To Perform Best in Life, Remember these six Zig Ziglar Truths…

Born to Win at:

http://www.amazon.com/dp/1442339683/?tag=mh0b-20&hvadid=3523323321&ref=pd_sl_2i9acs9v7a_b

Zig Ziglar a loved author and motivational speaker taught timeless lessons of success before his passing two years ago this month. He encouraged people to live a life of no regrets in his last book, Born to Win!

Here, in an excerpt from the book, listing some of Ziglar’s principles—how you can improve yourself and accomplish valuable, holistic success in life:

• We generally get from others and ourselves what we expect.
• If you expect to lose, you will. If you expect to be average, you will be average. If you expect to feel bad, you probably will. If you expect to feel great, nothing will slow you down. Moreover, what is true for you is true for others. Your expectations for others will become what they deliver and achieve.

As Gandhi said, “Be the change you wish to see in the world”.

• You find what you look for in life. If you look for the good things in life, you will find them. If you look for opportunities to grow and prosper, you will find them. If you look for positive, enthusiastic friends and associates who will support you, you will find them.
• Never make a promise without a plan. Far too many people make promises they can never keep. They may have the best intentions in the world to keep their promise, but if they have not made a plan to keep it, they will not be able to do it.
• Happiness, joy, and gratitude are universal if we know what to look for.
• All people want happiness and joy in their life, but you have to know what produces real happiness and how to do the things that produce it.
• The moment you begin to worry about the things you want and the things you do not have in life is the moment you will lose your gratitude for what you actually have.
• If you are ungrateful, you will never be satisfied, content, or joyful about your life.
• The greatest source of happiness is the ability to be grateful at all times.

 

Elouise Renich Fraser…

Elouise Renich Fraser

 

What a joy to read the work of Elouise Renich Fraser…check out her blog and purchase her work at Amazon.com. ajm

 

Blog

http://tellingthetruth1993.wordpress.com/2014/11/12/what-about-the-women/#comment-823

At Amazon.com

http://www.amazon.com/Elouise-Renich-Fraser/e/B001KI7U22/

 

Who is she, Elouise Renich Fraser?  She would tell you…

First-born of four daughters, preacher’s kid, survivor

Musician, theologian, educator

Wife, mother, grandmother

Intuitive, reflective

Good girl-bad girl, God’s beloved daughter-child

Unpredictable, rebellious, stubborn, determined, sensitive, persistent

Sometimes courageous truth-teller

Thank you…

Some of America’s  “Hero’s”, we must always remember them in our hearts.

 

Thank you for your support in reblogging the last post.  First, FEMA should never ask for refunds on money they have given to support those in need.  Second, as Americans we get more support during these disaster’s from private funding…we support and care for each other more than our government does.  Third, our support to other countries also comes from private funding, from the hearts of Americans; I see the numbers that our government gives but does it go to the right people, the people in need?  Time to get down off the soap box…but too many who are less fortunate are forgotten on a regular basis in the USA; they need our voices.  Thank you so much for visiting and reading Libretto.  11.10.2014  ajm

 

 

On Sale at Amazon.com…

IN SEARCH OF WORDS

 

Ann Johnson-Murphree Poetry Books – A Collection of Poetry

A Happy Halloween call from Aunt Ira Mae…

 

Crawfish Manor

Received a call from Aunt Ira Mae today, she has decided that the old folks at Crawfish Manor does not have enough to do on a day-to-day basis, accept to pry into other folks business.  I said to her you might need to stop and think that most elderly people are not like you (she is well into her 90’s and acts like 50); many are hard of hearing or cannot see well.

She screamed into the phone. ”Hard of hearing, do not be fooled by that, they can hear a fly fart at one-hundred yards. Every time I opened my door to take out boxes that I have unpacked, no less than ten heads all sporting curly blue hair pops out to look at me as I walk down the hallway’.

Then she continued to say. “Don’t get me wrong, I have white hair…I just don’t think having it short and spiked went over too well, and I am certain that being bare foot and braless did not get me any points, and no, “the girls” were not bouncing off my knees. When God called out who wants “Big Breast”, I thought he said, “Big Test” and I ran the other way”!

Aunt Ira Mae no doubt irritated but laughing continued with…

“With the unpacking done, I decided to go for a bike ride (she has a three wheel adult trike). There I was on the elevator with the bike, a man and woman got on with me before the door could close. The man looked at me and said loudly, “Do you go to church”? I smiled and said “No”; he got louder, “Don’t you believe in God”? I smiled and said “Yes”, I knew what was coming next…”People who believe in God go to church”! His wife said loudly, “You’re going to hell”! I smiled and said, “Yes mam, I may be going there, and you and your husband don’t forget to say hi when you see me, ya hear”! I still don’t know their names; I call them the Church People”!

