When God Closes a Door. . .

. . . He always opens a window. At least that's how the saying goes. However, at my friend Annette's condo, when someone closes a door, people seem to forget how to open it again. But no worries! Someone has taken it into their own hands to remind others how to open it. They have written on the door. "Turn the handle and push to open." I laughed so hard when I saw this sign and I wished that I had brought along my camera to take a picture of it. Needless to say, I will be taking that picture tonight when I see her. I will even post it on here for you to all get a good laugh.
Sometimes one just needs to see a funny sign!

Just Do It

I am back for a little bit, so I thought that I would take a minute and jot some things down. The cabin was fun, and I loved hanging out with my family. I am going back out there next week with Otto's family and I am excited to spend some time with them too!
I am not going to talk about all of the things that we did at the cabin at this time and talk about how proud I am of all of the new things that the kids tried and accomplished. However, I did want to write a post today on something that I have been thinking about for awhile now.
I have always been a person who is big on having a goal. I feel that if I am not working towards something then I am wasting my time. I once had a conversation with my dad (about a totally different topic) and he told me that I should take a piece of paper, divide it in half and on one side write a list of all of my strengths and on the other side, list my weaknesses.
I will be honest, I have never actually written them down because I know that the sad reality is that my weaknesses greatly outweigh my strengths. However, the advice that next came from my dad has always stuck with me and is the reason for my post. He said to now pick one of my weaknesses and work on turning it into my strengths.
This may not strike a chord with you, but this piece of advice has been life changing for me. I know that my dad was talking about personality weaknesses, but over the years, my mental list has also grown to include just stuff that I don't like.
As most of you know, I am currently training to run a 10K race in August. This is because of the advice that my dad gave me that night. I have always hated running and I never knew what the big hype surrounding it was. I didn't understand why people would actually want to run around for no reason at all. So, I decided to make this goal of running this race so that I could see if I could turn my hatred of running into a love of running. While I am not completely infactuated with the whole running thing, I do actually find my self enjoying running most of the time.
Another weakness that I have always harboured is my fear to put myself out there. I have always been a little timid when it comes to just letting go and getting recognition for something. However, in Orlando when the people were asking for us to audition for the American Idol experience my dad's advice rang through my head and I decided to just get up and do it. I figured that the worst thing that could happen is that they wouldn't like me and I wouldn't sing. Well, they did like me and I made it to the finale.
While I won't go into detail about a lot of other experiences that I have had following my dad's advice, I will say this. I have never had a bad experience trying to make my weaknesses my strengths. Every time I have made the conscious goal to do this, I have been rewarded greatly. I feel a great sense of accomplishment and I feel great about myself. I want to encourage those of you who read my blog to try it. Just pick one weakness (if you can find one) and make a goal to do whatever you can to turn it into a strength. . . you just never know how it will affect your life for the better unless you just do it.