My week of a social media diet proved to be exactly what I expected…I didn’t miss it. Yes I was on social media and did post here and there, but only for the times I allowed myself. I went from checking my phone every 10 minutes to only at lunch and a half hour at night. I realized a couple of things: I was able to enjoy other people and our conversations more without looking at my phone every 5 seconds, and also I realized I didn’t miss anything relevant and actually cleared my mind a bit. It was hard at first not to be checking my phone all the time, but I stuck with it. I read more, focused more, and was actually happier without the drama of Facebook and Instagram. I will not fully cut these things out of my life, but I’m definitely cutting back. It’s about enjoying your life and opening your eyes to the things around you and realizing there are so many things out there to enjoy in this world and those things are very hard to discover when you are glued to social media at all hours of the day. Get out, take a walk, CALL (yes I said call) a family member or friend and actually hear their voice instead of reading a Facebook comment, learn something new, get your eyes off the damn phone or computer and live a life. Sometimes we all try to hide behind a keyboard…I’ve been guilty of this as well. The world is losing the ability to socially interact with each other and I think it’s sad. Trust me, I’m just as guilty as anyone, but I know I want to change that. Try not to let the social media world or internet take over your life. Trust me, you will be better because of it. My life. I choose awesome. Always be you.
Abby
spiritual
The reason why I am not thankful today…
I know what you’re thinking, “Oh my god it’s Thanksgiving and this crazy psycho isn’t thankful?!” Now just wait a minute, don’t judge a book by its cover:) I got your attention huh? Let me explain. I AM VERY THANKFUL today, but not just today, each and every day I wake up and take a breath I am thankful. I am thankful for family, a good career, a world of new opportunities and experiences, choosing to be happy, and the list goes on and on. I see so many people only showing and demonstrating thanks on this given holiday and then tomorrow it’s back to complaining about each and everything in their life. From jobs to not making enough money, from being overweight and thinking you’re fat, to flipping off the jack ass who cut you off in traffic then dwelling on it the whole day. From wishing you had a better life to bitching about the fact you didn’t get a $400 60 inch plasma at Best Buy. My career has allowed me to open my eyes to exactly how god damn lucky and blessed I am, this particular job especially. I work with the older population and yesterday it was heart breaking to me how most of them don’t have families that come and see them, or they are medically unable to leave the facility. From the old man in the wheelchair who was ecstatic to take 3 steps after not walking in 6 months, or the young woman who had a stroke and finally was able to stand up for 30 seconds. These people are THANKFUL. Yet today, someone around the world will complain and be pissed off about the fact that the Cowboys lost the game in the last-minute. Four of my co-workers are from the Philippines who have some form of family effected by the typhoon and lost everything. Those people would be thankful for a piece of food or clothing today, or to have that family member they lost. This is the first time in 29 years I will not be with my family for Thanksgiving, and yes I miss them tremendously, but I am so blessed and honored to have an extended family in California whom I can spend this day with because I know many people have nowhere to go. Everyday is not perfect. I have bad days and have to catch myself complaining about stupid shit a lot as well, but the change I’ve made is always thinking how much worse it could be. I don’t have all the money, the looks, or perfection, but I have a damn good life and am grateful today, tomorrow, and everyday moving forward. I love and appreciate everything life has given me as well as my family. So please, tomorrow when Thanksgiving is over, don’t change your thoughts and feelings you have today. I will still be thankful tomorrow for the same things as today. Carry them over to each and everyday of your life. Wake up and live everyday like it’s Thanksgiving and PLEASE choose to be awesome dammit. 🙂
Abby 
Did I just road trip across country again?! Yep…Willie Nelson style
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5 days and 4 states later, I am at my destination of Lancaster, CA. This is my home for the next three months as I fulfill another 13 week assignment. In 5 days I drove through 4 states, saw amazing mountains, deserts, and beaches. There was a lot of IPod shuffle going on and Podcasts for days. Let me tell you, it’s amazing some of the songs I had on my IPod I was totally unaware of. Anyways, my pit stops were no name New Mexico, Tucson, and San Diego. I have been wanting to come to California for a long time now to work, however, in my profession you need a license in each state you work in and let’s just say that Cali was quite the process. But all is good now and I’m here! The opportunity that came up couldn’t have worked out any better. I was able to get a position near one of the cities I wanted to experience (Los Angeles) and am grateful and blessed to be able to stay with family friends right near my job! All things happen for a reason people, I truly am a believer in that concept. So now I yet again am able to experience the California and LA culture, but back to the purpose of this blog, the road trip.
