Prune to Bloom! Life Editing Services or My Dream Job

I'm going to jump right in here. In January's post I declared that I had found my purpose in life as an editor and then left my audience with a bit of a cliff hanger. You can let go now. I'll catch you :)

While searching for images I was reminded that there are different levels of pruning: superficial deadheading, surgical dead/diseased/crossing branches removal, and hard cutting back including suckers. 

In life deadheading is getting rid of the blooms that are spent after serving their purpose. You remove dead or diseased areas to maintain the overall health of the plant. Removing branches that are crossed and/or touching prevents harm to the plant. Suckers are offshoots from the roots that are non-producers and just take up resources. These freeloaders are also removed. And in the spring you cut back to the main stems to make ample room for new growth while maintaining a pleasing shape to the overall plant.

All of these pruning methods can be applied to life as well as rose bushes. You can think of any area but I find the easiest example (as well as my favorite) in the closet, literally.

Picture a wardrobe, perhaps your own. Imagine a very full closet with lots of items just waiting to be worn. But the space is packed to the brim which makes choosing an outfit a daunting task if what you really want to wear is anywhere beyond the first couple of layers of clean laundry. So you end up wearing the same things over and over simply because you can't reach the other options easily.

Or perhaps the closet isn't so tightly packed but you still feel overwhelmed by too many options so you still end up wearing the same things over and over again because that feels easy and safe.

And finally perhaps you have a curated closet of items that all are beautiful and waiting to be worn but you feel stymied when it comes to actually putting outfits together because you're afraid of "doing it wrong".

Do any of these feel like they are blooming?

No. To me blooming looks more like this: A well-organized space that is functional yet beautiful because everything is in harmony which also makes the process of dressing efficient and effortless. This space is full of confidence and purpose.

To achieve such a dream closet does not require more agonizing visits to a dressing room or more money spent on clothes that will only add to the mess rather than filling a void to answer the question of "what to wear".

So here's my pitch. If you dream of making the best use of your closet so that you can feel and look your best, then you simply need to follow my PRUNE method.

The idea is to take a mess, take it all out, do a hardcore sorting session, then reorganize in such a way that future maintenance should be effortless.

I'll be the first to admit that this process is not easy. You end up swimming through a mess for a while. It can take hours or days depending on your clothing volume and the time you have to commit to it. I can offer my expert services to help speed things along. I have a keen eye and a DYT background to help create an ideal wardrobe from the items already in your possession. Call me your personal Marie Kondo.

If you are familiar with Marie's work you know that any area can be organized. I'll go ahead and toot my horn to say that I can tackle just about anything. My main areas of work that I have already practiced in my own space are Wardrobes, Interior Design, Landscape Design, and Miscellaneous Organization.

Here on the blog I've already shown my hand in closets (Project 333, A Before and After, The Purge, ). My gardening exploits are here as well. To date I haven't done any interior posts but that's only because my ideas for my own home have been stuck in dream mode but I'm good on paper. It helps that I have taken design classes for interiors and landscapes. As for the misc. category, I've organized my friend's linen closet and junk drawers for fun.

So there's my credentials. This is my dream: to do one-on-one sessions with individuals at the end of their rope, ready for change, tired of dysfunction, needing a light in their tunnel. Granted, my scheduling is a bit limited since I am a mom of four small children with a hard-working teacher for a husband so available time is limited, but I can dream, can't I?

For now I can say that I can offer playdates of assistance, meaning I'll probably be bringing my posse with me but I can make the most of a couple of hours worth of time in the morning. If we're lucky I could throw in an occasional weekend naptime session too. It depends on the area being organized. Perhaps this will be a good summer job for me, but that also depends on my husband's conference schedule.

In the end, this is a dream in which I can fully use my talents as an organizer and life editor. If those skills could be of use to you then let me know and we can see how I can help. At least you have access to my method now.

I'm Beginning my Year with PURPOSE!

Here's my late Happy New Year's post. I spent 2019 making and having a baby. Mr. Sam joined us in August and he's a bundle of smiles.

That being said I've had a good excuse for not writing. I've come to terms with the fact that this is an "on-again, off-again" hobby for me. I've had my off year and now I'm ready for an on year.

The fun part is that each time I return to writing I find I've evolved so the blog does too. This year I'd like to introduce my (current) dream job.

I stumbled across an interesting Venn diagram on Pinterest a while back that is supposed to help you Find your Purpose.

This being circular you can fill it in at any starting point you choose.

What I get paid to do is easy because I already have my own small massage business. This is my chosen vocation because I found I had a talent for it at a young age. Being in my eighth year of business I can put more words to why/how I'm good at this job. My lower energy creates a very relaxing space for clients and my thoroughness inclines me to give an effective treatment to resolve physical issues of discomfort and decreased mobility. Basically, I can fix you as I put you to sleep.

What am I good at? Besides making really cute and fairly well-behaved babies, of course. Well, I fancy I'm really good at organizing and planning things. I like to clarify that I'm an organizer, not a cleaner, although I do enjoy some forms of deep cleaning. And then I am up late some nights because my brain goes into planning mode, somewhat unexpectedly, and I have a really hard time turning that off until I have some if not all the details of some project laid out in my mind.

