And in the end, it’s not the years in your life that count. It’s the life in your years. ~ Abraham Lincoln

There is a Garth Brooks song called “Pushing Up Daisies” that has stuck with me ever since I heard it years ago.  An excerpt:

There’s two dates in time
That they’ll carve on your stone
And everyone knows what they mean
What’s more important
Is the time that is known
In that little dash there in between
That little dash there in between

Are you living in the dash? 

My church is starting a series of services centered around the idea of living as you only had one month to live. Would you change how you lived your life for the next month if you knew it would be your last one? 

They call it a challenge. 

What would you do differently if you only had thirty days??  Go ahead, think about it for a minute.  (I’ll wait here)

It’s hard to say isn’t it?   It was a lot easier for me to say what I would not do than how I would do something different. I know I would spend as much time as I could with my family. 

The point of the “challenge” isn’t to plan out how you would spend the last thirty days of your life – as if you would even know when that was.  The point is to get you to start thinking about living your life differently now not waiting until you know you have a short time left to do the things you always wanted to do.  

The “challenge” I am struggling with is not what I would do – its how to go about doing it and not get sucked back in to the daily grind we have become accustomed to. 

I want to travel the US in an RV – see places and experience different people and take lots of photos.  I was to live life, travel, love and be loved, and ultimately be happy.  If in the process, I could make a difference in someone else’s life – that’s a bonus.

Do you know how I could start living my dreams now?  That will be my journey…I just don’t want to spend my life trying to figure it out. 

I leave you with a quote from www.onemonthtolive.com :

“Wouldn’t it be wonderful to live your life so that if you discovered you only had a month to live, you wouldn’t have to change a thing?”

Leave your dreams in the comments below. 

With the announcement of the candidacy of Sarah Palin as the Republican nominee for Vice President, a firestorm of controversy has erupted over more than her qualifications for the job.    Whether gender equality or bias are at the foundation, the debate has shifted to determining whether a woman with a newborn, even more sparked since Palin’s son has Down Syndrome, would be able to hold a position of authority with a demanding schedule and furthermore, why would she want to?

From an online MSNBC article:

”To any critics who say a woman can’t think and work and carry a baby at the same time, I’d just like to escort that Neanderthal back to the cave,” the Anchorage Daily News quoted Palin saying last March, after the surprise announcement that she was seven months pregnant with Trig.

Some argue, however, that the discussion isn’t about whether Palin — or any other woman, for that matter — can juggle the demands of a high-powered job and a family, but rather why she would want to.

Interesting.  While race has been a huge hot button between the candidates, now also gender has played a role as well.  Is it a double standard to assume that a woman candidate would not be capable because she has a newborn?  I think of myself in the same circumstances…7 month old baby, special needs, two income household…what would we do?  I would have to go back to work (probably would have been working since month 3), we would find a way to make it happen, especially now that we may potentially have additional medical bills.  

It makes me mad that the media assumes that a mother could not handle the responsibilities.  I would assume at that level of power, she would have more access to resources than I could ever dream of.   Won’t the secret service be there anyway…I’m sure they could be trained to change a diaper.  I’m also mad that they assumed that the father wouldn’t be capable of raising the children without their mother. 

What’s your take, politics aside, what do you think of the criticism that Palin should stay home with her son?  What amount of time should a mother take after giving birth?  Is it a double standard: men vs women caretakers?