My One Year Blogaversary

Now that I’m back from my spring break cruise to the Bahamas, I no longer have a an excuse to not blog. So here we are, with this hopefully being the first of many steady posts to come. As you can tell, its been a while since I blogged consecutively, so there’s definitely a lot of ground for us to cover so I can catch you up on everything. On January 20th, I celebrated my one year blogaversary. I received a notification saying it was my one year anniversary of my Hurdles to Happiness blog, but since I had taken a break from blogging, I smiled and left it at that. I didn’t arrange for any festivities, I didn’t post anything about it, nor did I invite my fellow bloggers to celebrate with me. But everyone loves a good celebration, and with you all by my side, there’s no one else I would rather celebrate with.

I’ll get to the celebration part of this post soon, but first, I’d like to go back one year and a month and a half (right before I started this blog and joined the blogging community). As most of you know, I wrote a Self-Help book for teenagers a while back and attended the Writer’s Digest Conference last January to pitch my book to notable literary agents. Something that each agent mentioned to me was the fact that I can’t become an author and publish a book if I don’t have a platform of followers. Their suggestion was join the world of social networking and become an avid blogger and tweeter. “Wow,” I thought to myself. “What could I possibly have to blog or tweet about that would hopefully be of interest to others?” This question stayed in my mind for quite some time, but I figured I’d have to give it a shot if I wanted to build up a platform with hopes of one day becoming an author. So I began posting about my writing process that involved everything pertaining to my book. Then I figured I’d throw some poetry into my blog and put in some poems that I had written a while back, and hopefully come up with ideas for new poems. And then it hit me. I also want to work on helping others as well as myself down the path towards achieving happiness. If that’s what my book is about, that’s what the majority of my blog should be about to.

A little inspiration goes a long way and I was truly hoping to help inspire any and all followers that would be joining me on the blogging path to Happiness. Little did I realize though, that within a year I would receive more followers than I could ever imagine and that my fellow bloggers would be the ones inspiring me. You have all inspired me through your blog posts, comments on my posts, pushes to continue writing, and especially through your encouragement and motivation to not only make me a better person and writer, but a better blogger as well. And to be quite honest, that is more than anything I could have ever imagined or asked for, and for that, on this one year (and almost two month) blogaversary I’d like to invite all of my fellow bloggers to comment on this post with links to your blogs. I would like for all of my followers to connect with one another and have a door opened to new blogs for you all to enjoy. So please, I ask that you help me celebrate my blogaversary by posting the link to your blogs for others to follow. I can’t think of a better way for me to celebrate my one year blogaversary than with all of you on this one year anniversary post. And with that, I’d like to make a toast to my fellow bloggers for helping me make it this far and for welcoming me with open arms into the world of blogging, and I hope together, we all have many years of blogging to come!

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The 21st Year Realization

Wow. It has been over two months since my last blog post and go figure
that one of my last posts mentioned how I was going to be posting more
often and become a more active blogger. Well I guess life just gets to
us sometime and distracts us from our goals annd the path that we want
to be on, but I’m back now and hopefully you’re all still around too!

So yesterday was my 21st birthday, and although most college students
would be excited about it, for some reason, I felt the opposite way. I
felt down knowing that I reached the famous milestone age of twenty
one, which is pretty much the age of complete independence and the
sign that college graduation is creeping up. So as you can tell, I
wasn’t too excited about my birthday, but at my birthday dinner, my
dad gave a toast and said something that will forever be engraved in
my mind. He exclaimed that majority of the population wish to extend
their lives and keep on living. However, if we just live our lives to
the fullest and enjoy every second of it, there’s no need to yearn for
more time. We’ll have accomplished everything that we set out to which
is the way that we should all live. I shouldn’t be focused on my age
and getting older, but spending it with people I want to be around and
just enjoying each and every moment I have here. I mean, it does make
sense right?

So I’m leaving on a spring break cruise today for the Bahamas and Key
West and will be coming back on Friday. Starting Friday, my goal is to
become a more active blogger and post a lot more frequently. And this
time I mean it. I hope you all have a great week and don’t forget to
try and make the best out of each and every day you have!

It’s About That Time

It’s about that time to take out the champagne,
And begin to celebrate the New Year’s campaign.
This festive time is enjoyed by all,
Especially the dropping of the Times Square ball.

It’s about that time to write our New Year’s resolutions,
And patch up our conflicts by finding solutions.
Sending last-minute love to family and friends,
To end the year on a good note; a period of self-cleanse.

It’s about that time to enjoy the upcoming celebrations,
And live this next year more relaxed, free of frustrations.
Embrace this new year and make the most of each and every day,
And try to be the best you can possibly be, in every single way.

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Merry Christmas!

