Mamacita says:  Contrary to what many people are thinking, 2010 is NOT the first of a new decade; it’s the last of the old decade.  Count on your fingers; I won’t tell on you.

Today is still the first day of the new year.  Today is Fresh Start Day. Let’s all try to give ourselves, and each other, a break, shall we, and start fresh with things that need a fresh start.

1. If you have made mistakes, there is always another chance for you. You may have a fresh start any moment you choose, for this thing we call ‘failure’ is not the falling down, but the staying down. — Mary Pickford

2. When faced with a challenge, look for a way, not a way out. –David Weatherford

3. Courage is about doing what you’re afraid to do. There can be no courage unless you’re scared. –Eddie Rickenbacker

4. One’s dignity may be assaulted, vandalized and cruelly mocked, but cannot be taken away unless it is surrendered. –Michael J. Fox

5. Above all, challenge yourself. You may well surprise yourself at what strengths you have, what you can accomplish. –Cecile Springer

6. It takes chances to make changes. –Danielle Ballentine

7. Excellence is the result of habitual integrity. –Lenny Bennett

8. Whenever you feel that something as simple as a smile or a kind act will go unnoticed, do it anyway. You never know how much it might change someone else’s life. –Erin Bishop

9. Square your shoulders to the world, be not the kind to quit; It’s not the load that weighs you down but the way you carry it. –Unknown

10. Don’t go around saying the world owes you a living. The world owes you nothing. It was here first. –Mark Twain

11. The biggest mistake you can make is continually fearing you will make one. –Unknown

12. If I were asked to give what I consider the most useful bit of advice for all humanity it would be this: Expect trouble as an inevitable part of life and when it comes, hold your head high, look it squarely in the eye and say, ‘I will be bigger than you. You cannot defeat me.’ –Ann Landers

13. A true hero does what needs to be done and needs no other reason. –Unknown

14. We have all been placed on this earth to discover our own path, and we will never be happy if we live someone else’s idea of life. –James Van Praagh

15. The impossible is often untried. –Unknown

16. People whine, ‘I haven’t succeeded because I haven’t had the breaks.’ You create your own breaks. –Chuck Norris

17. Risk more than others think is safe. Care more than others think is wise. Dream more than others think is practical. Expect more than others think is possible. –Cadet maxim, West Point, New York

18. I have always tried to be true to myself, to pick those battles I felt were important. My ultimate responsibility is to myself. I could never be anything else. –Arthur Ashe

19. Make yourself a blessing to someone. Your kind smile or pat on the back just might pull someone back from the edge. –Carmelia Elliot

20. A successful life doesn’t require that we’ve done the best, but that we’ve done our best. –H. Jackson Brown, Jr.

21. Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you have imagined.
–Henry David Thoreau

22. Live your life so that if someone says ‘Be yourself’ it’s good advice. –Robert Orben

23. Good manners will open doors that the best education cannot. –Clarence Thomas

24. Go the extra mile. It’s never crowded. — Anonymous

25. . . . isn’t it nice to think that tomorrow is a new day with no mistakes in it yet? — L.M. Montgomery

26. The beginning is always today. –Mary Shelley

27. Be willing to be a beginner every single morning. — Meister Eckhart

28. The human spirit is stronger than anything that can happen to it. — C.C. Scott

29. The world is round and the place which may seem like the end may also be only the beginning. — Ivy Baker

30. Remember tonight.. for it is the beginning of always. — Unknown