Put On Your Mask First

If you have ever been on an airplane, you have undoubtedly heard the flight attendant instruct you to put on your oxygen mask first before trying to help others, even your children, put on theirs. Why are we instructed to put on our mask first? The answer is simple, we need to have oxygen to survive. And if we try to help others without having oxygen ourselves, we will soon find that we can't help anyone.

The same is true in our day-to-day lives. If we don't take care of ourselves first, we will soon lose the capacity to help anyone else. I've seen incredible mothers who are constantly putting their children's needs ahead of their own. They keep telling themselves that one day they'll get to sleep at a decent hour, one day they'll have time to exercise and eat right, one day they'll be less stressed; and the problem is that all of that lack of sleep, lack of exercise, bad eating habits, and stress catch up to them and everyone starts to suffer.

Soon Worn-Out Mom finds that she's yelling at her kids over simple things that really shouldn't bother her. She snaps at her husband because she doesn't think he's helping out with the children enough. The increased level of stress is palpable in the home and everyone starts to feel it. The children start fighting amongst each other more. The husband grows more distant and tries to avoid the home and the family more and more. And all of these things make Worn-Out Mom have even more stress. And each night she wonders what more she can do for her children and her husband, she's giving them everything.

And that's the problem, Worn-Out Mom is giving them everything and has nothing left for herself. She is giving so much of herself that there is hardly anything of herself left. Worn-Out Mom is losing all of her oxygen...she's losing her life.

We all become like Worn-Out Mom at times. We have all been in situations where we keep trying to put the mask on someone or something else before we put it on ourselves. We might be trying to put it on our job, our spouse, our parents, our volunteer positions, our children, or all of those things all at once. But it doesn't matter what or who it is that you are giving all of yourself up for, it's time to stop.

It's time to stop giving up all of our oxygen and it's time to put that mask on ourselves first. Start making yourself a priority. It may seem selfish to make yourself a priority but it isn't, it's vital. Make time for sleep, exercise, meditation, eating right, relationships, and those long-forgotten hobbies. Start putting yourself in your schedule, literally write yourself down on your own calendar if you need to but make sure that you start giving yourself that much-needed oxygen.

And after you start taking care of yourself an amazing thing will happen, you'll start to feel as if you actually have a life. And, as a side bonus, you'll have more energy and enthusiasm to take care of all of those other things too. So strap on that mask and breathe deep.

Book Review: Lord Jim by Joseph Conrad

This book was actually painful for me to read. I would take it in short chunks because I was determined to finish it. My husband wondered what was going on because I usually devour books. He asked why I didn't just stop reading it altogether. I thought about it but there aren't very many books that I've stopped reading once I've started (I can think of one) and I ultimately decided that this wouldn't be one of them. There were enough good parts in the book that it kept me reading.

The main problem with the book is that they should have just ripped out about half of it. It took forever to go anywhere and there was incessant dialog about nothing or about the same thing over and over again.

I'm really sad about how much I disliked this book. I was really looking forward to it because I love Heart of Darkness and hoped that Conrad would hold true to form in this book. Sadly, he did not.

1st Draft Done! And a Goal Achieved

On Monday it was August 31st...the end of the month, which wouldn't have been that significant except that I'd made a goal at the beginning of the month to finish the first draft of the second book of the Dead Sea Trilogy and I hadn't done it yet. I like setting goals and I really like when I actually accomplish them. Plus, I had remembered setting the goal at the beginning of August and thinking that it would be an easy goal to accomplish because I was almost done.

Well, it turns out that it wasn't as easy as I thought. Mostly because my kids started school, soccer season started, and my schedule got a little out of whack, which led to me slacking off in my writing. Almost the entire month had gone by before I knew it and my first draft still wasn't finished. And I only had one day left.

I tried telling myself that I could just finish the draft up that week and it wouldn't be a big deal. What were a few extra days? So what if those days were in September instead of August? It really wouldn't make that much of a difference, would it?

In the long run, it probably wouldn't make that much of a difference. But psychologically, I needed to finish that book in August. I needed the win. So I decided to go for it.

I took a day off from my day job and got to work. I started at 5:00 am and took very few breaks, mostly just to eat or take care of my kids in some way. My two oldest kids are in school so they were taken care of for the majority of the day, which just left my little one. Luckily her friend came over to play and they played fun little games for hours and were completely enthralled in their play, which left me free to write.

