Over the years of being on Facebook, I've had friend requests from people I didn't recognize by name because they were using their married name which I didn't know and didn't also include their maiden name. I either figured out who they are from their pictures or profile information, deduced it from mutual friends or if I still couldn't figure it out, asked a mutual friend what name I would know this person as. I have also seen several friends change their name: either first and middle or if they are married (or divorced and still have his name), their maiden and married initials for a last name. I can think of 3 male friends off the top of my head who are currently not using their real last names so this isn't limited to just the women.
Everyone has their reasons for doing this. One of my guy friends mentioned above created his Facebook account around the time he was looking for a job. One just wants a low online profile. Some do it because they simply want to be harder to find. One of my widowed friends did it because she was having issues with her in-laws so she deleted her account and started over with a new name. Some, I think, just get bored and change it on a whim because they can.
I've never thought it was a big deal to change your name on Facebook, but apparently it is. I discovered this by changing mine. I then posted a picture as part of a daily challenge and immediately someone commented "Wow! You changed your name!" (I wanted to respond to that and ask what they thought about the picture). I had someone else tell me they almost deleted me because they were confused as to who I was. I have noticed someone who normally likes all my posts hasn't liked any since I changed my name. And the best (seriously-I'm not being sarcastic on this one) was a childhood friend I have known since we were 5 (actually, she was my first best friend) sending me a message to ask if everything is okay.
To be honest, I didn't think anyone would even notice and it does feel good that they did and that they want to make sure everything is okay. Although I do suspect one is hoping for some juicy drama. And here is the juicy drama leading to me changing my name:
I am now participating in several groups. In fact, that and messaging are pretty much the primary functions for which I am now using Facebook. (Totally just changed that sentence so I wouldn't end it in a preposition. Go me!). A few of these groups are literally worldwide. I don't know these people personally and I decided as I become more active in these groups, I wanted to be more anonymous with my personal information.
Scandalous, I know.
Friday, January 30, 2015
Monday, January 12, 2015
Thankful
Every year, I participate in the 30 Days of Gratitude on Facebook, in which I post one thing I'm grateful for every day for the month of November. This year, I didn't do it on Facebook, but rather kept track on a piece of paper which was hanging on my closet door. It's been hanging there ever since, until now, as I need the closet door space for a new challenge.
Here are the things I was grateful for in November 2014:
11/01: A roof over my head.
11/02: A job that pays the bills.
11/03: Not having to worry where my next meal is coming from.
11/04: Having reliable transportation.
11/05: Finally having someone listen when I really needed to talk.
11/06: Having compassion towards towards others.
11/07: Being able to reconnect with old friends.
11/08: The unconditional love of dogs.
11/09: A great turn out for a friend's baby shower.
11/10: Having had Dad in my life for almost 31 years.
11/11: The passage of time easing the hurt of losing loved ones.
11/12: Music.
11/13: Well wishes and check ups/check ins from friends (gum graft surgery).
11/14: Sick days with pay.
11/15: My best friend being here.
11/16: Knowing I want more out of my life.
11/17: Laughter.
11/18: Not having bat shit crazy relatives.
11/19: Being able to stay in touch via social media/technology.
11/20: Food Bank and trivia nights.
11/21: Not having to be anywhere on a dark and rainy night.
11/22: Having a bucket list to cross things off of.
11/23: Family-both biological and the one I created for myself.
11/24: Easy access to books.
11/25: Blessings in disguise. (Dentist appt being moved to Gresham meaning I didn't have to drive to Lloyd Center on the busiest day of the year).
11/26: Aloe infused socks and Benadryl.
11/27: Wanting to embrace the holidays again.
11/28: Weekend getaways.
11/29: Knowing that some times, it's okay to cry.
11/30: Not having to drive home (from Everett) in the snow.
Here are the things I was grateful for in November 2014:
11/01: A roof over my head.
11/02: A job that pays the bills.
11/03: Not having to worry where my next meal is coming from.
11/04: Having reliable transportation.
11/05: Finally having someone listen when I really needed to talk.
11/06: Having compassion towards towards others.
11/07: Being able to reconnect with old friends.
11/08: The unconditional love of dogs.
11/09: A great turn out for a friend's baby shower.
11/10: Having had Dad in my life for almost 31 years.
11/11: The passage of time easing the hurt of losing loved ones.
11/12: Music.
11/13: Well wishes and check ups/check ins from friends (gum graft surgery).
11/14: Sick days with pay.
11/15: My best friend being here.
11/16: Knowing I want more out of my life.
11/17: Laughter.
11/18: Not having bat shit crazy relatives.
11/19: Being able to stay in touch via social media/technology.
11/20: Food Bank and trivia nights.
11/21: Not having to be anywhere on a dark and rainy night.
