The house I grew up in has so many memories within it and around the yard. I stand on the deck and look over to the pond, I swear I can still see that day my father threw an ice skating party for my sister and me. Our little girl friends ice skating around and smiling, laughter fills the air. This memory is one of my favorites.
The house I grew up in comes with some really bad memories, ones that make my heart break when I think about them. From parents fighting to the final divorce, sure I could focus on some really bad memories that come right to my mind clear as day, as if they happened yesterday. I choose not to remember the bad memories, I choose to remember the good ones.
The house I grew up in is still owned by my mother and now my children get to experience the place I called home so many years ago while I grew up into the adult I am today. I spent many years in this home and after looking at an old VHS tape from the last year that my parents were married, I see that I have more memories here than I thought.
The house I grew up in is a place where a mom and a dad started their lives together with two beautiful young daughters. There was family game night one Christmas in 1991 and although the memory fails me, the VHS tape shows a mom, a dad and two girls playing Connect Four together one Christmas night. The VHS tapes shows a mom smiling, two daughters enjoying her company and a father capturing this memory on a recording device for us to look back to for years to come.
The house I grew up in is a place I want to have my children grow up in. I am thankful that, at least for now, my children get to be here, on the land and in the home I was raised. I am thankful that I have so many good memories and this house hasn’t gone to a stranger as of yet. I am thankful that I have good memories to share with my children.
The house I grew up in is a place that makes me feel at home and for that feeling alone, I would not give this house up for anything, ever, unless of course I had no choice. I would like to think that one day I could call this house I grew up in mine, but no one knows quite yet what the future holds for this house I grew up in.
I am so excited that my family and I {minus my daughter} will be attending Monster Jam in Worcester MA come mid February! This is a trip that I plan to hold hostage, meaning keep it from my kids because my five year old is so obsessed with Monster Jam that I want it to be a jaw dropping surprise.
My five year old knows all of the drivers by name and will be ecstatic to be in the arena and experience Monster Jam live in person. I haven’t ever been to a Monster Jam show so it will certainly be an experience for me. I do recall when I was younger that my Dad’s previous wife had a small shed beside her house and a monster truck was stored in there for a short period of time, I do not recall if it was a famous one or not, I just remember us kids being told to stay away from it.
Advance Auto Parts Monster Jam Shall Be Featuring:
USHRA Monster Trucks including Grave Digger® driven by Dennis Anderson, Maximum Destruction® driven by Kreg Christensen, Avenger driven by Jim Koehler, Wrecking Crew driven by Steve Koehler, Stone Crusher driven by Steve Sims, Monster Magic driven by Bryan Wright, Aftershock driven by Bob Robbins, and Wolverine driven by Alex Blackwell!
Disclosure: I am receiving four family tickets free to attend this show and will be sharing my experience through pictures and blog post after attending.Be sure to Like Happily Blended on Facebook as I will be sharing pictures there as well.
The new baby had arrived and we ended up in a home that was completely out of room. We had assumed that the two boys were going to fit into the guest bedroom together with their 2 single beds but alas we had made fast inaccurate measurements that were coming back to haunt us.
Not knowing any better I broke the news of the upcoming bunkbeds to the boys nonchalantly over breakfast. I had no idea that I would get the reaction I received and was in fact quite stunned to hear it.
“Bunkbeds? No way!” said my youngest. My older boy of 12 looked up slowly and carefully to add, “Bunkbeds aren’t cool mom” and then slowly went back to eating. I had a fight on my hands, that’s for sure, but I decided that I’d come out the winner. Of course, there was no way around that since we had no extra space anywhere in the home. There would be no backing off and submitting to their demands. The bunkbeds were going to come and that was that.
I decided the best approach would be to take them out to look at some beds in real life. I was surprised myself to see the modern bunks that have been recently designed and it was my 12 year old that was the most impressed. I must add as well that he doesn’t impress easily.
I guess what got to him the most were the dark L-shaped bunks with a cappuccino finish that had a built-in workstation. Even I fell in love with those. I could envision the bed set up in the room complete with his laptop and schoolbooks.
Of course, my 5-year-old fell head over heels with the castle bed. Fortunately it was only a loft bed and could only sleep one at the top. Otherwise, there was going to be a heated debate over the cherry bunks or the one designed for young dragonslayers.
With an order submitted for the bunks and the promise of delivery for the next day, we set off home. I didn’t mention to my sons how grateful I was that they had submitted to my plan perfectly. No, they were happy and so was I. The baby and the kids will be set up for the next few years. At that time, however, my oldest son will be 15 and will probably want his own room. We’ll have to decide soon whether we will be headed to a new home or will expand the one we have. We will, however, leave that for another day.
Stress. It’s a tricky subject. How can you tell your kids the basics of stress in life? Read on for tips.
First, you should emphasize that not all stress is bad. Stress comes in two forms: eustress and distress.
Eustress is the kind of stress that motivates, stirs you to action, helps you accomplish. For example, if your kids have a fun class project with a due date, the due date may create eustress . . . it may motivate them to get the project done in a timely manner.
Distress is the kind of stress that frays a person’s nerves, creates anxiety or sorrow, and may lead to impaired decision-making and loss of emotional control. For example, if your kids have a tough class project that is not going well and it has a near-term due date, that due date may create distress . . . it may create anxiety, limit your kids’ ability to think creatively, and stimulate either apathy or an anger response in your kids.