Believe it or not, the 1500 miles it took to get here didn’t seem that long. I had beautiful scenery along the way and even got to spend  a few days with a new great friend in San Diego. I have never been even remotely west in my life besides Dallas, TX. The mountains through New Mexico as well as Arizona were breath taking. Also, driving by myself I had a lot of time to reflect and think. I thought about many things on my trip. I came to the conclusion that my life right now is the complete opposite it’s been for the past 28 years. For example, Abby a year ago: Scared, never took chances, boring, non adventurous, wanted to stay in the safe/comfort zone at all times, non social, depressed and letting each day go by without “living.” Abby today: The complete and utter opposite of each and every term I just described me as previously. I’m out to live life and jump at new opportunities, meet amazing people, and have a hell of a good time doing it. Many may ask, “why did you change so much, what happened?” It’s funny because I thought at the time, the thing that happened to me was the worst thing in the world and my life was over, turned out to be the best thing that could have ever happened. I won’t go into detail, but as I was lying on my couch for who knows how many days in a row from depression, I simply made a decision that I didn’t want that life anymore. I didn’t want to be depressed. I made a decision to get up, get going, start my life over, and never look back. Not looking back has led me to amazing new experiences, amazing new opportunities, amazing new friends, and an amazing life. Not everyday is perfect, I will be honest. However, I still believe I have an amazing life now, even if it’s not all great ALL the time. The days that aren’t great I forget about and move on to the next. Each day I get to experience is a great day in my book, good or not so good.Â
Sorry about my ramble, I got a little off topic there. Back to the point of this blog, my road trip. FYI, the Prius was the best investment ever….Just saying that if you are traveling across country every few months, getting 48 mpg is a huge money saver. Anyways, the pics at the top are ones I took along the way. Some of them yes I was driving, which probably isn’t the smartest thing to do, but hell I had to get some pictures somehow! I promise I was extremely careful and I didn’t text and drive:) Good night my awesome people, and stay with me on this journey in Cali. I have a good feeling about it….As always, live awesome.
Abby
You don’t have to agree with my choices, but respect them.
Don’t lie. We have all been critical of others. At some point in our lives we have criticized someone because of the way they dress, speak, look, how they live, what they eat, etc. I will admit, I’ve done it. I used to do it all the time. However, when people started to criticize me and the way I live and do things is when I said to myself, “they don’t even know me or my story”, and it was then that I decided to not be critical of others anymore. It was then I said I would get to know someone before I made an opinion about them, and even if I didn’t agree with their choices, I would respect them. We all have the right to be who we want to be in this world. Frankly, it’s none of my business how someone dresses, eats, and lives. If their choices make them happy, I respect that. Who’s to say that MY opinions are right anyways? They are my thoughts and my preferences. That is what makes life great. We all have the choices to be whoever we want to be. It’s great to be an individual. People are the way they are for a reason. We often judge others based on our own backgrounds and experiences. If you want to know something about someone, ask them. Know someone’s story before you are quick to judge them. You may be judging someone on something they cannot control.
