Hi everyone!

Hope you’re having a relaxing Sunday afternoon, enjoying your family and life. Each month I will begin publishing a post that provides HOPE. It’s my Sprinkle of Hope posts and I really believe Hope is not in short supply.

HOPE is the Positive Expectation of Good or what I like to call the Best Possible Scenario in any situation. But it is the one thing we need if we want to keep moving forward in the right direction in life. Hope is what Faith uses to create your life and without hope there is no progress or moving forward. If you struggle in life it’s because you need to re calibrate your HOPE. So I hope you enjoy these posts as much as I enjoy writing them!

Just last night I started watching the middle of the movie Impossible again right after the tsunami hit. It’s about a family that’s vacationing in Sri Lanka and they got hit with the tsunami that claimed the lives of thousands. I had watched part of it before and was moved to tears when the family found each other again after such a traumatic experience. I have two boys so I could imagine the elation of being reunited with your children. But when I saw it for the second time I “saw” it differently. I realized the mother was a doctor and the resort they stayed at was quite upscale. Obviously they were well-to-do but in the moment after the tsunami hit, everyone rich or poor, educated or uneducated, white, black, yellow, were all on the same level. The tsunami literally put everyone on the same plane in an instant.

In the moments after the tsunami hit it didn’t matter how much money you had, how much education you had, how famous you were, only one thing mattered: FAMILY. Those that were able to survive that catastrophe and find their loved ones were the richest ones. They may have lost their ipads and iphones, wallets and jewelry and their shoes may have been ruined but they were rich. They had the love of one another.

I’ve always placed my family as a priority. I’ve even changed  jobs and positions because they were taking too much time away from my kids and hubby. I’ve always understood the responsibility of being a parent and have tried to live my life in a way that my boys can be proud of and follow. But for some reason watching that movie made me realize something I’d never truly realized before. I’d heard about it but I couldn’t make it mine because I perhaps couldn’t relate.

And that principle is this: The moment you realize you don’t need anything is the moment you begin to attract every good thing in your life.

I’ve always been pretty ambitious in life. Even when my alcoholic first grade teacher literally sat in her chair the whole year with a bottle of Pepto Bismol while we played with toys and colored in our coloring books I managed in 2nd grade to get skipped to a 3rd grade Reading and Math class. I couldn’t Read or do Math but thanks to Mrs. Suarez I got caught up and in the second grade a reading contest was announced.  I instantly knew I was going to win. Instead of recess, I spent my time pouring through one book after another. The first person to read 100 books would be the winner. I don’t remember how long the contest ran, I just remember reading 100 books and winning.

I also beat everyone in my school at the Spelling Bee and went on to the district competition where nerves caused me to stumble over the spelling of a word and will not utter till this day (darn you B-A-N-Q-U-E-T!) and I was disqualified.

When I was in the 4^th grade our class bully Dawn was the fastest runner. It seemed almost impossible to think that this short, shy Puerto Rican girl could beat the fastest girl in the school. I decided I wanted to beat her during Field Day that year. So, every day I’d go home and run up and down our hill on 5^th street and literally train until I had boy calves..lol. Don’t ask me where I’d learned to do that, it was just something I did. Somehow I thought going up and down that hill would train me for the 4^th grade Field Day race at Richardson Park Elementary and help me to beat her. I signed up for the last leg in the relay race earlier that week because I knew Dawn would be running in that position. When I finally got handed the baton, I took off! I didn’t know who was to the left or right of me, the only thing I thought about was getting to the finish line first. And I won! I was a pretty shy kid in school so to have been hoisted on shoulders and paraded about was a big deal for me.

David slew Goliath.

In 2010 I was laid off during a time my husband was already laid off and I suddenly felt like the world came to a standstill. I’d never been in that situation before so I knew that somehow my wrong-thinking had led me to that place. The situation looked impossible. We were both without work and had bills to pay and a small savings account. I endeavored to change the way I thought, to remove thoughts of worry, anxiety, shame, defeat from my mind to thoughts of peace, love, rest, courage and joy. Four months later I was working at my dream company as a Technical Instructor making more money than I’d made my whole life.

