​I did it!   I kept my eye on the prize and this month's newsletter is being written from my new office in my new home! Yippee!  

Last month at this time, I was cracking under the pressure of everything that needed to get done.  I'm happy to report that I survived:  all the boxes were packed and moved without issue; all of my appointments and responsibilities were managed; everything got done!  Whew!

While I will be unpacking for the next few weeks, every room in my house is functional.  The remaining rubble has been contained to the garage and I have set a goal of having the garage clear by the first frost! LOL! It's all good.  My former house is on the market and life is moving forward.

I don't know how to explain it other than by saying my new house makes me happy.  I walk in and smile.  The first time I walked through the door to check out the floor plan, I loved this house.  It feels good.  It feels right. And I can walk to Starbucks!

I have been welcomed into this community with open arms.  I've made new friends who have already left footprints on my heart.  Lots of people reaching out to help me.  I've been overwhelmed by the support and I'm forever grateful for the help.

My biggest lessons from this move are to ASK for help and to ALLOW people to help you. I'm not good at either of these things, in my mind I'm the one who is supposed to help others.  Read on for my lesson learned.

As summer begins, enjoy the beautiful weather, revisit your goals, adjust accordingly and ask for help when you need it. 
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Wishing you peace, love and sparks of gratitude!  Deb

I was spending a typical day in my new home; checking email, running errands, working on client files, etc.  All was good but I couldn't settle down.  I had a weird stomach ache.  I was jumpy.  This doesn't happen to me often.  So I noticed, but couldn't put my finger on it.

Then Dad called in the early afternoon saying Mom was ill and he didn't like the way she looked.   Dad is a pretty carefree guy, so when he calls I usually run.  This time my run was much shorter from my new home.  Mom was testing the new Daughter Emergency Response System!  

As I drove to their home, I realized the last time I felt unsettled like this was about a year ago.  I blamed it on too much news or too much coffee.  It turned out, Mom was sick that day.  It all starts making sense.

Dad and I are becoming seasoned in triage with Mom's health.  She wasn't in any distress.  She was sluggish and not really talking, somewhat confused.  The temperature changed by 40 degrees in the past couple of days, so it was much warmer and Mom had a little upset stomach from her lunch.  Now what?  Dad was convinced it was her lunch.  I thought it was dehydration.

If you know me, you know I can kick into my "Olivia Pope" mode and start problem solving and fixing.  It is one of my superpowers!  I start running scenarios out loud with Dad. If we call 911, if we take her to the ER or to Urgent Care...what happens next....  

We have experience here and know what happens...she will be admitted to the hospital (most likely for dehydration) and she will give up, become weak in a hospital bed then be sent to rehab.  It's not a good scenario.

So, my very intuitive father and I start monitoring her in 15 minute increments.  I make her walk around, we take her blood pressure, we give her small sips of water and we wait.  I call my sister so she can participate in the worry and treatment.  Mom looks a little better in 15 minutes, so we do it again.  Water, walk, sit up and wait. She starts perking up and talking.  Then she gets pissy with me that I am hovering over her.  We are on the road to recovery!

Within 2 hours, Mom and I are in the car, running an errand and singing "Over the Rainbow" very loudly and off key but smiling and laughing all the way.  Emergency diverted.

I don't recommend not calling 911 or seeking medical attention in an emergency.  Mom's health is a challenge.  She doesn't speak much anymore and when you need to her communicate how she is feeling to a medical professional she shuts down and they take over.

In this case, Dad and I both knew it wasn't an emergency, though we questioned our own intuition for a few minutes and made some calls and just kept waiting. If Mom had taken a turn for the worst, we would have called 911 or gone to the ER in a skinny minute.  But she didn't, she got better.

My lessons from this experience are:

1. My mother and I are intuitively connected.  I need to check on her when I feel unsettled and jumpy. 
2. My father has amazing intuition.  He kept saying to me "my gut says her lunch didn't agree with her". This isn't the first time he was right with my mother's health.  Dad rocks!
3. Trust your intuition in an emergency.  It's everyone's superpower!

Wishing you peace, love and sparks of health this holiday weekend!  Deb

​Well it happened.  I knew it would happen, I just didn't know when it would happen.  I cracked under the pressure of buying and selling a home, running a business and worrying about my family! And for good measure, throw in recovering from rummage and trying to have a personal life.  The pressure piled on this morning and I sat at my desk crying.

I have those moments when my superpowers don't work, I rip off my cape and sit down and cry. Thankfully, a good friend picked me up and eliminated one of my immediate stressors.

With the pressure off, I gathered my thoughts and started working on EVERYTHING!  That's not always a good idea.  But today, I need to move 'all the balls forward'.  It's how I recover.  I can't sit on the couch and continue binge-watching Scandal until I feel better.  I feel better through action.

So while I was in the midst of working in the laundry room, I had an idea for this newsletter.  So as I type, the laundry room is a mess and I am finishing the newsletter. It's the way its going to be today!

I closed on my new house last week (yay!) and will be moved in by the time I am writing the June newsletter.  I love my new place and I will miss my current one.  Lot's of good memories here and lots of new memories to be made.

