I start out my year planning all my free time in advance. I call these my Perfect Days and these are special days when I am not focused on anything to do with work. I do not clean the house, run errands or even read emails on these days. These are blocks of time when I rejuvenate myself. Instead of waiting until I am burned out and need to get away, I try to stay rejuvenated all the time and take breaks periodically so I don’t get burned out! Isn’t this a better way to live with joy! I find the key is defining a Perfect Day and scheduling enough of them to stay rejuvenated.

What is a Perfect Day? The name itself should give you an idea of what I am leading to. Take a moment to think about what a Perfect Day would look like. What makes you feel alive and gets your juices flowing? Think back to your most wonderful experience...when you were feeling total freedom and in a state of joy. What were you doing...where were you? For some, this could be simply staying home, with their favorite beverage, sitting alone or with a friend or even a good book. Or for others, it may be finding yourself surrounded by excitement at a huge party with tons of people you don’t know...wearing a costume...dancing to loud music into the night. Take some time to discover what your Perfect Day looks like and then block out time in your calendar right now to the end of the year giving yourself enough Perfect Days to stay healthy, happy and rejuvenated.

Besides taking a lot of time off, it’s also important for planning plenty of time for organizing, managing and delegating (Prep Days) so I can also be prepared for very profitable Power Days when you are focused on your unique abilities and talents.

I will talk more about these other two days in our next issues. In the meantime. Enjoy the dog days of summer and savor every last moment!

Photograph by Greta Miseikyte

Let’s take a look at how it can work in our lives to manifest our desires and dreams, using the gardening analogy. You generally prepare the soil, remove rocks and weeds, and perhaps add some fertilizer. Then you plant your seeds. If you decide to plant carrot seeds can you expect to get a watermelon? Of course not, carrot seeds produce carrots, watermelon seeds produce watermelon. Our minds work the same way, and our thoughts are the seeds. Sometimes though, we have rocks or weeds in the way. What we want to see sprout up cannot take root because something else has taken up the space.

What are some of the rocks or weeds in your garden of life? Are you realizing what you really desire? If it’s not showing up, then it’s time to do a little soil preparation beginning with an understanding of the Law of Attraction. A great way to start is to view the full-length movie, "The Secret" which was mentioned in last month's newsletter. (Click on the link below to view it). Several of my favorite spiritual teachers are in the film, and I hope that you enjoy it as much as I do.

So how does the Law of Attraction impact what shows up in our lives? I like the way Esther and Jerry Hicks describe the essence of The Law of Attraction in their latest Teachings of Abraham work "The Amazing Power of Deliberate Intent." Here is what they say: "Every circumstance, every event, and every meeting of every person-everything that you live-it is because of what you have been thinking about, wondering about, pondering, remembering, observing, considering and imagining. You are literally thinking your life into being."

Pretty powerful isn't it? We create what we experience. The power in this is that we can change what we experience by going back to our garden and planting new seeds. Thoughts about debt create more debt. Thoughts about loving relationships bring in more loving relationships. It’s all in what we have placed in our soil, our thought seeds! We are always either drawing things to us, or pushing them away. Negative thoughts are the weeds that need to be pulled out of our garden. Another way to put it: what we think about expands. So if we are thinking about what is not working in our lives, then we will experience more of what is not working.

Do you have something in your life that is "not working" or not showing up? Savor this: nothing is real to us unless we make it real. To make what you want real, consider putting into action the following "making it real" techniques:

• See only what you wish to experience. Don't think about what you don't have or what is not working.
• Act as if it were already manifest. "I enjoy the wonderful new partner I have connected with."
• Believe that it is yours. No matter what others may say, think or do.
• Radiate joy. Knowing that what you desire is yours.
• Expect the best. Trust in the great good the Universe has for you.
• Cultivate an attitude of gratitude as your daily expression. Be grateful for all that you have and all that your are becoming.

The seed of every creation since the beginning of time was a single thought! Your life garden can produce the crops of your dreams. For some of us it requires tearing up everything already planted and starting anew. For others it means doing a bit of poking deep within the soil to see what has germinated, discovering what we "unconsciously" planted. No matter where we are in our creation process, it all begins with knowing that we can choose our thoughts, and that those thoughts are immensely powerful. Positive thoughts and negative thoughts are processed through a neutral medium, what goes in comes out. What is planted is what grows. It’s akin to what Henry Ford said so beautifully: "If you think you can do a thing or think you can't do a thing, you're right".

This is the first in a series of articles on the Law of Attraction and how it works in our lives. Future pieces will explore: Getting rid of serious rocks or weeds choking new growth; Pulling up the weeds in our language - the attractor factor of our words.

Do you want to grow your business by establishing yourself as an expert in your field?

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Join us on August 17th at 7:00pm EST for a fr^ee teleclass with Lynne Klippel, author, publisher, and book shepherd. Lynne will be sharing all the nuts and bolts information you need to determine how a book can help you grow your business, how to avoid common newbie mistakes that can kill your book before it is even printed, and ways to ensure that your book is gobbled up by eager readers.

To participate in the call, just dial 319.256.1550, and enter PIN 142608, and the '#' key when prompted by the system.

I've worked with Lynne and she knows her stuff! We look forward to learning with you on August 17th!

