When you feel like your life is controlling you - then you know that things must change.  

Firstly, I am tired of being connected all the time.  Cell phones have made life easier in some aspects but far too difficult in others.

By being at your cell phones beckon call you are separating yourself from those around you.  The picture above is a clear explanation of that.  I would never want my family members to feel that way, but I know at times they do.  It is time to make change - here is what I have done to start making changes:

1. turn off notifications- get rid of the little red dot that is telling you that you need to check your phone right now.  Everything can be changed and modified in your settings, make time to implement these changes - you will be thankful.
2. put the phone down - when you get home from work have a place for your phone and leave it there.  This is your time to spend with your family - you do not work 24 hours a day - whatever it is, it can wait until morning.  Let your friends and family know that you are not checking your phone 24 hours a day, just because you receive a text message does not mean that you have to reply immediately.  
3. At night do not place your phone on your night stand.  Keep the temptation away.  Sleep is for rejuvenation and relaxation - that is not provided by your phone or any app.  Our family placed a table in the hallway which is our charging station, all our "stuff" is left there for the night.  It sets a good example when your devices are located on the table with the whole family.
4. When going out with friends leave your phone in your car or your purse.  Keep your focus on those that you are spending your time with, not the random people on Facebook.  Even if your phone is face down on the table, it is a distraction.  Put the darn thing away!
5. Speaking of Facebook- take a few minutes to go through your "friends" list and start deleting.  I took a look at my list and I started to be selective.  I found a portion of my "friends" never talked to me in real life when I saw them so I wasn't sure what relationship I was having with them so I had to delete.  I had a few "friends" that spent most of their time complaining,  why would I want it in my feed?  Which led me to ask, "What do I want to see in my feed?"  That led to going through groups and pages that I liked and I cleaned house on my Facebook page.  I only want to see things that are going to encourage and inspire me.  I refuse to invest any of the precious time I have on this earth filling myself with negativity.
6. Just because your phone rings does not mean that you have to answer.  A pet peeve of mine is people who chat on their phone while they are checking out at the grocery store.  I am really not interested in hearing your conversation and honestly - it is really rude.  

Not only are we making changes with how we interact with our phones but also that black rectangle in our living room.

A couple of years ago we built a house, it's not finished yet.  I am married to a contractor, it probably won't be finished when we celebrate our 50th anniversary.  😁  But that's okay because it is about the family that lives in it, not it's finishes.  When we were working with the engineers we designed a room around our TV.  We dedicated a room so that our family can sit around and be entertained by box on the wall.  Why did we choose to do this? 

Now we are seeing the err in our ways and we are making changes.  I have disconnect our cable, and honestly we do not miss it.  There are a couple of shows that we like to watch and we can catch them online and we have Netflix.  It is amazing to see how many other things that we can find to do now that we are not focused on that box on the wall and we are saving $100 a month!  Score!

Take time to figure out what this looks like in your life.  Where are you investing your time?

I love teaching journaling workshops.  I basically tell everyone to throw out any idea that they have about journaling and start fresh.  

There are so many different opportunities in journaling, one of them is to practice gratitude.  Studies show that by doing this simple exercise daily you will have more alertness, enthusiasm, optimism, attentiveness, energy, more motivated, likeable, generous, helpful, more likely to volunteer and give back.

I think that those are all qualities that we would appreciate being described as - so my challenge for you is for the 31 days in August to share three things that you are grateful for.  I even created a printable that you can print off for yourself to be accountable for the next month.  Think about how beneficial this will be for you, your marriage and your family.  Print off a few copies and share them with your children, your friends, even your husband and grow together on this journey of creating a grateful heart and life.

Life is full of chaos and noise. It has gotten to the point where we are afraid of quiet.

Whenever there is quiet our thoughts take over and those thoughts can scared us sometimes. So we keep adding to our lives. 

Tonight our daughters were working on homework assignment, my husband was at band practice so I finished up the dishes and thought I would go and sit down and rest for a few minutes. While I was sitting down to relax I turned on the TV to watch the news, then I thought that I hadn't read the paper today. When I finished the paper I picked up my cell phone and started to play a game on it. When all of a sudden I realized what I was doing. I had planned to sit down and relax for a few minutes and now I was bombarding my brain into overload.

