The LBDDiaries.com Blog

Is it just me or did 2011 just zip by?   I’m kinda of feeling like I missed something!  What do you think 2012 will bring to you?  It really is YOUR choice, you know.  It isn’t that we are magicians who can pull miracles out of a hat but we can bring about changes. 

We live self-fulfilling prophecies all the time through the words of our mouth.  Words like, ‘I always get sick this time of year” or “I am never going to get ahead in my life.”  “Money sure goes!  There will never be enough to pay all my bills.”   How about, “My kids are driving me crazy; they’re never going to do right” and “You’ll always be this way.” 

Worse are the “too’s”,  “I am never going to accomplish anything with my life because it’s too or I’m too  (fill in the blank).   Suggestions?  It’s too late.  I’m too old.  I”m too young.  I’m too broke.  It’s too hard.  Even worse?  I CAN’T.  And you would be absolutely 100% right.

I think that every year, no matter how many times we’ve been proven wrong, we actually dream of and believe that we just might be able to do better this time, this new year.  We harbor private hopes that things can change.  We want to believe that resolutions work or that this time, we will keep them.

We dream of a fresh start.

Well GOOD NEWS!  I’m here to tell you that it is NEVER, never, never, ever too late.  NEVER.  Each and every one of us can make changes to make our lives better.  Even the most negative of Grinch-y people can change.  No one is exempt.  Change is possible for every. single. person.  Amen.

Of course if you SAY, “I don’t believe that.  Forget it.  It won’t happen for me” – you are absolutely right here, too.  It won’t.  Believe it or not, being positive draws good things to you.  Being negative draws negative things to you.  

Dare to believe – to have hope and keep the flame of it burning bright.  Never give up on yourself.   Never stop dreaming BIG.  If you make up your mind that you WILL make changes and you WILL enjoy your best year ever, you WILL.  You will find little things in your life that can lead to big changes.  You will find yourself looking for the positive, looking forward, and changing your own attitude and, dare I say?  Destiny.

We really do live lives full of self-fulfilling prophecies, bad or good.  And these are the ONLY lives we get here on earth.  You’d think we’d take better care of ourselves!  Quit following others and their way of doing things.  Don’t listen to those who nay-say you or your deam.  Keep away from toxic relationships!  Make choices just for yourself.  Your life is exactly what you make of it.

On that note, I am going offline for the next month.  30 big ones.  Thirty days. Thurty long daze.  It’s all the fault of Christie Glascoe Crowder who posted an article over at Type-A Parent:

http://typeaparent.com/going-off-the-grid-planning-and-surviving-a-digital-sabbatical.html

She posted the article after she went “off the grid” for a month and is creating an e-book of her experiences in a few weeks (January sometime).  I can’t wait to read it. 

Similar to her points, my thought process is to establish, for that month the following:

No blogging (posting or reading) – I tremble as you read
No engaging in social sites (Twitter) – Ditto
No surfing the web (including shopping) – full blown panic attack

All my writing, note-taking, and ideas will be done by hand with pen in my paper notebooks (thank goodness that I have a huge pile of both). 

I unsubscribed from all my digital newsletters, RSS feeds, and blogs.  I will return to the blogs (had to write down their web addresses) but I don’t need the temptation popping up every time I check my bank account or pay a bill!

As Christie pointed out,  this time period is a “full system overhaul, starting from within.”   

I have a support system in my friend Steph from over at Momma’s Soapbox.  We both began working on our Aloha lives in 2010, (her link for Aloha) (mine is HERE)  and want to build on that this coming year in more specific and powerful ways.

So do I think this is going to be a breeze?  Oh ha.  Heck no.  I have the queasy’s inside.  I actually am very nervous about unplugging myself.  But I have to do this, for me. 

I have to plug back into my life and my “self”. 

And isn’t that a wonderful way to begin a New Year?  It’s all right!  Have a good time, cause it’s all right, oh, it’s all right!!

Miss me a little bit, OK??

Watch your thoughts; they become words.
Watch your words; they become actions.
Watch your actions; they become habits.
Watch your habits; they become character.
Watch your character; it becomes your destiny.