Well what can I say, I feel sorry for the other residents of Crawfish Manor. Ira Mae is a true southern character that you either love or hate. I am certain that when she got off the phone she told herself while pouring her shot of “Jack”, breathe damn’it.

 

10.31.2014 Happy Halloween ajm

Book at Amazon.com…

IN SEARCH OF WORDS

 

Ann Johnson-Murphree Poetry Books – A Collection of Poetry
The 8×11 coffee table books that will display well . The matte cover is classy and inviting. Within each book the reader will find approximately fifty poems.  A length pleasing to browse, read one or more; they will find a connection, a meaning and a purpose in each poem.

 

A Sachet of Poetry…

 

About adoration, aspirations and yes asylums…

• “Tears are words that need to be written.”
  Paulo Coelho
   
• http://www.amazon.com/Sachet-Poetry-Adoration-Aspirations-Asylums/dp/1500483354/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1414339421&sr=1-1&keywords=ann+johnson-murphree+paperbacks

 

What do you see when you look at an older person?

A worthy piece to share from Ernest Slyman’s Facebook Page…Please share

 

https://www.facebook.com/ernest.slyman.9/about

 

 

“When an old man died in the geriatric ward of a nursing home in an Australian country town, it was believed that he had nothing left of any value.

Later, when the nurses were going through his meagre possessions, They found this poem. Its quality and content so impressed the staff that copies were made and distributed to every nurse in the hospital.

 

One nurse took her copy to Melbourne. The old man’s sole bequest to posterity has since appeared in the Christmas editions of magazines around the country and appearing in mags for Mental Health. A slide presentation has also been made based on his simple, but eloquent, poem.

 

And this old man, with nothing left to give to the world, is now the author of this ‘anonymous’ poem winging across the Internet.”

 

Cranky Old Man

 

What do you see nurses? ……What do you see?

What are you thinking .. . when you’re looking at me?

A cranky old man, … …not very wise,

Uncertain of habit .… … . .. with faraway eyes?

Who dribbles his food .. . … . . and makes no reply.

When you say in a loud voice . .’I do wish you’d try!’

Who seems not to notice …the things that you do.

And forever is losing … …… A sock or shoe?

Who, resisting or not … … lets you do as you will,

With bathing and feeding … .The long day to fill?

Is that what you’re thinking?. .Is that what you see?

Then open your eyes, nurse .you’re not looking at me.

I’ll tell you who I am … . .. As I sit here so still,

As I do at your bidding, .… . as I eat at your will.

I’m a small child of Ten . .with a father and mother,

Brothers and sisters .… .. . who love one another

A young boy of Sixteen … .. with wings on his feet

Dreaming that soon now …… a lover he’ll meet.

A groom soon at Twenty … ..my heart gives a leap.

Remembering, the vows .. .. .that I promised to keep.

At Twenty-Five, now … . .I have young of my own.

Who need me to guide … And a secure happy home.

A man of Thirty . .… . . My young now grown fast,

Bound to each other …. With ties that should last.

At Forty, my young sons .. .have grown and are gone,

But my woman is beside me . . to see I don’t mourn.

At Fifty, once more, .. …Babies play ‘round my knee,

Again, we know children … . My loved one and me.

Dark days are upon me … . My wife is now dead.

I look at the future … … . I shudder with dread.

For my young are all rearing .… young of their own.

And I think of the years … And the love that I’ve known.

I’m now an old man … … .. and nature is cruel.

It’s jest to make old age … … . look like a fool.

The body, it crumbles .. .. . grace and vigour, depart.

There is now a stone … where I once had a heart.

But inside this old carcass . A young man still dwells,

And now and again … . . my battered heart swells

I remember the joys … . .. . I remember the pain.

And I’m loving and living … … . life over again.

I think of the years, all too few …. gone too fast.

And accept the stark fact … that nothing can last.

So open your eyes, people .… . .… open and see.

Not a cranky old man .

Look closer … . see .. .…. …. . ME!!

 

Remember this poem when you next meet an older person who you might brush aside without looking at the young soul within. We will all, one day, be there, too!

Cotton Continues…

The following is an excerpt from a short story about a young man from Atlanta. His first job after graduation from high school was with the Greater Atlantic Life Insurance Company. It was 1940 and jobs were scarce the pay poor; he would get to keep one-dollar for every policy he sold. His territory…the Appalachian Mountains. He did not know that the daughter of a potential buyer would be the wildest thing he would ever encounter in his life. It is a work of fiction based on real people and circumstances.

