November | 2012 | itsawonderfilledlife

Archive for November, 2012

Old to New: The Weight Loss DiaBLOG – Month 5

Posted in Weight Loss DiaBLOG, women, WONDER, tagged accountability, Busy, Change, christmas, diaBLOG, diet, losing weight, Move, myfitnesspal, Old to New, pounds, Reward, Ten Ways to Not Blow the Diet, think ahead, weight, Weight Loss on November 30, 2012| Leave a Comment »

“ONE is the loneliest number …”
the Beatles

The Weight Loss DiaBLOG – month five! This month has produced (or removed) the hardest fought to get rid of one pound!

The good thing about this one pound loss is that it has put me out of the teens, and I am now twenty pounds lighter! Clothes are feeling so much better, and the ones in my closet that have been gathering dust, due to snugness are now anticipated to be wearable in another five to ten pounds (well, that is just the slightly dusty ones … there are levels of dustiness in my closet that indicate the gradual weight gain over the years like rings around a tree).

So folks, Christmas festivities are just around the corner, and we need an action plan! I am sure that you can agree that we do not want shortbread cookies, nuts, festive beverages and stuffing to ruin our months of effort! So, now is the time, before you are offered, “just one little appetizer,” to think about the strategies you might use to either not gain, or maybe even lose weight in December.

Here are my Ten Ways to Not Blow the Diet:

Food Is Not Reward – No matter how well you and I have done in the past year, cocktail wienies are not the prize
Move – Standing at the party is not exercise. If there is dancing, step out on that dance floor … the worst that can happen is that you look like Eilaine from Seinfeld (see below for a little chuckle).
Quality Friend Time – Cream, fat and carbs. are not the vehicles to meaningful friendships. A visit with a friend over a simple tea, coffee or while taking a walk on a street that provides window shopping are great ways to visit without the additional caloric treats. Spend an evening catching up with each other instead of exchanging gifts, and you will both save money too!
Don’t Always Say No – It is okay to SAY YES TO THE DRESSing, if that is your favorite part of the festive feast. Skip some other part of the meal, or ensure that you are more active that day and the next. Eat what you want, just do not risk not getting back into that little black dress!
Write All That We Eat – Whether you are using a computer program, website, app, or paper and pen, commit to writing down everything that will go into your mouth, every day (yes, Virginia, there is the ability to write it all down on Christmas feast day).
Friend Someone – one IS the loneliest number, especially when we are trying to eat more healthy! Find a friend (NOT a skinny one … that would just be depressing!) that is also trying to eat more healthy, and use each other as daily accountability partners. Two is better than one!
Don’t Overbook – trying to lose weight means be alert to the choices you are making. Don’t allow your holidays to be so busy that you have no time to think and make the best choices possible. Busyness can be our biggest enemy to eating healthy and exercising regularly.
Think Ahead – Before you go to that holiday party, before you go to visit your friends and family ~~before you go to the staff room~~ think about your P.O.A. (plan of action). We are more successful when we take the time to think ahead, and plan what we are going to eat.
Less Is Best – Just because those yummy chocolate truffles are on the table does not mean that you and I need to eat the entire bowl full! If you really want one, eat ONE, and enjoy every moment of it! Multiples do not multiply the enjoyment, only the waistline!
Our Bodies Are Our Home – Lets take care of these vessels we were given to live this life in. I am hoping to be youthful and active as I age, but that does not come from living a sedentary life now. Move it, or lose it … that is the reality we live with in the bodies we have!

Have a Merry Christmas!

Read Full Post »

Where Have all the Good Men Gone?

Posted in life, WONDER, tagged behaviors, Bonnie Tyler, Christian, Daniel Prokop, discouraged, discouragement, God Honoring, Hero, jobs, Leaving Neverland, protective, schooling, Undefinable Christianity, where have all the good men gone, young men on November 29, 2012| 3 Comments »

Most of the time I like to think of myself as a progressive thinker (although my kids would probably not agree), but when it comes to one area I tend to be rather old fashioned, even archaic.

