26Nov 2014 by CJ

Give thanks to the people who bring your life joy and peace

Generosity & Kindness, Love & Relationships
“Let us be grateful to the people who make us happy; they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom.”  Marcel Proust This Thanksgiving, while you’re busy watching the football game, cleaning up the dinner table and planning your Black Friday shopping experience, take a moment to give thanks to the people in your life that we so often take for granted. As our lives settle into a routine, I think it’s easy for all of us to just assume that the people in our lives will be here for an infinite amount of time. But that’s not reality. Life is filled with unpredictability, which can easily rob us of our time here on earth. Giving thanks to those who’ve brought joy, laughter and care to our lives on…
Read More
19Nov 2014 by CJ

The journey is always challenging, but the rewards are there if you’re patient

Life & Living, Youth
This Wednesday marks a week to the day that my wife and I closed on our new house. While real estate transactions probably occur to thousands of homebuyers everyday across the nation, for us this was the final piece of a puzzle, which started back in January of 2014. It was during that time when my wife and I debated and deliberated where we wanted to spend our future. Would we stay in the comfort and security of a state we called home for almost 40 years, or would we take a chance and restart our lives elsewhere? It’s not an easily answered question – the results of which would greatly impact every facet of our lives, personally and professionally. But it’s a question definitely worth asking. Life is not…
Read More
17Nov 2014 by CJ

Going out on a “date” can truly ease another’s loneliness

Generosity & Kindness, Life & Living, Love & Relationships
The other day I read an interesting article about a wife who told her husband she was going to set him up on a date. When I first read that line you can imagine how many things were running through my head – how many assumptions I was making about what kind of couple they were. I was wrong. It turns out she was setting her husband up on a date with his mother. The story tells that the husband had made very little time for his mother over the years, and this was the only way she could think of to get him to spend more quality time with her. The mother of course was overjoyed by her daughter-in-laws matchmaking abilities. She was so excited to spend this quality…
Read More
03Nov 2014 by CJ

Lists are okay, but don’t live by them

Life & Living
I’m a list maker. Regardless of the circumstance, you can rest assured that somewhere there’s a notebook page with a numbered list on it – often revised over and over again. I’m a little anal, I know. The other day I came to realize that while my “lists” are meant to guide me, all they really do is cause my anxiety levels to rise, as I begin to feel overwhelmed by my self-inflicted deadlines. It can lead me to become agitated and cranky as projects pile up with little feeling of accomplishment. Sometimes I think I overcomplicate my life by assigning importance to things that simply don’t deserve it. I allow myself to get so caught up in my “to-do-lists” that I simply miss out on the little miracles going…
Read More
30Oct 2014 by CJ

Holidays are a time for missing someone you love

Love & Relationships
It’s hard to believe, but Thanksgiving and Christmas will be here before you know it. Stores are already stocked with Thanksgiving tableware and traditional recipe ingredients, while simultaneously brightly lit Christmas trees and an endless stream of holiday décor fill aisle after aisle. These are my two favorite holidays of the year, and I suspect many others would agree. I love the warm colors and the decorations; the holiday music and movies; the smell of freshly baked cookies and a turkey with all the trimmings permeating the house. It’s a magical time of year that always brings about memories filled with joy and laughter, but it’s also a time for missing the people that are far away from your heart. The unfortunate reality of this time of year is that…
Read More