10 Tips

Prompt: Give a trainee for your job 10 tips on how to make it run more smoothly.

To be the best mom you can be:

1. Know that giving the best to your family starts with taking care of yourself spiritually, mentally, emotionally and physically.
2. Know the difference between self-sacrifice and slavery. Self-sacrifice is noble, slavery is not. Learn how to say no when you need to.
3. Know who you are. What do you like? Dislike? What are your passions? Your dreams? Don't lose these things in the midst of laundry, dishes and other peoples' hopes, dreams, or demands.
4. Know where you excel and revel in it. Do it often. Feel the energy of success.
5. Know where you want to improve and decide on baby steps to get you there. What's the one thing you can do in the next 10 minutes to improve yourself?
6. Get rid of perfectionism. It's wrong to expect it of yourself or of anyone else. It's an impossible and frustrating goal that leaves you empty and sad.
7. Be creative. Whether it's sewing, cooking, writing, reading, drawing, sculpting, painting, planting, playing music, craft projects, make time to do whatever it is that feeds your creativity.
8. Learn something new. Keep your love of exploration alive.
9. Teach your children how to do for themselves. Teach them how to learn, how to work, how to entertain themselves, how to think, and how to care for themselves and others.
10. Understand that your family members are unique and are different from you. Learn to recognize, understand and accept personality differences. People take in and process information in different ways. It's easier to work toward compromise when you understand that the kids and the hubby aren't just fighting with you for the sake of a battle. You can learn so much in the process.

Bonus: (Last but most important, and hopefully first remembered.)

11. It's all a gift. Show appreciation for it and give thanks.

No More Excuses!

Well my post from 9/4 just published perfectly so I really have no excuse not to get back to regular entries. I guess I never really had an excuse did I? If Blogger was so kind as to hold on to my unpublishable post until it was published, I could have done that on 9/5 and 9/6 and 9/7 and 9/8....

Arg. I feel like Charlie Brown.

I need to sell stuff.

Every time I think about what the medical bills will be like from A's snakebite adventure, the rock in my stomach grows. My dh is knocking on every conceivable door for work of some type. I think we need to become a two-income family for a little while because this bill isn't going to dissolve like the last one for his butchered fingers that the hospital ER mis-splinted and nearly rendered unusable. But that's another story. This time they did things right, and my ds is with us with no complications and I'm grateful enough to pay the least possible amount that I can whittle the bill down to.

Something's wrong when you have to choose between eating and medical insurance. There is just no way we can afford to pay a premium that covers our family when my dh is out of work. The offer is always there, of course, to continue what the union provides for x number of months if we can pay the full premium, but it is literally more than we spend on food in a month. It just doesn't seem right for an accident like this to happen and threaten every last cent that we have to live on till this job market does something about improving. I'm almost ready to let him go to Florida, which sounds awful--that we need to make money off of what is happening to those poor folks. But someone has to put the place back together, and they will get paid to do it. Why not us? My dh is an exceptional contractor. He does fast, precise and unquestionable work. The people he's worked for just love him because he comes when he says he'll come, he gives 100% while he's there, he finishes on time, the work is faultless and he cleans up after himself before he leaves. He just did a tile job for a woman who was bent on finding fault with him, and in the end she handed him the contract money with no hesitation and told him he was "a very hard worker."

At any rate, I guess I'm rambling because this is what's on my mind. I am grateful to have my son home with me, and our lives are going back to the normal fussing and fretting and such, and I know in my heart that the rest is going to take care of itself. If we have to shell out bits and pieces to two hospitals, two doctors, two labs and an ambulance company for the next several years, then that's what we'll do. Lots of people face the same and worse every day.

In the meantime, I have to shake off the fear that's keeping me from marketing my stuff. You'd think that I'd be over this by now. But in looking back I have discovered something about myself. Every time I gain some measure of success, I back off. Whether it's publication or a contest win--anything that should bolster my confidence--I react by withdrawing. Why is this? Any psychologists out there? Go ahead, analyze this!

It happened when I published in ByLine magazine. I didn't submit anything for a solid year after that. This year I was going gung-ho (hmmm....Maybe it's those cliches?) until I sold my villain article and got the good reviews from the OHFA entries. You know I haven't tried one submission suggestion that I got from any of those judges?! Why, why, why, why, why????

I guess now that I see the pattern maybe I can do something about it.

Suggestions welcome.

If you're still awake. :)