For those who are older like me, the song in the video below takes us back to watching the original movie, Footloose, w a y back in the 198o’s (for those not so old only back as far as a Shrek movie). It is the chorus that has been playing in my head lately.

The area that shows my age concerns young men.

As a mom of two daughters, one who is twenty and the other fifteen, I have started to observe young men from the point of view of ‘would I want my daughter to date him?’ It is not that either one (especially the fifteen year old) is looking to settle down, but more that I am always thinking ahead to the next step, trying to plan and prepare.

As I have observed young men, I have to say that I am starting to get really discouraged by what I see.

Now I know that I am a mom of daughters, and I am protective of them, and want only the best for them, and really there can never be a young man who is good enough for my daughters (imagine how much more so for their father). I also know that I am observing young men through the aging eyes of a thirty-nine (with three years experience) year old woman, and I do not fully understand the generation that I am observing. Fair enough! Yet, I feel so very discouraged in this!

Let me tell you what I have been observing:

Schooling and Jobs
There seems to be a lack of future goals. Post secondary schooling seems more to be just another phase rather than a vehicle to pursuing and attaining a future career. And many, upon graduation from university/college do not even pursue work in their area of study.

Mom and Dad Dependency
I have heard of far too many mid-twenty-something guys who are still living with, and off of, mom and day (and yes, I mean off of, as in no ‘rent’ is being charged to their working son OR ma and pop are still handing over cash to sonny boy who can’t find work). Certainly the financial circumstances of today require more young adults to still live at home, but parents who are allowing their adult children to completely live off of them are harming the next generation not helping them.

Undefinable Christianity
This one is just about Christian guys. I am all about Christian living within our world, and not segregating ourselves to only churchy activities, but seriously, there just has to be a difference in how we live our lives, if we say that we are ‘Christ-like’. Maybe this is where my ‘old fashioned’ side is most visible, but I really do believe that when a Christian guy is partying he should be able to remember what he did afterward, and that what he does with a girl(s) should be God-honoring.

I do believe that there are good men out there, and have even met some of them, but they really seem to be in the minority, and as a mom of a son as well, I really hope that we are raising him to be part of that vital minority. I hope too that our our daughters will hold out for a hero.

“In a desperate attempt to stay young forever
we have achieved eternal childishness,
rather than eternal youth.”
― Daniel Prokop, Leaving Neverland: Why Little Boys Shouldn’t Run Big Corporations

Read Full Post »

Boxes on a Shelf

Posted in life, WONDER, tagged boxes, cleaning, Dust, foundations, give away, keep, learn from the past, Life, messy, Past, repeat the past, run from the past, therapy, throw away on November 28, 2012| Leave a Comment »

Cleaning is so therapeutic … and messy!

Over the past months I have been cleaning and purging all through the house. I have gone through a storage closet, through the garage, through all the children videos and DVDs, through a hall closet, a bedroom closet. Each time I begin cleaning sneezing soon begins to happen. The amounts of dust is directly related to the amount of time since I last cleaned that area.

When I clean I am thorough! I take everything off the shelves and out of the spaces, and I go through every container, every item, every box. I often separate items into one of three piles:

keep
give away
throw away

Usually I am shocked at what I find. I find treasures that I forgot about, ones that bring such sweet memories back. I find other things I had forgotten about that I am not so thrilled to see again, or surprised that I had kept them in the first place. There are things that still fit perfectly, and other things that I cannot imagine how I ever squeezed into.

And so, I organize, I get rid of and I dust.

When it is all done I am usually a dusty mess! It takes a significant amount of time and effort to really clean a space. I feel such relief, such pride that my efforts have paid off in such a visually rewarding way, when I stand back and admire my work.

I am sure we all have similar boxes on shelves … and I am sure that not all of them are physical boxes.

As we grow and change we take fragments of our life, and pack them into boxes, which we then set upon shelves, to do nothing more but gather dust. Sometimes the things in those boxes are so painful, and bring back such heart wrenching memories that we allow the dust to settle on them for years so as to avoid having to face them again. Sometimes the things in those boxes topple into our lives unannounced and unexpected, jolted from the safety of their cardboard homes up on that out of reach shelf, and they surprise us with how much we do remember, but had pushed away so long ago.

