"My soul is full of longing for the secret of the sea, and the heart of the great ocean sends a thrilling pulse through me." – Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Currently, I am taking a class on Coursera called “Mindshift.” The concept of the class is to help you break through mental barriers and be able to learn concepts/topics that you never thought possible. The following was the first discussion prompt: “Tell others about unexpected assets you’ve brought into your work from your past, sometimes seemingly unconnected knowledge.” When I read this prompt I immediately thought about my crazy journey of a college education, and how all the seemingly completely different aspects of it have come together in my life. Here is my response:
I feel like this entire concept is me in a nutshell. For as long as I can remember, I have had a variety of interests and skill sets that somehow find a way to compliment each other. From a young age, I was interested in the performing arts namely acting and singing. Thus, when I first entered college, I was going to get a Bachelors Degree of Arts in Theatre. After two years of theatre coursework, I decided that the starving artist life was not one that I wanted to pursue. However, the skills I learned at 18 and 19 are still coming in handy now that I’m 40. As an example, one of the theatre classes we had to take was lighting design. In this course, we had to learn how to rewire broken stage lights. To this day, if necessary, I am confidant that I can rewire a lamp if necessary. During this time frame, I also learned skills for public speaking that I still use today when I give business presentations.
My next college move led me to pursue two degrees in Business Management. By the time I finished the second degree in the field, I knew that I didn’t actually want to be a manager at any local business. So instead of being an unhappy manager, I put those skills to use in my own business while also pursuing a Masters in Teaching. For several years, I worked my own business and taught school. At times the skills from both overlapped especially when talking about time management, emotional management, and organization. While teaching I started being the costumer for our Drama Club which allowed me to connect with technical design and utilize all the sewing skills I picked up when I used to do Medieval Re-enactment.
Now, I have left teaching because the pandemic made me realize that I don’t want to be raising other people’s children more than I am raising my own. Thus, now the teaching skills are being used to homeschool our child, and the business degree skills are being used for two freelance style jobs and our business creating journals and planners.
Side note, those theatre skills learned early on? I may not be a pro, but I have put them to use in Community Theatre over the years! Bonus, I’ve also used to the business skills to serve on Boards for local non-profit groups.
Talk about full circle!
I’d love to know in the comments how previous career, education, and hobbies have given you skills that are an asset to what you currently do!
“The Greatest Gift” for me is not a cat, but I thought a picture of something I love was fitting for my response. The greatest gift that one can give or receive is love. Love can be presented in many ways: sharing a meal, spending time together, texting to check on someone, sending a card in the mail, taking a trip together, snuggling a little one (pet or person), etc. Love can also be shown by giving someone a physical gift as what you give often shows that you know them. The most important thing is to do all that you do with love in your heart. There is no greater gift!
Do you play in your daily life? What says “playtime” to you?
I play a lot! To me playtime is any time you are doing something that is fun for you and brings you joy. The emphasis is on you because playtime is different for everyone. I feel like I’m having playtime when I practice yoga, write, walk, hike, sew, paint, read, learn a language, play games, put together puzzles, make glamour videos, and much more! I think the key to playtime is knowing what you enjoy and taking time each day – even if it is just 15 minutes – to do it.
“Follow your heart, your intuition/It will lead you in the right direction/Let go of your mind, your intuition/Is easy to find, just follow your heart, baby.”
Does anyone else remember that song from Jewel aptly titled “Intuition”? It’s the first thing I thought of for this prompt, and I think it’s appropriate. I would love to say that I always follow my heart; however, a lot of time my pesky brain gets in the way. When faced with a situation, I typically find that my intuition is often accurate (especially Mother’s Intuition) as the heart’s responses often align with my values. Unfortunately, the brain, which can be riddled by anxiety and worry, sometimes trumps the heart. Perhaps sometimes it’s hard to follow my intuition because of a gift that I share with my late grandmother: an eerie feeling of knowing what’s going to happen before it does. It can make wanting to follow your intuition difficult! Eventually, I usually find my way back to my heart, but it can take time that is filled with error and misguided events. And that makes me think of another lyric: “The words to say/The road to take/To find a way back to your heart.” This one is from BSB’s “Back to Your Heart.”