These two aspects go into what I love doing. Recently my nighttime reveries were occupied with party planning, girls' nights specifically. I couldn't sleep until I had charted all the permutations that a social night for mommies could include. That may become a post of its own.

My organizing talents are generally aimed with the intention of creating beauty and efficiency out of chaos. My favorite example of this is creating capsule wardrobes. I find great satisfaction in using my keen eye for color and form to create an interchangeable set of outfits from overflowing closets. My intuition for composition also translates to interior and landscape design.

What does the world need that I feel that I can offer? A little bit of guidance to work toward harmony in any and all areas.

So to put my Purpose into a few words: I'm an editor.

I certainly don't feel qualified at this time to call myself a Life Coach, but I can offer my services and talents as a Life Editor. I can answer questions and help identify areas where changes may be needed and then follow through with the skills to make changes happen. It's easy to sell the more superficial tasks of tidying up but I feel that clearing things out can get to the roots of other issues as well.

So here's my dream business right now: "Prune to Bloom Life Editing". This hearkens to my skills using my green thumbs. My favorite gardening task is pruning in general but pruning roses specifically. My mother can vouch for me there ;) The idea with pruning is to remove dead or diseased parts and then to train the plant into the shape that best supports its growth. I feel this approach can be used for other areas in life, hence the name I've chosen. Bonus: I can make an acronym out of Prune that also handily describes my method.

But to see that acronym you'll need to tune in next month. I feel there is enough content in actually laying out a full description of this dream to fill another post. I'm already excited about this! Perhaps it's just the excitement of identifying my purpose in life which is something we all seek for. I hope that my enthusiasm will rub off. I'd love to hear if you've also Found Your Purpose.

Happy Blooming!

Give Yourself the Gift of Productivity

Christmas is coming! You know what that means. No matter what phase of life you are in, there will be some extra length of time away from your normal schedule. Dare I suggest it, but this could be a time to create a new norm rather than let everything fall to pieces. Because, unless you are leaving your house in perfect order before going out of town, chances are you still have to function in your house over the holidays. There is also the possibility of extended house guests! In the best of holiday circumstances it can still be hard to retain your sanity, specifically as a homemaker (this is my realm and -probably- that of my audience).

I only recently stumbled upon Fun, Cheap, or Free by Jordan Page thanks to the video that popped in my YouTube feed this morning when I went looking for an aerobic workout. I was inspired and thought it was worth a share.

The video is of Jordan's "Block Schedule". I've already been trying to loosely base my day on hour-long segments. Jordan suggests breaking your day into 3 hour blocks. Watching the video, I realized that my day is already broken into very similar blocks to the ones she describes in her day. The "ah ha" for me was the consistency of putting corresponding activities in the same parts of the day throughout the week.

I took notes on her set up, which was good, because, although her site provides a printable, it is a fill-in-yourself page (located at the bottom of the page). So here is my reproduction of Jordan's schedule which I will follow with my slightly shifted version.

(Pardon the small font.)  Jordan has school-age kids, so their activities are a big part of her day. Mine are still under school-age, which lightens my load up... for now. I must say, nap time is my favorite time. It's Me time. I'm writing during nap time right now. 

Edits aside, I'm happy to keep those couple of cleaning sessions in my schedule. This has not been my strong suit. I'm a minimal house keeper. A couple of speed cleaning sessions, when planned on, will be a great way to up my cleaning game. It's amazing what you can get done in less than a half hour. I'm going to run an experiment. I'm pretty sure if I push myself, I think I could vacuum my whole house in under 30 minutes... Stay tuned for that. I have to wait for my boys to wake up on their own first.

....

Success! Three levels, seven rooms, and two poopy post-nap diapers changed, all in less than 25 minutes! Minus stairs and switching plugs, the actual vacuuming took only 15 minutes. This is the power of the focused use of timers and simple FOCUS. This is something we're trying to teach our boys: tasks take a lot less time if you just DO them without extra wandering and playing around.

Another thing I'm happy Mrs. Page emphasized is the importance of blocking in your sleep. Even she admits to being a "night owl", which is what I naturally lean towards as well. The fact is that being a night owl doesn't mean you actually need less sleep. For me, at least, it just means that the sleep is shifted so I get the same amount. If I get to bed late, I wake up late... especially when pregnant. Fortunately, during my last pregnancy my boys sweetly let me sleep. They played quietly until I got up to feed them. If screaming happened... well, that was an effective alarm clock. So, in the last year I've tried very hard to get to bed earlier on a consistent basis, weekends exempted (Charles does breakfast those days). I've even made (small) steps toward getting up earlier to get through my opening routines before the "hangry" screaming kicks in now.

These blocks are a great way to plan your day. It ticks all the boxes while allowing plenty of individuality. The idea of using focused chunks of time instead of micromanaged hours is very freeing. Adding in some alarms is very useful for keeping on-task without wasting time watching a clock. Jordan suggests setting additional alarms for 15 minutes before the end of a block. This is great for facilitating transitions. An additional thought I had with those last 15 minutes is that if you get everything done before that timer, then those in-between minutes could be "phone check" times. Jordan makes a point of being "unplugged" for the bulk of the day. I'm fine with that, but I think using those optional couple of minutes kind of as a reward for getting things done. Delayed gratification can be a wonderful thing.