Next, you should discuss that everyone experiences distress from time to time. In stressful times, it’s easy to feel like distress is only happening to you, but the truth is far from that. Since distress is a common human experience, well adapted humans must learn to handle distress well in order for society to function properly (i.e., for relationships to remain healthy and tasks to be accomplished timely and well done). Help your kids understand this “big picture”. You should make sure that your kids know that distress is not a “free pass” for poor choices, bad behaviors, and emotional difficulties. Help your kids understand empathy, forgiveness, and self-sacrificing benevolence as a means to deal with distress. For example, if your daughter is experiencing distress because of the class project due date referenced above, help her understand that the teacher has set the due date and cannot grant her special exemption just because she thinks it’s “too hard” for her . . . help her understand the situation from her teacher’s perspective. If the project is a team effort and one team member has not been sufficiently contributory, help your daughter exhibit forgiveness as that will help her release that negativity and return her focus to the completion of the project. Finally, if she is upset about having to forego social plans in order to complete the project, help her understand the “big picture” (i.e., that completing her school work is of greater importance in the long term than is one social activity).
NOTE: Young children are not capable of fully grasping all of the concepts involved in this discussion; however, if you hold these discussions early and often, the foundation will be laid. Then, as you have subsequent conversations about stress in the pre-teen years, your kids will come to grasp the concepts more readily than if they were being exposed to the concepts for the first time during the pre-teen years.
I am a firm believer in making mistakes, as an adult, as a child – it does NOT matter what your age is. I think that if you live life and never make one mistake then 1) you are AMAZING & a part of a small number of people or 2) you haven’t lived an adventurous life.
How can a person learn to be who they are as an independent, unique adult without making some mistakes? I guess it is possible, but for me I do not understand how they could possibly really know who they are without taking a chance at some point in their life.
Here’s my video on my children and one being a perfectionist, I am not sure how to handle her unwillingness to try new things or step outside of her comfort zone? I have discussed this issue with my daughter and she has confided some things with me as to why she is the way she is and wishes to let go more, but I am curious — do you deal with this and how do you handle it?
When I was a young girl I always thought hair loss was something that only men had to deal with, but the sad reality is, man woman suffer from hair loss as well. In my family, at least on my father’s side, the aunts have forewarned me that my full head of thick, beautiful hair may one day start losing it’s thickness as I start to lose hair as with most of my older female family members. This was a fact I hadn’t realized, that so many of my aunts struggle with hair loss.
It was almost like a sign, as soon as I started to learn about woman and hair loss I found commercials and Internet websites about ways to prevent hair loss in women. It was as if someone knew that I was a bit concerned about the possibility of losing my thick, beautiful hair. Now I know that woman certainly deal with hair loss almost as much, if not as much, as men and that there are options out there to keep the hair loss at bay, to prevent hair loss with various products and that one should think of hair loss in the same way they think of aging skin.
By protecting your hair now, you are setting yourself up for a more positive future. When people start to lose their hair, they start to lose a bit of their self esteem, it’s as if losing your hair is losing a small part of yourself. So I invite you all today to make sure you educate yourself with family history of woman’s hair loss as well as products that can assist in preventing such hair loss from occurring.
Welcome to this weeks edition of Sunday Inspiration. The weekend is either too short or too long, depending upon how you look at it but either way we all can agree that tomorrow is Monday. Sometimes we all need a little pick me upper and here I am with this weeks positive quotes; topic is Parenting.
“Live so that when your children think of fairness and integrity, they think of you.” – H. Jackson Brown
“The best inheritance a parent can give his children is a few minutes of his time each day.” – O. A. Battista
Children need love, especially when they do not deserve it. ~ Harold Hulbert ~
You have to give them unconditional love. They need to know that even if they screw up, you love them. You don’t want them to grow up and resent you or, even worse, parent the way you parented them. ~ Alfie Kohn ~
If we don’t shape our kids, they will be shaped by outside forces that don’t care what shape our kids are in. ~ Dr. Louise Hart ~
Encourage and support your kids because children are apt to live up to what you believe of them. ~ Lady Bird Johnson ~
In spite of the six thousand manuals on child raising in the bookstores, child raising is still a dark continent and no one really knows anything. You just need a lot of love and luck – and, of course, courage. ~ Bill Cosby, Fatherhood ~
Enjoy your week everyone! Remember to hug your child as much as possible, no matter their age, sure they may shrug you away but inside they are smiling at the affection you provide as a nurturing, loving parent!
I do not know you, you do not know me but I see your face on movies I have watched my whole life and most recently I see the media coverage of you going through a really difficult time in your life right now.
Growing up a few people always said I looked so much like you and eventually that made me more aware of who you were, as I watched movies you were in from Ghost to GI Jane, I saw that you were a woman of many talents. Not only are you a woman of many talents, but you are able to pull off a shaved head in such a beautiful way that I doubt many other females could pull off.
People adore you, men love to look at you and at your age you are so gorgeous on the outside, but I think that your beauty is far beyond that of your awesome body for your age, your beauty is deep within your soul that comes out in the movies you play parts in.
I understand that you are going through some extremely challenging times, that surely did not start just yesterday, and with this I would like to end my letter with a few positive notes that I hope will help uplift you, although I doubt you will ever really read this letter:
Remember to stay strong, to do whatever it is you need to do to get better, to learn to love yourself inside and out, to not allow the outside media and ex relationships get you down. One can only feel what they allow others to make them feel, you need to rise up above all of the judgements, bad things that have happened and come back to be a stronger, more passionate woman about yourself. Age is just a number and no matter how long you need to take to get back on track with “you”, take that time because it will be so well worth it in the end. No matter how much time and space you need to become that person you know you are inside, you need to take it and remember your fans, friends and followers will be here to welcome you back with a smile and hug!
I guess what got to him the most were the dark L-shaped bunks with a cappuccino finish that had a built-in workstation. Even I fell in love with those. I could envision the bed set up in the room complete with his laptop and schoolbooks.