11/22: Having a bucket list to cross things off of.
11/23: Family-both biological and the one I created for myself.
11/24: Easy access to books.
11/25: Blessings in disguise. (Dentist appt being moved to Gresham meaning I didn't have to drive to Lloyd Center on the busiest day of the year).
11/26: Aloe infused socks and Benadryl.
11/27: Wanting to embrace the holidays again.
11/28: Weekend getaways.
11/29: Knowing that some times, it's okay to cry.
11/30: Not having to drive home (from Everett) in the snow.
Monday, January 5, 2015
Inspiring Quotes for 2014
In the age of electronics, I use-gasp!-a paper day planner. Yep, that's correct. I write down my things to do, places to go and people to see. I find in doing it this way and having it sitting right in front of me on my desk, I'm less apt to double-book myself and I have an easier time remembering where I'm supposed to be, what I'm supposed to accomplish at work, etc if I write it down.
It is not one I went out and purchased. It is one I designed based off of one my best friend designed. I then printed it out and took it to Office Depot for binding. It was also a lot cheaper than going out and buying one and the most important thing is that it perfectly fits my needs since I designed it to do just that.
It is laid out a week at a time with Monday - Wednesday on one side, Thursday - Sunday on the other. It has sections for the focus of the day (usually work related), the top five tasks to complete at the office, the top five tasks to complete personally, hour increments for 8:00 a.m. - 10:00 p.m for Monday - Saturday, and blocks of time for Sunday, sections for short-term (30 day) goals and long-term goals. And it has a section for a weekly quote: something to reflect how I feel that week or what I want to focus on mentally.
Here is my list of quotes that got me through 2014:
Week 1: "I hope that in this year to come, you make mistakes. If you're making mistakes, you're doing something." - Neil Gaiman
Week 2: "Thank God we can't tell the future. We'd never get out of bed!" - Tracy Letts, "August, Osage County" (If Meryl Streep does not get nominated for an Academy Award for this movie, then there is something SERIOUSLY wrong with that process! Holy cow-what a performance!!)
Week 3: "There's an important difference between giving up and letting go." - Jessica Hatchigan
Week 4: "Incredible change happens in your life when you decide to take control of what you do have power over instead of craving control over what you don't. - Steve Maraboli, "Life, the Truth and Being Free"
Week 5: "The only reason you won't let go of what is making you sad is because it was the only thing making you happy." - krexy.com
Week 6: "Hope is a renewable option. If you run out of it at the end of the day, you get to start over in the morning." - Unknown
Week 7: "It's the heart afraid of breaking that never learns to dance." - Xiaoiu Guo (and Bette Midler, "The Rose")
Week 8: "Happiness is a delicate balance of what one wants and one has. It's an inner joy that can be sought and caught, but never taught and bought." - Unknown
Week 9: "Stop leaving and you will arrive. Stop searching and you will see. Stop running away and you will be found." - Unknown
Week 10: "Now and then it's good to pause in our pursuit of happiness and just be happy." - Unknown
Week 11: "Never give up on something you really want. It's difficult to wait but more difficult to regret." - Unknown
Week 12: "The energy it takes to hold on to the past is holding you back from a new life." - Mary Manin Morrissey
Week 13: " If you're dreams don't scare you, they aren't big enough." - Unknown
Week 14: "And through the rise and falling apart, we discover who we are." - Lifehouse, "Who We Are"
Week 15: "Life is like a camera...Focus on what's important, capture the good times, develop from the negatives, and if things don't work out, take another shot." - Unknown
Week 16: "You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself any direction you choose. You're on your own. And you know what you know. And you are the one who'll decide where to go." - Dr. Seuss, "Oh, The Places You'll Go"
Week 17: "The best journeys in life are those that answer questions you never thought to ask." - Rick Ridgeway
Week 18: "Everything will be okay in the end. If it's not okay, it's not the end." - Unknown
Week 19: "What a wonderful thought that some of the best days of our lives haven't happened yet." - Unknown
Week 20: "Sometimes your only available transportation is a leap of faith. - Margaret Shepard And, "Forget all the reasons it won't work and believe the one reason why it will." - Unknown
Week 21: "Two things define you: your patience when you have nothing and your attitude when you have everything." - Unknown
Week 22: "You are far too smart to be the only thing standing in your way." - Unknown
Week 23: "Sometimes we have to lose something precious to gain something priceless." - Unknown
Week 24: "Life is like a book: some chapters are sad, some are happy and some are exciting, but if you never turn the page, you will never know what the next chapter has in store for you." - Unknown
Week 25: "The best feeling comes when you realize you're perfectly happy without the people you thought you needed the most." - Unknown
Week 26: "Nothing lasts forever, so live it up, drink it down, laugh it off, avoid the bullshit, take chances and never have regrets because at one point everything you did was exactly what you wanted." - Unknown
Week 27: "Nothing ever goes away until it has taught us what we need to know." - Pema Chodron
Week 28: "How do you look at someone you love and tell yourself it's time to walk away?" - Unknown
Week 29: "Just because something isn't happening for you right now doesn't mean that it will never happen." - Unknown
Week 30: "There are all kinds of love in this world but never the same love twice." - F. Scott Fitzgerald
Week 31: "I always wonder why birds stay in the same place when they can fly anywhere in the world. Then I ask myself the same question." - Unknown
Week 32: "We are all created with equal amounts of awesome. It's up to you to decide how much of it the world gets to see." - Unknown
Week 33: "I admit I really miss how things used to be. But I can also admit that I've accepted the fact that things changed." - Unknown
Week 34: "All I need is time. Time to figure out who I am, who I want to be and where I want to go." - Unknown
Week 35: "What's meant to be will always find a way. She's going to marry that boy one day." - Trisha Yearwood, "She's in Love with the Boy."