I got more and more excited with each chapter or part that I finished. I started to think that I might actually be able to reach my goal! It was pretty exciting. Then came the point when I had finished all of the chapters of my book and had only the epilogue and prologue to write...and I finally knew what I wanted to put in the prologue! At that point I was really excited.

The prologue had been bugging me for the entire book. On The Watchers it had been one of the first things I'd written and I'd known exactly what I wanted to put in it. But on this book the prologue had eluded me, until right at that moment. It was as if the thing that I'd been searching months for suddenly jumped from behind the wall and surprised me. It's a great moment for any writer.

My two older children came home at this point and the atmosphere changed slightly. Instead of my pleasantly tranquil environment for writing I was now under a barrage of questions while trying to finish my epilogue. I was checking homework, directing activities, and listening to stories about how so and so did such and such, all while sitting at my desk and desperately trying to concentrate. (As a side note, I really couldn't tell you anything about so and so and the such and such that they did but never tell my children that. I'm pretty sure they thought I was listening - it's okay to be a subpar mom for one day right?)

Among all of this chaos I managed to finish my epilogue but then I had to get my son to soccer practice. I rushed him to practice and raced back home and back to my chair. I was so close! 

It was a race against the clock. Could I finish the prologue before soccer practice ended? Could I finish the first draft of my book and meet my goal before the clock reached 6:50? Well let's just end the suspense, I did. I did! I finished my book and was able to pick up my son from soccer practice with a huge smile on my face. It was a great moment!

And my kids may have had whatever they could scavenge for dinner that night (which strangely enough consisted of cereal, grapes, and kidney beans - my kids love kidney beans, what can I say?) but as we sat around the table, I was able to tell them that I'd met my goal and finished my book. And they were genuinely excited for me. And then my oldest immediately went and retrieved his list of New Year's Resolutions. He wanted to see what his goals were so that he could work on them. I guess he'd seen how happy meeting one of my goals had made me and wanted to feel the same way. And of course, Monkey See, Monkey Do, so pretty soon all of my children were looking at the goals they'd made at the beginning of the year and planning on how they were going to achieve them. 

So maybe that day I wasn't as crappy of a mom as I thought.

Focus on What You Can Control

So often in life we worry about things that we have absolutely no control over. We worry about national politics, the most recent violent crime, what another person said and did, etc. And at the end of all that time spent worrying and thinking we have accomplished absolutely nothing.

Worrying about things outside of our control only leads to us feeling more and more frustrated and powerless. So why do we keep doing it? Why do I think about how my job or my life would be better if I could just change so and so? Why do I pour over countless Internet articles about the latest horrific event and think about how I would think and feel if it had happened to me or my children? And more importantly, how do I stop thinking about things I have absolutely no control over?

The easiest way is to simply shift our focus from things that we can't control to things that we can. So if you are having a problem with your marriage because your spouse is horrible and treats you badly, stop focusing on your spouse because that is something that you can't control. Instead, focus on yourself. If you want to have a better marriage, then be a better spouse. If you want to have a great marriage, then focus on being a great spouse. You can't improve your marriage by improving your spouse, but you can improve your marriage by improving yourself.

The same principle works in all areas of your life. If you want a better work environment, then focus on being a better employee and coworker. If you want a better relationship with your kids, then focus on becoming a better parent. If you want to lose weight and force that scale to move, then focus on being a healthier person. If you want to make the world a better place, then focus on being a better person and helping others.

So stop worrying and stop playing the blame game because it only makes your life worse. If we truly want to be happier people, then we need to focus on improving what we have control over. And most of the time what we have control over is ourselves. Take control of your happiness today because only you can.

You Pay Your Kid to Read?

"You're paying him to read?" My friend asked recently. "Doesn't he already love to read?"

The answer to my friend's question is: yes, my son does love to read and yes, we are paying him to read books. How did this come about you might ask. Let me explain.

A few weeks ago my husband caught our soon-to-be nine-year-old son's attention and made a deal with him. He promised to pay our son $35 if he could read the entire Harry Potter series before school starts in August, which is basically $5 a book.

My son had been reluctant to read Harry Potter despite loving to read books in general and loving the whole Harry Potter idea. He told us that he didn't want to read about the large snake in book two because it was scary. But for $5 a book my son's fears soon disappeared.