When those most dusty of all the boxes in our lives get forced open and their contents strewn throughout our present life, we realize that it is impossible to pack them away forever. We realize that the things we want to stay in the past are actually attached to us as we walk through each day. They are the silent, invisible yet powerful forces that guide us in our decision-making. They guide us in whether we:

repeat the past
run from the past or
learn from the past

We think that we have put the boxes so high, and closed the door shut tight on the realities of the foundations of our lives, but they were never packed away, we have just been living like the ostrich who hides his head in the sand to escape the realities of his life. And like that ostrich, our heads will one day need to come up for air, and face the realities of our lives that we have been hiding from.

Each of us will, one day, need or be forced to take the dustiest boxes down from the shelf, and dare to look inside, resolving that no matter how much time and effort it takes, we will clean up the contents. We will need to decide:

what to keep
what to give away
what to throw away

Cleaning is so therapeutic …. and messy.

Read Full Post »

Fresh Air Therapy

Posted in life, Nature/Creation, The Beast, WONDER, tagged Anne of Green Gables, Beast, beasty, Children, dog, Exercise, fresh air, fresh air therapy, oxygen, path, pretty dog, scope for the imagination, sunshine, therapy, walk on November 27, 2012| 1 Comment »

It was a miracle! It was a weekend AND it was sunny and beautiful!

With hubby and all three of our kids gone, and with our two from China opting for retail therapy, the beast and I were free to do whatever we desired on that gorgeous day. So we chose a brisk walk on the trail.

People were out in droves. There were the young teenage couples who couldn’t keep their ~~tonsils~~ eyes off each other, and the older couples who walked arm in arm for both physical and emotional support. There were the single walkers, with or without a beast, briskly marching along, and the families with little ones, walking at a snails pace to take in every bit of wonder around them.

I am never really sure of the real reason that beast loves to go for walks. Oh, she loves the actual walk, but deep down the thing I think she likes most is the people we meet. There is nothing like a comment like, “oh what a pretty dog” to make her ears soar, and then she will prance down the path … head swelling bigger by the moment! If the passing compliment is not enough to excite her, there is also the adoring “puppy!” from a small child! Often we will stop, and allow her adoring little admirer touch and see her up close. If there is a child’s cry or screech within earshot of our beast, I am at risk of shoulder dislocation! She immediately wants to fly into action in the direction of the cry.

For me the walks encompass so much more than just the exercise, which is beneficial, of course. It is the opportunity to be still (I rarely ‘plug in’ on my walks, but I have been known to stop and quickly email a blog post idea to myself) mentally. It allows all of the cells in my body to inhale fresh, oxygen-rich air, that can clear my mind like nothing else. I am enabled by the combination of fresh air, beauty of creation, and physical activity to become more creative, and despite that fact that I have walked this path frequently, these walks “still take my breath away and offers so much scope for imagination!” (Anne of Green Gables)

What a gift the exercise, the fresh air, the sun shining brightly in the sky were to the beasty and I … cheaper and more effective than any other therapy!

Read Full Post »

A God Thing?

Posted in GOD, WONDER, tagged a God thing, charity, christmas, donate, fundraiser, GOD, God's timing, homeroom, obligation, Passion, School, skateboarder, Students, transparency on November 26, 2012| 4 Comments »

Sometimes things happen, words are said, events enfold, and the lack of human intervention into how they enfold makes me thing that the events are fully and completely a God thing.

This happened last week.

I have the privilege of co-leading a homeroom at the high school I work with a teacher who is about as laid back as myself. We both want the group of students to feel that it is a place of freedom, of acceptance, of our genuine concern and interest in them. We do not meet that often for homeroom events, but both the teacher and I are intentional at catching up with the individual students when we see them in the hallways.