In 2014 I started this food blog and though I see it like raising another child, I take care of it, watch over it, want it to grow and blossom and bless as many people as possible, but I look forward to it getting more popular, attracting more visitors, getting more interaction and comments, see my photography improving. There is still so much to do, to learn, to achieve…. But……… I realized that I feel like I’ve been in some kind of competition my whole life. Trying to get better, trying to make more money, trying this, trying that. After watching that movie again I realized I don’t have to compete anymore, I don’t have to wait to achieve another level of success, I don’t need to wait until I have a million visitors per month to feel accomplished. Everything that I will ever need or want in life I ALREADY HAVE IT: GOD, LOVE AND FAMILY. That makes me rich, accomplished and successful right now. This is where I want to always be. I have arrived people. And though it is only a mindset that I have just begun to embrace, I am learning that THIS is what will attract anything good that I aspire to attract. Already knowing I have everything and am fully supplied is the SECRET TO LIFE. It is the same principle behind 2 Peter 3:

Beloved, I wish above all things that you prosper and be in health, even as your soul prospers.

Our souls hold the key to our prosperity. When your soul prospers, you prosper. Your soul is your mind, will and emotions. How does your soul prosper? By walking in the truth. By seeing with the eyes of abundance and love. Your soul prospers by having a consistent attitude of gratitude in all things. Because you cannot feel like you are lacking or missing out when you are consistently grateful. You’re not waiting until you achieve something to celebrate and enjoy life- you are living it, enjoying and like we say in Spanish, “sacandole el jugo” squeezing the juice out of Life.

Russell Simmons the fashion/media mogul, talked about this central principle in his book, SUPER RICH.

The peace one feels from the idea that you have everything you could ever want right now, creates an accelerated catalyst for prosperity on every level.

Believe it or not the book is really not about money at all which I was initially disappointed about when I read it in 2012. I was expecting a mogul’s guide to riches and instead it was a book about changing your thoughts or paradigm to one where lack was a foregone conclusion, where abundance was the ruling methodology and not one single idle thought entertained any lack at all.

It seems abstract to say the least, almost impossible. How can you focus on having everything if you live in the ghetto? Or how can you focus on being amply supplied when you clearly have no food or money to eat? But my friend, I’ve learned that’s the exact moment to plant those seeds of abundance in your mind because the ground is fertile and ready for you to yield its fruits of abundance, surplus and provision. You see being rich is not dependent on the number of zeros in your bank account. Being rich is the result of recognizing what you have been blessed with right now.

Well, I don’t have anything right now, you say. Really? I beg to differ. Are you breathing? Are you reading this post? That means you are alive, breathing, can read and your eyes are working- that’s a blessing! You used some electronic device to access this post right?-another blessing. You may even be the owner of that device- another blessing. Which also means you have internet access-blessing there. Which means either you can afford internet access or you can access it somehow-another blessing. Your hands may have typed a keyword search where you arrived at my page, so your hands work, fingers work and you can spell! Triple blessing. Just having access to the internet alone can literally transform your life. That’s a blessing that keeps on giving, really. You can learn so many things and put yourself in a position to be a bigger blessing.

You see this whole crazy idea of thinking you have made it, you don’t need anything, you have arrived before you actually have it, has an ulterior motive or catch-22. That is another SECRET. Why? Because the more you have, the more people you can help. That’s how God, our Heavenly Father created this system to work. Even people who start businesses for the wrong reasons or people that are totally driven by money still bless people along the way. Think about it. This dude starts a restaurant business to get rich, so he gets a loan (the bank prospers), he hires a construction crew (they make money, people get to pay their bills and take care of their families), hires an accountant, waiters, cooks and so on. No, he may not be motivated by the right instincts maybe his family suffers along the way, maybe his marriage struggles because he doesn’t spend enough time working on it but look how many people he still blessed. Even still you can have it all. You can be motivated properly by love and have all those things and take the time to spend with your family appreciating them and you will have successes, love and the respect of your family. See how it works?

So the moral of the story is two-fold : As you’re on this wonderful journey called life remember that this gift called family is really the most important thing and if you have that, you are already rich. If you embrace this idea you will have everything you could ever want out of life effortlessly. You won’t overwork yourself, you’ll take the time to enjoy life and your family with regular vacations, celebrate your successes with them. Then you will take those successes and bless countless people with them. That’s achieving the Impossible.