Well…it’s not even 8 am and I’ve referenced two songs while writing a blog. My intuition says this will be a productive day!
What part of your routine do you always try to skip if you can?
Good news! If you don’t have a consistent routine, you can’t always try and skip something. Bad news! If you don’t have a consistent routine, then you tend to go into surviving not thriving mode. For me the biggest takeaway from this question is the need to establish and follow a routine period.
I have great intentions when it comes to having a routine. However, there’s two obstacles that tend to get in my way. One, if I get invited to do something fun, I have a hard time saying no even if it goes against original plans. Two, when there are only loosely established plans, I tend to throw in as many things as possible. This just leads to chaos. Along with both of these I’m also easily distracted by becoming hyper focused on things that aren’t important.
So, I suppose my answer to today’s daily question is when I establish and follow a routine, I’ll let you know what I skip!
When you become a parent, one of the things that modern society likes to imply is that you can easily balance everything in your life. There is the implication of you can work full time, feel like a stellar parent, have plenty of time for a romantic life, and so on and so forth. Here’s the truth and the secret to my seemingly so well balanced parent life: the idea that you can have it all in equal proportion is pure BS.
Think of it from a mathematical standpoint. If you are trying to balance 4 things equally in a 24 hour period, then you have to be able to devote six hours to each one of those things. Wait! You have necessities that have to be done such as sleeping, eating, and showering. Suppose those take 8 hours per day. That leaves you with 16 hours per day which would allot only 4 hours for each of those things. If you only applied 4 hours a day to your job, your boss would probably get irritated with you pretty quickly especially if they are paying you for 8 hours per day. While this isn’t a perfect example, do you see why you can’t equally balance your priorities?
This is where prioritizing the things that are important to you comes into play. If you’re rolling your eyes because you’re thinking well she’s a work from home mom, so this is easy for her to do, I ask you to take a moment and reflect on what’s preventing you from having an open mind. Having an open mind about your priorities is actually a key to finding balance. For you to find balance as a parent, one of the things you have to think about is what your priorities truly are. Obviously, a main priority is being able to provide financially for ones family. I think most everyone would agree on that. But what are your priorities after that? Do you put keeping a clean house over playing with your child? Do you put making coffee with your SO every night above sitting down and watching TV by yourself while they are in another room? Do you make it a priority to go on dates with your SO even if you’ve been married for a long timed? Once you decide on what the priorities are that will make you feel balanced and complete, then you can move on to implementing your balanced life as a parent.
For me, balance comes from having a Six Most Important things to do list every day. I actually divide my list in order of my priorities which tend to be Faith, Family, Work from Home, and Me Time. If you find that there is little or no fun in your life, then I highly recommend you invest in the Me time. Life is short, so you need to have fun! After looking at those things, I put what the most important thing is that needs to happen for each. Usually Faith has something like prayer, read a religious or spiritual text, and silent reflection. Family has things like School (we homeschool and try to spend at least two hours a day on lessons), Daily Chores (I have specific chores assigned to specific days of the week), and then any other errands that need to be done (call and schedule this appointment, go to the park, etc). The other two totally depend on what I’m doing at the time for those tasks. Sometimes my Work from Home says tutor while other times it is tasks for my DS business. One night a week it is designing journals for Letters & Lore (thegreatkaysby.com/letters-lore). My Me Time has been known to have things like paint, watch a movie, play video games, shave your legs, and paint your nails. Both of those are reflective of what is happening at the time. Does everything get done on my list each day? Nope. Shit happens. Sometimes you don’t find yourself able to get everything done. So how can that still make you feel balanced? Circle it and put it at the top of tomorrow’s list!
The last part of my secret to balanced parent life is to listen to your child(ren). This one is something I’m working to improve as I can feel easily overwhelmed and shutdown when things don’t go exactly as planned. However, your little one won’t remember that they went to bed while there was dirty dishes in the sink. They will remember that you had dinner late because the family took time to play a board game together. Likewise, they won’t remember that you didn’t vacuum this week. They will remember that you took two hours to play outside or spent time decorating the house for a holiday together. Along the same lines, they won’t remember that your car had peanut butter crackers smashed in the floorboard. They will remember the trips to the playground, going on hikes, and driving around to look at the changing leaves. Learning to listen to my child has been one of the best ways to find balance as a parent. By the way, this is also applicable to your SO. Listen to them and their cues both verbal and non-verbal. They need you too!
