Motivational Monday & PoP Midway Reminder: Determination

 If you are new to my blog and would like to know why I started Motivational Monday, please go HERE.

I am running a bit late getting this post finished and published.  The laptop, which is less than a year old died on me and so I am even more limited in terms of the time I have been able to spend on the computer these last few days.  I normally spend the evenings working on the laptop downstairs (unless I am putting a card together) so I can spend some time with my hubs.  At least I managed to get out the Path of Positivity midway on time.  Thank goodness for small miracles.  Of course my own project wasn't finished yet so I had to upload it a bit later.  Since I just finished doing that, I can finally get this post done.

This will be another packed post as I'll be sharing this month's Motivational Monday passage along with the creation mentioned above.  Additionally, you'll also find a couple freebies at the bottom of the post.  The reflection, my project and one of the freebies can also be found over on the midway post, also mentioned above.  This month the theme is DETERMINATION.  On with today's thoughts...  

Never Surrender 

For every difficulty we encounter in life, we have two choices: to give up or to push through to the other side. I believe that many people don't have the strength or determination and give up all too easily. I also believe that there are even more people out there who struggle but are determined to make it. Which category do you fall into?

I think that I was born with the word 'DETERMINATION' scribbled into my DNA. I, like many of you out there, have faced numerous challenges in my life. Mine started in infancy. At the age of 8 months I was finally diagnosed with severe asthma. It took them so long to come up with a diagnosis because it was rare back in the late 60s for a child to develop such a bad case of asthma so young.

For the first few years of my life, my parents never knew whether I'd still be alive come morning. I can't even imagine what they went through. I spent a lot of time in and out of hospitals during those early years. Additionally, to complicate things even further, at the age of two I had to have my tonsils removed. I was just so sick, there was no waiting until I was older. Unfortunately, I haemorrhaged on the operating table during surgery and almost bled out. Another very scary time for my poor parents.

During my childhood and teenage years, I dealt with more challenges and struggles; health and otherwise. Then when I was 18 years old, I lived through an experience that still haunts me to this day. Just a few weeks shy of the end of twelfth grade, a Tornado ripped through the town I was living in at the time and destroyed two thirds of the homes, as it made a swath from west to east, leaving only destruction in its path. Three people died that day. Several lay trapped for hours beneath crumpled buildings and many more were left homeless.

After all this time, tears still well up and over when I think about that day. It is certainly one I will never forget. How do you escape the memories of people's screams as they lay buried for hours under rubble; or, dismiss from memory the thoughts of blank faces in complete and utter shock? No, those memories will forever lay trapped inside my head. Thankfully, my family was one of the lucky ones, just on the edge of the worst damage.

After returning to school later that week, we received our year book. One of my teachers wrote down two little words in it that impacted me greatly and those words have remained with me these many years. In fact it has become my mantra:

NEVER SURRENDER 

I have faced many more obstacles and hardships since my days of youth; but, I fought through those events, and God willing, will continue to battle anything else that may come my way. I am determined to make it through and those two words--Never Surrender--help me to remember that I must never give up. My choice is obviously clear--as long as I have strength, I will always push to the other side. Will you join me?

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Next up, is the scrapbooking page I made using an image from this month's guest sponsor Pickled Potpourri Designs...

General Notes:

• Ummmm...I'm not sure what happened.  I distinctly remember deleting all the white that was left over around the hair when I made the background transparent, and when I just went to resize it for this post, I noticed that the white was all back again.  Oh goodness, there better not be gremlins in this system as well.  Seriously, I haven't got a clue why it reverted.  Oops!

Digital Image Details: 

• Just Dance:  This lovely image is from our guest sponsor for this month over on the PoP challenge, Pickled Potpourri Designs.  If you are interested in purchasing this beautiful image, click on the watermark to head over to its spot in the store.

Digital Sentiment: 

• I used one of the free sentiments being offered up below.

Digital Embellishments: 

• I wanted to keep things simple and I wanted to enter my creation over at Digitally Sweet Challenges as it has been a while, so I just put together a charm and then added a ribbon.  Both items were created from templates that I picked up from Janet Scott over at Pixel Scrapper.
• I also created a frame for around the sentiment using a brush courtesy of Lileya, an artist whose work is showcased over on Deviant Art.

 Digital Paper:

• The digital paper is from my Flower Power Collection which I am hoping to have up for sale soon.

Challenges I am hoping to enter: 

• http://scribbleandscrapcrafts.blogspot.co.uk/ -- Anything Goes 
• http://digitallysweetchallenges.blogspot.ca -- Add a Charm (Please note that this creation is 100% digital)

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Finally, that brings me to a couple of freebies.  The first was offered up at the challenge start and the second was just offered up today for the midway...

© 2014 

Font Information: 

• PaulMaul font created by !Exclamachine Type
• Quasi font created by Harold's Fonts

© 2014

Font Information: 

• Clicker Script font created by Astigmatic One Eye Typographic Institute
• Budmo Jiggler font created by Raymond Larabie

Please be sure to click on the images to bring them up into the lightbox in their proper size before saving them.  Click on the font name to take you to a download location.  All these fonts were listed as free for commercial use at the time each of these project were made, and as such, it is my understanding, that I am within my rights to use these fonts in my creations and offer them to others.  Please refer to my full terms of service for what you can and cannot do with these digital creations.

These word art creations are in png format and published at 300 ppi. They are quite large in order to accommodate different programs that people work with.   If you are a card maker you can always resize them smaller without distorting the quality.

 

Credit Notes For These Creations:
© Lisa L. Décosse. PUO. However, you are allowed to use the sentiments on handmade projects that you intend to sell on a small scale basis provided credit is given. You also need to include a credit note and a link to this blog should you use any of my images in your creations and post them on your blog. Please be sure to familiarize yourself with my full terms of use found in the 'Download Instructions & T.O.U.' tab at the top of this page. Of important note:  Please do not share my images with family, friends, etc. Additionally, do not post any images to file sharing services like Box®, 4-Shared®, etc. Instead, please direct people to my blog(s) so they can grab the image for themselves. If you would like to post a watermarked version of the image, please contact me to obtain one.

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I invite you to go and check out, not only, the wonderful creations some members of my Design Team had the opportunity to create over on the Path of Positivity (click HERE for the midway) but also some of the great entries into this month's challenge (click HERE for the challenge).  I also invite you to come over and enter a project yourself, if you haven't already.  It is important to never give up so why not send a card to someone who might be struggling.

Well, that is it for today!  Have a great week ahead everyone!

Until next time,