Why do we willingly do this to ourselves?

It is time my friends, to embrace quietness and stillness and learn to just 'Be'.

It takes time and practice, it will not be easy for me - I can tell you that! But it is something that I know I need to do. The first step I believe is to find a place where you can find quiet. Also, if you have children that would include a time as well. I have friends who get up at obscene hours in the morning just to guarantee their quiet time. I am not a morning person. I get up because of necessity to take care of my family and get ready for work. I like dusk, the girls have quieted down for the night and I have time to think about my activities of the day - the conversations that took place - and what did I learn today?

Use those precious moments during your day to pause and "Be". I am told that your quality of life will increase dramatically. Life throws so much at you each day - I want to be able to treasure those moments of silence and solitude, and use them to become a better wife, mother and friend.

Anyone want to join me on this journey? I am going to need all the encouragement I can get! 

I have to admit that I come across as a confident person, but really I am a chicken!

Far too often I give up too easily, I start off strong but then I get in my own way.  This is something that I will never have to stop working on.

I know deep down in my gut things that I need to do and yet I still hold back.  Why oh why do I continually do that!  Am I the only one that does this?

I am making a list of what I know I need to do and I am going to put my view of myself and my abilities to the side and I am going to Be Bravely ME! 

Why am I choosing this? ​

Because others may be missing out on something that I can share with, a way that I can encourage them, a life lesson that they can relate to.
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So here I am making a public proclamation that I will actively choose to begin working on what the still small voice has laid heavy on my heart.  Ready, set, here I go!!!!!!!

My husband is always reminding me to write things down.  I tend to have millions ideas and thoughts running through my head continuously.  Sometimes I can’t sleep because I am so excited about the things that are going through my head. 

My husband told me that he heard a story about Albert Einstein and how he would write everything down. Anything that  came to mind he would write down.  He had many journals of thoughts and ideas that he kept record of.  He did even memorize his phone number, if he needed it he knew where he wrote it down and he could look it up.

Why did he do this?

Because when you write down all the things that are running through your mind it opens your mind to new ideas and thoughts!

No wonder Einstein is known as a brilliant man!  

So this is my new mission, I want to keep my mind open to new ideas and thoughts.  I want to have the space to be creative and to give time and energy to the things in life that matter, not what I perceive as demanding my time.

Life sometimes just feels so full. Sometimes too full. I am wondering how it got that way.

Since having health problems for over a year now, I have tried to slow down and yet I still feel like I am running around like a crazy person.  At the end of the day I continue to ask myself, "What did I accomplish today?" And sometimes I can't think of anything but yet my day felt so full.

Why do I choose to do this to myself each day? I know I need to slow down. I had physio today and yikes am I sore right now. I felt really good when I came home but right now I feel really tight and sore, and well, like a truck hit me. Physiotherapists really know how to hurt a person. :)  But I know that I will continue to get better from this. That all of this pain will help me in the long run.

Kinda sounds like life lessons.  Well, it is how it works for me most of the time. You know the character building exercises that we go through in our lives? It really sucks when you are in those places in your life, but then in the end when you can see what you were learning and how it helped you. In a weird and yet wonderful way it all seems worth it in the end.

I guess that is what physio is going to do for me. I am not going to feel like a 90 year old woman anymore. I will be able to run and play with our daughters again. I wish I wasn't in this place right now but I know that I am taking the right steps, on the right path to get to where I need to be. I just have to figure out how to slow down this ride of life that seems like it is spinning out of control. I know I need to cut somethings out of my life, but where do you start cutting? Who do you cut?

I was talking to my husband about having to cut some things and he asks me, that if I decided to leave something, "Who is going to lose out from having me involved?"

It is interesting to look at things from the larger perspective - I start cutting things that I wouldn't mind losing, but what effect is that going to have on other people? There is more to life than ourselves.  Even though that is what the media likes to teach us - 'Life is all about me!"  Someone else is always going to be affected by every decision that we make.  Man! I thought I had difficult decisions to make before, but now it got even worse!

So now my brain hurts along with my back. So I am going to bed, and hopefully when I wake up tomorrow I will try to take my day bit by bit and enjoy the day with my husband and our daughters and not worry about the next thing on my to-do list that I feel I need to cross off.  Hey, I bought a new purse today!  Life is good! ​