The best laid plans.....

Wellll......Italian Crockpot Soup was put on hold and instead we dined on saltine crackers, OJ, a little bit of brown rice, and gatorade, sigh. Woke up to my youngest emptying his tummy on our bed and spent the rest of the day giving him baths, cuddlying with him, scrubbing floors and doing laundry.



After the boys were bundled up in their nice clean, aired out bedroom for the night, I did take the opportunity to make some gluten-free bread in our toaster oven (still waiting for the proper wiring for our "real range"). Note to self: Fill mini pans no more than 3/4 of batter or it will rise and burn where it pushes it's alluminum foil cover against the top of the oven. I'm looking forward to making some french toast in the morning, snacking on some cinnamon bread drizzled in butter, and pairing some cheesy bread with our lunch tomorrow.



It's almost impossible to believe that today is the last day of 2010! Where did it go? This weekend will be a week of celebrating all we've accomplished this past year and looking foward to what we will take on and accomplish over the next 365 days!

A Day Of Produce and Food Prep......

I have a horrible habit of fluctuating in ........well, some of my habits. I KNOW that eating healthy, local, and organic is the absolute best for my health and the health of my children, but sometimes those other goodies look so yummy and convenient. Then BOOM I'm on a downward spiral, cutting corners, and even allowing my babies to ingest yuckies.

So, another goal and habit that I must master this next year and forevermore is a good meal plan and health habit that I'll stick with and am able to keep my family on track with. In my perusing online for hints and motivation to get things going right I came across http://www.eatrealgood.com/ and Community Supported Argiculture. What a wonderful idea! Roger and I are looking into two farms in our area that participate in CSA and I'm hoping it pans out. From Juneish til Novemberish, a big ol' box of fresh organic produce every week for around twenty bucks each week. What better way to put us in line for great habits than to have a box of produce each and every week to consume?

On the eatrealgood website there is a wonderful menu planner/meal maker that you can use free of charge. You can type in the fresh produce you have on hand, add any filters (Gluten free and 5 ingredients or less for us) and wahla, you have a long list of wonderful recipes to choose from. Pick the dishes you want to do and shoom, there's a shopping list of all the things needed. So, this morning I created a menu to get us through to next week and went to shopping! Then spent a few hours prepping produce, filling the refrigerator crispers and making some new dishes. So much fun! Not to mention YUMMY!

Today's trial was Pork Chops, Apples, and Green Beans. It was DELISH! Unfortunately I forgot to take a picture, but if you can picture salt and peppered browned chops, with apples fried in butter with a touch of brown sugar and cinnamon, and a side of wonderful green beans. The boys weren't sure their favorite fruit was supposed to be in their dinner, but they tried it and ironically chose the green beans as their favorite part.

Tomorrow is going to be a busy day helping with the family business so it'll be a crockpot meal or two tomorrow....looking forward to a yummy Italian Stew and can't wait til my oven is hooked up again so I can bake up an awesome sounding Tomato Chicken with Green Beans. Here's hoping to a wonderful start to some great habits!

The master artists of our house.

A Wonderful Christmas Wonderland.....

.........though not a Winter Wonderland....

We had an absolutely wonderful (though mostly snowless) Christmas this year. We celebrated over four days, visiting friends and family, sharing gifts and holiday joy. My favorite day of course was December 25th. We spent a fantastic day at home simply enjoying our children and keeping our family and new traditions the center of the day as opposed to commercialism, others expectations, or busyness. It was a wonderful day watching our babies unwrap Christmas in a whole new way!

The boys had a blast decorating our tree a couple weeks back and mama dear even let go of her perfectionism and didn't micro-manage the ornament placement. I was even the proponate of purchasing a "fake tree" and actually enjoyed it immensely (no pine needles in the carpet fa lalalala la la lala!). After the boys decorated the tree, Alan declared it ready for the "perfect star" to be placed on top. Roger picked him up, Alan placed the star, and.....flop! The tree top was too weak to hold up the vintage star topper that I like so much. Well, a tree must have a star, so the boys and I created a "gingerbread star"from cardboard, lots and lots of glitter, buttons, and a little ribbon. (Again, mama is making positive strides and let go of her perfectionism-obvously something I'll be making goals to work on and conquer in 2011). I love the star, and as we were boxing up the ornaments and packing away the tree my four year old Alan declared that our star needed to be set on top of the mirror in the living room-so there it sits for now.

