Embracing Modesty

In this fast paced world in which we live in, our kids are growing up too fast. Innocence has gone by the wayside with exposure to whatever our kids can download to their phone or tablet. It is sad to see young girls wearing makeup far too early. When I was in high school, most girls didn’t start to wear makeup until they were around sixteen and even then it was more about wearing lip gloss than anything else. Take a stroll through any mall store and you will see that the choices for clothing for our young girls are far from modest. When I see the photos on Facebook of teen girls attending their school dances in strapless dresses that barely cover much else, it doesn’t take rocket science to figure out that something is drastically wrong with the message we are conveying to our children. When you look at a picture of a girl in a dress and wonder how in the world will she be able to sit in that dress without showing the world what only her doctor should see, then that is a problem. Hello! Lightbulb moment! It all begins at home. By instilling values and morals from a young age, our children understand the importance of embracing things such as respect and modesty. Too many kids nowadays feel the peer pressure to fit into what society seems to think they should be. Just because we live in a country where women are not forced to cover up including their faces while in public does not mean that our girls need to dress inappropriately to show our freedom. Girls taking scantily clad selfies and posting to Facebook for the internet world to view is just wrong. Even the kissy face selfies are sending the wrong message. You attract what you put out into the world. Our girls need to know that they are beautiful on the inside and on the outside. They don’t need to wear makeup or dress sexy to be more beautiful. You know what they need to be more beautiful? They need a smile on their face. Your smile is what you want people to remember you for, not how short is your skirt or how low is your shirt.

Mother Teresa said "We can do no great things, only small things with great love!"

We all tend to get caught up in our own worlds most days that we cannot see those in the world who are truly suffering. We get to shower every day. We get to eat three meals and snacks. We drink fancy coffee. We wear clean clothes. But what if suddenly the most basic of life's needs were taken away. Every time I go to visit my daughter at college, I see homeless folks panhandling for money. What to do? Throw a few dollars their way or drive by and try not to look them in the eyes to see their pain? We say what difference can one person make? But one person can make all the difference in a person's life. But we have to step outside of our own world to see those who need help. If just one person, helped one other person we could create the chain reaction of love and hope that would help change the world for the better. Suddenly our silly problems and complaints would have no justification. At this time of Lent when some are choosing to give something up, I am choosing to do something different by adding things to do instead. I am making the effort to take the money I would normally spend on coffee and food in my work cafeteria and I am choosing to put it to better use. I am taking that money and using it to purchase health and beauty supplies, socks, gloves and food to create "Blessing Bags" for the homeless. How easy would it be to just buy a few trial sized items on your next visit to the pharmacy. Or when you go to Walmart, but a package of socks. You get clean socks every day, but there are some that are not that fortunate. It is not the big things we do that make the most impact. It is the small things. Start small. We can all do something. The point is to do something. We are more blessed that we know and we can share some of that blessing with others. I read somewhere that a fifty dollar bill is still a fifty dollar bill even if it is crumpled up and dirty. Human beings are the same...would you want to be loved any less because you came upon hard times and found yourself struggling for the most basic of life's needs such as food and shelter. Please start today. We can be the change we want to see in the world! Let's do this together! Blessings!

Happy New Year!

Today is New Year’s Eve - Time to say goodbye to 2014! As I look back on the year, there were many blessings and lessons learned. I met up with two grammar school classmates whose friendships I now count among my many blessings. Our connection is familiar and I would not be surprised at all if we have traveled lifetimes together. They are my earth angels! I also cherish the lifelong friendships I have maintained over the years and am glad those friends are in my life still. Thankful for my daughter and husband as this journey would not be nearly as exciting or fulfilling without them. This year, I sadly have seen my dad spiral downward struggling with mental illness, addiction, coupled with grief from my mother’s death two years ago and short term memory loss. It is so frustrating to watch someone you love fight this never-ending battle that lives within them. Stressful, stressful, stressful…and no matter what you do it is like watching a train wreck in slow motion. I pray for peace of mind and heart for him, for those he is in contact with and for my sister and our families. It is not an easy road to travel. I often wonder why this is his journey and ours. I can only think that it is what it is and he is here to teach us patience, tolerance and understanding. To love him despite his issues while maintaining a healthy distance and setting boundaries is a daily struggle. I learned a lot about myself this year as well. I am allowing myself to break from old traditions and what I thought I enjoyed and instead permitting myself to experiencing new things. I used to love to read, and while I would probably still enjoy a good story, I am choosing instead to live my own story and to be present in my life instead of reading about someone else’s. After Thanksgiving, I also made a life change choice to give up eating meat and animal fat and concentrate on a plant-based diet. I am currently working on removing dairy products and sugar. I did not realize that by eating meat and processed foods that I thought were healthy that I was causing myself to have major health issues and inflammation. It has only been a little over a month and I feel so much healthier and have lost weight and inches which has been a struggle in my adult years. I plan to continue to educate myself about the food I put in my body and cannot wait to see the results at this time next year! My resolutions for 2015 are fairly simple. I plan to laugh, smile, love and live more! Happy New Year to all! Love, Teresa

I turned around and it was November!