It has been less than three weeks and my son is already on Book 6 of the seven books. I'm pretty sure that he'll finish before school starts...well before school starts. We have also made a similar deal with our younger daughter with books that are more on her reading level and she is also feverishly pounding away at her stack of books.

So why have we chosen to pay our children to read, especially when they already really enjoy reading? Simply put, because we think that it is something truly valuable. Some people pay their children to take out the trash or sweep the kitchen. And we pay our children for chores like these as well. But why not pay your children for doing something that will truly benefit them?

Maybe you think that reading isn't really that important. Well, it is. Not only does it give your children a wider view of the world and allows them to learn about and immerse themselves in different cultures, history, scientific exploration, moral dilemmas, etc., but it also gives them an incredible leg up in life in whatever they happen to pursue.

Practically speaking, if your child is a good reader, they will do better on whatever test on any subject they take simply because they will be able to read faster, giving them more time to answer and because they will comprehend the material more quickly and easily. They will understand math better because they will understand their math book better. They will remember history better because their reading comprehension will be greater. They will know how to perform an experiment well because they can easily read and follow the instructions. School will be so much easier if you can teach your child to excel at reading. And even life will be all that much smoother if your child is a voracious reader.

So keep paying your children to take out the trash. I'm sure they'll be well prepared to work as a waste collector in the future. As for me, I'm paying my kids to read.

Make Father's Day Special

Fathers are an amazing part of our lives and I wasn't really aware of this fact until I became an adult and had children. (This was also around the same time when I realized how great my mom must have been when I was a kid and how I never appreciated how much she did for me...but back to fathers.) Fathers are amazing and it has been while watching my husband change diapers, give baby baths, wrestle, tell stories, jump on the trampoline, tickle, play games, etc. that I have seen what a difference dads make.

My children love their dad. When they hear the garage door at the end of the day signaling that their daddy is finally home they all make a mad dash for the stairs so that they can be the first one to get a jump hug (jump hug = giant leap from the stairs into their daddy's arms). They love to tackle him and wrestle with him and snuggle with him. And they love doing all the scary, dangerous stuff with him that I would never let them do.

Dads teach kids about life. They share their experiences, their passions, their hobbies, and so much more. They give their kids advice as they show them how to fix a tire or repair a broken toy. They protect their children and provide for their needs. Dads make kids feel safe even when there's a storm raging outside the tent's walls. They take kids on adventures and explore never-before-seen terrain. Dads create bursts of fun at any moment.

In less than 24 hours it will be Father's Day. In fact, it might even be Father's Day right now. And don't you want to show the fathers in your life how much you appreciate and care about them? If so, here are some fun and simple ways to show the fathers in your life that you care.

1. Make him King for the Day: All you need are a crown (paper, fabric, cardboard, etc.) and possibly a cape and you are in business. To really make this work you should probably address him as "Your Majesty" and try to play the part of the loyal servant for the day. You can also play regal music whenever he walks anywhere (which is corny but silly and fun too).
2. Make him Feel SUPER: Maybe the dad in your life doesn't like the whole king bit but they are really into superheroes. Just make them feel as if they really are a superhero for the day. Plus, you can still use that cape. 
3. Switch Roles: It can be fun to let the dad act like the kid for the day and the kids like the dad. This becomes pretty hilarious pretty quickly, especially if you've got some good actors in your family. This can also be fairly eye opening as each side will get to see how the other really views them. Just remember to be nice.
4. Childhood Stories: Ask your dad to tell you some of their favorite childhood stories. They will love this, especially if your dad is on the older side and just loves to tell stories in general. This is probably my own dad's favorite thing.
5. Make a Movie: One year I went around and recorded my kids saying different things that they liked about their dad: what they liked to do with him, their favorite memory of their dad, what they thought his favorite things were, etc. Then I put the videos of their responses and mixed it with some pictures of them with their dad and made a quick little movie for my husband to watch on Father's Day. This didn't take a lot of time and he loved it. 
   