~ Frank Outlaw

People usually are a wee bit more aware of things they have to be thankful for during the upcoming American holiday season.  Thanksgiving brings that out in us!  It isn’t just the thought of football, food and visits with loved ones.  To me, it is a prompting to find things to be grateful for outside those parameters!!

I’m going to do a few posts between now and Thanksgiving day to list things I am grateful for. 

1 – Cell phone cameras!  I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve been out and about and thought, “Oh man! I wish I had my camera with me.”  Now I just have to remember that my cell phone HAS a camera option!  Here are a couple of shots I took with my cell phone.  (Some pix enlarge when you click on them)

Sunset, National Seashore in Texas

The two below are of the sunset along I-40, Arkansas (cropped to take out highway traffic)

 Stuck in a storm, pulled over behind a restuarant to get out of the slashing wind and rain!  The road is flooded.

 2 – Haircolor.  I finally gave up trying to cover my beautiful amazing stunning glorious grey white hair.  No matter what color the stylist did, the color on the glaring lovely white roots would immediately fade and I looked like I had huge bald spots instead of white hair (because the hair was the same color as my scalp).  Last year, I tried just letting the grey act like highlights. Yeah, ok.  Maybe not the best choice.  I felt like Cruella D’Ville (not to mention I have no idea what color that brownish mess is that was slapped on the rest of my hair):

But with the help of bottles of lovely color, a few weeks ago, my current sytlist opted to work with the white and I think she did a pretty good job – you can’t really tell which is real and which is white.  Right??  Well, to me it is a little better so I’m grateful.  Cell phone pictures don’t always look good – I mean, in real life?  I am only 25 (I know, I know – a rough 25.  Really! What? You don’t believe me?  Well OK.  Maybe I am somewhere south of twenty-thirty) and I really have thick wavy hair.  No, not really.  A girl can dream, tho.  Or wear wigs – of which I have 7. 

3 – Makeup.  What? You thought I was going to be deep?  That’s for later.  Right now, I baring my soul here and being honest.  Makeup.  I love makeup.  I don’t want to be without makeup.  Makeup is… well, OK.  It’s not my LIFE, but let us just say that being blonde means that without makeup I have no eyelashes or eyebrows.  Oh, they are there, light blonde, but I look washed out and just pure naked.  People think makeup is a waste of time but I’ve been wearing it soooo long (no, I’m not going to say how long), that it really doesn’t take much time to slap some on.  I heard a preacher say once, “Any old barn looks better with a coat of paint.” 

Alpha Hubby loves makeup, too – although I will say the most romantic thing he ever said to me was, “You look beautiful” when I wasn’t wearing makeup.  Then again, that WAS the first year we were married.  He may have been blinded by lust love.

4 – Home.   Of all the things, I am truly grateful for my home.  Oh, not just the building I live in – the house part – but that this place is truly a home – where love is.  Where happiness and laughter abide.  Where I am considered a gift to my loved ones.  Where peace surrounds me and those who stop by for awhile.  Never underestimate the power of home.

What are you grateful for today?

(This is part of an on-going series Momma’s Soapbox and I are doing on Keeping Our Inner Aloha/Peaceful Life. See here for the Aloha lowdown and here for the Peaceful Life reason!)

I am at a point in my life that I can take a lot of time for me, in my Secret Place.  Actually, my house has become my Secret Place.  It hasn’t always been this way.  Before, life got in the way.  Now I can look back and see that I should have heeded my mom’s advice to me more often:  “You need to always make sure you take care of YOU because you are more than just a mother.” 

She wasn’t saying that it was bad to focus on being a good mother (good thing); she was pointing out that I am a better mother when I keep in touch with who I am aside from being a mother.  I am more well-rounded and happy.

At the time she was telling me this, I was working long hours at work (12 hour days 6 days a week) and met myself coming and going.  I more often just remember picking up a son who was fed, bathed, ready for reading and bedtime (for both of us).  One Saturday evening she said, “Let him stay overnight and go do something for you – go to a movie or something mindless, to rest your mind.”  I’m sure I gazed at her blankly, partly due to exhaustion and partly due to the foreign concept of doing something just for me.