Now for the Holiday Bonus Round. Jordan showed an alternate example schedule of a working mom in her video. I feel that the following tip should be very handy for holiday prep in general. For office work, Jordan suggested using the morning working hours for the more brain-engaged tasks and the afternoon for moving/physical tasks. I'll let you decide which holiday tasks are brain vs. body oriented. The point is to use the fresh morning energy for your alert brain and then be moving in the afternoon to get through any post-lunch slump you experience.

I'd encourage you to watch the full video to gain your own insights and then use that printable to your advantage. Happy Holiday Blocking!

7 Habits for a Highly Effective Summer

Hello Summer!

And also hello and no school! Which means kids are home and routines are going out the window. (As a T4 who loves routines and structure, this is breaking my brain.)  I have the added element of being married to a teacher, so he is home as well and is wanting to be in relaxing mode the whole time, which makes it harder for me to be doing my job as mommy and homemaker.

Fortunately I took the Home and Family Management class at BYU-I where Stephen Covey's 7 Habits for Highly Effective People was our textbook. It has been five years since then, so I have been feeling ready for a review anyway, and this ts the perfect time to share as we take on this season.

We'll start with the image that represents the 7 Habits and how they flow together, below.

I love how the goal of the Habits is to raise us to a higher level of living through personal and interpersonal growth. It's fun to then apply this format to different realms within our circles of influence. I've already worked on putting a Cub Scout spin on it (that may be September's post), but right now I'm needing to put this into practice in my home. That would be the point of learning this whole process in the Home and Family Management class to begin with.

With the Habits being split as Private and Public, I find it easy to replace those labels with Mommy and Family. This works because as a Mommy (or leader of any kind) you'll want to get yourself in order first so you can operate from a place of confidence and order, which is what the first three Habits focus on.

The First Habit is "Be Proactive". To paraphrase what is on the website, being proactive is taking responsibility for our own choices including our responses to life, to be "response-able" if you will. For me, this means pulling on my Big Girl Pants and actually being ready to be The Mom. 

The opposite of proactive is reactive. As a mom, I'd rather be ahead of the game and running things rather than have things running me. In daily life this looks like taking care of things before they become problems you have to react to, usually in an emotional way. An example of this can be as simple as making sure everyone is fed before anyone has the chance to get "hangry" which leads to everyone yelling at everybody else.

So, the first step here is getting into the mindset of "I can do this!" In other words, we are using faith in ourselves that things will work out if we put forth the initial effort to get on top of things. The next part is identifying our Circles of Influence, meaning the things we can actually take care of and affect. This saves us from using our energy to worry about things outside of our control. For me a great example of this is that I don't worry about politics at all. That is what Charles is for ;) 

My other notes under being proactive are: keep commitments, don't judge (those other people are outside of your Circle of Concern so don't be worrying about them), be a model, and be part of the solution.

The Second Habit is "Begin with the End in Mind". This is something that I'm pretty good at. For me, I can see the big picture, or at least solid glimpses of it, and some of the steps in how to get the results I am wanting. That is the beginning of this habit. You have to know where you are headed in order to plan out the steps of how to get there. Here we start the process of creating our lives. Mr. Covey suggests creating a personal Mission Statement at this point to help give yourself direction before moving ahead.

To create your own Mission Statement there are a few things to keep in mind: What are your principles that you base your life around? What are your roles? And what are your goals?

In exploring those topics, I just wrote my own mission statement out. So that will be my next post,

which saves me space here.

The Third Habit is "Put First Things First". Here is where action comes into play. After the first two

Habits we should be feeling empowered (#1) with a road map (#2) at least in a general sense. Now

we use that power to move forward in the direction of our mission. The quest has begun! (Sorry, I

married a nerd and it's had almost seven years to be rubbing off on me.)

The important thing about this forward movement is to make sure it is in a forward direction, hence

"first things first". It may seem redundant on paper, but think about how easily we distract ourselves

from actually being as productive as we know we can be? I know I have fallen into this trap. That is

the reason I'm revisiting this whole program is to get myself out of such a rut of diverted stagnation.

Habit 3's war cry is "PRIORITIZE!!!!!" And they provided a spectrum format to help us with that,

below.

The intention behind this is that we should spend the majority of our time in Quadrant 2 where things

are important but not urgent. This is where proactivity lives. Quadrant 1 is Reaction Zone. I tend to

avoid Quadrant 3 which is why my email inbox drives Charles crazy. None of the emails I get need

any sort of immediate action, so I only take enough time to mark them as read just to make the

notifications go away. Quadrant 4 has been my vice, but I am getting better at managing that. I'm

writing instead of playing Minecraft, enough said.

