Even though I thought it was a lot of bullshit.
Disclaimer: I am not a medical doctor. This is my own experience with mediation and how it has helped me sleep better. Do not use this as medical advice. That is not what it is intended as.
If you would have asked me a year ago if I would be meditating in a year, I would have laughed in your face.
“Me….meditating? I don’t think so. That isn’t for me.”
But in the throes of the pandemic that has been ongoing for the last year+ I admit that I have turned to meditating more and more.
It all started last…
Even though they are hard to talk about.
I am self conscious.
I am a little heavier than I would like to be. My laugh is a little too loud. I am clingy with certain people. Sometimes I am needy. I have terrible anxiety.
These are some of my vulnerabilities that I don’t like talking about with others.
Did you find yourself nodding along while I was speaking of myself? Do you have any of the same vulnerabilities? Maybe some of yours are different than mine.
Maybe you have a big nose.
Maybe your eyebrows grow together.
Maybe you are depressed a lot.
Maybe you push people away.
…
And why I waited until I was 35 to do it.
I have always loved tattoos. They are beautiful expressions of individuality. People can get whatever they want emblazoned on to their skin for the whole world to see.
So why did I wait until I was 35 to get one?
I have many reasons for waiting, some are super personal others are just kind of silly. In this article I hope to delve into all of them.
- I am LDS and getting a tattoo is super taboo in our culture. My first and foremost reason for putting off getting a tattoo until the ripe old age of 35 is this…
Challenging myself to write everyday for 30 days.
I have been absent from Medium for quite a long time. I haven’t had the opportunity to hit that “publish button” in about 6 months. It hasn’t been from lack of motivation, or even lack of ideas.
It has been because of fear.
Fear has a way of ruling our lives, even when we don’t want it to. Fear keeps people from reaching their full potential. Fear suffocates us.
But I am here to say I am done being afraid.
I am done trying to conform myself to fit into a box that cannot contain me. I am done with…
Where to look, and what to use.
WHERE DO I LOOK?
When we started our homeschooling journey I was overwhelmed by the amount of curriculum there was to choose from. How was I supposed to pinpoint exactly what my kids needed to learn, and then effectively teach it to them if I couldn’t nail down a good curriculum? What even entailed a good curriculum?
I spent one year helping to teach Kindergarten in 2012, but I didn’t want to model our homeschool after public school. So while I knew the “how” of teaching small children, I didn’t know the “what.” Needless to say I was very discouraged when it came to…
And how they’ve helped us.
How we talk to our kids has as much effect on them as what we say to them. They learn from the way we speak to them, by our tone of voice, and our intentions. Kids who are spoken to with respect are usually the kids who know how to speak with respect toward others. The most effective way I have found to speak to my own children is by being assertive and clear. Assertiveness is bold, confident, firm, and positive. All the things most kids are longing for in a parental figure.
There are other less effective ways to…
And How to Have One
WHAT EXACTLY IS A “RELAXED HOMESCHOOL”?
“Relaxed homeschooling” was first coined by Dr. Mary Hood. She says that “relaxed homeschooling” is the schooling that happens between unschooling and regular school at home.”
According to Dr. Mary Hood, “Relaxed homeschooling is a mindset that embraces these four tenets: you are a family, not a school; you are a dad and the head of a household, not a principal; you are a mom, not a teacher; and you have individual relationships with your children, not a classroom. Learning experiences are guided by parental goals and the goals, interests, and personalities of the children.”
YOU ARE A FAMILY, NOT A SCHOOL.
I have had so many…
But, it didn’t.
It was April of 2013. I was a newly pregnant 27 year old. My husband and I had been married for 3 years, and we were right in the middle of moving from New Mexico back to Utah. When I started to have some weird symptoms that I thought were pregnancy related.
It turns out, they were not.
They were symptoms of HELLP syndrome. But at the time I didn’t know that. In fact for the 6.674 months I was pregnant HELLP syndrome had never ever been mentioned to me.
It wasn’t until after I delivered our 2.1 pound, 14…
The four steps that have helped me out the most.
“You wanted someone to understand without your having to tell them, but you didn’t really believe anyone could. You had to learn to keep your feelings to yourself, perhaps not even acknowledging them yourself.”
-Adult Children of Alcoholics, Janet Geringer Woititz
I do not feel like your average 34-year-old, mom of three, small town living, homeschooling woman.
I might seem average. My husband and I are total nerds. We love Star Wars and Lord of the Rings. I play the guitar. I binge watch True Crime shows on Netflix. I love sports. We co-op a lot of video games. We…
The art of living purposefully.
A couple of weeks ago my cousin Luke Rowley called me, telling me that he had found over 35 monarch caterpillars. He asked if my kids would like to raise a couple. An emphatic “Yes!” came from the back seat of our Tahoe as I mentioned it to Curtis. So, we went over to pick up a few.
Now I know everyone knows how a butterfly forms. First, it is a caterpillar. Then, a chrysalis. And finally, a butterfly. But, have you ever had the chance to experience this amazing metamorphosis?
Because it is magnificent!