Working draft…

1

Cotton

Andrew Pritchett walked two miles to reach the run-down shacks in the Tennessee foothills that edged the Georgia state line; he sold burial insurance. He knocked hard on the rough pine boards of the door, scrapped his knuckles, wiped the blood on his pants leg, stepped back and looked at the rotting porch, barrels for sitting, a can for tobacco spitting and a mangy dog swarmed by tiny black flies.

Suddenly a gigantic body filled the opening of the doorway. Moody Cahill wiped his mouth; relocated tobacco scum to the front of his patched overalls and returned his hand to the sawed off barrel of a shotgun.

“Mr. Cahill,” Andrew stuck out a trembling hand as he choked back the smell and disgust at the sight of the man he desperately wanted to sell something.

“Yep”

“Your neighbor down the hill, a Mr. Ragsdale said that you might be interested in some burial insurance.”

“Nope”

Andrew’s eye twitched, the lazy one when he was nervous, he sat the worn leather valise down on the porch; it held his entire life, insurance applications, rate book and envelopes to mail the company their money. Underneath all that was an extra pair of socks, underwear, a straight edge razor and a worn out towel; all he possessed beside his old truck.

“Folks in these parts have been buying up these burial policies pretty good, they come in handy if needed”.

Uneasy he took out a handkerchief wiping sweat off his neck. When he looked back at Mr. Moody a young girl with thread bear clothes and a sweet gum twig hanging through a gap in her teeth was leaning on the doorframe. She smiled at Andrew just before the elder man pushed her back into the rundown shack they called home.

“You married young man”.

“No sir.”

“Cotton get on back out here and introduce yourself properly to this young man, he aren’t married.”

—————————————————

2

The sweat on Andrew’s body turned cold, his white shirt shined like frozen ice; his throat closed and he could hardly breathe when Cotton stepped through the door. The man he assumed was her father stepped aside but did not lower the shotgun as Cotton took Andrew by the hand leading him into the dark shack that smelled of animal fat.

You just sit down here young feller and let Cotton pour you a glass of cold tea, we keep it in the well. When she returned she handed him a tin cup; he drank it quickly then opened his case taking out insurance papers.

“Mr. Cahill all you have to do is sign your names give me three dollars for each policy and I will fill out the forms, you’ll be all set with burial money when the time comes”.

“Well let’s have some more tea first then I will think about making my mark”.

After a few cups of “tea”…Andrew’s arms and legs went numb.  He didn’t resist when the old man led him to a cot next to a big potbelly stove. He didn’t resist when Cotton climbed onto the cot without her threadbare dress. He didn’t resist as his mind begin to go blank!

 

©annjohnsonmurphree

Turning the Page…

Ann Johnson-Murphree

Libretto will now become my only blogging site, however I am not shutting down my poetry site it will continue to be a promotional site for my poetry books at Amazon.com. It is time to move away from poetry into several stories portraying an accounting of life and a fictional novella. Libretto will also have posting on thoughts in general. However, the poetry will continue to live at:

http://annjohnsonmurphreeauthor.wordpress.com

All of the poems were created from tiny fabrics of my life. They characterized the thoughts of innocence sold into a false world of adoration. Living in silence, and believing that God did not keep this innocence from living with an earthly hell. In our youth we believe that death will be a long way off and life was only in the now.

How would one ever know that ahead lay sacrifice, pain and suffering? Life should be fruitful; the human life produces scenes of public, private distress and anger springs forth with hate and blood. Mortally leading to the mysterious world of knowing the fist is not love, it is the slaughter of innocence.

Innocence institutionalized because of spousal disobedience, failing to comply with and act upon the orders of a controller… the answer asylum. Reality embedded within the soul of innocence, no future, no meaning to life. Innocence in truth wants and dreams of death; these are the true aspirations of the abused.

I published the Ann Johnson-Murphree Poetry Books – the Collections of Exposé Poetry are coffee table books. Within each book the reader will find soul poetry. The poems are filled with my thoughts and hopefully inspiring and reassuring words with a factual viewpoint on the many experiences in my life. Each poem serves as a prevailing reminder that life is complex.

That happiness is in our hands alone; that the fear of unhappiness is deep-rooted in the spirit and soul. That depression and despair is real and each individual must find the freedom of mind, body and soul to move forward in their life. Each poem has been created from what I call my “patchwork life”.  Complex, stress-filled, finding enlightenment and cultivating wisdom throughout the years. The collection of thoughts that created the poetry hopefully brings the reader along on the multifaceted journey of a lifetime of experiences.

Thank you for your support and I hope you will continue to follow my postings on “Libretto…

My poetry Books are at Amazon.com