The application of this system of spending more of our time in Quadrant 2 is to use those planning

skills from Habit 2 to schedule things out. Remembering to connect to our Mission Statement, you

identify the "big rocks" you need to focus on to accomplish the important goals and plot them out

first. Everything else, all the "little things", then can be organized around what time is left. That is the

step I want to work more on for myself. (Structure=Good)

That wraps up the Private/Mommy/Leader half of the Habits. Onto the Public/Family/Organization

Habits.

Habit 4 is "Think Win/Win". This is where the rubber meets the road. It's great to be doing all the

private deep thinking of setting goals and making plans, but then you have to set all those wonderful

designs into motion... with other people involved.

I know at school, most of us probably preferred to do "Group Projects" alone. We can't do that in the

real world.

To explain this win-win mindset, I'm going to pull a quote from the Covey website:

"Win-win sees life as a cooperative arena, not a competitive one. Win-win is a frame of mind and

heart that constantly seeks mutual benefit in all human interactions. Win-win means agreements

or solutions are mutually beneficial and satisfying. We both get to eat the pie, and it tastes pretty

darn good! "

To illustrate this with a relevant biographical example, I'll put this in the terms that I used for my Cub Scout group. The boys come to Scouts with their "win" of having fun and (hopefully) learning something. As a leader, I come with the "win" of being able to present the material I have prepared to teach and guide these prepubescent males.

To make this a cooperative win-win situation, I have to put forth effort to make my material "fun" (not my strong suit, but I can default to being dramatic at least) and the boys have to reign in their energy enough to respectfully listen to and participate appropriately to the instructions/discussion/activity. If that goes smoothly we can have a positive experience where they aren't bored and I'm not wasting time and getting frustrated with ... shepherding their exuberant interruptions (read: telling them to "shut up!" every ten seconds).

I can happily report that I have seen success with this arrangement with this group of boys, which is beneficial for my sanity seeing how I teach this same bunch of boys' Sunday School class.

How did I achieve this success? I imposed Habit 5 on them: "Seek First to Understand, Then to Be Understood". I made sure they understood my expectations of our interactions. (I recently introduced them to the metaphor of the carrot and the stick...)

If Habit 4 is about cooperation, then Habit 5 is about communication. The actual emphasis is on empathetic listening. This is a surprisingly useful skill, even when parenting toddlers (assuming they have sufficient language skills or you can interpret their intentions).

My biggest application of this, particularly when issues are arising and my children entering fussy territory. Instead of just listening to what they are complaining about on the surface with their actual words, I try to be in tune enough to intuit what the root problem they are dealing with. I try to understand what is going on inside of them, probably better than they do in the moment. Depending on the circumstances, I either "suggest" they leave the situation to get out of that energetic space and we can talk about it later (time out) or I bring them into a hug right then before addressing the surface concerns. Sometimes my little boy just needs to get some "sads" out, then we can rescript the situation so we don't have that current problem again.

Once cooperation and communication are established, then we can begin to "Synergize", which is Habit 6. The innovation that can come from the healthy background that all the other Habits have set up can be mind-blowing. This is truly a situation of the whole being greater than the sum of its parts.

I think the secret behind this is the humility and confidence that have grown out of the other steps of this process. We have confidence in our own abilities and ideas but are still humble enough to work together to combine ideas to make something new that can work for everyone (win-win).

In the parenting format I can imagine an example of this being involving our kids when planning out routines or schedules or codes of conduct. When the kids are engaged in these processes they are more likely to respect them. Don't be afraid of this step; they may have ideas that will surprise you. Of course, this is more applicable with older children, but even little ones can at least make the planning stage more... entertaining with their input. (At 10:00 we slay the dragons!)

Our last Habit is "Sharpen the Saw". This is my second favorite Habit because I am a big fan of self-care. I have a firm testimony that I am not the best Momma I can be if I don't have the pieces of my inner puzzle all in the right order. A consistent pattern of this is when I don't get "enough" sleep then I turn into a "Mombie" and I don't use caffeine to combat the effects, so watch out!

Those "puzzle pieces" that need tending to, and ways to maintain performance in those areas, are:

•  Physical: Beneficial eating, exercising, and resting
• Social/Emotional: Making social and meaningful connections with others
• Mental: Learning, reading, writing, and teaching
• Spiritual: Spending time in nature, expanding spiritual self through meditation, music, art, prayer, or service

I know I am still working on finding a good balance of all of these myself. The great part is that this

Habit is taken into consideration back in Habit 3. These activities are contained within Quadrant 2.

And that wraps up my rather long summary of the 7 Habits. I'd encourage you to follow the links to

the Covey website to learn more. I'll end with a little infographic that has a much more concise

review with added applications and affirmations. I'm feeling inspired. I hope you are too.

May we all have the best summer ever!

How to Wear White with Confidence...When You Have Babies

Wearing white has seemed to be the anathema of mommy-hood. Let's face it, white is not the #1 neutral that anyone with kids of any age gravitates toward when considering their everyday wardrobe. 

Such is not the case for me.

I'm wearing my favorite white skinny jeans as I write this and I love it! So, in Fat Amy style, I want to rub some of my confidence onto you so you too can rock it in your type of white*.

(*Quick refresher on Types of white: T1= Winter White; T2= Eggshell; T3= Wheat; T4= Stark White, as pictured below. Tip or darken your screen to see the undertones or lack thereof.)

