The Power of Words: Positive Mental Attitude

I have always believed in the power of words. What you speak out loud you tend to start to believe; the truth and the lies, the good and the bad. I strongly believe in positive self talk and general positive words and attitude. On the other side of things, the negative is very powerful and should not be taken lightly. Negativity is so strong that it stays with you longer than positivity. There is a tight bond that has to be broken for positivity to take root.

I don’t believe in superstitions but my culture is full of them. There are a few I grew up with. For example,
I could not hand my dad my car keys through a doorway. I had to step across the threshold for him to take
them. It is considered bad luck to hand something over a threshold. I still do that to this day. Another one
involves putting safety pins in your clothing to ward off jinxed and bad luck. I plan to find a silver one to
put on my necklace so I always have it with me. The funny thing is that my grandfather used to put them
in all of my clothes. Now I know why.

I guess you live and you learn.

May you all develop a positive mental attitude.

-Melody

Writing Prompt #10

What would you like to change about your town? How could you do it?

I live in a small historic town. As an adult, I would say that the price of living can be changed for people to live here more comfortably. Real Estate is really expensive the closer you get to all of the restaurants and bars. I guess it makes sense to a degree but what if I want a nice apartment or condo closer to all the fun? Even a one bedroom apartment is $1,040 a month depending on where you look. I pay half that staying at home. Either way one of my goals is to have a condo of my own one day.

How could I change this? This change can only happen on a government level. Basically the government would have to do what they do in Europe. A monthly allowance that pays rent and whatever is left for food. You can still work but at least most of your living arrangement is take care of. Either way, I do not work in the government so I do not know what would work and what would not.

-Melody

Promise Ring: What does it mean to me?

Okay, so what is a promise ring and what does it mean? What is the promise?

Basically, a promise ring, also known as a purity ring is a symbol of a promise to remain abstinent until marriage. It is normally tied to the Christian faith but I have met people that decided this was the path they wanted, regardless of religion.

Let me start from my beginning. All through high school and college I attended a Messianic Synagogue. I was in the youth group too. There was a lot of talk about modesty. This came naturally to me but there was a time we talked about abstinence until marriage. I do not remember the exact time I learned about abstinence until marriage but it was shortly after that, I started wearing a ring. My ring was stolen in gym class and later that year my dad replaced it for me for graduation.

Anyways it was not until college that I started to really take thing seriously. I was never the type to sleep around either. I have been through my fair share of relationships and sexual temptations that followed but I never slept with anyone. Just to step back a little I was touched inappropriately when I was 15. I will not get into the details of it but he was a junior at my high school and it happened on school property. I was very aware of physical temptations after that. Then I nearly slept with my first serious boyfriend in college when I was 22.  I told him that I could not go through with it. It did not feel right and I am so glad I didn’t.

Shortly after graduation I remember going to a thrift store. In the glass case, I saw a sterling silver ring with a heart on it.

My promise ring today.

I immediately knew I wanted to replace my gold ring with this one because I don’t like yellow gold. Also I got my gold ring re-sized and a few years later I gained weight and could not wear it anymore. So the image above is the ring I currently wear. I even had to cut out a piece of the band to make sure it can expand with my finger. My hands have a bad habit of swelling up sometimes. For a few years, I didn’t wear it because of that.

Recently I made a huge decision to delete my dating profile and put my ring back on. This came about shortly after I watched Camp Rock and Camp Rock 2 and remembered the Jonas Brothers. So I Googled them and remembered the whole thing about their promise rings and the fact that they did not understand what it was about but were forced to wear the rings anyways. Well I do understand and I will keep my word.

The promise is more about self-respect and self-control.

I promise to remain pure until marriage. This is supposed to be a purity of body and mind but since we are all human beings and our bodies were made to feel things and our minds think things; this promise is more about self-control. As human beings we will make mistakes. I mean I messed around a little in college but the basis of my personal promise is to respect myself and not sleep around with every guy I date. That promise still stands.

All in good timing I will meet a guy that understand this and respects my decision. Until then, the world sees me as undatable because sex is not part of my relationships. I don’t care what the world says. 

My promise will stand for a long time.

-Melody

P.S. If anyone wants to reach out to me for further private discussion on this topic then please email me from my profile page.

Writing Prompt #9

If you could eliminate either crime or pollution which would you choose and why?

Well pollution can be made a crime so; I would eliminate crime and tackle both at the same time.

This is a rather complicated question. Crime harms everyone and Pollution harms everyone. The logical one would be pollution but crime is still a problem. I will examine both sides.