I posted a few days ago about returning to the blogging world and trying to get back into the swing of blogging. However, keeping in mind that the world was “supposed” to end a few days ago, I figured I wouldn’t need to keep posting, just in case the world really did end. Thankfully we’re still here, but unless another calendar says the world is coming to an end, I guess I have no excuses but to keep on writing. With that being said, today is such an important day for so many, seeing as it is Christmas. Kids wait all year long for this one day, while others anticipate the winter weather and family gatherings to be held. Although I don’t actually celebrate this holiday, it’s so refreshing to see others take the day off and enjoy time with loved ones. It kind of makes you wonder why we don’t spend more days like today. I’ll keep this nice and short so that you can carry on with your holiday celebrations, but spread the holiday love and cheer to those around you, and have the best Christmas and holiday season yet. “Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good-night!”

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Getting Back Into The Swing Of Things

It has been quite some time since I consistently posted here on WordPress. I can use the excuses of having been busy with classes, finals, the daily stressors that use up our focus and energy, or I could just pick one out of a hat, because believe me, there are plenty of excuses I’ve been holding onto.  However, in the scheme of things, I don’t really have a legitimate excuse to not have been blogging, except for the fact that I was tired. Since my return from Spain in August, I no longer had exciting adventures to share. Any and all progress made with my book had come to a standstill, so I hid from writing. I avoided it at all costs and tried to put my focus anywhere else that I could. However, in the end, for us bloggers and writers, there is no avoiding writing so here I am, facing my fear and returning to the blogging world. There is a lot to talk about since my absence so I hope you’re prepared. Not to mention, I hope I’m prepared too. And within the next few weeks, I will be working on independent publishing so that I can finally accomplish the goal of publishing my book. This is where I would insert the saying, “Here goes nothing,” but I’d like to rephrase that into a more positive one. There is no harm in trying to accomplish your goals, for regardless of how successful you think you may or not be, you’ll always be successful for having known that you did what you set out to do. So as I was saying, “Here goes something.”

The Bank

I recently came across this and hope you all enjoy it as much as I do…

Imagine there is a bank that credits your account each morning with $86,400. It carries over no balance from day to day. Every evening the bank deletes whatever part of the balance you failed to use during the day.

What would you do?

Draw out every cent, of course.

Each of us has such a bank.

Its name is TIME.

Every morning, it credits you with 86,400 seconds. Every night it writes off, as lost, whatever of this you have failed to invest to good purpose. It carries over no balance. It allows no overdraft. Each day it opens a new account for you. Each night it burns the remains of the day. If you fail to use the day’s deposits, the loss is yours.

There is no going back.

There is no drawing against the “tomorrow”. You must live in the present on today’s deposits. Invest it so as to get from it the utmost in health, happiness, and success.

The clock is running.
Make the most of today.

To realize the value of ONE YEAR, ask a student who failed a grade.

To realize the value of ONE MONTH, ask a mother who gave birth to a premature baby.

To realize the value of ONE WEEK, ask the editor of a weekly newspaper.

To realize the value of ONE HOUR, ask the lovers who are waiting to meet.

To realize the value of ONE MINUTE, ask a person who missed the train.

To realize the value of ONE SECOND, ask a person who just avoided an accident.

To realize the value of ONE MILLISECOND, ask the person who won a silver medal in the Olympics.

Treasure every moment that you have.

And remember that time waits for no one.

Yesterday is history.
Tomorrow is mystery.
Today is a gift.
That’s why it’s called the present.

Have An Enlightening Halloween

Halloween, as we are all well aware of, is a holiday in which we try our best to scare those around us with costumes and spooky decorations, and then proceed to pig out on all the leftover candy. If you think about it, our lives can be compared to this much anticipated holiday in the sense that as kids, we can’t wait for the thrill of getting scared during Halloween and the excitement of collecting as many sweets as possible. However, as we get older, we come to realize that we will faced with a lot more scares than we would like to imagine. Illnesses, accidents, losses, etc. will come into our lives when we least expect them and they will change the way we perceive life and the way we live each and every day.

No matter how hard we try to prevent something bad from happening, it is only a matter of time before an unexpected occurrence takes place and leaves us in shock and disbelief. We can let these bad situations result in depression and solitude or we can try our best to continue living life to the fullest and enjoying each and every moment given to us. I recently read a great book by Mitch Albom, titled “The Time Keeper,” and thoroughly enjoyed the following quote. “There is a reason GOD limits our days…to make each one precious.” There is no guarantee as to how many days, months, years, or even breaths we will have on earth. Our time here is limited, as is our time with those we love.

I hope you all enjoy your Halloween now that the end of October is among us, but really try and remember: Scares will happen to us throughout our lives; it’s just the way life works. However, sweets will always be within reaching distance, and that is truly up to us to take advantage of at any given moment.