Wayne and Kat’s Blog

 My Father passed away a few days ago and in his memory I wrote the tribute below. When I reread it, I realized that it was a perfect example of applied situation alchemy so I thought I would post it for all to see.  I hope it both serves you and that inspires you!

(Situation Alchemy is a concept that - through learning it - can change your life creating better health, warmer relationships and a happier life. For more information please see the bottom of this post. )

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

In loving memory of James Herbert McCarthy  July 2, 1939 - April 13, 2008

The phone rang today, it was Mom to tell me of your passing. The news saddened me and in all honesty, I had finished mourning you long ago. Learning of your death caused me to start reminiscing about you, the lessons I learned because of you and how what I felt about you has changed so much over the years. I decided to write this down so that I would remember in years to come.

When I was a little girl, I just loved my Daddy. There wasn’t a greater soul in all the land. The day did come when you decided to head off on an entirely different journey and you left me behind. For a very long time I was extremely angry with you and with me. I couldn’t figure out what I did that could have been so very terrible that you would leave me like that.

Eventually though - when I was 30 something - I remembered how much I loved my Daddy and I decided to carry that with me instead of all the hurt. There came a time when I realized that I had a choice to make: I could either help you continue your tradition of anger and bitterness or I could love you for the beauty that resides deep in all of us. Because of your choices and my choices, I learned how to let go and how to go on loving someone in spite of the circumstances. This valuable life lesson has served me many times over and will serve me often in the future.

I also learned through that experience that I could do it for myself. I didn’t need my Daddy or anyone else to tie my shoes. When you left, you declared me a big girl and it just took me a little while to step up to the task. I’m pretty sure that I wouldn’t have become the self empowered, forward thinking, optimistic woman that I did, without you.

The pain you must have felt Daddy, I can’t even imagine. It must have been something though to cause you to make the choices you did. Even when I knew you, you were always sad inside. When I was small I had a difficult time understanding why you were so sad - after all, you had a little girl like me…

Now that I am all grown up, I still can’t understand the specifics of who you were or why you were so sad. I know you didn’t like yourself much. I understand that whatever it was, it was just a lie you told yourself. It was easy for me to forgive your absence once I understood that you just got a little bit lost. We all get lost sometimes. Then again, I also trust that that was all part of the plan.

You chose a difficult role in my life. I want to thank you for that, it must have been really hard and yet, you lived up to the agreements we made before we came here. You gave me every opportunity to go forward without the habit of clinging to an anchor.

We are each the sum total of what we think we are and the choices we make. You had the strength to come here and be an example to me of what the outcome might be if we aren’t careful how we see ourselves and what choices we make. For that, you are my hero.

I love you for the gifts you gave me. I remember you giving me my first radio at 4 and staying up late with you watching rock music programs - you taught me to love music. I remember the summers camping in the north - you taught me to love nature. I remember the long drives to no where and every where - you taught me to love my mobility. I remember you teaching me to play baseball, how to fish and how to laugh - you were always so very funny though I don’t think you even knew that.

Truly, if it wasn’t for you Daddy, I wouldn’t be who I am today. What an amazing gift you gave me when you agreed to participate in a piece of my journey. I regret none of it for if any of it was any different, the outcome would also be changed.

You never loved yourself enough but that’s ok, I love you enough for both of us. You have been and will always be missed.

Be well Daddy.  I’ll see you again someday.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

For more information on Situation Alchemy, drop by Squidoo: Situation Alchemy

Hey! How’s everything in your world?

It’s been a few weeks since I have had time to write a post, we’ve been really busy getting the Spring 2008 Edition of The Magic Happens Magazine ready to be released. Finally, it’s complete and available for your pleasure. This season’s feature is Self Appreciation! Sounds really springy doesn’t it?

Incase you’ve never heard about our magazine before, let me give you a brief overview of what it is about and why we do it.

The Magic Happens is a free internet magazine by, about and for people who are Thriving in Life. Many of the contributors have long since retired from the everyday work world and pursue their own interests these days. The contributors aren’t really talking much about what they do per say as they are about who they are and their own personal and spiritual development progress.

The saying goes, ‘Your business will only grow as big as you do.’ And so, these people are expressing how big they have grown. It’s an amazing journey for all of us.

The first issue of the magazine was posted for public viewing on July 1st, 2008. Our intention for the magazine is to share what we have learned about the art of Thriving in Life and contribute to as many people as we can.

It is a quarterly magazine being released on the first of July, October, January and April.

We also have a companion community where some of our readers and contributors hang out and get to know one another. Everyone is having a great time sharing knowledge and learning more about Thriving in Life.

Why not drop by The Magic Happens Magazine and The Magic Happens Community? We would all love to get to know you and learn what you know about Thriving.

Happy Trails
Kat

As you may have noticed from my post ‘Musician Jeff Healey: A Tribute To A Man Who Thrived!‘  I recently discovered Seth Godin’s brainchild, ‘Squidoo!’

I say discovered but the truth is, I’ve known about it since it first got started and many of my friends use it. What changed was I finally realized its simplicity and its value.

Having gotten started with Squidoo just a couple of weeks ago, I have only created a few lenses (a lens being a webpage) and the results have been rather remarkable. I’ve gotten additional traffic to every page I used the Squidoo lens to and I’ve made money from every lens, something I can not say about every other webpage I have created over the years. It really was that simple.

The system itself is remarkably simple. Once you have an account, it is only a matter of choosing your URL, picking out modules and ordering them to your satisfaction, and then filling in the content.

Squidoo makes filling in the content easy as pie. For every module, with the exception of text modules, there is a link provided to help you find the content. So if you put up an Amazon module, you get a direct link to Amazon to search out the products you want to offer on your lens.

Even cooler is that you don’t have to have an Amazon account - it’s all done through Squidoo. The same goes for ebay stuff - it’s all handled and as a lens master, you don’t have to understand ebay at all. Squidoo has totally short cut my learning curve as far as having to learn systems on the internet to make money. What a bonus!!

If you want to see just how easy it is, drop by and check out the lenses I have made so far.

This lens points to our online magazine, The Magic Happens:
The Magic Happens At Squidoo.

This is a lens I created as a tribute to Jeff Healey when he passed away earlier this month:
Jeff Healey

This lens I made for Wayne when his HTML eBook came out:
A Beginner’s Guide To Website Design On Squidoo

And it gets better!! You can toss up the beginnings of your lens - a real simple affair - to help you start making money and/or get more traffic to your main website, and then continue to build it, just as simply as it was to start, as you have time and inspiration.

Here is an example of one I just started with the intention of building it as I go:
A Lens About Our Lenses.

I am seriously regretting that I didn’t pay more attention to this free on line system a lot sooner. I could have been making a lot more money a lot faster and it is great fun creating lenses. The ideas just keep flying, so fast, I haven’t had time to build most them yet - I just have way to many other things to do.

Law of attraction being what it is, I do want to note here that Squidoo didn’t make itself clearly known to me until I set an intention a few weeks back to find a simple and effective way to increase my earning potential. Up until this point, I had been ok with working for my money. The issue became that I didn’t have many more hours to allocate to work while my need to increase my income grew in importance. The Universe once again answered me in stars. Perhaps there is an option to spend less time working now that I have Squidoo in my corner.

If I had known the value of Seth Godin’s Squidoo a year ago, I think I would have spent the year building lenses. There are many people making thousands of dollars a month through their lenses. Sounds like a worthy thing to put my time in to. Well I have made the commitment to make 100 lenses by the end of the year so stay tuned - this will be fun. Wanna join in? We’d love to have some company!!

Happy Squiding
Kat