Thoughts of the Day
My life has qualified me as "experienced" on such topics as Army life, parenting, mental health, loss and grief, multi-tasking, and adapting to all things new (good, bad, or indifferent). I will share my thoughts on these topics and hopefully you will find some calm in the chaos knowing that others have been where you are.
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Friday Favorites #5 & Link Up On the Edge #192
I just realized that I haven’t shared a Friday Favorites post in over a month. This has given me plenty of time to accumulate a list of some new favorite things to share with you. First, can we talk about menopause for a moment? Where does all the freaking facial fuzz come from? Is it the multivitamins that I need to take to manage the unsavory menopausal symptoms or is it the menopause itself? And why did the hair growth on my legs slow down so much in midlife (I am not complaining about that) while the hair on my face seems to grow faster than a chia pet? It…
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Celebrate Earth Day in Boho Style & Your Own Twist Link Up #19
Wednesday, April 22, 2020, marks the 50th anniversary of Earth Day in the United States. The first Earth Day celebration happened on April 22, 1970, as a unified response of 20 million Americans to an environment in crisis. As environmentally conscious citizens were witnessing extensive destruction to our earth through smog, oil spills, and rivers that were so polluted that they were literally catching on fire, they united in protest to environmental ignorance and demanded a new way of living and respecting our planet. This very first Earth Day celebration is credited with igniting the modern environmental movement that is in full force these 50 years later. Earth Day is…
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A Very Grateful Easter with Mapiful
I know many people are feeling kind of blue celebrating Easter without massive family gatherings and such. As a military family, we have grown quite accustomed to holidays spent casually at home so this is really nothing new for us. It also doesn’t really make us feel sad at all. In fact, the only thing that is making me sad today is Ralphie’s refusal to participate in anything we have done so far to make the holiday a little bit special. Our memories of Easter 2020 will be less tainted by quarantine than they will be by our family photos missing a kid. But rather than focus on the negative,…
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7 Birthday Party Ideas for Adults
*Editor’s Note: I hate to have to put a disclaimer on this article, but I am fearful of the angry responses I may receive for talking about social gatherings of any sort in the current environment. I like to give the benefit of the doubt and believe that most people who read this will know that these ideas are obviously for a future time when we are no longer asked to practice social distancing. Unfortunately, too many people are acting as “police enforcement” via social media and other online forums, thereby requiring disclaimers on anything we share publicly. So for those of you who might be ready to chastise and…
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Breaking Patterns to Heal the Cosmos
“Ordinarily we are swept away by habitual momentum and don’t interrupt our patterns even slightly.” Pema Chodron, The Places That Scare You Sometimes we need to break our patterns. Sometimes we don’t even realize that we are stuck in patterns that no longer serve us. Sometimes it takes a massive wake up call on a global scale to offer some perspective and insight into our own lives as well as our collective existence in a universal scheme that is much larger than us. It is a rare occurrence when the universe offers a very clear picture illustrating just how much the microcosm has fallen out of sync with the macrocosm.…
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4 Easy Ways to Preserve Memories with Your Kids
*Guest post by Melissa Page. Most parents know very well what the phrase “time flies so fast” means. One moment a baby is born, the next thing you know, baby is crawling, standing up, and uttering those first precious words. It is often hard to believe, but kids grow up incredibly fast that everything seems to happen in the blink of an eye. As parents, we don’t want to miss those milestone moments, so it is essential to store and organize childhood keepsakes so the family has something to look back on years down the road. Those experiences and memories will become priceless treasures in the future. Here are 4…
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Live Music in My Living Room & #SpreadTheKindness Link Up #165
“Music is the great uniter. An incredible force. Something that people who differ on everything and anything else can have in common.” Sarah Dessen Less than a month ago, I shared a post listing some of my favorite music festivals scheduled for this year. So much has changed since then, hasn’t it? And many of these festivals, in particular the ones in early spring have already been canceled. No one really knows at this point if festival season will happen at all. In the meantime, all of these wonderful musicians and their bands have lost their livelihood (just like many, many other people in the world right now), but they…
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Radical Ralphie’s Coronavirus Birthday Party
While things in this world are very, very strange and somewhat dark right now, we still are pressed to continue on as normally as possible. And when a boy turns 7, he wants a celebration. But how do you explain to your 7 year old that he can’t have a birthday party? We woke up feeling kind of sad this morning, but we also know that finding humor in dark situations is often the best coping mechanism that we humans possess. So in an attempt to make light of bad situation, we had a celebration COVID style…complete with the most amazing coronavirus birthday cake made by my dear friend Monica…
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Wear Purple for International Women’s Day & Your Own Twist Link Up #18
It is time again for Your Own Twist which is a monthly series hosted by Monica of Jersey Girl, Texan Heart and myself where we showcase our own interpretations of a chosen style theme. We share the theme with you ahead of time in case you are interested in joining us. You can see the upcoming themes below if you would like to create your own post around the theme and share it with us in the link party at the end of the post. With all the current strife and worry in the world right now, Monica and I nearly forgot about our monthly link up. But in an effort to keep…
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Looking Forward to Simple Summer Living
There are so many things to enjoy about the summer season like outdoor meals, entertainment, and time spent with friends. We can thoroughly enjoy ourselves during the warm weather months if we have ideas about all the fun activities that are available to us. Enjoying summer time doesn’t have to be all about large scale parties and gatherings, it can also be about some quiet time with our families as well as planning activities to prepare for such whimsical outings like picnics or day trips. Something as simple as a walk in the woods during the summer can enrich your mental well being as well as reduce your stress levels…
