What's on My Reading List; The Book of Forgiving

The Book of Forgiving: The Fourfold Path for Healing Ourselves and Our World by Desmond Tutu
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Truly beautiful book. The instruction for forgiveness is really illustrated well with fabulously shared stories.

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This quote was a really eye opening to me and changed how I look at things.  Before understanding this I always felt that forgiveness meant letting someone off of the hook.  I like this thought much better . . .

“Forgiveness does not relieve someone of responsibility for what they have done. Forgiveness does not erase accountability. It is not about turning a blind eye or even turning the other cheek. It is not about letting someone off the hook or saying it is okay to do something monstrous. Forgiveness is simply about understanding that every one of us is both inherently good and inherently flawed. Within every hopeless situation and every seemingly hopeless person lies the possibility of transformation.” 

Stop Looking For Balance

Often, people ask me "how do you balance it all"? Work, running, parenting, wife, volunteer . . .

Balance?
The truth is, I don't.
The bigger truth is, I would never want to.
I am sure it is the same truth for you.

Balance means everything is equal.
Most of us don't want equal emphasis on career and family as other things.  These are the big two. An example from the book reviewed below, which illustrates it awesomely, is comparing fitness to your career.  You don't need to exercise 40 plus hours a week to maintain your desired level of fitness.  Good news right?  Maybe just an hour 3 or 4 times per week.  Your boss definitely wants more from you in your job.  So are fitness and career balanced?  Of course not.

If not balance, then what?  Great question.
Purpose.
You have to know what you want and how important it is to you.
Will it be worth missing a few soccer games?
Is it worth being passed over for a promotion?
When you know what matters most and why, then you know how to cut up the pie.  You know which activities require more time
and
if you stay focused and true to your purpose,
you won't be searching
for balance.


Take the Stairs: 7 Steps to Achieving True Success by Rory Vaden
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

What I love most about this book is that it reinforces what we all know and that is that hard work, persistence, and sweat equity is and always will be the key to success. There is no magic pill. There is no 4 hour body. There is only self discipline. I love this quote from the book

“Success is never owned; it is only rented – and the rent is due every day.”

The reason I love this is because you can replace the word "success" with whatever goal you are striving for.

"Fitness is never owned; it is only rented - and the rent is due every day".
"Financial freedom is never owned; it is only rented - and the rent is due every day".
"Great relationships are never owned; they are only rented - and the rent is due every day".
"__________ is never owned; it is only rented - and the rent is due every day".

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New Year's Grateful-utions

We've already had our first snow with a little "stick" here in Michigan.  It's one thing to see a few flurries.  There is new meaning when you wake up and see snow caps on rooftops.

Snow means winter is coming.
Winter coming means Christmas is coming.
Christmas coming means New Years is right around the corner and New Years means . . .
resolutions.
The time of year when we all resolve to be better us'es.  (yep, I made that word up).

As  2014 comes close to an end do yourself a favor.  Before you consider making a list of everything
you need to improve upon in 2015 make a list of everything you are awesome at.

What Kale? Protein Smoothie

Summer time = Breakfast?  No worries, the kids are not even awake until lunch time.
Back to school time = Breakfast?  Our daughter has the weird "B" lunch in the middle of her fourth hour class and our son has the late lunch, 4 1/2 hours after the bus picks him up in the morning. Whatever it is it must contain some protein or they just won't make it to lunch.

This smoothie tastes so good and with it's beautiful purple hue they won't even know the kale is in there.  It's the perfect way to get them off to school


What Kale? Protein Smoothie
Printable Version

How to Detect Email Fraud, Phishing Basics

I would have never thought in a million years that I would be a victim to fraud.  I am not overly

careful, but I am always alert (just ask my son who thought he'd get away with charging $212 on my Visa card).  Last Christmas I was the victim of identity theft.  A clerk at a cell phone store took my information and went to an Apple Store and basically took over my wireless account.  Lesson learned - set up your own phone at home.  Do not let the clerk do it for you in the store.

Going through that process I learned, what I thought at the time, was more than I needed to know about fraud, and specifically about phishing.  Until today, when someone thought I would buy in to their scam.

What is phishing?  Phishing is an attempt to obtain information from you by disguising an email to look like a site you trust.  Trust me, they look real.  There are logos, and links, and terms used that make it look legit, but if you look closer you can catch some details.

