a beginning

there are so many times in my life where i come to a realizaton from learning or from interacting with people and i would love to keep these insights (as i call them) somewhere. so gina has inspired me to put them into a blog. i hope to use this for anything useless (possibly useful) that i would like to remember in the future. i also hope to do a lot of "thankful" blogs in order to show all that i am thankful for but may be held back from expressing. i might also just use this as a "day in the life of vanessa" type thing to keep people (especially my mom) informed as to what goes on in my life here in cheese-head-ville (better known as wisconsin), because if no one else is wondering i always know that my mom cares and wants to know.


so this first post is dedicated to my mom!!! she truely is my rock, my inspiration, and my number one fan (as cheesy as that sounds :))

i love this pic of mom and me in cali with the beautiful flowers in the background.

this is a great pic of mom from new years eve this year!

i could go on and on about how much i am thankful for my mom (and i probably will at some point) but i will leave it at "i love her!!"

another thing that i love to do is pull great quotes from books that i read. i left my notebook full of them at home in st. paul where i have composed all the great ones. some of the quotes are only meaningful (or even more so) if you have read the book, but some of them are just great. so when i go home again, i will grab that and finally put those quotes into circulation. for now, i will use one from the book i am currently reading, eat. pray. love. by elizabeth gilbert. i am only about half way through this book and can't seem to find time on a regular basis to read it, but i am liking it and am relating to a lot of things she says in it. there are just some statements in this book that make me go "wow," for example:

"human discontentment is a simple case of mistaken identity. we're miserable because we think that we are mere individuals, alone with our fears and flaws and resentments and mortality. we wrongly believe that our limited little egos constitute our whole entire nature. we have failed to recognize our deeper divine character. we don't realize that, somewhere within us all, there does exist a supreme self who is eternally at peace. that supreme self is our true identity, universal and divine. before [we] realize this truth...[we] will always be in despair."

ok, so i actually found two i wanted to put into text here:

"you need to learn how to select your thoughts just the same way you select what clothes you're gonna wear every day. this is a powe you can cultivate. if you want to control things in your life so bad, work on the mind. that's the only thing you should be trying to control. drop everything else but that. because if you can't learn to master your thinking, you're in deep trouble forever."

eau claire is currently under a winter storm warning, so here's hoping for spring soon!!!