Please forgive the brevity of this month's newsletter, I will be back on track next month.  Enjoy my blog on the Magic of Rummage.  And I promise I will finish reading Your Divine Lens soon (so much for a monthly book, this is month 3!)
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When you are feeling overwhelmed, rest assured it's alright to simply stop and take a breath.  Cry if you need to.  Call a friend.  Talk it out.  Keep your eye on the prize! Nothing is insurmontable. We just have to take it one step at a time.  
Now, back to the laundry room....

Wishing you peace, love and sparks of happiness!  Deb

If you know me, you know one of my passion's is volunteering at a rummage sale.  And not just any rummage sale but the self-proclaimed oldest and largest rummage sale in the state of NJ.  It's quite an event.

I'm in the middle of my tenth sale and the magic of rummage amazes me every time.  You see, this isn't your typical rummage sale. 

Before I started volunteering, if I heard the words 'rummage sale' I thought of the basement of the church of my youth.  The women of the church would collect donations and then one Saturday  afternoon the sale would commence and we would get to buy things we didn't need for a quarter or a dollar.

The rummage sale today is sponsored by the Visiting Nurse Association of Somerset Hills (VNA-SH) and is celebrating it's 95th year, in 2016.  95 years.  That's a long time.  As I have been told, it started small as a rack of dresses and has grown to a multi-day event (twice a year) with 20 departments and over 400 volunteers. Amazing.  You can buy almost anything at rummage.

I love just about everything related to rummage.  The generosity of people who donate personal and household items.  The VNA-SH who provide wonderful services to the local community, including the Adult Day Program which my mother attends.  And the volunteers who give their time and talent.  That's the good stuff.  The not so good stuff includes the portable toilets and bad weather.  Rummage is an outdoor event that lasts a month between set-up, collection and the sale.

I experienced the magic of rummage during my first sale when I was able to match a buyer with her dream piece of clothing.  I volunteer in the Boutique Tent, the home of women's designer clothing.  I know this may sound odd, but rummage clothes all have owners and a home.  The Spring 2016 sale is no exception.

We receive many interesting and valuable donations.  This sale we received a wedding gown and wedding gowns are hard to match and sell. This gown found its home when a seamstress, whose niece is getting married in the Fall, saw it and inquired.  She was hesitant and started taking and sending photos to the bride and mother of the bride.  You see, the bride had champagne taste on a beer budget.  The aunt knew she could transform the dress and exceed the expectations of the bride. You could see creativity as she told us what she would do with the dress. The ladies of the Boutique Tent knew this dress had just found its owner.  We rallied around and negotiated and made the magic happen.  When the dress was sold, we all cheered.  Not because we had made the sale, but because the dress had found its new home and the good work of the VNA-SH would benefit.

The wedding theme continues as another magical event occurred when a future mother of the bride saw a fur stole and imagined wearing it over her shoulders at her daughter's December wedding.  She was hesitant and thought she would come back the next day to get it and immediately started to worry it would be gone.  I handed it to her to try on and look in the mirror.  Her face lit up when she saw it because it was perfect.  It was a beautiful piece, very vintage and in very good condition.  I knew this piece had found its owner and I needed to make the magic happen, so I did. With a little negotiation and a lot of good intention, the fur stole found its home.  Again we all cheered.  It's rummage magic.

Not every item sold at the rummage sale has a dramatic story but every item sold is magical.  Since my first rummage sale I have said rummage clothes are magical. When you wear them, you carry with you the good intention and generosity of the donor in addition to good will you earned when purchasing the item.  Magic.

Now that I am in the midst of my tenth sale I also understand that a necessary part of the rummage lifecycle is re-donating the clothing and items you have purchased.  I love all of my rummage purchases: clothing, shoes, lamps, chairs, pottery, etc.  And as they come to the end of their useful life for me, I send them back to be loved by someone else.

Many organizations collect clothing and household items to be sold and raise funds.  I can't speak for them, though I am sure the magic is there in its own way.  I've experienced the VNA-SH Rummage Sale magic and it’s one of the many reasons I return to volunteer, rain or shine, hot or cold, busy or not.  I will be there as long as they will have me. 

I love the magic.

Wishing you peace, love and sparks of magic!  Deb

Mark Twain said "If it's your job to eat a frog, it's best to do it first thing in the morning. And If it's your job to eat two frogs, it's best to eat the biggest one first."  I have used the 'eat the frog' analogy throughout my career when I was procrastinating.  In fact, Brian Tracy  has written a book called "Eat that Frog" about overcoming procrastination.

I find myself at a point where I have no time for procrastination.  As quickly as I decided to take a step towards moving, my new house presented itself and I am in the midst of working through the purchase.  Providing it all goes well, I will be moving in less than 2 months and then will put my current home on the market.  The reason for the buy - move - sell strategy?  I am surrounded by FROGS!

Having lived in the same small townhome for 20 years, I have accumulated stuff and a lot of it.  Not hoarding levels of stuff, but more stuff than my little townhome needs.  Faced with the task of packing and moving, all of my stuff looks like frogs.  I am overwhelmed to the point of standing still and doing nothing.