So there you go. Call it “Tip Tuesday” or just some general life advice, whatever you want to call it. Take the advice or leave it. But know that I didn’t do everything on my to list today because this seemed more important to share. I’ve long been told we teach on what we need to learn, so maybe I needed this more today than completing a list.
Two and a half years ago, I was co-teaching a sophomore English Lit class, and we were studying the works of Richard Blanco. If you’re not familiar with his works, he writes a lot of poetry that really gets you thinking about a variety of topics some of which people don’t like to mention. At the time that I was teaching about him, our country was in the middle of much turmoil itself. Covid was still RAMPANT, and vaccines were just starting to be given. There was a lot of rioting spurred by attitudes focused around the sentiment of “You can’t tell me what to do! Unless I don’t like what you’re doing then I’m going to tell you what to do!” With encouragement provided by the media, everything happening in the world felt like it was close to imploding. Inspired by Blanco, I found myself writing the following:
Constitutional Rights?
The Constitution says we have freedom of religion. This isn’t a right to use religion to exclude others. This isn’t a right to persecute those with different beliefs. This isn’t a right to act superior over others because of religious differences.
The Constitution says we have freedom of speech. This isn’t a right to allow students to cuss their teachers. This isn’t a right to give permission to use racial slurs. This isn’t a greenlight for verbal assault.
The Constitution says we have a right to bear arms. This isn’t a justification for needing assault weapons in your home. This isn’t an excuse for taking lives in the name of “self defense.” This isn’t a reason to make a mockery with photos of children holding guns.
The Constitution says no soldier shall be quartered in any house without owner’s consent. This isn’t a way of saying don’t open your home to those in need. This isn’t a reason to avoid helping homeless Veterans. This isn’t indicating that we should keep all people out of our lives.
The Constitution says we have a right to not be a witness against ourselves in criminal cases. This isn’t a way to get out of admitting when you’ve done wrong. This isn’t designed to be said as an excuse with a shit eating grin. This isn’t a justification to do as you damn well please without concern for others.
The Constitutions says we have a right to a speedy public trial with an impartial jury. This isn’t a right for “the law” to convict unequally based on race, gender, economic class, or sexual orientation. This isn’t a vehicle for inflicting personal prejudice on a possible criminals. This isn’t a process to apply unequally because of someone’s biased reason behind their actions.
The Constitution says we have a right to peaceful protest. This isn’t a weapon for silencing those who don’t agree with your biased opinion. This doesn’t mean you can riot violently in the name of Civil Disobedience. This isn’t a way to further your unconstitutional agenda.
Until recently I had forgotten that I wrote this. Then I found the handwritten copy in a stack of other papers on my desk. I kept putting it to the side, and it kept resurfacing. Finally, I took that as a sign that this is meant to be shared. When I wrote it, I didn’t have the confidence to share this with anyone because I hate to stir up conflict. However, I want those around me to never be afraid to voice their truths, and I believe in leading by example.
I love Jigsaw Puzzles. I’ve enjoyed putting together puzzles for as long as I can remember. Over the years, I’ve completed easy ones, difficult ones, ones with missing pieces, etc. Recently I’ve gotten into solving puzzles online. These are challenging because they are timed and have various degrees of difficulty: easy, normal, and expert. I had been sticking to easy and some normal, but yesterday I tried expert. When I solved it, I thought of how puzzles are a metaphor for life.
Think about it. How many of us whether it is intentional or not find ourselves living our lives on easy mode? After all, easy mode is the one that takes the least effort while providing satisfactory, adequate outcomes. Even those of us who have big dreams can find ourselves stuck in easy mode from laziness, fear, etc. Until we get unstuck and switch to expert mode, our dreams will never become a reality.
