Love Yourself

I have a Facebook page called Inspiration. Motivation. Action.  The title is pretty self-explanatory as far as the content I post there.  But the cover photo has this beautiful rose with the words, "Love yourself," written across it.  It's so easy to tell people to do it, and ignore those words for myself.

The gospel reading for today is from Matthew 23:3 and it goes like this: For they preach but they do not practice.  So easy to say, not so easy to do.  This seems to be a recurring theme for me the last few days.  If I cannot love myself, how am I to be able to love others the way Jesus taught us?

I am one of God's children.  He created me in His image and likeness.  That means He created me with all of my faults and all of my imperfections, and He still loves me.  The greatest commandment Christ came to share with us is to love one another.  To love all of God's children as we would ourselves.

I am such a perfectionist.  If I feel like I have done something wrong as a mom, a wife, or as a person, I am my own worst critic.  I am very hard on myself.  I am so hard on myself in fact that I take out my frustration on the little people around me.  My children catch the brunt of it.  If I can't love myself the way God does, it seems virtually impossible that I will be able to love others as I am supposed to.

The hard part here is how?? How do I look at myself from the outside in and see what He sees? How can I value my sometimes compulsive behaviors and accept them for who I am? How do I get past my critical view that I have developed of myself over the years?

Well, I have started praying.  I pray each morning that my eyes and heart be open to seeing the beautiful person I am (wow, that was even hard to type... I think my heart skipped a few beats).  I pray that I will be less hard on myself and more forgiving.  After all, my goal is to be the best role model for my children I can be.  If I can't love myself, why will they love themselves?

Go the Extra Degree!

I saw this video posted on Facebook this morning.  Are you ready to differentiate yourself from the rest? Go the extra degree.  I am.

Let's Get Organized!

So here I go again, apologizing for being absent online.  I have been very busy trying to organize my life, and everyone else's for that matter.  We have been home schooling for half a year now and I'm really enjoying it.  And I think the kids are too.  There are some things I have been learning that I want to share with you all, and will once I get more time.  But for now, I want to share some organizational ideas with you.

I get an email once a day from The Happy Housewife.  She has some great tips and ideas that she shares daily.  One idea was from Queen Bee Coupons.  Paper bills are my all-time downfall.  I have tried everything from Fly Lady's binder to the hanging folders in the desk in my kitchen.  Nothing seems to work.  So I'm trying this new idea, and making my folders PORTABLE.  I have an accordion file from Creative Memories that I'm going to be using, instead of the box featured in the blog article.  I'm hoping it will be more durable, since it is made of plastic.  I have organized my folders like this:

• Calendar, lined paper (notebook)
• Grades and Standards
• Sacraments
• Cub Scouts
• 4-H
• Kids' Activities (sports, lessons, religious clubs, etc)
• EWM (business paperwork and to-do items)
• Bills
• Calls (about a bill, doctor appt, etc)
• Receipts/Coupons
• Mailing (stamps, envelopes, address book, pen, etc)
• Pro-Life

If you notice, I do NOT have a folder labeled with "TO BE FILED."  It's very dangerous for me to have something like that.  MONTHS will go by before I file them.  And the more time that goes by, the less likely I am to tackle that folder because it just gets thicker and thicker.  So I do NOT let myself have that out.  It has worked out nicely to just file the bills when I'm done paying them, and throw away anything I don't need anymore.  Part of being organized is not to procrastinate.

I also have manilla folders within the accordion folders.  That way, I can just take out a folder and access whatever I need in it.  So in my section for GRADES/STANDARDS, I have one manilla folder for GRADES, one for 4TH GRADE STANDARDS, one for 2ND GRADE STANDARDS, and even one for ANSWER KEYS.  In the BILLS section, I have a folder for each of my bills.  In the section for RECEIPTS/COUPONS, I use zip pouches to store them in instead of manilla folders.  I can just grab them and go when I need to.  All the coupons are in one spot and hopefully I won't be letting anymore expire.  I can't tell you how frustrating that is!