Recently we had a homeroom event scheduled and I was feeling insecure. The goal of the event was to consider three fundraisers that are happening in our school over the next number of weeks (through a number of videos and discussion), and to commit, as a homeroom group, to a specific fundraiser and goal. If I know one thing about myself, it is that I am NOT a salesperson! And the thought of failing miserably with these very valid, very worthy fundraisers put a true spirit of heaviness within me.

Thankfully, I do not lead this group alone!

The teacher spoke of having a passion for helping others, and of helping others out of that passion rather than just obligation, pressure or guilt (I was secretly ‘amening’ her message). Then the discussion, from the students, went a little downhill … although it was wonderfully honest and sincere. The overall comment was:

“I can easily donate _____ to one of the causes, but it really does not have any real meaning for me.”

So, then the teacher asked them, “what do you want to do to help someone else?”

The door to transparency was opened, and what followed, well, I believe was nothing less than a God thing.

It became apparent that the students were looking for something or someone to help that they could relate to, that they could more personally know to whom their gift, their money was going.

For whatever reason, I mentioned a local family (a single dad and two sons) who was being given Christmas gifts by the staff of a retailer I was taking a student to for Work Experience …

Instantly questions started firing:

“How old were the kids?’
I thought there were two boys, about thirteen and about ten.

“What did they like?”
I wasn’t sure, but said I could find out later that day.

“Did one of them skateboard?”

… this is where one of the students became passionate. Not a student who I would have expected to become passionate … one who spends more time with administration that with classroom teachers. His tongue was loosed … “I’ve got lots of skater t-shirts, and even new jeans that I don’t wear,” and on, and on he went.

The resulting conversation was that I would get the details for everyone, and see if we could piggyback on the retailer’s staff gifts. The students (and teacher and myself) agreed to bring in $5-10 each, and gifts for these kids would be bought. The students left the room … excited, passionate!

The teacher and I were pumped! And oh, how we hoped and prayed that one of the sons was into skateboarding!

Well, the store agreed to allow us to join in … and maybe even join in the delivery of the gifts.

I was wrong about the family …

It is a single father, but there are three kids:
a seven-year old boy (who loves baseball),
a nine year old girl (who loves things frilly),
and an eleven year old boy … who “loves skate shoes, skateboarder clothes, skateboarding …”

I believe it was all orchestrated by the hand of God …

Read Full Post »

16 Ways I Blew My Marriage

Posted in Guest Post, Marriage, WONDER, tagged 16 Ways I Blew my Marriage, brain break, Dan Pearce, Divorce, guest post, Marriage, Mistakes, Single Dad Laughing on November 25, 2012| Leave a Comment »

I have been on a bit of a marriage roll lately, and the more I am researching for one post, the more interesting information and blogs I have been encountering.

The guest post of today comes from a blogger who I literally happened upon by accident, while having a ‘brain break’ on Pinterest, after much marriage research, and came across a post called 16 Ways I Blew My Marriage, that I just had to open and read.

Dan Pearce is the author of the blog, Single Dad Laughing. His main subject (other than himself-the usual main topic for most of us who blog) is his son Noah, and you will see beautiful photos of the father and son pair. He has experienced marriage and divorce, and I thought his experience of both might just give those of us in the midst of the marriage minefield a fresh perspective … on the things we do (and maybe shouldn’t) and the things we do not do (and maybe should).

It is worth the read!

Carole

Read Full Post »

Father Son Bonding Weekend

Posted in life, The Hubby, The Kids, WONDER, tagged Apple Cup, Campus Crusade, coming of age, Encouragement, Family Life, father-son bonding, Football, letters, male bonding, Passport2Purity, road trip, thanks, Washington Cougars, Washington Huskies on November 23, 2012| Leave a Comment »

As I write this post hubby and our son are off on a two day trip to watch the Apple Cup (the trophy given to the university football team in the state of Washington – Cougars or Huskies). It will be male bonding at it’s best … football, cheap hotels, road trip, and the over-ingestion of flatulence-causing foods … I am so glad that I am not invited!