Week 36: "I wonder what the person I'm going to marry is doing right now?" - Unknown
Week 37: "Life is an adventure. I can only wonder what treasure awaits at the top of the path." - Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Week 38: "The world is a book and those who don't travel read only a page." - Unknown
Week 39: "We travel not to escape life, but for life not to escape us." - Unknown
Week 40: "If you correct your mind, the rest of your life will fall into place." -Lao Tzu
Week 41: "The only thing keeping you from being happy is the belief you are alone." - Anna Draper, "Mad Men"
Week 42: "Don't look back. If Cinderella had gone back for her shoe, she wouldn't have become a princess." - Unknown
Week 43: "You were given this life because you are strong enough to live it." - Unknown
Week 44: "Never give up on something you can't go a day without thinking about." - Unknown
Week 45: "Let your faith be bigger than your fear." - Unknown
Week 46: "If you live in fear of the future because of what happened in your past, you'll end up losing what you have in the present." - Unknown
Week 47: "Your mind knows only some things. Your inner voice, your instinct knows everything. If you listen to what you know instinctively, it will always lead you down the right path." - Henry "the Fonz" Winkler
Week 48: "Every girl needs a best friend to help her laugh when she thinks she'll never smile again." - Unknown
Week 49: "Someday everything will make perfect sense. So, for now, laugh at the confusion, smile through the tears and keep reminding yourself that everything happens for a reason." - Unknown
Week 50: "You don't have to have it all figured out to move forward." - Unknown
Week 51: "I am spending Christmas with family: the family I chose for myself." - Me
Week 52: "I am an idealist. I don't know where I'm going, but I'm on the way." - Unknown
(Those marked as Unknown did not have an author attributed to them on the site(s) I found the quotes, which was usually Google Images of whatever theme I was feeling that day, and I'm too lazy to look them up).
It is not one I went out and purchased. It is one I designed based off of one my best friend designed. I then printed it out and took it to Office Depot for binding. It was also a lot cheaper than going out and buying one and the most important thing is that it perfectly fits my needs since I designed it to do just that.
It is laid out a week at a time with Monday - Wednesday on one side, Thursday - Sunday on the other. It has sections for the focus of the day (usually work related), the top five tasks to complete at the office, the top five tasks to complete personally, hour increments for 8:00 a.m. - 10:00 p.m for Monday - Saturday, and blocks of time for Sunday, sections for short-term (30 day) goals and long-term goals. And it has a section for a weekly quote: something to reflect how I feel that week or what I want to focus on mentally.
Here is my list of quotes that got me through 2014:
Week 1: "I hope that in this year to come, you make mistakes. If you're making mistakes, you're doing something." - Neil Gaiman
Week 2: "Thank God we can't tell the future. We'd never get out of bed!" - Tracy Letts, "August, Osage County" (If Meryl Streep does not get nominated for an Academy Award for this movie, then there is something SERIOUSLY wrong with that process! Holy cow-what a performance!!)