Now I can look back and see how vital and important it is that we always have a Secret Place where we can step back from our lives and do something just for ourselves.  It is a place of recharging and taking stock.  Sometimes it is a place of thoughtful contemplation and other times, it’s just unwinding by sitting with a blank stare, thinking absolutely nothing, zip, nada (not too hard for me, hoho). 

We can’t all have a Secret Garden (book by Frances Hogdson Burnett) – but don’t we wish we did?  That place behind a locked gate, the place of beauty, peace, scent, exquisite aloneness, and quietness?  It is vital to have a Secret Place – secret spot – secret chair – secret anything.  A place you do NOT pay bills, do NOT discuss anything vital and important, do NOT stress, do NOT make lists or plans, do NOT work, do NOT fret, worry or stress, and do NOT share with your children.

You may drink a cup of tea, read a book, listen to Zen or spa music (nothing screaming, just restful like the Spanish guitar music you hear), lay in the grass and look at clouds, contemplate your belly button, listen to a water fountain, thank God for all your blessings, after thinking about all your blessings or jotting them down in a journal, light a scented candle and enjoy the perfumed air, and if your secret spot is in a room, make it dark and light all sorts of candles to sit by – but do nothing stressful. 

A Secret Place is where you can get alone for a few minutes – try for a minimum of 15 minutes – the time it takes to put together and then brew a pot of tea – and let your mind slow down.  Take a breather.  One woman I know would go in the backyard and sit on her glider during the children’s naptime.  She’d slowly move the glider back and forth with her feet, just breathing, slowly and deeply, letting the thoughts and worries of the day flow right out of her mind. 

Another woman would go sit on the back stoop and drink a Dr. Pepper in a glass with ice.  When it was gone, she got back up and went inside the house a little more refreshed. Another lady (who homeschooled 4 children so was never alone) would, a little bit after her husband got home from work, go to the spare bedroom, shut the door, put on quiet music, light scented candles, put a book on tape on with headphones and listened to one chapter of her book (minimum). As you can see, it just takes a little creative thought.

We can run away to the bathroom, to soak in the bubble-filled, perfume-scented bathtub, praying no one knocks on the door with an emergency (more than “Mo-oom, he hit me!!”).  For most women, it is after everyone is in bed for the night, that she may catch a few minutes of just sitting and doing nothing, before climbing into her own bed. 

My Peaceful Tip today is to find a spot where you can create a Secret Place.  Make it your place and put it off limits to everyone else in the household.  Even if it is just a chair in the corner with a small table and candle, it is YOURS and no one else’s.  Period.  Off limits.  And when you are there, you are unavailable to everyone.  It may take some training, but you can let those around you know that you are taking your “time out” or “nap” or “rest” or whatever terminology gets the point across to them.  When you are in that Secret Place it is: “leave me alone” (or else, implied). 

Slowing down is good for the heart.  Stress kills.  Slowing down heals.  Make taking care of you a vital part of your life.  It’s OK to take time out for you.  Whoever made the rule that you had to be Super Woman was a liar.  Super Woman dropped dead in the 80’s, from exhaustion.  Today, be a Smart Woman – one who takes care of her health and mental well-being.  You’ll like yourself – and life – a lot better!   And don’t buy into guilt – that is is wrong to take some time for you.  Hog wash – it is especially important to set aside you-time.  Don’t tell yourself, “I just don’t have time.”  MAKE time.  It’s that important.

Do you already have a Secret Place?  Tell us in the comment section so others can learn how to find their own spot, too!


Make a perfect pot of tea:  http://www.lbddiaries.com/beauty.html

(This is part of an on-going series Momma’s Soapbox and I are doing on Keeping Our Inner Aloha/Peaceful Life. See here for the Aloha lowdown and here for the Peaceful Life reason!)

I love this song you might hear playing – Simon and Garfunkel’s “59th Street Bridge Song” (often called “Feelin Groovy”).  I always focused on the lines – Slow down, you move too fast; You got to make the morning last” – and never more so than recently. (Go down & click on the arrow to pause it if hearing it begins to get on your nerves.)

This is combined with something I remember hearing about in the mid-80′s – the Slow Movement. It began in Italy with Carlo Petrini’s protest against the opening of a McDonald’s restaurant in Piazza di Spagna, Rome.  This sparked the creation of the Slow Food organization. 