We even enjoyed a sticky evening building a tiny gingerbread village. Every year I declare to myself that the boys and I are going to make gingerbread, and design and build a wonderful gingerbread house decorated with perfect lil' gum drops and m&m's. Again, I pushed the foolish perfectionism aside and bought a kit for us to put together. The boys had a BLAST and I loved the wonderful silly time working with them, their childlike ideas, and goofy lil' sayings. They work together so interesting-like. I was a good girl and simply glued the pieces together, and put the gooey colored icing where the boys directed and they placed all the candies. They were so proud of their accomplishments and they did a fabulous job! Not sure if Alan stuck his hand in some icing or stole a piece of candy here. :P

I have completely enjoyed the past few days of mostly uninterupted time with my boys and fully intend to make this the norm. I am a stay at home, working mom but have discovered recently just how much I have allowed stuff, activities, and poor time management take away valuable, quality time with them and me personally. Another goal to tackle in 2011! This mama is ready to tackle some goals, new priorities, and habits this near year!

Decide!

I just recently came across the quote,

"Decide what you want, decide what you are willing to exchange for it. Establish your priorities and go to work." -H.L. Hunt

It truly resonated with me as I'm heading off to FLING (my company's annual home conference in Pennsylvania). What is it that I want out of life, out of my business, out of my family, out of things around me? What are some of the things that really truly don't matter to me? That, right there, may be the bigger, actually, more important question!


What is taking the place of the things that I NEED to be doing? What is getting in the way of what I truly want and need? I do find myself so often doing things that are not a benefit to my business, are not positive for my family, and sometimes things I downright dislike. So many of us do this exact thing way too often. But why?

Because we lose focus, or we get focused on the wrong thing. A good friend once likened it to a child playing with a ball, the ball gets away and rolls into the the street and the child chases after with no attention to his surroundings, only the ball. Or another friend who campares it to being distracted by the next shiny bright thing....."ooooo, shiny!......"

What are ways that we can keep our focus and ensure we are focused on the proper things? First, write things down. Lists, journals, ambitions-keep track and reference back to them regularly. There is no better way to see where you are and where you are going than to look at a reference point, land mark, and/or map (list, journals, etc...). I love my dream board, love the ideas and goals that are portrayed there and as long as I'm looking at that dream board and keeping it in mind, along with my 30 minutes of developement a day, things happen! My focus is on track, sometimes the track changes, but it changes because I make the changes in light of where I am and where I need to go...all because I am observing and staying on top of things.

Second, 30 minutes of self/business developement every day. There is always a way to squeeze in 30 minutes of "reading" somewhere, sometime. There are days when I'm swamped and I'll pull up a few YouTubes of Zig Ziglar or another great motivational speaker and listen while I pay bills or make dinner...any way you get 30 minutes in works. And trust me, it truly does work. I've ridden the discouraging waves of "developement starvation" to amazing momentum on the wave of constant immersion.

And third, choose your mentors. Find people in your industry, workplace, surroundings, that you look up to, are where you want to be and stay in contact with them. Sign up for their newsletters, read their blogs, pop on their social media sites. Being surrounded by like minded people and excited people is a HUGE boost to keeping you solidly on your way.

And most importantly, if, or should I say, when, you do lose your focus for a time or realize that you've been focusing on the wrong target-there is no better time than RIGHT NOW to re-evaluate and get back on target! Get focused, "Decide what you want, decide what you are willing to exchange for it. Establish your priorities and go to work."

Respect

How do you show respect to those around you? Do you mean to show respect and hit the mark? How many times have you intended to show respect and realized after time that you missed the mark?

So many times we can have the very best intentions, yet hurt someone if our actions do not line up with the words we use with them. We can so often get caught up in the "best of intentions" when dealing with people, especially those who ask for advice or "obviousyly appear to need advice"(which in reality is when we should most often keep our advice to ourselves).