Week 3: "There's an important difference between giving up and letting go." - Jessica Hatchigan
Week 4: "Incredible change happens in your life when you decide to take control of what you do have power over instead of craving control over what you don't. - Steve Maraboli, "Life, the Truth and Being Free"
Week 5: "The only reason you won't let go of what is making you sad is because it was the only thing making you happy." - krexy.com
Week 6: "Hope is a renewable option. If you run out of it at the end of the day, you get to start over in the morning." - Unknown
Week 7: "It's the heart afraid of breaking that never learns to dance." - Xiaoiu Guo (and Bette Midler, "The Rose")
Week 8: "Happiness is a delicate balance of what one wants and one has. It's an inner joy that can be sought and caught, but never taught and bought." - Unknown
Week 9: "Stop leaving and you will arrive. Stop searching and you will see. Stop running away and you will be found." - Unknown
Week 10: "Now and then it's good to pause in our pursuit of happiness and just be happy." - Unknown
Week 11: "Never give up on something you really want. It's difficult to wait but more difficult to regret." - Unknown
Week 12: "The energy it takes to hold on to the past is holding you back from a new life." - Mary Manin Morrissey
Week 13: " If you're dreams don't scare you, they aren't big enough." - Unknown
Week 14: "And through the rise and falling apart, we discover who we are." - Lifehouse, "Who We Are"
Week 15: "Life is like a camera...Focus on what's important, capture the good times, develop from the negatives, and if things don't work out, take another shot." - Unknown
Week 16: "You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself any direction you choose. You're on your own. And you know what you know. And you are the one who'll decide where to go." - Dr. Seuss, "Oh, The Places You'll Go"
Week 17: "The best journeys in life are those that answer questions you never thought to ask." - Rick Ridgeway
Week 18: "Everything will be okay in the end. If it's not okay, it's not the end." - Unknown
Week 19: "What a wonderful thought that some of the best days of our lives haven't happened yet." - Unknown
Week 20: "Sometimes your only available transportation is a leap of faith. - Margaret Shepard And, "Forget all the reasons it won't work and believe the one reason why it will." - Unknown
Week 21: "Two things define you: your patience when you have nothing and your attitude when you have everything." - Unknown
Week 22: "You are far too smart to be the only thing standing in your way." - Unknown
Week 23: "Sometimes we have to lose something precious to gain something priceless." - Unknown
Week 24: "Life is like a book: some chapters are sad, some are happy and some are exciting, but if you never turn the page, you will never know what the next chapter has in store for you." - Unknown
Week 25: "The best feeling comes when you realize you're perfectly happy without the people you thought you needed the most." - Unknown
Week 26: "Nothing lasts forever, so live it up, drink it down, laugh it off, avoid the bullshit, take chances and never have regrets because at one point everything you did was exactly what you wanted." - Unknown
Week 27: "Nothing ever goes away until it has taught us what we need to know." - Pema Chodron
Week 28: "How do you look at someone you love and tell yourself it's time to walk away?" - Unknown
Week 29: "Just because something isn't happening for you right now doesn't mean that it will never happen." - Unknown
Week 30: "There are all kinds of love in this world but never the same love twice." - F. Scott Fitzgerald
Week 31: "I always wonder why birds stay in the same place when they can fly anywhere in the world. Then I ask myself the same question." - Unknown
Week 32: "We are all created with equal amounts of awesome. It's up to you to decide how much of it the world gets to see." - Unknown
Week 33: "I admit I really miss how things used to be. But I can also admit that I've accepted the fact that things changed." - Unknown
Week 34: "All I need is time. Time to figure out who I am, who I want to be and where I want to go." - Unknown
Week 35: "What's meant to be will always find a way. She's going to marry that boy one day." - Trisha Yearwood, "She's in Love with the Boy."
Week 36: "I wonder what the person I'm going to marry is doing right now?" - Unknown
Week 37: "Life is an adventure. I can only wonder what treasure awaits at the top of the path." - Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Week 38: "The world is a book and those who don't travel read only a page." - Unknown
Week 39: "We travel not to escape life, but for life not to escape us." - Unknown
Week 40: "If you correct your mind, the rest of your life will fall into place." -Lao Tzu
Week 41: "The only thing keeping you from being happy is the belief you are alone." - Anna Draper, "Mad Men"
Week 42: "Don't look back. If Cinderella had gone back for her shoe, she wouldn't have become a princess." - Unknown
Week 43: "You were given this life because you are strong enough to live it." - Unknown
Week 44: "Never give up on something you can't go a day without thinking about." - Unknown
Week 45: "Let your faith be bigger than your fear." - Unknown
Week 46: "If you live in fear of the future because of what happened in your past, you'll end up losing what you have in the present." - Unknown
Week 47: "Your mind knows only some things. Your inner voice, your instinct knows everything. If you listen to what you know instinctively, it will always lead you down the right path." - Henry "the Fonz" Winkler
Week 48: "Every girl needs a best friend to help her laugh when she thinks she'll never smile again." - Unknown
Week 49: "Someday everything will make perfect sense. So, for now, laugh at the confusion, smile through the tears and keep reminding yourself that everything happens for a reason." - Unknown
Week 50: "You don't have to have it all figured out to move forward." - Unknown
Week 51: "I am spending Christmas with family: the family I chose for myself." - Me
Week 52: "I am an idealist. I don't know where I'm going, but I'm on the way." - Unknown
(Those marked as Unknown did not have an author attributed to them on the site(s) I found the quotes, which was usually Google Images of whatever theme I was feeling that day, and I'm too lazy to look them up).
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