Opposed to the culture of fast food, Slow Food seeks to encourage the enjoyment of regional produce, traditional foods, which are often grown organically, and to enjoy these foods in the company of others.  To slow down and not only enjoy the food but also the cooking process itself.

In Alpha Hubby’s and my search to eat more healthy, we finally had to face the need to give up processed foods and chemical-laden items if we wanted to feel good, live long and live strong.  We had to learn to eat more “whole*.” This pretty much WIPED OUT ALL YUMMY STUFF changed the way we ate.  I don’t say it was easy because at first, not only my mouth but my mind and body rebelled and wanted to have a sit-down at the table and stuff the face to negotiate terms about what I was eating.

*Whole food is food that is minimally processed, and free of antibiotics, hormones, pesticides, flavor enhancers and other additives.  I love this example:  Does the food look like it once lived on this planet? Lettuce, eggs, yes. Marshmallows cream, NutraSweet, Nutella, no.  NO! Break my heart NO.

OK, OK, enough drama queen.  To be very honest, in about 2 weeks your taste buds change.  Not only does food taste better, if you eat something processed, you actually can TASTE the chemicals in it.  Eating healthy sure ruins some great foods.  *Ahem* – I didn’t just say that.  It was someone else.

So I’m sure you’re thinking, “What the heck does all this have to do with the Peaceful Aloha type lifestyle!”  Even if you aren’t, I am going to tell you right now. Hold the applause. It’s too loud there’s so much of it going on!

See this?  It is commonly called a “sink full of vegetables.”

I used to call it “compost” because pretty much I’d purchase it, put it in the fridge, then a wee bit later, scrape it out, and throw it in the trash. I lost more fresh vegetables in that fridge than I ever ate.  I “meant” to eat them but somehow, once they were placed in the veggie-eating box, I never saw them in their beautiful, natural state again.  Nope. Usually they came out slimey, green, mushy and nothing anywhere near what it used to look like.

But as part of my Peaceful Life, I am learning that after I purchase the beautiful fresh vegetables, I need to schedule a time to sit down for at least an hour and plan to wash, dry, chop, tear apart, bag up and put back in fridge these luscious life-sustaining good-for-me foods. Last night I put oldies on the radio and blasted it throughout the kitchen while boogie-ing and chopping away.

Why?  Why spend an HOUR or more cleaning, chopping, preparing, and bagging spinach, lettuce, onions, celery, peppers, oranges, fruit and whatever else is in that box that needs dealing with?

Because then, when your body says, “But I don’t wanna take time to fix someething healthy!  Let’s go to the Bistro! Instant food! Fast food! We can eat their fries and start FRESH (hoho) again tomorrow” – you can tell it to SHUT UP.  Why?  Because all you have to do is reach in the fridge, pull out the baggies of pre-cut foods, and create this for lunch – in no time flat:

So the Peaceful Tip for this week is the thought that with a little preparation in advance, you can stop the impulse eating that comes when you don’t want to take (or have the) time to fix something healthy.  It saves time and it saves aggravation.  Always a peaceful thing!

That said, I want to know if someone can explain this to me – something that comes from a locally-owned grocery store – and I THOUGHT dealt mostly in locally grown foods.  Anyone???

And no, I didn’t notice this before I bought it. Makes me wonder how early they had to pick it to get it from Holland to my grocery store here in Arkansas.  Just how fresh can THAT be????

Oh and p.s. – if you have trouble finding organic foods, then things like peppers, oranges, apples, etc., things that have wax on them, can be soaked in a sink full of warm water with 1/4 cup vinegar added to it. Soak 15 minutes, rinse and dry. It will help remove some of the pestisides, etc., that you don’t want to eat and make the food a good alternative to organic. Well, as much as possible!

(This is part of an on-going series Momma’s Soapbox and I are doing on Keeping Our Inner Aloha/Peaceful Life. See here for the Aloha lowdown and here for the Peaceful Life reason!)

