Are YOU making excuses?

I recently have been making an effort to be more involved. More involved with Church (the actual service), in our church outreach activities, in helping the community and in local programs for my children. I have been getting such a blessing from it, which has lead me to wonder, why wasn't I doing this before?!?!

The answer? I was making excuses. I was too busy because I worked full time. I had small children at home. I didn't have time. I was too exhausted to take on more. I couldn't do it. The time wasn't convenient for me, and on and on went my long list of excuses. Don't get me wrong, most of my excuses are valid, I wasn't lying, all the things I used to get me out of taking part were true. I did work full time, I do have small children, am exhausted, my time is limited and it wasn't always convenient.

The one excuse that obviously wasn't true? I couldn't do it. I discovered that I can! I can do almost everything I am asked to do. If it's not something I have done before it's probably something I can learn. I was underestimating myself by using that excuse. I was not allowing myself to live up to my full potential. Now that I am involving myself in more and more I am realizing I can do many things I never would have thought I could and I can do them all at once! I can be organized and manage my time. That is a another trait I always told myself I didn't possess.

Of course now that I am becoming an involved person, I am looking at others who are still making the excuses I used, very differently. While I know that they too are honestly busy, and have many valid excuses for ducking out when asked to participate in something, I now realize something. We are all too busy! Bottom line, we all either have small children who require out constant care, or older children who need drives to their many activities. We may work full time or have previous commitments that we feel use all our time and resources. However if everyone is too busy, then who is going to volunteer their time for all the activities we love to attend?

If everyone is too busy then who will run the sports programs for our children? Who will run youth groups? Who will volunteer to help the homeless or needy? Who will run community programs for our families, or attend them? Who will pick up the garbage that litters the side of your neighbourhood road? Who will help the person who's car is broke down on the side of the road? Perhaps more importantly, what will happen to our humanity? To our sense of community? What will happen to loving your neighbour and serving others?

If no one takes the time to make the time in their busy schedule, to do something for others then we will all be missing out. We will lose the sports programs our children love and the youth groups that teach them such important lessons and connect them to our churches. We will lose our sense of community. Perhaps we will be the ones stranded on the side of the road watching as car after car goes rushing by with the drivers never giving us a second glance, a second thought. However the most important thing we will lose out on is the blessing we receive when we serve others.

When we take the time (even if it's time we really don't feel we have) to involve ourselves in something, anything that is for the benefit of someone other then ourselves, we are richly blessed. We were made to serve others. No matter how much we feel we are sacrificing by giving up our precious time for others, I promise there is so much more to be gained.

I have a much deeper sense of purpose in my life. At the end of the day I feel I have accomplished so much more, and more that is worth while. I'm not claiming to be involved in a million different things. I have taken on what I have been asked to do. I help with the church youth group, teach sabbath school every few weeks, participate in church service a couple times a month, try and get my kids out to the local playgroup as much as possible and have recently made a habit out of regularly donating food and clothes to the local soup kitchen and women's shelter. When I reflect how much time these activities really take out of my life, I have to be honest, the do not require that much. I receive double the blessing for what I give in time and energy.

I hope that this will inspire someone else out there to take a baby step and get involved in something. I promise you won't regret it as long as it's done with a cheerful and willing heart. If everyone would take the time to do even one small service or act that would benefit someone other then themselves I think we would all find that there would be a lot of neighbourly love and sense of community restored to society. Who doesn't want that?

Cleaner house lighter heart!

I recently became a follower of Flylady, and I have to say I'm in love!! With a third child on the way I began looking around out minihome and the walls were closing in, "Stuff" was everywhere, there was no place for it and I was feeling trapped. How could we fit another person (even a little one :) into this space?!?! I was going to go crazy. I was taking out all my stress on my poor family. I knew I needed to get control of my house, but seriously, how could I do that with two small children who seem to need me everytime I start a project?

Then I remembered reading something about the flylady. I looked her up and my life has never been the same. While I am not perfect and do not follow her to the letter my home is a peaceful and happy place once more. I honestly cannot believe how much bigger this minihome looks and feels. the amount of "stuff" I have clearned out is amazing! It truly was just stuff. I cannot even remember half of what I have thrown and donated. I do not miss any of it. You know what else I don't miss at all? All the stress and depression I felt everytime I walked into my house. The defeated feeling that took over as I sat unmotivated on the couch and looked around my home. Clutter is NOT my friend! I feel so much better without it.

The best part of all this is how much happier and full of joy I am. I WANT to play with my kids, spend time with my husband and even clean my house! I LOVE coming home and relaxing, and just looking around at the clean and peaceful enviroment. The whole atmosphere has changed. My kids are happier and behave better, I deal better with it when they don't and Trev and I get along better. I have to admit that it's such a great feeling now when family come over. Before I would cringe when they walked in the door because I didn't feel proud of the chaos, but now I can't wait for them to come in and see our clean and organized home. And they notice!! Let's face it, it's always nice when someone notices your hard work and compliments you on it ;)

It never ceases to amaze me how something as small as a less cluttered and more organized home can have such a dramatic impact on a person, on a whole family. I am so thankful for finding someone who has helped me gain control of another aspect of my life, and helped make my life happier and simpler! The best part? I'm doing it 15 minutes at a time! Who doesn't have time for that?!

couch potato's...the next generation.