Has this happened to you?  Not the stuff, but becoming so overwhelmed by a project that you simply do nothing because it's easier.  We know we need to take action to move forward on our projects and our journeys.  How do we do that?  One step (frog) at a time!

From my days as a project manager, we broke all project milestones into detailed steps so we could track the timing and ultimate outcome of the project.  The same principle works with our own projects.  If we are going to look for a new job, we need to prepare our resume, identify target industries and target companies, write cover letters, review network contacts, etc.  We could easily create a mini-project plan or list of steps or check list for this project.

While I was standing in my kitchen today, I realized I needed to do at least one thing each day.  Eat one frog each day and simply start the process of working through 20 years of stuff and sorting into "trash - donate - keep" piles. My project was the oven drawer where I found the gleaming brand new broiler pan that had never been used along with a ton of other bakeware that could be donated.  I emptied and cleaned the drawer, put the donations in the box and placed the keep items back in the drawer.  One frog eaten.  Whew.

I noticed that as soon as I ate one frog and realized it wasn't so bad, I wanted to eat another.  So I opened the oven where I determined it was all 'keep' items but I need to clean the oven.  That's the next frog, cleaning the oven without using the self-clean feature or harsh chemicals. Frog identified and research underway.

I won't be writing a project plan to clean and pack my house, but I will be looking at my frogs and tackling some of them each day when pockets of time appear in my calendar.  It only took me 20 - 30 minutes to work through the oven.  So, small pockets of time = at least one small frog.

Sometimes our goals and dreams overwhelm us.  We need to remind ourselves that we can move towards our goals by taking one step at a time or in my case, one frog at a time.

Ribbit.

Wishing you peace, love and sparks of achievement!  Deb

Have you worked on your 2016 vision board yet?  No worries if you haven't, I take the month of January to create, fine tune and finish mine.  Here's my work-in-progress:
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My new tradition of spending New Years Eve with friends, wine and a stack of magazines has once again produced a fun 2016 vision board.  This year's board is a bit more linear than last year's board and more focused on motivational words and phrases.  Though, my intentions (and results) are truly represented for my personal and professional life.

I have big plans for Real Life Spark in 2016 along with dreams of travel to Mexico (already booked for the end of January) and Spain/Morocco in the Fall. I want to bring more joy and more love into my life while having lots of fun.  Sounds good so far!

Are you ready for 2016?  In addition to setting intentions and creating vision boards, I also subscribe to the "One Word that will change your life" philosophy.  You can find my 2015 review of the book here.  My 2015 word was TRUST and it was a good word to hold onto.

I will be hosting a free webinar to help you find your ONE WORD for 2016 and I will reveal my ONE WORD.  I am finalizing the webinar details.  Please send me a quick message if you are interested and I will send the information directly to you.

Wishing you peace, love and sparks of inspiration for 2016!  Deb

It's time to wrap up this blog series about personal years!  Personal  years are part of your Pythagorean Reinvention Cycles and represent the energy surrounding you during the year.  I love talking about and reviewing personal years, it provides a framework for us to review our experiences and transform our lives!  Powerful!

2015 is a personal year 5 for me (see the calculations below).  And while 2015 isn't quite over yet, it's been quite a year of change and adventure for me, the essence of the 5! 

My simple visual for explaining the mechanics of personal years is this,  imagine the numbers 1 to 9 in a single horizontal row:                                                                              1  2  3  4  5  6  7  8  9
If 1 is the beginning and 9 is the end then 5 is the middle, the halfway point.  The point in the reinvention cycle where you experience change. 

In a personal year 5, you are 5 years into the cycle, planting seeds, watching them grow and working hard towards your goals.  Now it's time to evaluate and perhaps course correct or change directions or modify slightly.  A year where change is the constant.  New people, new possibilities, new adventures. Fun.  Are you experiencing a personal year 5?

My year was full of adventure with travel to Los Angeles, Disney and Italy!  Each trip an adventure unto itself with new people and lots of new experiences! Each trip providing new lessons and growth opportunities!

New people came into my life including new personal relationships.   As the saying goes, "We don't meet people by accident.  They are meant to cross our path for a reason."  As the year comes to a close, I am reviewing the reasons and embracing the experiences!

New people also bring new possibilities and I have met a number of new business contacts who have supported and encouraged me to DREAM BIGGER!  In fact, I am now wearing a bracelet to remind me of just that!

I'm expecting 2016 to be a BIG year for me and Real Life Spark!  It will be a personal year 6, a year of responsibility, love, peace and harmony.  Bring it on!

If you are wondering what your personal year is, simply add together the month and day of your birth with the current year.  Mine looks like this:  December 30 = 12 + 30 + 2015 = 2057 = 2+0+5+7 = 14 = 1+4 = 5.  2015 is a personal year 5 for me.  Remember, personal years run January to December with the calendar, not birthday to birthday.

If you want to chat about your personal year or if you have any questions, please send me a note (or comment below) and we can set up a time to brief conversation.  My email is [email protected]

Wishing you peace, love and sparks of enlightenment!  Deb