something to live by...

I love this story so much, I just had to share it. I find so much truth in it. 

There were once two prisoners who shared a cell.

They were both serving long sentences and were unlikely to ever be released.

Every morning, the warden would check on their cell and he was always amazed by what he saw.

One of the prisoners, Bob, was perpetually miserable and dragged himself to his feet.

The other, Ricky, always had a smile on his face in the morning and he jumped out of bed with enthusiasm.

This puzzled the staff and many of the other prisoners for many months as they could understand why Bob was so unhappy, but not why Ricky was so positive about life.

One day, the local priest was visiting the prison and he too noticed the difference in attitude between the two men.

He asked Bob about his demeanour and he promptly responded, “How would you feel if you were trapped in this place with no chance of release?”

The priest thought that this was a reasonable response, so he went to Ricky to ask him about how he maintained his positive attitude.

Ricky responded, “You’re a priest, right?”

“Yes, I am.”

“And that means you have some sort of confidentiality thing that means you can’t tell anyone anything that I tell you.”

“Yes, that’s right.”

“Well,” began Ricky, pulling his chair closer to the clergyman, “I’ve been planning an escape ever since I got here.  I haven’t got it all worked out yet and it may take me a long time to accomplish, but every time I start to feel sorry for myself and my situation, I remember that I can choose to accept my fate or do something about it.  Everyone here seems to just accept their fate, but I refuse to.  I understand that I may seem crazy and I may never be able to achieve my goal of getting out, but while I have breath, I have hope and while I have hope, there’s always something that I can do to help make my situation better.”

The priest smiled and looked at the inmate with new respect.

And he went home with the understanding that many of the people he met on the outside were more trapped than Ricky.

I wrote this story as a reminder that no matter what your situation is, you have a choice.

If you don’t like how you’re living, you can feel miserable or you can do something about it.

You have a choice.

You have hope.

You can do it.

MS Backwards...

Well I like to think that the meaning of MS backwards would stand for something like SUPER MOM. Cheesy I know, but that’s what I am hoping for. Yes Jeff and I are expecting this August. I am now 21 weeks along and all though I wasn’t too happy about this to begin with this little girl is starting to grow on me… literally. Yes it is a GIRL. I can already tell that I have my work cut out for me. Jeff has been over the moon since this announcement and cannot wait to be the daddy of a princess.

Since in my mind MS backwards stands for Super Mom you might be wondering how my MS has been doing since this little girl entered my life/body. I can sum it up in one word… wonderful. When we found out that we were pregnant the first thing was to notify my MS doc of the good yet scary news. The first thing that I was told to do was to go off all of my MS medication immediately. That was in December, since then my MS has been totally under control, no complaints here.  It is a certain blessing that I am able to carry a healthy baby and that this baby is making me healthier at the same time.

I have been extremely lucky in the fact that I have not had to deal with morning sickness. I think I felt worse not being pregnant than I do now.  All of my doctor’s appointments are going great and the baby is healthy. I did go to my first MS appointment since being pregnant and I am doing fabulous!

I am so excited to meet this baby girl and only hope and pray that my health stays on a steady course so that I am able to raise her and be a super mom. 

WOW I am going to be a mom...