So how do we switch? For me it is a lot of telling myself things like “short term sacrifice for long term gain” and “work hard so you can play hard” coupled with extreme planning! When I’m in expert mode, I plan like a maniac. At this point I’m great at the planning, but often the execution lands me back in easy mode. It’s not because I don’t want to be in expert mode and experiencing abundant success; it’s because I get inside my own head and shutdown.
Getting inside my head is my biggest issue with success in my Direct Selling business. Sometimes that mindset finds its way into other things like solving the puzzle on expert mode. I almost didn’t try expert mode because I was sure I would fail, but a little voice inside my head convinced me to try. After all with a puzzle online, if I failed I could just try again. Then I got to thinking. This is also true of the path to success in life. It is better to stumble, fall, and get back up than to not even try.
The conclusion? It’s time to try expert mode in a variety of things not just puzzles!
Most people have heard of the concept called the “Circle of Control.” Within this concept there is a circle in the middle of a blank space. Inside the circle is written things that you can personally control, and outside of the circle is written the things that you cannot control that cause you stress. For example, you can control if you go out and check the mail so that would be on the inside of the circle. However, you cannot control what shows up in your mailbox on a given day so that would be on the outside of the circle. These examples are trivial in comparison to most of life’s stressors, but you get the concept.
The concept of the “Circle of Control” is something I try to remind myself of a lot. At times I can have a tendency to get overly emotional about things that are completely out of my control. (Keep in mind I’m not talking about tragic kinds of things.) When this happens, I try to remind myself of the circle, but I have found that there are a couple of flaws with it. The biggest is that I am part of a generation where we were very much as a whole taught to never show emotion or ask for help because these are perceived as signs of weakness. Which I now realize might be the kind of thought process that made me prefer to get bad grades as opposed to ask for help in Calculus. Anyway, getting away from this line of thought to a more healthy one isn’t easy, but it has become a goal for me as I want to be a good example for LilKsby.
So I got to thinking…what if instead of a “Circle of Control” there is a “Spectrum of Sparkle”? Why a spectrum? Because I have realized that there are a lot of things in my life that have aspects I can control while also having aspects that rely on others. With the circle concept, the two are completely separate. However, I’ve come to believe that the biggest success to emotional control lies on a spectrum where you find balance between knowing what you can control and learning to cope with what you can’t as opposed to being told to just let it go. On the “Spectrum of Sparkle” you could start by listing various aspects of your life such as faith, family, friends, you, and avenues of income. Then you could list under that the things that you have complete control over such as silent mediation time, your family chores, your daily habits, etc. Beneath those you could list the things that are partially in your control but also not. These would be things like you can control what days you go to the grocery pickup, but you can’t control how long it will take to get your order. Just knowing what these things are can help you know how to cope with them which can lead to better emotional management. Finally, list the things that are totally out of your control. These can be things that are obviously out of your control like “I can’t control the weather,” or they can be things that are personal like, “I can’t let how someone reacts to my decision ruin how excited I am about it.” One of the hardest lessons to learn for people like me who are super easily excitable is that not everyone is going to be excited as you are and as happy about something as you are. You also have to learn that you cannot control other people. You have to let people live their lives how they want even when you (a) think you know better for them or (b) disagree with their decisions. You can 100% love someone and not agree with everything they do. That’s called being a Golden Rule person.
Now that I’ve answered “why a spectrum?” I feel the need to answer “why of sparkle?” Well for one I like sparkly things. Two, the things that we get the most passionate and upset about are usually the things that make us sparkle and shine inside and out. It’s also important to know that those things can take an emotional toll on us, and we should recognize that even things that make us sparkle have parts that our out of our control. Until the next time!
“Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss, you’ll land among stars” is a quote often attributed to Norman Vincent Peale. When you Google it, a lot of people have said the quote and fully determining its origin seems rather impossible From time to time, I have even said this quote when speaking with people. In fact, one year when I was still teaching, I had this quote on my classroom door as an attempt to motivate students to do their best. Along with me other great minds like those of Oscar Wilde, Brian Littrell (the recent Savannah Bananas intro is a sure sign of his genius), Mary Kay Ash, and Les Brown have said this same quote at some point in their respective careers. Since the first time I heard this quote, I have loved that it is so simplistic while at the same time being extremely deep. To think that if you try your hardest, even if you come short of the goal, you will have had so much success in the process!