This post was inspired by a recent conversation with a friend who was despairing at the possibility of not being able to keep whites clean with small children around and all that entails. I offered her 3 solutions to this problem that I will pass onto to you, dear reader, as well as 3 bonus ideas I didn't think of at the time (you know how that goes).

Wash Your Babies

I know the image that haunts you. You are loving your white and then your adorable child approaches for an embrace... with hands and/or face and/or...everything covered in (insert substance of choice). The white is now ruined!

Simple solution: watch your babies, know when they are dirty, wash them immediately when messy project/meal is complete, then continue with the hugs. 

Alternative solution: Avoid the mess to begin with. Be the Nazi mom who doesn't let your kids get messy in the first place, i.e. don't serve your spaghetti with sauce, etc.

Feed Babies at Arm's Length

The second obstacle my friend offered was the fact that she is feeding a small one with a tendency towards projectile spit-up. We do play dates on a weekly basis which end after lunch, so I've watched her feed the baby in question, usually on her lap.

Solution: Use a high chair to get some distance from the source of spit-up. If your child has great skills as to distance projection, wear an apron and if your white is in the form of a second layer (we're not just talking about jeans here) then remove that layer during feeding. 

Cook with an Apron

I too live part of my life in the kitchen and I can't boast of being an especially clean cook. I'm not a total mess, but I still take preventative measures. Yes, I wear an apron even (sometimes) if all I'm making is mac 'n' cheese. I wear it anytime I'm cooking, not just when I'm having a white day. It helps if you have a cute apron that you love. My current model is in shades of blue with tiered ruffles.

Bonus Solution #1

Pants/Clothes DO NOT =Napkin. I know my husband is not completely house broken in this area, but he is not the one wearing white. It's one thing to blame your kids for a mess, but another to create the stains yourself. Avoid this by using good manners. Simple as that.

Bonus Solution #2

I also have a healthy, breastfed baby that poops. This means we have experience with blow-outs. These have been less frequent of late because we finally figured out that she was ready for the next size of diapers. That aside, when a blow-out has occurred you often don't realize it until you have the baby in your lap and by then it is too late. You may also have poop on your pants now.

Solution: Use preventative measures, again. On my white days, I don't pick up my angel, poopy or otherwise, without first having those buns wrapped in the all-purpose blanket that is always at hand. (We are a blankie family.) My theory is that she is poopy until proven otherwise.

Bonus Solution #3

All other solutions and precautionary stratagems in play, life still happens and life sometimes =stains. When this happens my OxyClean stick is my best friend. (Note: I am not affiliated with OxyClean. I just love it.)

I would keep this miracle wand in my travel bag when we were having more periodic blow-outs. Of course, I forgot it on our most recent weekend away, but the beautiful thing is that it works when pre-washing dried out stains as well. And that has been my experience with all the different patterns, with or without white, of our baby clothes. I think she's pooped in every outfit so far and they all come out clean. 

If you don't have OxyClean yet, go get some. (I use the sticks because I feel I have more control with it than the spray offers. Plus our laundry detergent has it too.) Or use bleach as that is what is used on whites historically speaking. 

And those are my solutions to help you bring white into your life. Now you should have (less) excuses for avoiding expanding your color palette with this excellent neutral. I've brought it into my current capsule wardrobe to welcome in the spring season...whenever that truly happens in southern Idaho. 

Opening and Adding to My Virtual Time Capsule

Happy (belated) New Year! Many apologies for not adding much to the blog-verse in 2017. My excuse: I was too bus adding some adorable-ness to the world at large = I made a baby girl instead of writing. Basically I was either too nauseous, too tired, or too busy taking care of my boys with the little oomph I had to spare for most of the year. Julianna was born in October and then it was the holiday season; not a great time to try picking up blogging again.

But now we are a month into 2018 and I'm ready to get back at it.

In getting the juices flowing, I've redesigned the look and direction of the blog (hope you like it) and read some of my old posts to remember what my voice sounds like (when I'm saying more than, "Share with your brother," or "Please let the baby sleep!)

Looking back at my post last year to ring in the new year I saw that I had been proud of completing a mini bucket list to prepare for my 25th birthday. The idea behind that was that 25 is my favorite number and I wanted it to be a banner year. I'd say I succeeded; 2017 was a pretty good year. In my brain it is divided into Pregnant or Not Pregnant and Nauseous or Not Nauseous.

In January I was Not Yet Pregnant and I experienced my first foot zoning session. (It's so nice being a massage therapist and being able to exchange. I'm also open to bartering.) It was quite validating to be told that my energies were generally good and that I was clearing some generational patterns.

I found out I was Pregnant in February and had a brief Not Nauseous period to enjoy getting excited and start hoping it was a girl this time.

Then the Nauseous time began. Instead of being just a first trimester thing, it was more of a first half sort of thing. And it was worse this time than it was with my two boys. That was my first clue that it was either a girl or twins. My cousin gave birth to twins at the beginning of the year, so that really did feel like a possibility. It was quite a relief to see only one Jelly Bean in the first ultrasound.