When I did my first figure competition, oh god were people critical. “She’s on steroids, she looks like a man, she must be starving herself, she probably doesn’t eat, blah blah.” Did it bother me at first? Yes. Does it bother me now? No. In fact, it makes me laugh. I know exactly what I did to get to that day on stage, and most of the criticisms people made were false. Regardless of what you do, you must not care what people think of you. I know this sometimes can be hard, but no matter what, there will ALWAYS, and I mean ALWAYS someone who will judge you in a negative way. You cannot please everyone in this world, and if you spend your time trying to convince that ONE negative person who criticizes you, you’re missing out on all the people who respect you. Trying to make that ONE person happy is a waste of your time. That one person will always put you down no matter what. Don’t make time for people like that in your life. Living happy means being surrounded by people who are willing to know your story and respect you and your choices. I don’t have time for people who are going to tear me down. That’s why I don’t pay attention to them. I do a lot of things in my life that people don’t understand. I have plenty of habits that others don’t. But if you are willing to ask me and get to know me, you may be surprised as to why I do the things I do. Instead of talking behind someone’s back, ask them their story. If you still don’t agree, that’s ok, still give them respect. Live as an individual and be different. If things you love are not the “norm” it’s ok. Happiness is what everyone strives for in this life, so don’t judge someone’s happiness. That is for them to decide. As always, live awesome.
Abby
Just because I’m alone, does not mean I’m lonely
Since I started this travelling gig, I have learned to be alone. I have learned to go into unfamiliar places and to depend on no one but myself. I go into a city not knowing a single person. I have the ability to make friends and talk to people no matter where I’m at. I have the ability to put myself out there and discover new things. But sometimes, I want to just be alone. Am I depressed? Lonely? Sad? Nope..I just want to be alone! At 29 years old, I am finally starting to figure out the person I am, but I will never stop learning or discovering things about myself. Life is always a journey. For those that don’t know about me, I have been divorced over a year now. I basically took a huge leap of faith and completely changed my life. So far, it’s been the best decision I’ve ever made. Back to my point, I will put it to you this way, I actually like being alone. It doesn’t scare me and it doesn’t bother me. I honestly think that people don’t spend enough time alone, reflecting and learning to grow as a person. Now, do I think as humans we need interactions with others as well? Of course I do, but I think that there is no shame in wanting to spend time with yourself. I know it has allowed me to become a better person and truly discover what I want in life. I don’t have to be around people all the time. I can go out by myself and experience things without the need of someone else. Sorry, but I’m not missing out on something in life because I don’t have anyone to do anything with. If you truly want to live a happy life, you have to be dependent on yourself, trust yourself, and not look for the dependence or approval of others for things you want to do. Happy Sunday everyone.
Abby
Be a “DOER” dammit
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Reaching and achieving a goal is one of the most awesome feelings in the world. Am I right? Whether it’s a weight loss goal, education goal, family goal, career goal, etc. Finally achieving something you have set your mind to and accomplished feels awesome. Many times however, there are dreams and goals we feel like are so far out of our reach. At the first sign of defeat we quit, and never fully see the potential or basically give up on our dream or goal. I’m here to tell you that if you want something bad enough, you will figure out a way to do it. No matter how long it takes. It may be something that will take years to accomplish, but at the end of the day it doesn’t matter how long it takes us to achieve a goal, what matters is that you achieve it. In order to reach a specific goal, there needs to be action that will have to take place. You ABSOLUTELY cannot achieve anything if you don’t put in the work to get shit done. There are a lot of “talkers” in this world and not enough “doers.” Let me explain.
Talkers-The people that have big, beautiful plans to do this and do that. They will tell you their brilliant ideas, and talk about them all day long. Yet you never see them putting forth any effort towards their goals. I know many people like this. I used to be one of them. In fact, I will say that I still portray some traits as a talker, but am slowly coming out of that world. You can talk all day long, but no action means no results. Everything looks good on paper.
Doers-While the talkers are wasting their time just “saying” their goals out loud and how they will achieve them, the doers are actually putting in the time, effort, and work required to succeed. The doers of the world are on top.
Tips on becoming a doer:
- Come up with a goal and an action plan.
- Write down your goal, read it daily, and visualize achieving it. Writing an action plan (which I will go over on future blog) which includes the steps necessary to achieve the long term goal.
- Make time to achieve your goal.
- Set aside time each day to progress towards the goal you want to achieve. The time spent is up to you, whether it’s 2 hours or 30 minutes, make SOME time which is better than no time.