Lately I have been wanting to blog a lot, but I have found that I haven’t had a lot of deep, meaningful pieces of wisdom to share. Instead of just blogging anyway which could have lead to inspirational pieces, I’ve been doing a lot of other activities. Some of the activities were just for fun like summer vacation, visits with friends, a road trip to IKEA (when the nearest one is three hours away, traveling there totally counts as a road trip), amusement park trips, and more. However, other activities have been like shooting for the moon and landing among the stars. These are the activities that took some getting out of my comfort zone, time, and effort; these are the activities that are life changing.
The first activity that was life changing involved the State Fair. If you’ve read my blog since 2018, then you know that I have always enjoyed the State Fair for the food. What you may not have known is that I have always dreamed of entering the competitions at the State Fair. I’ve talked about it for years, and for years I never did anything about it. This year – as part of my mission to be more fearless at forty than ever before – I finally entered the State Fair. I shot for the moon by entering two photos, five scrapbook pages, and two sewing pieces. One of the photos advanced to the final round of judging, and one of the sewing pieces placed second in the category. More importantly than the outcomes from the judges, were the outcomes that I felt from landing among the stars. Just from finally entering the State Fair, I was reminded of just how much I enjoy my various hobbies. I find them relaxing, and I find that I love creating. Seeing pieces come together to create a whole when you are working on a project is so satisfying! If you’re an artisan, you know exactly what I mean. The biggest star from finally entering? It made me want to do more next year! In fact, I’ve already started planning some pieces. For someone with time management and organization issues, this planning “star” might just be the most important takeaway I could have from finally entering!
My second life changing activity has to do with overcoming fear of not being in control. Back story here, you have to understand that I have always said that I hate flying and am afraid of it. Some of this was probably rooted in the fact that my first flight when I was twelve was in one of those like three passenger planes. It was a short trip, but the plane shook a lot and though the views were cool, the overall experience was terrifying. It took me another twelve years to get back on a plane, and when I did, I realized that flying wasn’t as bad as I had made it out to be. However, I still did not like it. I just always felt safer driving myself than trusting my life to a pilot that I’ve never met. This summer after another 16 years, I got on a plane again. I wasn’t overly thrilled by it, and at times leading up to the travel, I was sure that something was going to go horrifically wrong. However, I knew that taking a plane trip was going to be the only way that I could attend a business conference while minimizing the time away from home. On some levels the fact that I was even willing to book the flight was like landing among the stars before the trip even occurred!
Fast forward to the trip occurring. When I booked my flights, I purposefully booked aisle seats so that I wouldn’t have to look out the window. I thought this might help me to be able to pretend that I was in a car or on a train instead of flying in a plane. For the majority of the flight there, I kept trying to look out the window. So on my way back, I actually switched my seat to a window seat. Guess what? I was mesmerized the entire flight home! The world looked so beautiful from the plane! Also, I know it sounds cliché, but I felt so close to Heaven and calm while flying. I felt like this trip finally made me feel at peace with flying, and I look forward to what doors this willingness will open for me! I’m so thankful that instead of landing on moon by staying in my driving comfort zone, I landed among stars and now feel like I can do anything!
Finally, one recent final activity has been like landing among stars. For as long as I can remember, I have had an interest in writing and journaling. Shocker right that someone who blogs would be interested in these things? I’ve also always wanted to somehow find a way to publish some of my original ideas. I’ve not really wanted to make a lot of money of it, but I always thought it would be cool to see something I contributed to in print. Through a collaboration with Letters & Lore (checkout the new page on my site about them), I am getting to do just that! I’m not sure what will come of it, but just the learning process has been fun. Even if we don’t make it to the moon, the stars we’re landing among are amazing!
Wow! I wrote a lot more about this than I thought I would, and it is getting late. I have an early class tomorrow (side note, taking free classes has also led to star like growth), and I should try and get some rest. I hope this inspires you to shoot for the moon, but if nothing else, this blog is getting me back in the groove!
As part of a leadership class I am taking, I’m starting a 30 day challenge of Daily Journal Prompts. This is outside of my usual realm, but I’m excited for the challenge!