The C Word, Facing Difficult Decisions With Cancer

No one wants to get that call from their physician asking them to come into the office to receive the bad

news.  I am sure, from the other end, they dread making those calls. 

I am not an expert.  I have no medical training or education, but I have had front row experience from the bleacher seats. I hope that you and no one you know receives the dreaded call, but if they do I hope that these 5 tips help.

1)  Find a doctor you trust and like.

Everyone you talk to will know someone.  They will recommend doctors, hospitals, advice.   "This one is the best", "I heard this one is the worst".  Unless they have had the same condition as you, stick with referrals from your physician.  Keep looking until you find someone you like and trust.  My husband really liked his doctor and I know that it has made a difference.

List Your Home Stress Free. The 80% Rule

OK, admittedly I am very type A. The reason we have lived in our current home longer than I have lived anywhere else is mostly due to the overwhelming thoughts of listing our home.

We have a son.
His booger collection was prominently displayed on the wall by his bed.
We have a dog.
She is brown and white like a cow, but behaves like a goat.  She has eaten everything within reach.
Even a razor.
We have a teenager.
Enough said.

Getting our home ready - no problem.  Keeping it ready - problem.

He Happy, She Happy, We Happy

The dilemma - we are grilling steaks.  We picked up beautiful bone-in ribeyes, the king of all steaks.  He wants lionized hash browns as a side.  She wants healthy sides. Ahhhhh!  How do we make everyone happy?

I took a stab at making a healthier version of this diner favorite.  It was fantastic.

Baked Lionized Hash Brown

Printable Version

Ingredients

You Wish You Had a Camera When . . .

When it comes to being a mom and capturing those magic moments on camera - I'm the worst.  I tend to get wrapped up in the moment and simply forget.  Then 2 minutes after it's over I say "why didn't I get a shot of that"?

I have captured a few of those crazy moments

Belle ready to go play soccer

Sneak in an Avocado

Did you know that an avocado is actually a fruit?  I didn't.  I always thought it was in the veggie group.  Green, slimy, kids won't eat it.  It must be a veggie.  Digging deeper the avocado is a berry.  My kids new better.  "Mom, everything with a seed is a fruit".

High in fiber (10g), vitamin C, vitamin B 6, and more potassium than a banana sneak these heart healthy fruits into your morning smoothies.

We enjoy this recipe so much we have it every week.

Choose Your Attitude

Life is 5% what happens to you and 95% how you react to it, or so they say.  You can choose your attitude is another way of saying the same thing.  I am generally a super optimistic girl, but what happens when the 5% isn't really 5%?  What happens when the 5% thing is so big that you can't see past it?  There are always exceptions after all.

Randy Pausch has this to say about those exceptions,  “Another way to be prepared is to think
~Randy Pausch, The Last Lecture    

negatively. Yes, I'm a great optimist. but, when trying to make a decision, I often think of the worst case scenario. I call it 'the eaten by wolves factor.' If I do something, what's the most terrible thing that could happen? Would I be eaten by wolves? One thing that makes it possible to be an optimist, is if you have a contingency plan for when all hell breaks loose. There are a lot of things I don't worry about, because I have a plan in place if they do.”  

What is your contingency plan?
When are they appropriate?

Indoor Dinner Beach Party

"One must maintain a little bit of summer, even in the middle of winter." ~Henry David Thoreau

This has been a long - no - the longest - coldest winter I can remember.  Looking forward to spring break and ready for the weather to turn we decided to bring our beach party inside for our family dinner night.

The menu:
Turkey burgers 2 ways
Baked Beans
Potato Chips
Kale Chips

For a beach party you can't forget the décor: beach decorations, paper plates, beach boys music, and of course, a beach ball.  We made up fun beach ball games around the dinner table. Here are several variations of our silly games.

Skin In The Game

At a networking breakfast yesterday, someone mentioned leaving the skin on kiwi when you make

smoothies.  It just didn't sound right to me, but then someone added "my kid eats kiwi with the skin on like an apple".  OK, but kids eat worms too.  I still wasn't 100% sold, but I tried it this morning anyway - you couldn't tell they were in there.  Believe me, if anything was funky our 10 year old would have called us out.

Thanks for the great tip. 