6. 6. Write a Thank You Note: Write your dad or the father of your children a thank you note for all that they do. Everyone likes to be appreciated for the work that they do and fathers are no exception. Plus, all you need is a piece of paper and something to write with.
7. 7. Impromptu Dance Party: Throw an impromptu dance party whenever they enter a room. If you can quickly put on some music...great, if not, just dance. It'll be fun and will be sure to make them smile. And who knows, they may even join you. If you aren't into dancing, you could also just try breaking into wild applause. 
8. Relax: Maybe the father in your life just needs a little break. In that case, make his day as relaxing as possible. Remove all deadlines, don't rush about, just relax. You may also try setting up a hammock, playing Hawaiian music, massaging his back, and providing pina coladas.  
9. His Choice: Ask your dad or husband how they would like to spend the day. This may sound like a cop out but it may actually be what the men in your life would like best. Besides, how do you know what they'd really like if you don't ask.
10. Breakfast in Bed: Who doesn't like breakfast in bed? And this is a really great way to let dad know that you are thinking of them from the very first moments of the day.
11. Relive Great Memories: Break out the photo book or fire up the computer so that you can sit down with your dad and laugh over old photos of the family. Remember the great times that you've shared together.
    
12. Make New Great Memories: Spend the day as a family making new great memories. Do a fun activity together that your dad loves and make sure to laugh as much as possible.
13. Make the Day Joyful: This one just involves being happy and spreading that joy around to your family and especially to your dad. Make it your goal to try to improve everyone's day. And make sure to spend special attention on your dad. Give him lots of smiles!
14. Hug: Make sure to give your dad a hug on Father's Day, even if he isn't really a hugger. He'll appreciate it whether he says so or not.
15. Customize: Every father is different so make sure that the way that you honor your father is meaningful to him. Really think about what kind of a person he is. Think about the kinds of things that he likes and doesn't like. Think about the kinds of things that he likes to do. Think about the kind of father that he is. And then think about the best way that you could show your dad that you love and appreciate him.

Love and appreciation are what Father's Day is all about. Make sure to tell the fathers in your life how much they mean to you. I know that I would be a very different person if it weren't for my dad and I'm so appreciative of everything he has done to help me grow. I'm also incredibly grateful for the amazing father that my husband is. My children are truly blessed because their dad really is SUPER.

P.S. These ideas can be used on days that are not Father's Day. You don't need a special day to tell your dad that you love them. In fact, why don't you go and do it right now.

Small Ways to Save $

Often times the most difficult part of any change that you make is knowing where to get started. The same is true with saving money. Most of us want to save money, but we don't know where to start. So let's start small.

Here's is a list of small and simple things that you can do to save money. Not all of these things will apply to you and your life situation, but look over the list and I'm sure that you'll find a few great ideas that will save you a little green.

25 Simple Ways to Save

1. Pay with cash (groceries, dates, outings, etc.). People spend 20% less when they buy groceries with cash.
2. Eat at home more (restaurants are expensive)
3. Trade babysitting with a friend. This works great to make going on dates cheaper.
4. Make a grocery list and stick to it
5. Plan out and cook your own meals
6. Clean out your fridge and pantry (find good food you forgot about)
7. Buy grocery store or generic brands
8. Don’t buy microwave dinners (they are way too expensive for what you get)
9. Pack a lunch for work
10. Wait for at least 24 hours before buying something over $100
11. Cancel magazine and newspaper subscriptions you don’t read or can read online for free
12. Rethink your phone plan (Are you paying for more than you use? Do you actually need a cell phone?) Sometimes just calling your carrier and asking for a cheaper plan can do wonders.
13. Use the library (There’s free stuff there!)
14. Get cheaper clothes (hand-me-downs, thrift, etc.)
15. Stop unnecessary shopping (only go shopping when you actually need something) = No more window shopping
16. Cut the gym membership and exercise at home

17. Make your next vacation a STAYcation
18. Use coupons, Groupons, online deals, etc.
19. Ditch cable TV (Netflix, Amazon, etc. are cheaper)
20. Make gifts instead of buy them (or gift your time)
21. Invite friends over instead of going out
22. Drink WATER: Other drinks are expensive
23. Check out free events in town (there are lots of free entertainment and activities)
24. Pack your own food for a road trip
25. Come up with free or cheap dates that are fun instead of just opting for the old dinner and a movie.

If you can be proactive and a little imaginative, you might even find that it's really fun to save money.  After all, isn't spending an evening with your spouse at a free local concert or playing frisbee golf in the park a lot more fun than spending a lot of money going to see that movie that you're going to forget about within a month? Nod your head and say, "Yes."