Prompt 8 – List 10 things you love about yourself.
I love this prompt! Not because I love to talk about myself although sometimes I do it a little too much, but because I think listing things you love about yourself is a great mental health exercise. Over the years I’ve used a similar exercise to this prompt for therapeutic reasons, and I highly recommend everyone do it! Here goes my list!
1. I love my creativity and expressing it through painting, sewing, scrapbooking, coloring, and writing.
2. I love my ability to get lost in a book. Books can take you to another world, inform you, and inspire you!
3. I love my head – like all of it. My hair has always made me happy as have my eyes and smile.
4. I love my ability to burst out into song at random moments whether it is with a made up song or one I half know the lyrics to.
5. I love my tendency to be easily excited and enthusiastic about the littlest things!
6. I love my caring spirit and how much taking care of others feeds my soul. It’s important to be a servant leader.
7. I love my ability to teach people a variety of skills in a variety of areas.
8. I love my ability to work hard and get things done when I put my mind to accomplishing something.
9. I love my love of water. I feel most at peace when water is involved be it a shower, pool, rain, lake, etc.
10. Most of all I love being able to live by my priorities: faith, family/friends, living by the Golden Rule, and then career. The two greatest roles in my life are wife and mother, and I do my best to up hold that calling.
As part of a leadership class I am taking, I’m starting a 30 day challenge of Daily Journal Prompts. This is outside of my usual realm, but I’m excited for the challenge!
Prompt 6 – What are you most proud of?
This is a tricky prompt. It’s kind of like when people ask the question, “What is your favorite movie?” Such a broad question kind of gets a blank stare. However, if it is a more specific question such as “What is your favorite sports movie?” I can quickly say A League of Their Own. For me, asking what are you most proud of gets the same blank stare until looking at it for different areas. Thus, in true to me form, I present a “Top List”!
Top 3 Things I’m Proud of in July 2023
3. Trying new things even if they are a little scary! I don’t want to go into details, but I want to do things that I find scary to help show my Sweet Boy how to have courage!
2. My MK Life – I love being able to work around my priorities with people I choose to be around. I have been abundantly blessed by my clients and team!
1. Mr Kisby and LilKsby! They are both doing amazing things and accomplishing great achievements! I love just sitting back and watching them be successful!
I think what you’re most proud of changes based on your season of life. There were periods when I would have listed all my personal accolades as what I was most proud of achieving. These days I’m often most proud of things that are about others more than me. Don’t get me wrong, I still think I’m awesome. The difference is realizing how much more awesome our lives can be when we prioritize the needs of others. In this season of life, nothing will make more proud than watching my loves!
Last night I was watching Mass, and the priest talked about the work of Chuck Colson. I had never heard his name before – an apparent neglect of my schooling as he was part of Watergate – though I found myself very intrigued by the story. Colson had an idea for helping people change their lives, so in the late 70s he did an experiment with 12 people. They were to stay in a prison for an amount of time and live like inmates. I don’t know all the details, but the experiment’s success led to the development of the Prison Fellowship program. Those 12 people were the root of starting a movement for 25,000+ people who have now been positively served by Prison Fellowship.
After hearing this, I asked myself “What else can be associated with the power of 12?”
Obviously, for Christians the 12 apostles led the foundation for the development of the church. Another obvious answer would be there are 12 months in a year a time frame during which great meaningful change can occur. For those in my direct sales field, sharing the career with 12 people in a calendar year earns a level of awards recognition. This one really got me thinking as it made me wonder how many people can I positively impact by sharing my career that aligns with my personal priorities through blessing 12 people? I doubt it will be 25,000, but it might be 250. Imagine how many blessings could be spread by 12 people with kind hearts and fair intentions!
The last big event LilKsby went to before the world shutdown in 2020 was a first birthday party for one of his first friends. Within two weeks of that party everyone was sheltering in place which led to LilKsby’s first birthday being a masked, socially distanced, outdoor affair with just his seven close family members. His second and third birthdays didn’t involve masks and outdoors, but they still involved the core seven as we were trying to minimize his exposures to Covid. Finally, today LilKsby got to have his first birthday party with friends AND family, and I kept thinking over and over, “We are abundantly blessed, and I am so thankful for everyone here!”
