YES I CAN!

There is a parable about a poor man walking through the woods reflecting upon his many troubles. He stopped to rest against a tree, a magical tree that would instantly grant the wishes of anyone who came in contact with it.
He realized he was thirsty and wished for a drink.
Instantly a cup of cool water was in his hand. Shocked, he looked at the water, he decided it was safe and drank it. He then realized he was hungry and wished he had something to eat. A meal appeared before him. “My wishes are being granted,” he thought in disbelief.
“Well, then I wish for a beautiful home of my own,” he said out loud. The home appeared in the meadow before him.
A huge smile crossed his face as he wished for servants to take care of the house. When they appeared he realized he had somehow been blessed with an incredible power and he wished for a beautiful, loving, intelligent woman to share his good fortune.
“Wait a minute, this is ridiculous,” said the man to the woman. “I’m not this lucky. This can’t happen to me.”
As he spoke…everything disappeared. He shook his head and said, “I knew it,” then walked away thinking about his many troubles.


It was Henry Ford who said
“Whether you think you can or can’t…either way you are right.”

When we are very young we learn to think a certain way about ourselves and the lives we lead.
We all have limiting beliefs about who we are, the kind of person we are, and what we can and can't have and accomplish in our lives. We then create experiences to prove these theories to ourselves over and over throughout our lives. We think "I am not good at math." and then fail the class twice, point proven, right?
(I talking from experience here)
Now, I'm not just talking about positive thinking, although a positive attitude is a must, if we want to make changes in our lives, we must first become aware of the beliefs we hold that limit ourselves from fulfilling our dreams or doing the amazing things we are truly capable of doing, and change the belief!

"What we think about ourselves becomes the truth for us. I believe that everyone, myself included, is responsible for everything in our lives, the best and the worst. Every thought we think is creating our future. Each one of us creates our experiences by our thoughts and our feelings. The thoughts we think and the words we speak create our experiences."  -Louise Hay

I personally have created so many of my own problems and negative experiences for myself because I thought that I was who I was and I had no power to change.
I could spend hours and hours going into this but for the sake of time,
I will cut it short and give you an example of one of  many limiting beliefs I overcame in my life recently that has led to so much fulfillment:


In my 25 years of life I have never seemed to keep a plant living. I am telling you I killed every living green thing I touched. So, I formed the conclusion that since I have never been able to sustain the life of a plant, I would never be able to garden or grow anything! I would go around telling everyone jokingly how much of a plant murderer I am and they would chuckle and every time I said it, it became more and more true for me.

Well guess what? When I realized that the belief I held about my plant serial killing past was limiting me from doing something I really did want to do, I was free.

This spring I planted a garden. Yeah, me. I laid bricks BY MYSELF. I built 4X4 grow boxes from lumber BY MYSELF.
I bought bags of compost and peat moss one by one as I could afford them until I had enough to do what I was trying to accomplish. I KILLED 4 cantaloupe plants, 8 green bean plants, and 18 onions. I had to plant my carrots THREE times before I could get them to grow right, they kept washing into a big pile and trying to grow into a giant elephant man carrot monster thingy.

(Something like this but 5 times bigger and much much uglier..this looks like a fairy princess compared to the growth occurring in the carrot patch of my young garden.)

  But the most important thing was that I didn't sit down and say "See? What did I tell you!" I dusted myself off, put my gloves back on and replanted. I started OVER.

 "One wrong attempt discarded is another step forward." -Thomas Edison

The point is, no matter what it is that you think you are not good enough to have, to be or to do,
THINK AGAIN!
The only person stopping you is YOU! You ARE good enough, you ARE smart enough! If God created us like him, then isn't it a slap in the face to Him when you go around berating yourself and telling yourself you aren't good enough?  You are beautiful, you are smart, you are AMAZING, if only you choose to believe it. I am nowhere near perfect in this, at all!! I have a bazillion things to work on, but the key is I take one thing at a time and keep trying. We are all doing the best we can with the current knowledge, beliefs, and awareness that we have. We have to just keep moving forward, every day a new opportunity for change and improvement.

Picture Eddie Murphy as overweight Sherman Clump, The Nutty Proffessor stomping his foot on the floor yelling "YES I CAN!!" YES...I...CAN!!"


Anyways *steps down off soapbox* here is my garden and HELL YES I AM PROUD OF IT!!!!
I worked really hard:)

These pictures were taken in June, the garden was still a baby then:

This is my backyard view from the side gate.

If you are wondering about these little boxes..because I know you are just dying to find out more;)

Go check out the Square Foot Garden website and get your hands on the SFG book. It was my bible during this whole adventure and I had a really hard time giving it back to my father in law!

And here's a tour of my garden today:

Pumpkins, watermelon, eggplant, cayenne and Anaheim peppers.

The one below is my herb garden. It smells soooo amazing!

Did you know that if you don't harvest the broccoli on time that it blooms into tons of pretty little yellow flowers? So I discovered. 

Tomatoes

Raspberries. These were here when we moved in, along with the strawberries, which the grasshoppers have managed to CONSUME. Three times their body weight in one day??? As long as they stay away from everything else I won't be forced to..well, you know...ELIMINATE THEM!

(diatomaceous earth kills a lot of them and repels them, nothing else I have tried works)

A pumpkin..finally!!!!

Potatoes!

Banana peppers. If anyone has a pickling recipe, feel free to drop me a line!

Green peppers! They will be ready in a few weeks and I am making steak fajitas!!

Chamomile. I haven't made tea out of it but it smells so incredible!

Dill. I have a sneaking suspicion it will be used in the pickling of the pickled peppers. Say that 5 times fast. It just occurred to me that Peter picked peppers that were already pickled. WHA?

LEMON BASIL. AMAZING. Smells like fruit loops.

All in all I planted green beans(RIP), peas, tomatoes, green peppers, pumpkins, squash, watermelon, musk melon, eggplant, potatoes, carrots, jalapeño, anaheim and banana peppers, lettuce, cantaloupe(RIP), broccoli, zucchini, sunflowers, parsley, oregano, cilantro, chives, chamomile, tarragon, dill, basil and lemon basil, peppermint and lavender. I think that's everything. I don't particularly care if we get a big harvest or any at all. The satisfaction comes from doing something I had told myself I couldn't do, and spending so much time out there watering, nourishing, and watching it grow. 

And here are some random photos of the boys and company since this blog is supposed to be about them anyways:)

Jared impersonating Dr. Zoidberg (who is a crablike creature) from Futurama

Neighbor kid 

That's not a needle, it's a syringe. Thanks Dad. haha

Thanks for reading and have an AWESOME Thursday, tomorrow is FRIDAY!