Trick of the Trade

You know how we are supposed to learn to say no? I’ve heard this through the years in women’s’ inspirational/motivational talks or articles. Well I’ve tried to keep that in mind, setting limits and boundaries so I can be sane and focused for my family. Today I used the word “I can’t” when I had to run and, even though I hate the phrase “ I can’t” generally, in this instance it felt better than “no” and did the trick, setting the limit I needed to so my delegee could run with a project rather than ask for oversight (which I knew was not needed in this case) when I had to leave to make another commitment. Conclusion? Don’t make hard and fast rules (“Never Say Can’t!”) and use what works.

Trick of the Trade….let’s hear yours!

Daily Health Tips

These are my daily healthy practices that maybe you want to incorporate as well.☀️

Mix organic aloe into a bit of juice, sprinkle with vitamin c powder🧃

Green drink: blend in Vita Mix: 2 c organic greens, piece of peeled fresh ginger root, 1/2 c filtered water, ice if you like, 1/3 organic cucumber, 2 stalks organic celery, opt 1/2 banana opt additions: cinnamon, oats🍹

Organic coffee (not hot!!!) enema☕️

Drink glass of water (1/2 hot, 1/2 room temp) with 1/2 lemon squeezed & sprinkle of cayenne 🍋

Drink glass filtered water with dash of raw apple cider vinegar 🍎

Add cinnamon & ginger on top of coffee grounds ☕️

Swish teeth with coconut oil for 10 min. Spit out.🥥

Add a cinnamon stick to your coffee☕️

And I always start my day with 15 sit ups before I do my stretches & climb out of bed.🤸‍♀️

Enjoy. And I’d love to hear yours!

Note: A word about filtered water, mentioned several times in this post…

If you think the “filtered” water dispensing from your fridge is filtered sufficiently, do as I did and leave a glass of water out overnight. When you taste it in the morning you will detect all the flavors of impurity. That is why I have been using a high end full scale filter for years. We first purchased it to be a preparation for disaster and I suggested we use it in the meantime. Now, even though I live in a hurricane prone area, I don’t need to flock with the masses to buy crates of bottled water or worry when it becomes unavailable along with gas and ice. I could go right out to my lake and fill this baby up. Haven’t tried it yet, but supposedly.

In any event, the water tastes pure, no chemicals, because it is. This is what I use for my coffee, boiling pasta, vegetables, oatmeal, watering our four family pets or anything else, including drinking!

#remedies #healthtips #followthescience #healyourbody #purewater

Musings on Motherhood

When you run a large family you have to be good at inventory. There is a certain magic to making sure you have enough of everything, not too much. If you stockpile you have no room for it all. If you wait to replenish and run out, heaven help you in the morning rush out the door if you don’t have the bottled water one child insists on. Thank God for Target same day pick up & Amazon delivery! How did families do without?! When we lived in Denver we had milk delivery. Actually they would deliver all dairy, string cheese, sour cream and the Best chocolate milk!

You also live in dread of something throwing you off track. An injury or spill as you are running out the door.

Sometimes when you drive you are completely on autopilot, thinking of a million things. You end up where you are meant to go…or Not if it is a stop off your car’s normal route! but without any conscious thought at all.

Before I had a toddler I looked down on someone relating how theirs had crawled under the airport chairs to eat popcorn that had spilled onto the floor. How could a parent be so irresponsible? Fast forward to me with a toddler & a baby & witness the toddler popping previously chewed (we used to call it ABC – already been chewed!) gum into his mouth. OMG! My germaphobic nature about had a heart attack. This as is parenting. You cannot prevent every harm or danger no matter how much you want or try to.

Before I had a teenager I judged people who did not have a close relationship with their older kids. Reality hit when I thought I was doing all the right things and mine called my bluff when I removed privileges for not carrying out responsibilities and went to live under dad’s unsupervised realm instead. He barely talked to me for four months and every time he went to the girlfriend’s when he wouldn’t come to my home was a blade in my heart. It gave me perspective, that we cannot control the outcome, how our children will be even when we are responsible and loving as a parent.

I am working on a theory that is that no matter what we do our kiss will be who they are going to be. Whether this is encouraging or discouraging I am not sure. I guess as my boss used to say the proof is in the pudding. When things work out it is easy to put it down to our having something or everything right. But when they don’t…? Maybe we neither need blame or absolve ourselves.

Tomorrow

It is mine to avenge; I will repay. Hebrews 10:30

I love the Old Testament verses that repeat tomorrow…tomorrow…tomorrow…

Tomorrow …It will be as you say..so that you may know there is no one like the Lord our God. Exodus 8:10

Tomorrow I will stand on top of the hill with the staff of God I my hands. Exodus 17:9

Tomorrow the Lord will do amazing things among you. Joshua 3:5

…by this time tomorrow I will hand all of them, slain, over to Israel. Joshua 11:6

And lastly: Go, for tomorrow I will give them into your hands. Judges 20:28

I claim these promises as mine with a battle looming tomorrow.