Despite being Nauseous, I managed to get my little massage business set up again and continue practicing. Massage actually proved a decent distraction. This is also my second pregnancy where I ended up doing some serious singing. With Jon it was being in the back-up choir for a production of The Pirates of Penzance with the University Choir at BYU-I. This time it was a community choir Easter production of Handel's Messiah. The performance was towards the end of the overall Nauseous stretch, but I did finally cave in and ask for a Zofran prescription because I wasn't taking any chances of having to miss the performance, and my last minute solo. It worked so we will remember to get that at the beginning in future rounds.

The highlight of the Not Nauseous term was our summer trip. It wasn't as involved as our month-long road trip in 2016, which was nice. We took a train over to Denver to see Charles' brother and a train museum that was featuring Thomas the Tank Engine. Plus there was small petting zoo. Overall, it was a win-win. The boys had fun (trains... enough said) and they were pretty well-behaved the whole time. The train was a great idea. We didn't have to keep the boys in car seats so they were able to wiggle a bit and stretch out better for sleeping purposes. I'd highly recommend it as a mode of log-distance travel. We need more trains.

And then October came to end the Pregnant round and Julianna was born! Yeah for having a little girl. I was hoping she'd come while I was still 25. She cut it close. Her birthday is 10/10 and mine is 10/19.

I've joked with the nurses at her appointments that maybe I should have named her Mary Poppins because I think she is Practically Perfect in Every Way :) She does everything she is supposed to although I'm starting to create a theory that each new baby grows faster than the last. She will be 4 months in about a week and I just had to switch her clothes to the 6-9 months size. But she has a smile to match. My little angel.

To end this reminiscing, I'd like to just mention that my only official "resolution" for 2017 was to read more. Period. I listen to plenty of audio books, but I desired a return to the written page. I'll say that I succeeded in reading more than I have in a while. I finished a series (although it took most of the year).

This year I am expanding on that decision and have tasked myself with a reading list of some of the Classics. I took a Facebook quiz last year that revealed how many "classics" I had read. I felt I needed to add the stories that have been made into movies I've seen to get a decent score. That was humbling. So to give myself a bit of an ego boost I sifted through our shelves to find some of the titles that I have missed. I managed to fill an entire shelf.

So far I have finished The Picture of Dorian Gray which I had started back when I was weaning David. I felt I had to start there because I am a self-proclaimed Finisher. Now I am reading The Iliad. I recently watched the Myths and Monsters series on Netflix which referenced several stories from Homer. They were already on my list, but watching the show bumped them up in my time line. I think I'll kind go at this list in a chronological-ish order.

Hopefully 2018 will be filled with both reading and writing (but not necessarily great amounts of 'rithmetic). 

Bucket List Report Item Five: And My Inspirations for Living a More Uncluttered Life

This one is obviously going to be a life-long process, but I feel like I have been making some really good efforts in cleaning up my external and internal spaces lately. So I consider this item of my bucket list as being closer to mastery then it was six months ago.

I believe the big reason behind my success has been that we have been able to settle into a reliable routine. The funny thing is that we got to this point in a rather organic way. But I recently began reading through and do the challenges in Having a Martha Home the Mary Way by Sarah Mae. The basis of this book is having a more spiritual motivation behind your homemaking efforts. It is a 31 day challenge I guess you could call it. I'm only on Day 6 but I feel like I'm benefiting from the Mary challenges already. (I haven't started doing the Martha challenges yet because I'm already in the middle of a different cleaning assignment I've given myself of washing all our walls.)

Day 3 was actually about establishing a workable routine. I don't feel a need to change much of our current routine (other than my own bedtimes and wake-up times), but I still like what Sarah had to say about not seeing my routine as an hour-by-hour schedule and thinking in terms of "anchors" instead. These anchors are the activities that consistently happen everyday at about the same time. For us (and most people) these include meal times and (for our stage of life with little ones) nap time. (David is finally making the transition to just one nap at about the same time as Jon. I am soooooo excited!)

My point here is that having a routine in place helps tremendously with a level of mental clutter for me. I don't have to worry about what I need to do during any given day. I just focus on what I can do in working around the anchors of our day.

The next level of mental clutter elimination is the omnipresent To Do list. No joke, this is the best secret weapon for getting anything done. Now, not everyday gets a full list for me, but when I need it, I sure use it. Sarah Mae's Day 5 actually talked about this as well, but she takes it the next level. The big piece of advice she gives comes from Ivy Lee's Six List from the 1920s. Instead of writing down everything that you could possibly do in one day, you write down the six most important things you want to get done the next day the night before. Talk about decluttering if the To Do list is getting streamlined as well.

On the days that do have more going on or more that needs to get done, I've already been making ample use of my white board in the kitchen to make To Do lists. It helps me get the big picture of my day out of my head and into a visual form which then makes my head feel less cluttered. Sometimes I have to make these lists for the day the night before just so I can go to sleep without those thoughts running in circles in my head in an effort to not be forgotten in the morning. I really need to just get a small notebook and pen for my bedside table. I just haven't gotten around to that yet.This is probably because I don't need it all that often, but it would be nice knowing it was there anyway.

