I first saw “The Secret” about 3 years ago with a large group of realtors and other mortgage professionals, and at that time it truly changed the way I approached things in life. One of the gentlemen from the movie talked about creating a “vision board”. That idea struck me, and later that evening I immediately started creating my own. Several months went by, and I lost that initial enthusiasm I had from seeing the movie.
Many months later after seeing the movie I had an opportunity to actually hear James Arthur Ray speak at a convention in Kansas City, and hearing him speak re-motivated me again to believe!
My husband and I do not have any children yet and we had talked seriously about getting a dog for months. We went back and forth about the kind of dog we wanted that would fit into our lifestyle. I cut out a picture from a magazine of an adult English Bulldog and literally that picture sat on our coffee table for at least 9-10 months. We looked at it EVERY DAY for almost a year. My husband and I would joke and laugh and sometimes just hold the picture up for one another and talk about the day we would get one. However, bulldogs are quite pricey and we frankly did not have the money at that time to purchase one. We also lived in an apartment with little space and no yard. So we were content with just the picture.
Then a co-worker approached my husband and asked if we would be interested in adopting a dog her daughter could no longer afford or take care of. You guessed it – an English Bulldog! My husband told me the news and I was ecstatic! A few weeks went by though with no word on when we could pick up the dog. It turned out that the daughter had decided that she couldn’t stand to give the dog away and that she was going to keep her. We were really disappointed to say the least. However, we couldn’t have had her in the apartment anyway. We gave in to the fact that it was just not meant to be.
A few weeks later our lease was up and we found ourselves moving out of the apartment into our own condo about 30 minutes away. On moving day, out of the blue, that same co-worker calls my husband and asks if we were still interested in the dog, and says that we could have her that night. Of course we said, Yes we were still interested, are you kidding?
The daughter and her boyfriend delivered “Bella” to us the next day. It turned out they lived down the street from where we had just moved – only about 5 minutes away!
It truly was an “Ah-ha” moment. For almost a year we had looked at a picture of an English Bulldog. Then the day we move to a home with a yard we get the call that we were going to get one – for FREE!!
Ready for more? Bella looks just like the picture we had sitting on our table. I asked my husband after we got her if we should save the picture, but he told me, “No! We have the real thing now!”
One year later our “Beautiful Bella” is as playful as ever.
About April H. from Lee’s Summit, MO:
I have been happily married for almost 6 years, and work in the mortgage business.