RIP Rush 🙏🏻

I grew up in a Republican town but in an apolitical family. My parents had many intellectual friends and at our home and others’ I was witness and party to many conversations about history, culture, places, science and the news of the day. But as I matured it fell to me to find a political worldview for myself. Several people influenced the outcome, including my college government professor who made us purchase a Wall Street Journal subscription, which formed a large part of our curricula. But one of the most influential was political commentator Rush Limbaugh.

At that time Rush had a tv program and I would record it on my little DVD player and watch it consistently, often with my college friend Brian who shared my conservative views. This was when Clinton was president so much of it was focused on the impeachment and Monica Lewinsky business.

I heard Mark Shapiro refer to Rush as the granddaddy of conservative commentators the and this is so true. He paved the way for the great variety of commentators we have on radio and podcast today, Dan Bongino, Dennis Prager (although Prager was always out there speaking about various subjects), Mark Levin… And thank goodness conservative talk flourished as it did so that in this time of great suppression of ideas and speech we have these people continuing to share the truth and provide hope.

You will be missed Rush. Rest In Peace. We stand on your shoulders and build forward, great Patriot.

Living with Abandon

I was 45 before I had the chance to really live on my own. Before that I had been married for twenty years. Before that I was a student supported at least in part by my parents.

It was a thrilling as it was terrifying. For the first time I could organize my life as I wanted. My dreams had no more limits. Looking back over these two years of emergence from my cocoon of living safely and going along with a plan created by someone else, I realize I made mistakes. My eagerness to prove myself could be compared to a baby, whether human or new foal, taking her first steps. I couldn’t go fast enough on my wobbly little legs and they at times collapsed beneath me.

But the good news is life is about learning and growing. One bad moment or misstep does Not mean we weren’t meant to run or succeed. We are like clay and need to be flexible, willing to be reformed by the lessons of life, molded into a new creature that would be unrecognizable to the one we were before. Could the gracefully dipping and swirling butterfly recognize its former crawling, limited self? Within us is the potential and when we feed it and allow it to blossom we come into our fully created selves, and then we keep emerging more and more, hopefully mostly in the right direction but occasionally in the other. As long as we don’t give up or give in we can become what we always had in us and this is what those around us need. This is our potential as well as our service, our highest & best.

The Practice of Waiting

Today I want to write about waiting. I’ve been thinking about this, the way some people can’t wait for the light to turn green but I am relieved when I finally hit a red (don’t get me wrong, sometimes I’m in a terrible hurry too!). I am always looking for an opportunity to finish applying my makeup (when I bother to wear it) or send a text I had meant to hours or days ago or check a list…

On Thanksgiving Day I was reading about the Pilgrims and their wait, which must have been excruciating, for their ship and its team to be readied and for all the details that went into their historic voyage.

Moms know we spend half our mom lives waiting at activities practices or pickup or drop (why I bought a house across the street from the school, to avoid this mind numbing twice a day practice!). Sometimes it drives my kids crazy that I am not just sitting waiting doing absolutely nothing focused solely on them showing up but usually I am engaged in some activity, on a call or even typing a document on my laptop.

I feel like all of these tiny waits have parallel application to the bigger waits in life, waiting for the right job, spouse, your baby to sleep through the night (keep waiting!), your toddler to learn to use the potty, the kids to leave your home for college, and on and on. I know many who wait for a painful situation in their marriages to change and others who wait for the right person to love snd be loved by.

The bottom line is that life is not static. Even when we get what we were waiting for, even our biggest wish, things change. Our human nature knows this which is why when we that really big thing we’ve been wanting and waiting for (house, baby, dining room table, new skis, piano, puppy…insert yours here___________) we are onto the next desire! The level of desire varies by personality as I find some people are just more content in general with the status quo and then there are others who are so ambitious the sky is the limit.

Life gets derailed sometimes too and an entirely new list of things or priorities can develop and then there is even more waiting.

It is trite but my thought on this is that we need to try to enjoy the journey so to speak, even the less exciting, oftentimes monotonous, sometimes extremely painful or stressful parts and try to find joy in them.

Just something to consider next time you’re stopped at a red!

What would Jesus do?

I was disturbed reading my church bulletin today. First there was a notice that they had had to suspend their historically annual Thanksgiving meals to a needy community due to the pandemic.

The second thing was a notice to the congregation not congregate with other parishioners before or after the church service, to “move immediately to your vehicle” following the service.

This all sticks in my craw because it does not align with the way Jesus lived. In a time when leprosy and other communicable diseases ruled the day, in his public ministry Jesus regularly surrounded himself with and physically reached out and touched these “untouchables.” So did others of his followers like Mother Teresa. They were not afraid of catching something. They were not afraid of inevitable death. They did not sequester themselves. Christians throughout history have chosen to gather together as the Bible commands even at the threat of death. Now we are going to forgo this for fear of sickness and death?

What are we doing, church?