall short of that goal to be present within it more often than I would like. So every once in a while I post here, what I am grateful for. Maybe you can join me, and all of the other wonderful people of this blog hop, and feel inspired to live a little more in gratitude.

I am grateful for the many books I have been reading over the last few weeks. Most of them have been absolute gems, and I am so grateful for the time I have been able to spent reading them. And sharing them with you all.

I am grateful that the rains have stopped. We had a very wet summer this far, and while it is wonderful that we on this side of the country do not suffer the drought that California has to deal with, there is a point where it gets too much. Finally, the weather has settled back into its normal rhythm here. I am grateful for that.

I am grateful for ranch dressing. Call me weird, but ranch dressing is that little something that makes me enjoy more raw veggies. And we all should eat a lot of veggies. A little dab of ranch and a pile of vegetables and I am happy camper. I am easy to please.

I am grateful for music. I usually start my day listening to my favorite musicians, more often than not 30 Seconds To Mars. There is something about music that can inspire, get you moving, motivate, and dare the impossible. Great music and a cup of coffee, a perfect way to start the day. Oh, and of course a slice of cake.

Now it is your turn? What are you grateful for?

Here are some other bloggers who shared their thoughts this week:

http://tuckedintoacorner.wordpress.com/2014/08/02/the-odd-trio/
http://wriculent.wordpress.com/2014/08/02/odd-trio-redux/
http://lgkeltner.blogspot.com/2014/08/celebrate-small-things-august-1-2014.html

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