This trip is part of a plan that hubby and I adopted many years ago, when our kids were much younger. It all started one day as I was listening to a radio program that discussed the concept of a mother-daughter or father-son time away to discuss the years to come, and to provide opportunity to have ‘the talk’ in a less stressful, more relaxed environment. There were materials available, called Passport2Purity that provided a schedule, suggestions of what to do with your son/daughter, as well as audio and visual materials to guide discussions.

For me, the materials provided a springboard for conversations. Some of the illustrations used have been forever etched into the minds of my daughters and I simply because they were so … corny. That said, if you can use them as a guide their benefit will outweigh some of the uniqueness of their presentation (which provides shared humor, so all is good).

The structure of the program provides time for ‘learning’ but also has a strong focus on having fun together as well.

With our older daughter, I took her to Seattle for shopping.

With our second daughter, it was Disneyland.

With our daughters I was able to open the lines of communication broadly in areas such as money and time (stewardship), substance abuses and sexual experimentation (self respect), relationships (honoring one another) and future planning (using their gifts and passions with purpose), and we were able to have these important conversations before they became real issues in their lives. That premature timing, I feel, is key. Rather than waiting until your child is in a stressful, peer pressure filled situation, they can think about and even plan their decision making before it is an issue.

With both girls the trip home was the icing on the cake, with both saying over and over, “thanks for taking me away, Mom.”

Then, once back home, I got to give them a beautiful box full of letters from important people (mostly females, other than their dad) in their lives. They are the people who have been cheering them on for a year, or all of their lives. They are from women who vary in age from about ten (one is a drawing) to seventy. They are from women who share blood … or not, share faith … or not, share location … or not. These boxes of letters hold words of encouragement, words of hope, words of love to read, and re-read again as the tough stuff of the teen years comes their way. These boxes rarely gather dust, as they are places of refuge, of safely of remembering. These letters are the gifts that keep on giving.

And now it is the turn of father and son. Neither one of them knows what a great weekend they are both in for!

Read Full Post »

Raising a Son

Posted in The Kids, WONDER, tagged Adolescence, bad guy, bite your tongue, emotions, gift from God, males, Parenting, raising a son, Remember on November 22, 2012| Leave a Comment »

First there were the girls …

Having daughters scared the life out of me! I grew up as the only sister to two younger brothers. Hubby grew up as the brother to an older brother. I figured that neither one of us knew a thing about raising girls.

Then we had a son, and I figured that raising a son would be a breeze! We both grew up in male dominated households. Also, I work primarily with teen boys, and prefer that reality to working with teen girls much of the time, as they are so honest, and there is so much less guesswork with what they are thinking. For another, ‘they say’ that boys are easier than girls …

I have to admit that in my arrogance, I felt that if I had co-raised two daughters who seem rather well adjusted (only future counseling will reveal the truth of that) a son would be a walk in the park. After all he was just the best baby a mother could ever hope for, and so thoughtful and kind to his mother, surely adolescence would be flawless … right?

I have come to the conclusion that males do have emotions, and that there are times when the floodgates of sorrow, injustice, and anger flow over their banks and cause chaos and catastrophe for all around. Not only are they emotional, but they are also louder at being emotional! Their highs are higher and their lows lower. Plus they speak a language, complete with unique meaning and understanding of what they are saying, that my ears and mind can not comprehend.

In the past few months I feel as though I have been the ‘bad guy’ more than not …. and I am not even a GUY!

The surprising part of this is that when our son was born, I was often heard to say, “God gave me a son so that, when the girls are older, and don’t want to talk to me, I will always have a son who will adore me.” I was so wrong!

Sometimes it seems as though he is actually trying to pick a fight with me, and I am certain that I am at risk of severing my tongue from biting it so often.

But then we have a moment, a time when we can laugh together (over my singing loudly while wearing his headphones), a time when he believes again that he can trust me, a time when he understands that I am offering him mercy, and a second chance … it is then that we make eye contact, and I am reminded of the frightening nine months of praying us through the pregnancy, of my hopes and dreams for him, of the gift from God that he is to me … and the rest just doesn’t matter …

I also think about how one day, he will have a child just like him … and I smile even more!