Days like today remind me of how abundantly blessed we truly are. First and foremost, we have an amazing family who are always there for us and who absolutely love LilKsby. The way they play with him, share their talents with him, and create memories with him will melt your heart! Secondly, we have amazing friends old and new. I remember a song from when I was in Girl Scouts as a kid with these lyrics: “Make new friends, but keep the old. One is silver, the other is gold.A circle is round, it has no end. That’s how long, I will be your friend.” When I looked around the room full of love today, these lyrics rang so true! There were friends of mine and Mr Kisby’s from as long ago as high school, from 16 years ago when we were introduced to one another, friends from previous jobs, and new friends from within the last year who are some of the most incredible moms I have ever met! Likewise there were friends of LilKsby’s from the time he was a baby, from his first time at camp, and and from within the last year of weekly Pre-K classes! It was such a blessing to see them together talking, playing, and celebrating especially as concerned as I was a year ago about LilKsby having social opportunities. I could gush and gush about how blessed we are, and I assure you that my smile will always be so big that you would think there was a coat hanger in my mouth (Friends reference for all you other fans out there.)
I am also very thankful for everything surrounding today. First of all, I am thankful for Mr Kisby and the greatest gift of our lives which was the reason for today’s celebration: LilKsby. Sometimes I look at him, and I still can’t believe that God trusted me to be his mama! Secondly, I’m thankful for all the people who have been a part of LilKsby’s life. Whether they were at the party or not, there are so many people who have positively impacted his life in the last four years. If I attempted to name them, I know I would forget people, so just know that if you’re in our life, we are thankful for you! Finally, I’m thankful for the absolute pure joy of today’s celebration! I believe that experiencing joy is a key to living your best life, and today the joy overflowed in my heart! Like at times I literally felt like our little family was glowing from joy, thankfulness, and blessings.
Aside from going to bed absolutely elated, I hope that I never forget how blessed and thankful we are.
If you’ve read my blog for a long time, then you know that I used to write a lot about food. I would discuss my favorite foods along with where to get them. I thought of myself as a foodie and being a paid food critic sounded like a dream job! Paid to eat? Sign me up! However, as I got older and my priorities changed, I started realizing that my relationship with food was not a relationship I wanted LilKsby to grow up copying.
I grew up in what I would like to call the “clean your plate era.” I distinctly remember going to restaurants as a child and the restaurants having rewards (usually more food) for children who would eat everything. I’ll never forget that at Captain D’s a free piece of chocolate cake was the reward. As a kid, I thought this was great even though I don’t even like chocolate! It was just the idea of “winning” a prize. As an adult, I find myself appalled that the reward for overeating was to eat more. Because of these reward systems, for a long time I found myself feeling required to clean my plate. I’m not saying this “clean your plate mentality” is the sole reason for my obesity – a lot of bad habits went into that – but it took a long time for me to become okay with having leftovers!
Some of my other bad habits with food have also attributed to my up and down relationship with the scale. One of the worst of these is eating out of habit instead of hunger. For my entire school career, health classes pushed the concept of three meals a day: breakfast when you woke up, lunch around noon, and dinner in the early evening. There was also usually a rousing chorus of “breakfast is the most important meal of the day.” Since this is what was taught, eating became routine whether I was hungry or not. Lately, I’m really working to ask myself “Am I hungry?” before having a meal or snack. Another bad habit for me is emotional eating. This is a big one! Just this evening, I was feeling a little moody and found myself thinking “I need a cookie to feel better!” I looked at the tub of cookies, then I thought to myself, “You don’t need a cookie! You’re not hungry!” Guess what? I’m really glad that I didn’t eat that cookie!
Acknowledging the bad qualities of my relationship with food has been an interesting journey. When you love something so much, it can be hard to want to make a change. I’m still working on making better choices a lot of which comes down to planning and sticking to the plan. I’ve also been striving to educate myself on better healthy eating habits from credible sources and avoiding “crash diets.” It’s a work in progress, and I know that there are going to be occasions where I over indulge. However, I’m not going to give up!