Alpha Hubby has this irritating sweet and helpful habit of saying, “Did you write it down?” when I say I forgot to do something. It’s like the saying, “If you have no goals, you’re not going anywhere.”  I have no idea who said that – it’s just one of those things I jotted down on a piece of paper because I wanted to remember it.  It’s similar to something Mary Kay Ash said.

I have been reading about Mary Kay Ash, founder of Mary Kay Cosmetics.  Her story is amazing – in a time when women were considered incapable of running an business empire, and after she had retired after 25 years in the work force - she proved all naysayers wrong. 

I have been studying about something she did every day:  she respected time.  Time is our life.  We exchange time for money (jobs), we exchange time for entertainment (reading, going to movies), we exchange time for relationships (spending time with loved ones).  Time is valuable.  Here is a quote from the book:

Every day before Ash went to work, she would make a list of the “Six Most Important Things” to do, and give herself deadlines to finish each. “Over the years, I’ve observed that nearly all high achievers know how to make good of those 1,440 minutes in each day,” said Ash.

Anything she did not finish on the assigned day, she would move to the top of her “Six” list the next morning.

So I am working to do just that – start every morning making a list of 6 things I want to accomplish that day.  I am learning how to assign a “deadline” to the task but it’s difficult because I am in the bad habit of becoming sidetracked.  I have to develop in this area.

Speaking of getting sidetracked, I remember learning a trick a long time ago about not leaving a room until you are finished in that room.  I know it was about housework but it really works in every area of life.  The article said to take large brown paper sacks and write on the outside the name of each room in your house.  Then, if your goal was to clean the living room and there were items in that living room that belonged in another room, DO NOT LEAVE THE LIVING ROOM.  Place the items in the sack with the right room marked on it.  In other words, if you have children’s toys that belong in their room, you put the toys in the sack marked “kids room” (whatever, you know what I mean).  Then deal with the items in the sack one sack at a time.

I still try to incorporate this into my house cleaning to this day but I use cheap plastic clothes baskets that I picked up at the Dollar Store.  Of course, sometimes there are white plastic laundry baskets sitting all around the house, mocking my goal setting goals but I keep plugging and keep trying and keep working on it!

Now I need to apply this goal setting list to my daily life.  If one of the items on my list to write a posting for the day, then I can’t get up and answer the phone to chat for an hour with a friend, send a personal email, or read a book.  Any one of those sidetracks will throw my goal setting list and deadlines off, and ruin the entire point of goal setting. Ask me how I know. I have to set those things aside and finish the posting.  I can call back, write later, and read when all items on the list are accomplished!

Today I started with four items.  My four goals are making Alpha Hubby’s bread (bread machine, actually), the dining room, kitchen, and my bath area.  Under each goal I wrote exactly what I want to accomplish.  The dining room alone may take longer than any of them so I had to put the kitchen first since that only involved getting the bread machine set up, the dishes and sweeping – easy stuff that needed to be done.  When I’m done in the kitchen, I will head to the dining room with the bathroom being last on the list (one most likely to be pushed to tomorrow’s list).  The dining room is more visible and has been cluttered with unpacked stuff longest.  I need to finish finding a place for everything and everything in its place.

If you know you will not finish an item in one day, just do what you can that day.  In my case, unpacking from the move is a one-shot deal.  Once it is finished, I will never have to deal with it again.  It is hard to define a deadline for unpacking so I have to figure out ways to break it down into discernable goals – things I can do that day that will move the unpacking forward.  Thus, I finish unpacking and putting away the boxes in the dining room.  That is a goal.  I do not bring more boxes in to be unpacked until these boxes are dealt with.

The kitchen, on the other hand, is a goal I know a good deadline for.  I know about how long it takes to do the dishes and load the dishwasher, sweep and mop the floor, wipe the counters, clean the stovetop.  I can set that goal deadline fairly accurately.

So the Peaceful Tip for today is to write down your daily goals.  Start every day knowing what you want to accomplish that day, listed in order of importance.  Do not go to the next item on the list until you are finished with the one you are on.  Do not stress and do set realistic deadlines.  If you need me, I’ll be in the dining room for as long as it takes to get it in order!  That pix above is deceptive – there is a temporary table set in front of the dining room table and the temp table is covered in unpacked items.  Help me, Rhonda!! My poor bathroom may be pushed out for… forever!