Today is Thanksgiving. I hope you are all enjoying this happy holiday in the company of friends, family and loved ones. It's just 5:00 am here and after writing this I'm headed to a beautiful place called Semonkong where I'm meeting about 20 of my fellow PCV's to celebrate the holiday. We're staying for the whole weekend -- it promises to be a fun little vacation.

Semonkong is one of the more developed tourist areas in the country. There is a lodge there and the area boasts the highest waterfall in southern Africa. It is owned and operated by a very hospitable and charming white South African couple and they have even promised to have turkey for us. It is a bird unknown in these parts.

Perhaps the best part of this trip is that I'm being driven there! Ntate Toti our "mercy wagon" driver is picking me up in about an hour. On the way we are making a stop at the bank where he will get a small business loan based on the business plan we've developed. I'm hoping he becomes the most successful taxi service in Lesotho -- he sure deserves it. He is for sure the only one with a fully developed business plan. I love this job!

Driving our poor and sick to the clinic is not an easy task. This past Monday was typical. Ntate Toti's only vehicle is a car so for the hospital trips he often borrows a van from a friend. Something always goes wrong!

This week he could only manage a pickup truck. Three of our patients couldn't walk and had to be carried from their huts to the truck. Our village is a tough place to get around in. There are just steep narrow paths between the homesteads. It took a couple of hours to get the seven patients aboard. One of our sangomas -- the biggest and strongest one, Lefa, came along with me to get the patients through the rather long process of seeing a doctor or nurse. This is sad to say but having a white person along, especially a Peace Corps volunteer, really short cuts the process. I get extremely unfair but pragmatically helpful preferential treatment. It still takes all day. Our first stop is the clinic in a neighboring village.

Two nurses run this small local medical facility. One of them is registered -- the other is a wonderful but marginally qualified woman. They both deserve the Mother Theresa Award. There are always a hundred or so people waiting. Nurse Zim and I have an arrangement. She quickly sees our critical patients, gives them a referral to the hospital then Toti and I continue on to the hospital in Butha Buthe with them while Sangoma Lefa stays with the others at the clinic. Our slips from Nurse Zim guarantee that our people will get in to see the one resident doctor at the hospital.

Of this weeks patients, four have full blown AIDS, two were suffering from extreme malnutrition simply because they are too weak to care for themselves -- one of them is mentally challenged. One man, a sweet little man of about 40, had had a stroke and was paralyzed on his left side. I know that if these people had been taken to an American hospital six of the seven would have been admitted but here, with the lack of facilities, they were all released to home care. We're trying to set up a better home care system in the village. Our Youth Committee may get involved in a "meals on wheels" without the wheels, of course, sort of food delivery service. Anyway we're working on it. There is so much to do here.

Oh, just to continue with the "something always goes wrong" theme, on our way home after picking up Lefa and the clinic patients we were on the steepest part of the track to the village when the truck simply couldn't do it. We all piled out and helped push the truck up the hill. Then the truck just quit! It was something electrical. Lefa and Toti got under the hood and miraculously fixed it! The rest of the ride home was joyous, we sang, laughed and talked about how lucky we are to have such brilliant mechanics with us. Toti and Lefa were beaming.

You may think from my descriptions of the problems here that this is a depressing place but it's really not. The Basotho are such an up beat, happy lot. There is always singing, laughing and telling good stories going on. And, there is the natural beauty of the place. The mountains are green now and the valley below us is a patchwork of plowed and planted fields.

The rains have been pretty good so far. We all have our fingers crossed that this year is a good harvest. We are approaching our summer months and it is getting hot! Now this is really starting to feel like the Africa I had expected. The temperature gets to 90 degrees even here in the mountains. But, as they say in Arizona, it's a dry heat.

Did I tell you the Peace Corps finally let me get horse? He's just wonderful, not the one I described previously but another stallion from a neighboring village. He's white with a black mane and tail. He is the skinniest horse you can imagine. He looks like the horse often pictured with Don Quixote. I'm trying to decide what to name him. Does anyone know the name of Don Quixote's horse? That would be perfect.

We're feeding him a lot. This horse thinks he's died and gone to heaven. I'm thrilled with him. He is gentle, does the famous Basotho Pony trippling gait and will be a beautiful animal when he has gained a few hundred pounds.

My life is so much easier now. I ride him to the villages in which I teach and work. Usually some nice villager will watch him for me and let him graze while I teach or meet with elders. In fact, in the village of Mate, which I often visit, the chief has assigned an old man to be this horse's guardian whenever I am there. Some villager will see me coming and put out the call. By the time I arrive the man will be there, take my horse, unbridle and unsaddle him and lead him to the juiciest patches of grass. This is the Lesotho answer to executive parking. This job has some great perks!

On that happy note, I will wish you all a Happy Thanksgiving. Of the countless things for which I'm grateful you, my beloved friends and family, are right at the top. Your love, kindness, generosity and encouragement make me feel like the luckiest girl in the world.

I really love you guys.

Peggi

Enjoy the next few weeks of summer and I look forward to talking with you again next month! Be sure to let me know how you liked the movie, "The Secret" and how it is affecting your life. Email me at katana@smartwomenscoaching.com

~ Katana

Katana is an expert in helping women prepare for taking care of their aging parents. She has been a featured speaker with the Area Agency on Aging as well as the Federal Reserve Board’s Money $mart Week. She will soon be launching a new program called, "The Designated DaughterTM— Living in the Sandwich Generation." For more information, you can visit her website at www. Smartwomenscoaching.com