I did some research this morning, there's actually a California Kiwifruit Organization.  I found out that by leaving the skin on the fiber value is tripled and more of the vitamin C is retained.  Hey, I just like that it's a shortcut in the morning.

According to Wikipedia to have "skin in the game" is to have incurred monetary risk by being
invested in achieving a goal.  In my smoothie recipe having skin in the game is to retain more of the vitamins and add fiber.

Any Day Can Be Mardi Gras

Our family Wednesday night theme dinner last week was Mardi Gras.  We were late.  Mardi Gras this year was celebrated 8 days earlier, Fat Tuesday.  But, who cares?  Why can't any day can be Mardi Gras?

James R. Creecy in his book Scenes in the South, and Other Miscellaneous Pieces describes New
Orleans Mardi Gras in 1835:

Shrove Tuesday is a day to be remembered by strangers in New Orleans, for that is the day for fun, frolic, and comic masquerading. All of the mischief of the city is alive and wide awake in active operation.

Fun and frolic is certainly one way to get your kids engaged in enjoying a family dinner together. 

Hide the Spinach

Sometimes it's not the foods our kids (and husbands) won't eat, it's the way they are prepared.  For instance, most people steam brussel sprouts. Yuck!  You can't get most people to buy in to them this way.  Try roasting them with olive oil, red pepper flakes, salt, pepper, and orange peel. DELICIOUS!  The same goes for asparagus.  Steamed, not so liked.  Grilled or roasted it takes on an entirely different flavor, and texture, that will get more wins and empty plates.

I find that the best way to make sure that my family gets enough vegetables is to hide them in a fruity flavored smoothie.  Sometimes I sneak a few too many veggies in there and I am busted.  Sometimes I hit a home run like with this limey flavored smoothie.

"All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better."
~Ralph Waldo Emerson

Hide the Spinach, An Antioxidant Smoothie

Wednesday Night is Family Dinner Party Night

Parents, you know how hard it is to get the entire family seated in the same room, at the same time, to enjoy a "real" meal together.  The 9 year old boy just wants to play xbox.  15 year old girls just want to text.  Frankly, you're too tired to get it all done, so you give up before you even begin.

Last week I invented  the family themed dinner party.  It was Mexican night.  We had fish tacos (we made a cheese quesadilla for the 9 year old), beans and rice, homemade guacamole, fancy frozen drinks and we found a Spanish mix on Pandora.  It worked.  30 minutes of togetherness.

The next week,

It's Friday, Be Happy

It's Friday, be happy for no reason today, just because you can.  Channel your inner child and smile and giggle and laugh for no reason.  Enjoy your day!

The Difference Between Won't and Can't; Raising Kids Today

“The scholars who research happiness suggest that more money stops making people happier at a family income of around seventy-five thousand dollars a year. After that, what economists call “diminishing marginal returns” sets in. If your family makes seventy-five thousand and your neighbor makes a hundred thousand, that extra twenty-five thousand a year means that your neighbor can drive a nicer car and go out to eat slightly more often. But it doesn’t make your neighbor happier than you, or better equipped to do the thousands of small and large things that make for being a good parent.”  ~    Malcolm Gladwell, David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits, and the Art of Battling Giants

 

 

I find that as a leader I am more often wanting growth and development for people more than they want it themself. 

I Can't Stop Eating; Attack of Berta

Our regularly scheduled program, losing 6 pounds in 2 weeks, has been interrupted.  Berta strikes again.  Call it the snowed in with my refrigerator effect, or these kids are home too much now so I need to eat, or nothing is as warm and cozy as a ham sandwich.  I feel like Zac Efron in 17 Again

 

Ever have those days?



Day 3 - Losing 6 Pounds in 2 Weeks

“We are never so much disposed to quarrel with others as when we are dissatisfied with ourselves.”  ~ William Hazlitt

We are always our toughest critics.  When starting any weightloss endeavor you must have a goal and a timeline that are reasonable and you must cut yourself some slack in the middle.  Day 3 has not been my best day, but I am not going to sweat it.  I was thrown off of my game by a snow day - the 7th snow day this season - and I had a fun day with the kids and got to try out a new recipe.  Not the best day for moving me towards my goal, but still a fantastic day.

Here are my measurements using the 4 Keys to Successful Weight Management

Day 3