It is indeed, very easy for us, especially those who are self-employeed and/or in network marketing to assume and feel as if we have all the right answers because, "it worked right for us." But does what worked for us guarentee success for others? Unfortunately, no. Yet at the same time there is a plethora of wisdom to be had from those who have already been where we are. Where is the balance? My wee brain is full of rambling thoughts and ideas along these lines and I really must get them all organized and in order before I spout them off here, but it's definitely food for thought...something to think about before you offer any hard advice or push your ideals on someone looking for some help.

One thing I have really found helpful is the idea of "duplication". When someone does ask for help or advice, is the advice given actually something that can be duplicated? Is what worked for me through an issue or problem, something that another person can actually implement? Of course this answer can be very subjective as well. So, regardless of who is offering advice and what kind of advice is being offered it should always be offered with a lot of thought, a ton respect, and of course a healthy dose of tact.

More "respectful thoughts" to follow I'm sure....

Happy Birthday!

Another 365 years have passed in the life of me.....what are the things I've accomplished? What are the things I missed? What are the goals I reached or failed to reach? I like to look back, and more importantly, forward on my birthday at what has occured, didn't occur, and why.

It's such a busy time right now with us being mid-move, but I've still been doing a lot of reflecting over my last 365 days. Did I complete everything I wanted to? Hmmm...unfortunately no. Did I reach every goal I strived for? Uhh, no. Did I reach some goals? OH YEAH! Did I accomplish things I wanted to? ABSOLUTELY! And most importantly I never let the things I missed shadow over the things I didn't miss.

It is tremendously better to see a "missed"opportunity as the beginning of another opportunity instead. So mid-summer has become my re-assessment time, to look back over my paths, roads, detours, jaunts, and flights and see where they have taken me and landed me and from there decide which direction to travel over the next 365 days.

My mind is a whir of thoughts and reflections this evening, but one of my goals for this new year is to be better "planned" day by day, even hour by hour. Someone I truly look up to in my company sits down and plans out her week once a week, she attacts her list of things to do, sticks to her schedule/calendar, ticks off goal after goal. That is one of my new goals for this "new year! :-D

Moving....

Today, I'm sitting here typing in this little box because I made a commitment to blog daily for a full month. But I can't think of much to say...at all! I really like my new dishsoap dispenser? Is that really blogging fodder? An unused oil bottle and spout-looks pretty darn cool with it's orange soap on the new shiny sink by the snazo new faucet. But does sharing about my new use for an old bottle and making up words like "snazo" constitute a blog entry?

Hmmm, but that does give me an idea. Is anybody interested in how we're revamping things and making do in our new kitchen?

Let's see, we took an old hutch that was rather ugly from our current kitchen, painted it a "Cherry Coke" red and hung it on the wall over the existing miniature sink in the new kitchen. Miniature sink meaning about the size of the sinks you find in small travel trailers....itty bitty-but instead of changing out the entire sink and cabinet we decided to make do and installed a snazo new faucet-meaning it's shiny, pretty and the faucet is it's own removable handheld spray nozzle.

Said sink and cabinet have the strangest back to them and actually have a raised area above them, but no counter or anything on it. So we wanted to put a raised backsplash/shelf the entire length of the cabinet/counter area. But what to use? It's only 8 inches deep, custom counter 8 feet x 8 inches? I can only imagine the cost! Wandering the aisles at Lowes I come upon PVC "boards" for making trim work for outside your house. PERFECT! Thirty bucks and we have a sleek, water proof mini-counter that I know won't absorb any splashes or germs.

The island for our new kitchen is actually a base/counter in our current kitchen that we'll be placing a new countertop on and some snazzy white beadboard on the back to freshen it up. Wah-la, storage, place to prep food, and eat. Perfecto!

It has certainly been fun wandering aimlessly through stores looking for ideas, spending alot of my spare time flipping through magazines and my design and decor books for ideas and inspiration. My poor husband is truly tired of hearing my newest, "I was thinking!" or "Look what I found as an idea!" But I'm sure he'll enjoy our new space when it all comes together and I can cook him a proper breakfast (I think he's tired of cereal and eating on the go as well). I really never thought I'd be this excited about setting up a kitchen...maybe I need to get out more? ;)