- Come up with reasons of why you can instead of why you can’t.
- Quit making excuses or saying you don’t have time. Remember, if your goal is important, you will make time.
- When you fail at something, think of a different way.
- Doers will fail time and time again. What makes them different from talkers is that they will find a different way instead of quitting. Remember, there are a million ways to skin a cat. Maybe not a million, but you get the idea.
Let’s put this into action. One of my goals I have wanted to accomplish for a while is to learn Spanish. I won’t lie, I’ve been “talking” about learning a second language for months now. I bought a beginner course about 2 months ago and it still sits on my desk unopened. Now I’m ready to take action and learn! My action plan to achieve my goal is to set aside 20 minutes per day to study. In my future blogs I will elaborate more on the steps of becoming a doer. I could write all night on goal setting, achievement and steps for success. There is no better feeling than self-fulfillment and accomplishment. With that being said, always be a doer, and always live awesome.
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Abby
Wasted Time…
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So, this week I’ve been experimenting. Often times we find ourselves saying, “I’m so busy, I can’t find the time to: Workout, start a project, clean, cook healthy, call a family member, do this, do that, and the list goes on.” I, myself, find that I tend to say I don’t have the time to do certain things. I wanted to see how true this really was. Each day I marked down how many hours of wasted time I spend during the day. What do I consider wasted time? Well even though I like doing some of these things, I actually do consider them to be a waste of time knowing I could be doing something more productive. My list included:
- Facebook/Instagram/Social Media-Yes I know I know, but trust me, the world will not end if I can’t get on Facebook for one hour to see who’s life is miserable, who hates their job, what someone ate today, what someone looks like at the gym, or the latest post of someone I have no clue managed to get on my friends list because I have no idea who they are.
- Television-Yep I’m guilty. I watch the drama filled lives of others on Reality TV and live vicariously through Housewives, the Big Brother House, and others.
- Napping-I don’t take a nap every day, but sometimes if I get the chance and I’m in a position to do so, I will nap. However, I tend to take longer naps than I probably should.
- Surfing the Web-This does not count social media. There are some things I need to look up to find out information for, but I also tend to wander the web and find myself at very interesting places to say the least that really have nothing to do with me or what I was attempting to get on the internet for anyways.
- Sleeping-This does not included napping, this includes that extra hour or two in the morning I hit the snooze alarm 50 times when I could have just gotten my butt up out of bed and had a 2 hour start to my day. OR the hour or two I spent tossing and turning and unable to fall asleep when I could have been doing paperwork or getting something productive done.
These 5 things I thought where my biggest time wasters this week. After a week of this I figured that on average I wasted roughly 4 hours per day. When I actually looked at this on paper and realized each week I could be wasting 28-30 HOURS! Are you kidding me!?!? That’s a lot of time I could be doing things that I love, exploring new passions, getting little projects done, knocking things off my bucket list, learning a new skill, calling family, reaching my goals faster, and the list goes on. It’s incredible when you really look at all the time we “waste” during the day, but then later mention that we just don’t have the time to do certain things. Now with this being said, I’m not saying I will stop getting on Facebook nor give up my dose of Housewife drama, but I will decrease the time tremendously that I’m doing these things and set aside specified times for those certain things as well.
Be more aware of where your time is going to. Try my experiment for a week. Write down what you feel are “time wasters” and how much time per day you spend doing these things. Take a look at the list after a week a then I bet you can’t say to yourself, “I just don’t have time to work out, I don’t have time to go back to school, I don’t have time to visit or call my family, etc.” I learned through this experiment that in fact I DO have the time to do a lot of things I say I can’t, but it’s about MAKING the time. My question to you is, do you REALLY need to get on Facebook right now for 30 minutes when you could be working out? Do you REALLY need to watch the latest episode of reality television on FOX instead of doing your school work?  I promise that when you start to FIND the time to do the things you’ve been putting off, you will feel more accomplished, you will feel a sense of freedom, and your goals will get reached MUCH faster, and life will just be much more awesome!
Abby~
Living Awesome Project 