This way, everything stays organized within the organization and I can just pull out what I want when I need it.  The great thing is the portability of this! Since I have a laptop, I don't always like to sit at the desk.  So I can take it with me over to the couch when I want to be comfy, or the kitchen table if I want to spread out.  Wherever I am, whatever I need, is at my fingertips.

What Is A Good Night's Sleep?

When it comes to sleep, there have been several studies that point out the benefits of getting a good night's sleep.  But what constitutes a "good night's sleep?" Does it really matter how many hours I'm getting? Or is it fine to just get some good deep sleep in the mix?

Well, a study suggests, both.  It depends on your age! For younger folks, average age 27, good quality sleep is a plus for them.  They function better cognitively if they can get in the deep sleep range.  For older folks, average of 67, it was the quantity of sleep that mattered.  So when does the shift happen?

Not quite sure! I'm in my thirties and while it would be nice to be in bed longer, I feel better when I haven't been disturbed by one of the children that night, even if I'm sleeping less than the recommended 8 hours.  When I'm woken up by one of the children and I have to physically get up out of bed, I feel more tired the next day.  It doesn't seem to matter that I might get an extra hour in if my husband gets up with the baby.

So I would say they need to do another study that may give us some more specifics!

Happy sleeping!

Is Laughter the Best Medicine?

Last night at dinner, my daughter wanted to play the telephone game.  You know, the one where you whisper a message in one person's ear and then they have to whisper it in the next one's ear, and so on, until the message reaches the last person.  Then that person has to say the message out loud.  Well, we have a four-year-old and apparently she didn't really understand what she was supposed to do.  She took whatever my son said and kind of turned it into what she wanted it to be.  So when she whispered it to me, I was just DYIN'! I was laughing so hard I was crying.  And it felt so good!

We have been under a lot of stress this past year.  We added on to our home, renovated our kitchen, and had our fourth baby.  My husband was also trying to do some of the work himself so that made things a little harder and not a lot of family time, and not a lot of laughter. 

Things have slowed down these past few months though.  The addition is done, mostly, and baby is getting bigger and easier to satisfy.  I have also started home schooling and that has taken a lot of stress out of my life.  With all these things combined, I have been more relaxed and have been laughing more, especially with my children and I can't explain how good that feels! When I laugh, I feel free, I can almost feel the stress and worries leaving me.  My laughter causes my kids to laugh and before we know it, we are all laughing and that is the best medicine for me!

But don't just take my word for it.  Apparently doctors have actually suggested that there are medical benefits to laughter that can act sort of like medicine.  I found this article an easy read with good information on the subject.

Happy laughing!

Seven Myths About Caffeine

I found this article as I was signing on this morning to check my email.  I figured I should post it here since I just recently posted about coffee and cancer.  It goes through seven myths about caffeine, and in particular, coffee.  There are many benefits to drinking our cup, or cups, of java in the morning, but I still think our best bet is to get that organic coffee to stay away from the toxins that are in it.

Caffeine and Skin Cancer

Can caffeine really help to prevent skin cancer? A study at Rutgers University suggests this might be true.  In a nutshell, they performed a controlled experiment on mice and found that tumors developed more slowly in the genetically modified group where the scientists diminished the levels of ATR (an enzyme in the skin where cancer can form).

When caffeine was topically applied to the regular mice, they had 72 percent fewer squamos cell carcinomas, a form of skin cancer. - Rutgers University

Further in the study, they found that this kind of intervention works best at the pre-cancerous level, as prevention, not as a cure.

We must look at this data with a critical eye though.  We cannot simply take this to mean that drinking a bunch of coffee is going to prevent us from getting skin cancer, just like we can't say that if we eat fatty food we will be happier.  But we can take the data Rutgers provides us with and use it in moderation, along with a little common sense.