Eliminate Crime and you have a safer environment to live in. Crime can be defined in a number of ways: harm to another person, harm to an animal, harm to a business or harm to the environment. Those are basic definitions but there are so many more. I just simplified it. Pollution can be classified as harm to the environment. Crime in general is breaking the law. There are always consequences for those choices.

Eliminate Pollution and you have a cleaner environment to live in. This is beneficial to all people and creatures on earth. There are several types but air and water are at the top of the list. Cleaner vehicles eliminate air pollution and water filtration systems and ocean cleaning endeavors tackle water pollution.

So my answer is eliminate crime.

-Melody

What Valentine’s Day Means to Me?

Okay so this year Valentine’s Day came and went but something rather odd happened the day before.

I play videogames online. You all know about that since I wrote about my favorite game. Anyways one of the guys I play with asked me to be his Valentine. I am not sure if he understood the meaning of the word, but I said yes. Just to give some more information. Valentine means you spoil someone for a day. They don’t have to be your significant other. Well I decided it was cute and moved on. The day before Valentine’s Day he told me he liked me. Well, there are many issues with that but this is where the story ends. I told him the truth and let him stew for a while. I am not into younger guys and long distance is not my thing either.

A little background to the story: This guy is 22 years old and lives 2 states north of me. This would not work out for 2 very important reasons. First, I am 29 nearly 30 and I would never date a guy 8 years younger than me. The second thing is that long distance rarely works out. In addition to all of this, I believe in some form of education or at least a really good job to support a family. I rarely see any guys really work at this part of their lives. That is a third reason not to date someone.

Basically, I have my preferences like anyone else. I also do not like leading people on and I do not believe that age is nothing but a number. My range is between 2 years younger and up to 5 years older. Otherwise it’s creepy and the generation gap is intense. I prefer having someone nearby to hang out with and talk regularly. I have seen several friends torn up by long distance and it did not end up working out. So my conclusion is that it’s probably not worth taking the risk unless I really like the person and we would be seeing each other regularly each month but with everyone’s busy schedule, it is really hard to travel a few states over to visit.

So anyways, my philosophy about Valentine’s Day goes like this. Love everyday not just one day a year and spoil someone at some point, just because you can. Do not lead anyone on when it comes to the affairs of the heart. Also make sure you know the definition of a Valentine so you don’t get your heart broken on the most heart filled day of the year.

Melody

Writing Prompt #8

What makes/made you unhappy about school? How could you change this?

Bullying made me most unhappy back when I was in school.

If I could, then I would love to have more school assemblies with guest speakers. When I was in school, guest speakers rarely made an impact on the student body. The anti-drug and alcohol rallies were always corny and awkward. As an adult I think that people that tell their story have the most impact. It hits close to home when someone tells you about something that happened in their school. It becomes more real. I wish I could speak at my high school and tell my story. I was not bullied too badly and I had a few friends. My message would be about being nice to each other just because it’s the right thing to do. You might not like someone but you have to work side by side sometimes. You should be nice especially to someone you think is different for one reason or another. Your act of kindness could make their day and change their life.

#smilealways (Tyler Sheid)
-Melody

My Newest Plans: Update

Okay, so I have been doing a lot of thinking and learning in the last month. I have hit a spark and I want to keep working at it and enjoying it. So I did a vlog about this recently. It can be found here:

I talked about everything going on with YouTube on multiple occasions but lately I have been forced to rethink my strategy. I still want to do YouTube videos but I want to add more to what I do. So I added in Twitch and a little sprinkle of gaming. On Twitch you can make the settings move your streams over to Youtube when you are done recording. Over the last month I have learned how to edit thumbnails on a program called GIMP. Its about as good as Photoshop so I am okay with that. I also downloaded Windows Movie Maker. Again simple enough but that's all I really need. I am so proud of myself for learning the things I wanted to learn. The last step is to actually start practicing flute again. Mainly the whole Youtube thing will become one of my many hobbies. I will do it because it is fun. Of course the blog will always be a thing too.

Another update I have is about work. I found a really great staffing agency that is really good about communicating. So 9 out of 10 agencies are garbage so you should really keep looking for what is right for you. My first assignment was in a warehouse but my next assignment is at a medical facility. I am okay with this arrangement for right now. The agency is called Express Employment; just in case you are looking for work. I just hope this will work out for a permanent arrangement at some point. My family might not be okay with this but I am. If I want to do the things I really want to do then the bills need to be paid. Work is work. I won't be totally miserable but at least I will not have to worry about the financial side of things. I have so many goals and dreams but I do not know how to make them happen. That is my biggest problem but I will figure it out. 

“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Then you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.”

-Jeremiah 29:11-13

-Melody