Category Archives: thoughts on life

Discounting the Positive

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A couple of days ago punk #2 came home from school in a bad mood.  She is a very easy going person, who rarely gets upset and when she does she is more likely to cry than yell or rage around.  It can be hard, at times, to pick up on her bad moods, because she is so quiet about it, but that day it was obvious, she cried about everything!  When things settled down for the evening I asked her what was bothering her.  At first she couldn’t really say but as we talked some more about her day she realized that she was very upset about her grade on a math test that day.  She missed one point, one point out of one hundred.  Yes, she was upset over one. little. point.

I understood her disapointment, she really wanted to get 100% on this test and she worked hard to do so, however she still got an “A”.  I told how proud we were of her and that she should be pleased with her test, she worked hard and did a very good job.

She still wasn’t happy, “But I wanted it to be perfect,” she told me.

“Katie, you can’t aways be perfect,working hard and doing your best is what matters.”

“But I want to be perfect.”

I went on to explain to her that because she was so focased on perfection that she wasn’t allowing herself to be happy about all the things she does do perfectly.  Sure she missed one point, but she did 99 points perfectly, and that is what she should be thinking and talking about, and she should be proud and happy about those 99 perfect points.  We talked for a little longer, hugged and she went off to bed.  I think she understood what I was trying to say, since then she has told me of times that she caught herself discounting the positive. She is trying (little miss perfect) to stop doing that and focas on the postive.

Later that night I was thinking about our converstation, and I thought about all those times I discount the positives in my life.  Do I focas more on the one thing Dadzoo isn’t doing, and forget the 99 other things he does for me in a day?  Do I worry about that one (or two or three)  chore I didn’t finish durring the day and forget the 99 hugs, kisses and loves I did do during the day?  Do I fret over the one person at church that didn’t say “hi” and forget about the 99 other people who did?  (ok, not really 99 other people, but you get my drift.)

I think it is time I stop discounting all the positive in my life.  Let’s acknowledge the failures and move on celebrating the positives in our lives.

 

Welcome February!

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I had no intention of taking all of January off from blogging.  I would look at my computer daily and think “I need to blog”, but then something else would demand my attention and the blog would be neglected for another day.  January was a tough month for our family health wise, I don’t think there was one day that went by that someone wasn’t sick with something, especially the baby.  I had forgotten how hard that first winter can be for a baby, it seems that they catch everything that comes their way, and not being able to nurse isn’t helping on that front either.  My newest pregnancy is going great, I do have some “morning sickness”, but has been the most mild of the bunch, right now I am just super tired.  It seems like I am stuck in a never ending cycle: baby gets sick, I am up all night taking care of baby, I am worn out and catch baby’s bug and finally when I start to feel well, baby gets sick again! 

 Anyway, enough complaining, I am feeling optimistic that things are going to look up soon, I have started using oils around the house to keep us well, homeopathic remedies and I have been able to get some breast milk to feed baby at least partially.  Besides there is something in the air, something that is promising spring and in one month I will begin spring planting, and that always makes me feel better.  January 28th my oldest turned 13, I can’t believe she is already 13, those years have gone by so fast.  On January 30th my son turned 5, he is such the little man.  January is the beginning of the birthday months, we have 2 in January, 2 in March plus our anniversary, 2 in April and one in July and the new baby coming in August.

Life is good.

Service Tree

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As the years have gone by I have become increasingly disillusioned with Christmas.  Don’t get me wrong, I love the idea of Christmas, a day set aside to commemorate the birth of Jesus Christ, our Savior and Redeemer.  I also love the idea of commemorating his birth by giving gifts to those we love, because Christ gave us many gifts, the greatest being eternal life.  It seems to me (and I am talking in general here, not about a specific person) that increasingly we are giving lip service to the idea of gift giving and caring for the poor on Christmas and we are focusing more and more on GETTING.  My family is no exception.  I find that my children talk more of gifts and Santa and what they want from Santa than Christ and His birth and His gifts.  I blame myself, I have created this, I love having an excuse to be extravagant in my gift giving (via Santa) with my children.  I over the years have focused on the gifts more than true service and Christ centered worship.

Last Christmas, instead of the kids giving gifts to each other we had service ornaments.  Each child drew a name and for the month of December they were to do service for the person they drew and add a special ornament to the tree every time a service was preformed.  It went ok, especially for the first few days, they it kind of petered out and was forgotten.

So this year I thought I would mix it up a little. 

We now have a service tree. 

 

(this is a terrible picture, the lighting in my living room is not good)

 

On slips of paper I wrote down the name of a person, or a type of person (example: teacher, neighbor, friend) and put them all in an envelope.  Every morning at devotional we draw a slip and for that day we all do a service for that particular person.  I am thinking this will help us stay focused and do more service.  Once that service had been done, and approved by a parent, an ornament is added to the tree.

I hope this helps my children become more service oriented.

As for how we celebrate Christmas, I think things are going to change around here in the next few years.  I would like Christmas to become a Holy day of worship.  First to go just might be Santa, I wonder why I need some stand in mythical man to give my children gifts?  I know a lot of people say he (Santa) represents Christ, to that I ask: why do we need some stand in mythical man for Christ when we have the real thing?

 

How to you center your family on Christ during the Christmas season?

Walking in Truth

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My camera has been taken hostage, to the very ends of the earth in fact, so I have had to put  a couple of scheduled posts on hold until I have it in my hot little hands once more.  So until that day I thought I would share some things I have been thinking about lately. 

A couple of weeks ago I watched a talk give by Bruce Chadwick and Brent Top at BYU’s annual Women’s Conference in 2004.  The title of the talk is “I Have No Greater Joy Than To Hear That My Children Walk in Truth.”  They did a very exhaustive study on teenagers and their thoughts and feelings on religion, and in this talk they presented their finds and offered suggestions to parents on how we can help our teenagers stay true.  If you would like to see the whole talk you can go HERE.

They gave a few suggestions, that I would like to share:

1. Build a Household of Faith
     -Teach the gospel,
      (Have Family Home Evening, family prayers and family scripture study)
     -Encourage youth to have spiritual experiences and get their own testimony
     -Practice what you preach.

2.Render Daily Outpourings of Love
     -Time (quantity equals quality)
     -Words (tell them you love them, daily)
     -Hugs (physical affection)

3. Establish fair, but firm boundaries
     -Keep your eyes wide open, use wisdom and be interested
      Talk with your children
      Check with others (teachers, neighbors, family)
      watch for warning signs
     -If you love them discipline them
       Say what you mean, and mean what you say.
      Lower your voice, don’t yell, people stop listening once the yelling starts.

4. Counsel, but don’t control.
     -Don’t use guilt induction or love withdrawal.
     -Show respect for your children’s opinions and ideas
       (even if you don’t agree, be respectful and listen).
     -Allow your children to be their own person.

5. Don’t give up and don’t lose hope.
     -2 Kings 6:16

While this talk was geared towards raising teenagers, I think these principles should be applied all children, no matter the age.  If we are applying these principles when our children are small, I think the transition into the teenage years will be smoother because we have already established a loving, Christ centered environment, where our children feel free to mature into Chirst centered adults.