Last weekend was a bittersweet weekend for me. Two events occurred that will mark my life forever. One, I got to see Oprah- not face-to-face, at least not yet, but I attended the Life You Want Tour in Miami with my niece. And two, I had to say goodbye to one of my doggies: Ladee  who was very ill 

I wanted to write this post because I wanted to load it with inspiration and all of the things I learned that weekend to share them with you but at the same time I didn’t think I was ready to write about my dog’s passing. I couldn’t write about one without the other if I wanted to be genuine and real with you guys. When I write, I feel better, so..here it goes.

My niece invited me to the Life You Want Tour and I said YES! I didn’t know much about it, except that Oprah would be there, and since she and I had never done anything like this before I would’ve gone to see the Grateful Dead with her if she had asked..lol but thank God she didn’t! The Life You Want Tour is designed to get you aligned to receiving-  well you already know – The Life You Want. I figured it was a motivational kind of conference and I knew I’d get a lot out of it but I totally underestimated the experience.

Oprah stepped out in her beautiful gold dress, and her countenance beaming like a proud mother as she looked out at thousands of women and I thought, “Yellow is the color of Gratitude”. I knew that gratitude was the key to a life beyond your wildest dreams and  I knew she had a mastery level on it and  so I was eager to understand how to get to a deeper level of gratitude in order to change my life. I wanted to learn to open up more so I can receive more so I can give more- that was one of my objectives. The other was  to do some soul-searching on some areas of my life that I felt needed some assistance. (Some of these answers came after I started reading her extremely insightful book called, What I Know For Sure.)

So there she was, front and center, stage ablaze with the color yellow, set amongst the brilliance of lights. She glowed and it was a glow of love. She spoke to us like a big sister would,  about her life, and about the challenges she’d faced. How each tribulation had  become a launching pad for her success. Each heartbreak becoming a breakthrough. She understood things, mysteries that most people grapple at their whole existence. She was extraordinarily insightful, extrapolating meaning from everything. She was truly rich. Aside from the obvious, she was rich in love, wisdom, joy, generosity, forgiveness, patience, kindness. Those are the things that really matter in life and I was hearing, from her very own mouth, how she had used those tools to navigate through life. And that’s when I realized this great woman was not great by chance. Yes, now, this…this was a woman of Faith.

I downloaded the Oprah’s Life You Want Weekend App and took notes feverishly while she and Deepak Chopra, Rob Bell, Elizabeth Gilbert and Iyanla spoke.  If you are able to catch the last two cities check out the tour online and go! In the meantime these are some of the golden nuggets that have changed my life:

Lesson #1: Give Wherever You Are In Life

I learned that it wasn’t until Oprah used what she had and where she was in her life to serve others that her life took off.  When giving to others became her priority, her life took on a whole new meaning and her career began to accelerate and flourish. We each have something we can use to help others. The world is waiting for our gifts. If we look hard enough we will find something that we can do to make this world a better place, one person at a time. Just look at your hands and open them and release the gifts you’ve been given.

Lesson #2: I Hear You. You’re Important. You Matter

Everyone wants to know they matter. The fastest way to squelch an argument is to tell the other person, “I Hear You. You’re important. You Matter.” Sometimes my son, Jordan mumbles while I have my back turned to him so I turn around to see that he’s waiting for a response not realizing he was talking to me. When I ask him to repeat himself, he used to say, “Never mind.” I stop him, look him in the eye  and say, “What you have to say is important to me, so make sure I can hear you and know you’re talking to me, ok? Now what was it you said?” He always opens up after that. Communication is so important. The very first act done in our history is a spoken command: Let There Be Light! We have to open our mouths and say what we want and mean. And we have to mean what we say. Listen. Look at the person when they are speaking to you and not your cell phone. Don’t drift away or yawn when someone is talking to you. Don’t interrupt someone while they’re talking or think about what you’re going to say while they are still speaking. GIVE them the gift of your undivided attention.

Lesson #3: Life is Always Speaking To Us

“Life speaks to us in a whisper, then a pebble, then a brick.” By then it almost always costs us something. Life is always expressing its abundance to us and when we listen we can do things the right way-the easy way – the best way which benefits us. When we procrastinate, it shows a lack of self-worth in that area and eventually we end up learning the hard way -which is by the way not my preferred method of learning. Raise your hand if you agree! So, take time to meditate in the morning. Get still and connect to the abundance, the love and goodness that it is in Our Creator. He is everywhere. He is our Universe. When you meditate daily you order your day and you also connect to the limitless realm of possibilities. You will inevitably begin to experience breakthroughs, peace, joy, creative ideas and success in so many ways.