Do you ever have a moment where you are correcting your child for something, or feeling exasperated over their actions or choices and you suddenly realize...wow...I DO THAT, THEY GET THAT FROM ME!!!

Well I have had a lot of those recently. From constant snacking, to being a couch potato, it seems everything I see Jacob do that I don't like these days, is a habit he has learned from me.

The other day I caught myself explaining to him that he had meal time and snack times, and he could not constantly be snacking on junk all day. I then realized that as I was telling him this, I was eating crackers....mindlessly. I didn't even register that I was doing it!

We have been having a lot of rainy days so we have gotten into the rut of too much television and movies. On the rare sunny days we have had I have made an effort to get the kids outside. Jacob is simply not interested. He would rather sit on the couch watching television. Unfortunately I fear this is another habit he has got from me, although Trev or is equally to blame for that one.

Ironically enough, while watching a show on television last night I herd a very interesting fact. If the average person watches four hours of television a day, by the time they die they will have watched at least nine years worth of television!! What a waste of nine years! That totally threw me for a loop and encouraged me to spend less time on the couch watching television...after all, who wants to waste nine years of their life being a couch potato? I don't want that for myself, and I certainty don't want to responsible for creating the next generation of unfit, unmotivated, couch potato's!

Back in action!

Well we finally replaced our broken computer, so I no longer have to fight with the relic to write a post! I will be blogging much more often now.

In honor of spring I thought I would write about gardening. A lot of people have the misconception that if you don't own land, or very much land, you cannot have a garden.

Although we have enough land around to plant a garden, the soil here is really just sand. There are also A LOT of ants. There is not much that grows well in sand, and the few things that will grow well end up dying because the ants steal all the nutrients.

For the last few years we have had a little patio (container) garden. We plant some flowers for color, herbs for their cooking usefulness and nice smell and lettuce, peppers and tomato's because they are useful and regenerate all summer long.

There is something calming about gardening. It makes your space appear warmer, and more attractive. We also save some money. While it's not a huge garden, not having to buy even a few things over the summer ends up saving us in the long run!

Help! They even have our kids!!

Recently my three year old became interested in watching cartoons. Before he was never interested in watching any television and few movies. He has about 4 cartoons that we deem ok and that he enjoys watching. However, during the commercial breaks while he is watching these shows I constantly here "I want that" or "hey mommy I want one of those too". Now while Jacob has always enjoyed toys as much as the next child, he has never been, for lack of a better word, this greedy.

I am appalled at how easy it is for retailers and advertisers to get to our children! There minds are so inpressionable at this young age. This is when they are forming values, habits and personalities for themselves. I feel, as a parent, that advertisers do not have any place to try and make an impression on my young child's mind.

I know that I am making the choice to let him watch television in the first place, but seriously, shouldn't a child be able to watch an educational childs program without being subjected to the advertisers cunning and sneaky suggestions that they need every new toy going? I shouldn't have to worry about changing the channel the second the show is over so that he is not subjected to the advertisers mercy.

I understand that as a parent it is my resonsability to guide my child to become a grounded person with good values and morals. I just wish I didn't have to contend with all these flashy ad's so early in my childrens lives.

Cheaper and healthier

I have recently gotten back into using many fresh herbs in my cooking. I generally only do this in the summer since it's cheaper to buy a plant then to buy fresh herbs at the grocery store weekly. Most herbs tend to die in the fall.

I have all the seeds to start herb plants at my house and I have decided it's time to put them to use. I bought one of the cheap plastic greenhouses at Walmart. My house doesn't have great light for growing plants and I'm thinking this may help. I am really excited to get the seeds started and have fresh herbs. I will be growing rosemary, basil, oregano, sage, dill, and cilantro to start.

Cooking with herbs and spices is a great way to add flavor to your meals without adding lots of fat and sodium, both of which are not good for your health. Herbs and spices also allow you to add variety to your diet.

Growing fresh herbs has inspired me to grow some flowers in time for Mother day. We generally buy flowers for everyone, but this year we can grow and pot them ourselves. Not only will it be much cheaper, but we will have put our time in it. That always makes a gift better.

Goal met!

One of the first posts I did on this blog was about setting a goal of only producing one bag of garbage a week as a pose to the three we have been. I am proud to report that for a week and a half we only produced one bag of garbage!!

My new problem is that in a week my recycle bins are over flowing. It looks like I need more recycle bins, or some plastic recycling bags. I was amazed at the things that are able to be recycled now.

I can't believe what a difference our family is going to be able to make by recycling. We will be putting out around 104 less bags of garbage a year! What an environmentally friendly impact!