Now that the inner realms feel less cluttered it's time to address areas of physical clutter that I've been able to get under control. In Lessons from Madame Chic by Jennifer Scott there is a chapter entitled "Clutter Is So Not Chic". It contains this definition of what clutter is:

Clutter is an accumulation of miscellaneous things that do not belong where they currently are.

I think Jennifer goes more into detail in talking about clutter "hot spots" in her other Madame Chic books, but they are basically any spot that ends up accumulating clutter like a little magnet because of location and convenience. I've been able to tame some of my hot spots.

My big examples are the top of my bedroom dresser and my entire craft room. A month or two ago the top of my dresser was just driving me crazy. I had several baskets containing odds and ends and they were getting close to overflowing and I realized that I really didn't need all of that stuff out at all. So I attacked! I kept out only the very basics of my toiletries that I use every day (lotions and scents, mostly) and I couple of other items I like to have easy access to (nail trimmers and a file and a couple other things). I then went the next step and made it pretty, because why not? It is so nice having a tidy surface to greet me whenever I get anything out of my drawers or just when I'm passing through when going about my day.

My craft room was another space that had just gotten ridiculous to the point where I wouldn't want to actually use the room for its intended purpose. I had boxes of stuff covering my craft table and things just weren't where they needed to belong. Plus the feng shui was just off with how the big items were arranged anyway.

So, after a solid day I was able to get the boxes consolidated and in the closet, got the tables switched around (the craft room also has my massage table in it), and things just tidied, and now it is a much more welcoming space. And just today I went another level and went through the boxes in the closet (I was looking for something among the randomness) and did some more consolidation and gained a view of what the next level of organization could be... maybe in another year.

Part of the clutter in the craft room was a stack of art that I hadn't gotten around to hanging. After being in this house for a full year, I finally got some of it hung. So that stack is smaller if not fully eliminated yet. I just don't have a vision of which walls they will go on yet.

Having a workable routine, a high comfort level with To Do lists, and taming my hot spots has brought more peace to me on more than one level. I look forward to continuing the Mary and Martha challenges as well as taking opportunities to live more chic-ly in creating the higher quality of life that I wish to achieve.

Hope you have enjoyed these bucket list reports  (1, 2+3, 4). I've enjoyed making these improvements in my own life.

Bucket List Report Item Four: Scar Removal

We're almost done with the bucket list reports (see reports 1, 2+3 at these links). It is time to reveal the results from my most recent attempts to remove my acne scars.

Previously I had found an oatmeal mask on Pintrest. Here it is again:

 

I've gone ahead and done the course of using the mask for the full four month program. And I took notes as well as pictures, which I'm really glad I did.

At the beginning, my face was a lot more sensitive to the cinnamon in the mask so I did a layer of aloe to help cool down the redness. That lessened as the weeks went by, but I suspect that may have been because the potency of the mix may have lessened as it sat in the fridge for a couple weeks. The consistency of the mask also became more thick. 

So after the first month of doing the mask every week, I went ahead and made a fresh batch of the mask. That brought the potency (read: redness and burning sensation) back. If I ever do this mask again I think I will make smaller batches to keep it fresh for all the applications.  

The third month brought the beginning of our Whole30 diet, which was pretty good timing to get that Before picture. It was less than a week into the diet and I had already noticed that I was having less new spots showing up and healing was already happening. 

With the last application I had the thought of separating the cinnamon and oat aspects of this mask. Some mind of cinnamon paste to get the burning-scar fixing effects and then some kind of oat rinse to then get more anti-inflammatory benefits. I didn't actually do that, but it would be worth further experimentation.

Now to get a little more into the Before and After. (My favorite part!)

So, some things got better, but there are some new spots. In general I'd say my face felt better, but I think I attribute that more to the healing benefits of the Whole30 than to the mask. My face would be even better if I were to stick with that program or at least cut more sugar out of my usual diet because I think that is the main trigger for my acne.  The mask just added a feeling of having more toned skin and tightened pores directly after the applications.

Fortunately I've mastered makeup enough to be able to hide all the spots I end up with. So I can still look amazing when I feel like it. Thanks to Dressing Your Truth, I feel like "putting my face on" more than you would think for a stay-at-home mom who doesn't really go anywhere during the week. That is not the only reason to feel and look pretty. But this is not the place for that particular soap box.

My Top 5 Favorite Parenting Resources

Motherhood is hard. We are all agreed on this. But there are ways to make it a little easier. Tips to have at hand so we feel like we know what we are doing...at least some of the time.

When it's just me and the boys I can get plenty self-conscious about my parenting abilities, like anyone else, but then I occasionally go out in public and realize that it could be a lot worse.

I have several sources I turn to that help me feel like I have it together...most of the time, actually.

So, what I offer today are my secrets, or at least the sources of my secrets in the hope that it will help and inspire all you other wonderful mothers who have not discovered these wonderful books. It is my wish that you may find something here to help you be a better parent today.

 

1. The Happiest Baby on the Block by Dr. Harvey Karp

This is a great starting point, whether you are expecting your first or your last or simply have need of skills to soothe crying babies in what ever setting you may be in.