Lesson #4: We are Co-creating Our Lives

One thing that really stood out to me is that Oprah regularly asks herself, “What AM I Creating Right Now? What is My Intention?” She’s always in tune with her intention. She understands that fundamentally we are creating our life with Our Divine Creator and that we have to make sure the decisions we make are motivated by love and not fear. That was a big one. I’ve started to do this and teach my kids as well and it is really changing my life. I feel empowered and I take even more time to make decisions that bless everyone concerned.

Lesson#5: Everything That Happened To You, Happened For You

Those were the words she heard from Maya Angelou, her mentor, during a very trying time in her life. If we see the things we’ve been through as a light to a path that continually leads us to reinventing our way of thinking and transforming our lives then nothing can really hurt you.

There was a multitude of lessons learned, tears shed and realizations made. I still have a ways to go but I was so happy to feel empowered and armed with so much wisdom and guidance for my life.  I could see that I was on track in many ways  but also have so much room to grow, improve, give, forgive and receive.

So I came back from that weekend buzzing, feeling like I’d been kissed from heaven only to see our dog, who’s really my husband’s devoted loyal buddy, struggling to breathe. Of late she’d been uncharacteristically snappy and before we got a chance to take her to the vet she became suddenly  ill.   We got a 2nd and 3rd opinion and opted to have her undergo surgery since we saw that she’d started to regain her strength but in the end Ladee made up her mind to do things her own way and she passed away that night. We spent some time at the animal hospital saying goodbye to her and mustering the strength to go home without her there to welcome us with her unique way and  quirky personality, knowing her Maltese sibling would be  sniffing the house, looking for her scent but unable to find it.

Animals are such a blessing and the lessons they have to offer us are limitless. Ladee was a firecracker in life. You knew when she came into the room and she had this wonderful way of making you feel comfortable. She was extremely affectionate even to strangers. When I saw her, days before she passed, I truly understood what Namaste meant because I could see how precious her little life was and I saw how incredibly blessed we were to have her in our lives. Our Creator breathed LIFE into her tiny body and here she was holding on. I honored who she was and all the love she gave us.

I learned that sometimes when you hurt, you don’t always communicate it in a way that can be understood. But it takes a loving, listening heart to hear between the lines sometimes.  I am learning to listen better.

I know the pain of her loss will diminish as the days go by but I will never forget her and now I smile at how she always did things her way- Ladee’s Way: the way she’d jolt right up out of a sound sleep, barrel down the stairs barking-racing,  whenever we’d come in or how she elegantly lay on her side, or didn’t like walking on grass but loved laying only on the carpet,  or picked out only the meaty portions in her dry dog food or try to get our attention if we took too long eating in the kitchen, or mischievously mess the floor and start galloping  around the house celebrating her  act of disobedience, or voluntarily put herself in the “dog house” when she knew she’d gotten in trouble for something, or how she’d like to bask in the sun, or get on her hind legs to see if we were sleeping and wake us up, or nip at your heels after  you walked in. She gave us 9 of her years.  I miss her and I know she knows how much we  loved her. Like my brother Carlos said, “She’s probably in heaven driving our Grandma crazy” (boy did I need that when he sent that text  but I also think that every time a saint arrives at the Golden Gates, she jolts right up, eyes wide and bright, barking exuberantly, her white, wavy hair flowing behind her, barreling down the streets of gold just in time to announce the arrival of every new saint. 

That weekend I learned what gratitude was to a greater, deeper degree.  I learned the Life You Want Is a Life of Gratitude. It is a life of always seeing the good even when what shows up “appears” bad because bad is really just a label that only WEhave the power to administer.   I learned that every struggle we carry around is because we can’t see the good in it. When we start looking for the good in it we immediately  shift how we see it. When we shift our PERSPECTIVE  then we release the “negative” emotions from it which are the chains that bind us. We then change our EXPECTATIONS/HOPE  and begin to “see” a way where there was no way. Once we recreate loving emotions, FAITH  is released and we are empowered to move free from the struggle and it all  starts with gratitude. Gratitude is a power that builds up and creates momentum until the scales are tipped and Bam! there it is..now you can SEE the breakthrough with your own eyes. My prayer and hope for you is that you have the vision to see the Life You Want may only be one thank you away. <3