Read Full Post »

Black (eye) Friday

Posted in christmas, life, WONDER, tagged 2012, American Thanksgiving, animals, Black Friday, breath of life, dry bones, early morning openings., early openings, Ezekiel 37, human race, November 25, sales, Shopping, trampled on November 21, 2012| 3 Comments »

This coming Friday is Black Friday.

For those of us who are not familiar with this annual, largely American (although spreading all over North America) tradition of Black Friday, it is the Friday following American thanksgiving, which signifies the start of the holiday shopping season. Retailers have traditionally opened their doors earlier than normal, and had specials to attract shoppers to set their alarm clocks for ungodly hours.

I admit, I have never gone shopping on Black Friday, although I have considered it a time or two, but the memories of the news stories of years past has always kept me safe at home.

I was recently speaking with an employee of a large department store about this infamous day. She is a woman working a low paying, thankless job, in order to pay her bills and support her

family. She was a delightful woman, who would appear to work hard, and treat other people well. As we talked it was obvious that she was certainly not excited by the idea that she would need to return to work, on her holiday planned with family, hours earlier than one year ago. For she, and many like her, the day set aside for giving thanks will instead be spent serving many people who walk with an air of expectation and entitlement.

Then she told me a story from the year before. An older woman was waiting patiently in line for a store employee to open up an electronics wall. When the door opened, the crowd surged forward, like starving dogs before a dead carcass, hoping to find a morsel of meat left on the bones. The older lady fell to her knees, and the crowd around her was so ravenous for whatever lifeless thing they were pursuing that they did not even notice her fall. Thankfully, a pair of store staff did notice, and were able to lock up the wall and open the eyes of the crowd to the lady who had fallen.

The comment of the store employee has stuck with me, “people are becoming like animals! They did not care or even notice this poor woman … they could have trampled her to death!”

Indeed, our human race is losing the breath of life that was given to us at the beginning of time, the breath of life that we should be so thankful for. It makes me ask, as was asked by God, in the middle of a valley full of very dry bones, in Ezekiel 37, “son of man, can these bones live?”” I too would respond, “Sovereign Lord, you alone know.”

Read Full Post »

Fog

Posted in life, WONDER, tagged blackness, brigntness, Darkness, fog, Life, Light, mist, mysterious, sun on November 20, 2012| Leave a Comment »

The recent time change has brought fog into most of my mornings. Oh, it has been there for weeks before, but I was always oblivious to it, as it was hidden in the early morning darkness.

Now, as the clock moves from 6:30-7:00, as light is pushing away the darkness of night, fog draws a creative, and eerie, view from my window. The trees seem more defined, and yet less so, depending on how far into the fog they stand. The fog obstructs my view, and yet brings to attention that which is nearest to me. It makes me want to fill my coffee mug yet again, and turn my seat to the window and just stare … stare into the fading, stare into the emerging forms in front of me. It is wet to walk in, dampening everything it touches, without … the feeling of being touched. Yet it is warm to the eyes, it completes, it blankets all around it with it’s arms of total inclusion.

Fog both scares me and puts me at ease at the same time. It is mysterious and confusing and beautiful and inviting all at the same time. It is my morning conundrum.

As I emerge from my home, as the clock is nearer to eight than to seven, fog’s background is no longer darkness, but light. The sun seems to be pushing so hard to push through, to burn through the tiny droplets of precipitation. And as I life my eyes, drawn upward by the magnetic force of the light, I see that the light of the morning sun is winning in places, pushing the fog away, like pushing away a warm morning blanket, to show me the blue waiting to flood the skies, and the brilliance of it’s shine.

Later yet, as I drive in the glorious sun, the blue of the sky creating smiles just from it’s presence, I am moving towards a hill where I will enter a lower elevation, and, once again, the fog is present. It lies in the valley like a cottony blanket, or bridge, but this bridge will allow no vehicle to cross … the only way is through the fog. And my heart beats with excitement and anticipation, as I lower into it’s mysterious abyss.

“You do not know what tomorrow will bring.
What is your life?
For you are a mist
that appears for a little time
and then vanishes.”
James 4:14

Read Full Post »

Older Posts »