Oh dear, October was so busy at work and with my birthday celebrations that lasted all month (fun!)...I literally turned around and it was November. I am sorry for not posting anything lately and with the upcoming holidays I will now be taking my annual holiday leave from my blog until the New Year. Happy Holidays and blessings to all! See you in 2015!

Learning to Cope

I sometimes hear parents say “I just want you to be happy” to their children. I hear other parents say that a good spanking will teach respect. Let me begin by saying I do not agree with either of these beliefs. Trying to make your children happy all the time, will give you an adult child who is frustrated because their life is complicated and they do not know how to deal with it. Spanking in my opinion, only teaches children that it is okay for a grown up to harm them. It does not teach respect, it teaches fear. It all begins when they are young. They cry and we want to stop their sadness. They throw a tantrum in the grocery store and we immediately remove them from the situation. Whether they get hurt or they do the hurting, they are learning. Children are learning and look to us for guidance. We need to teach them to cope. You cannot be happy all of the time, and you set your child up to fail by the desire to make it all better for them all of the time. We all experience joy, happiness and love. But we also experience sadness, disappointment, anger and grief. Without acknowledging these feelings as being just as important as happiness, we give our children a great disadvantage in life. We have given them the expectation that everything will work out and run smoothly throughout their whole lifetime, but haven’t given them the tools to make it work out. Only by teaching them to cope with every emotion, can we honestly say we have done a good job in giving them the foundation they need to get through life. By promoting only happiness, we have set them up to fail. I, like everyone else, fell into that habit in the beginning of my parenting, but having a child that had her own different needs taught me the lessons I need to learn about life not always being pleasant and happy. Emotion is energy in motion, and we have to equip our children with the tools they need to understand and deal with every one of them. Life is messy, but it is also a beautiful, intricate, sometimes exhausting but also exhilarating experience. And when you learn to navigate it rather than always trying to be “happy”, it is a more fulfilling experience.

The love of a pet

There is something about me that not many people know. I love to write poetry. My first published poem was right after I had given birth to my daughter and the poem was about her. There is something so deep and meaningful when a poem is written. It is like a piece of your soul. Life has become very busy and it has literally been a year since I have written a poem. As with life itself, I don’t necessarily follow the “rules”. My poetry comes from my inner self and sporadically I feel the need to write a poem. When that happens, I write it verbatim as it comes into my thoughts. I never change it or correct it. It is the rawest form of expression and I leave it as such. Today I was prompted to write this poem and I hope that you like it:



The love of a pet

(Dedicated to those who have loved and lost a pet)

The love of a pet is like no other we will ever know

Unconditional their love flows freely to us each day

And all they ever ask of us is to be loved in return

To be cuddled and cared for in each and every way

They wake us with kitty cat paws and doggy wet kisses

And greet us with unbridled joy at the end of the day

They are family, friend and companion all in one

They teach us to trust and they teach us to play

Sadly, pets only stay a short while here on Earth

They are waiting in heaven for us to join them one day

And what a day that will be when we see them again

Greeted by furry hugs and kisses where together we will stay

All of God’s creatures are special and unique for sure

But the love of a pet will remain with you and never go away

Onward we go

We all have days that sometimes seem like they last for weeks, months, years, who knows (insert Eeeyore’s voice). We are on this planet swirling around in space and it is constantly changing, yet sometimes we feel stuck. If we live in the past, we stay on the path of regrets with should-a, could-a, would-a thoughts. If we worry too much about the future, we live in constant “well what if…then” thoughts. It has taken me most of my life to realize we only really have today and sometimes really only this very moment. Being the first to admit, life to me was the equivalent of someone learning how to become a flying trapeze artist. The fear of leaving the platform (past) coupled with the fear of crashing to the ground (future) is scarier than actually letting go and living in the moment (now). When you live in the moment, it frees your soul and allows you to truly feel alive. We all have speed bumps, walls we have to climb and people and places we need to leave behind in order to get to where we need to be. But that is what life is all about. It’s not about standing still. Life is about learning and growing. Leave the past behind and take that first step forward. You will be glad that you did!