I read this book as a "textbook" for an Infants and Toddlers class I took in my last semester of BYU-I before I had a baby and graduated. I felt like a pro-Momma with this under my belt before Jon was born. We still had our learning curve when it came to breastfeeding and dealing with cloth diapers, but I could swaddle like a champ.

Dr. Karp's premise with this book is that human babies need a "fourth trimester". Other animal babies come out and walk and "talk" right away. Our babies get pushed out before their heads get too big, ideally. That certainly doesn't mean that they are ready to take on the big, wide world all at once. So, Dr. Karp introduces his "5S's" to simulate conditions from within in the womb to help soothe the baby when outside of the womb to help with the transition.

These work people. So much so that I had people wonder if my baby ever cried because it sure seemed like he never did out in public.

To be brief, the 5 S's are Swaddling, Side-lying, Shushing, Swinging, and Sucking. When I was using these "in the trenches", as it were, like trying to get a newborn to sleep when they have other ideas, I'd have them swaddled, laying on their side on my knees so I could lean over them and make ocean sounds right into their ear while my knees did the swinging, and they sucked on my thumb. (My babies preferred the taste of me over plastic, so we didn't really use binkies at all.) To be fair, this was still a test in patience because it may have still taken a good 15 minutes for them to really fall asleep, but (eventually) fall asleep they did.

2. The Happiest Toddler on the Block by Dr. Harvey Karp

It of course makes sense that when I saw this sequel at a book swap, I was sure to grab it. I just finished reading it, to be honest, but I use this everyday and more so on Sundays as a Nursery leader. (It's probably why I haven't been released yet.)

In here, Dr. Karp lovingly calls toddlers "cavemen" and explains that parents have to act as diplomats of the current century. This involves connecting with respect and using "Toddler-ese" to help prevent tantrums or lovingly stop them in their tracks.

My favorite tip was the "Fast Food Rule" (or FFR) for communicating with little ones. He calls it this to bring to mind how the person taking your order at a fast food restaurant repeats your order back to you before they tell you your total price.

The FFR has two parts: First, whoever is most upset (usually the toddler, but this works in "grown-up" situations as well) talks first; the other person listens, repeats back what they are told, and only then do they take their turn to talk. The second part uses "Toddler-ese", tone of voice, and mimicked emotion to hit the toddlers "sweet spot" to get their attention and let them know that you understand how they feel. That part is key because when a toddler is upset they are feeling more that thinking so just trying to be rational with them first is not going to work.

I still have troubles with playing up the emotional part of the FFR (thank my T4 for that) but using short, repetitive sentences (the Toddler-ese in a nutshell) with some reflected feeling really works.

Dr. Karp also mentions knowing your child's temperament and realizing you may have a personality mismatch and that does right into my favorite tools.

 

3. The Child Whisperer by Carol Tuttle 

Now, I'll be honest: I haven't fully read this book yet, but I already have a thorough working knowledge of Carol's Energy Profiling System through Dressing Your Truth. So I still feel like a "child whisperer" with what I have to go on.

Knowing the Types of my children has been such a blessing. I know Jon is a T2 so I know that when he gets upset he will probably cry and need hugs to calm down. If I didn't know David was a T1 our breastfeeding experience would have been more frustrating for me with how easily distracted he can be. As is, I feed him where it is quiet and just enjoy his smiles when he unlatches for a moment here or there because he wants to tell me he loves me with his eyes .

I look forward to using my knowledge with future children and I feel confident that I can handle all the Types in my children as they come around.

 

4. The Child Whisperer Podcast by Carol Tuttle

Until I do finish reading the book, I can gain more insight from Carol's podcast of the same name.

(Note: The link shows the podcast through iTunes but I'm pretty sure I've been able to kind it through other podcast listening apps.)

I enjoy listening to podcasts while I do household chores, and I'm up-to-date on all my other podcasts, so while I wait for new episodes I listen to Carol Tuttle.

With access to the full archive of her material, even from before it was The Child Whisperer Show, I've been able to get more of the nuanced flavors of the Types from Carol's content as well as when she takes live callers and answers their questions.


My favorite episodes so far (go through the above link) are "How to Parent True to Your Nature", "Is your perception of your children hurting them?", and "How do you measure your success as a parent?".

 

5. Dressing Your Truth by Carol Tuttle 

I find where Energy Profiling is concerned, it's a bit like the oxygen masks on an airplane: you put yours on first before you help whoever is near you. Meaning, it's a bit hard to parent true to your Type if you don't know your Type.

Knowing my Type and dressing my truth does make me a better mom because I feel better in my own skin. It goes with the saying of "If mom's not happy then no one's happy." Conversely, when mom's happy everyone is happier. Dressing my truth makes me a happier person because I know myself, I know my tendencies and how to manage them, and I know how to make the most of my personal gifts.

With this knowledge I am bien dans ma peau. This is a knowledge I feel that everyone should have. I truly believe this would make us happier as a people and (possibly) lead to world peace. Who knows? We can dream big.

World peace aside, I'd settle for happier families to start with.

I hope you find these resources as useful as I have in becoming a better parent.