Everyone has stress nowadays, but it's how you handle it that's important. We had a birthday party weekend, my daughter turned 9, and I thought I had everything under control. However, my body thought differently. Even though I had my list, I didn't take enough breaks and relax, so by Sunday night, I was in tears. I slept while the kids were in school on Monday and then was up half of Monday night, from the pain. You see, with RA and fibromyalgia, you need to be careful with just about everything and what will work for one person, will not work for someone else. It's basically a guessing game and that game can also change at a moments notice.
For me, food and stress seem to be big factors. I try not to eat too much meat and stay away from a lot of sweets (yes, that's a stressor right there!) and eat lots of fruits, veggies and beans. As for the stress, well, I do what I can. Some days, it's easy and other days, well, lets just say "life happens". The kids are screaming at one another, homework is piling up, housework is piling up, no one likes what I prepared for dinner and don't even get me started about bill paying and making sure THAT can happen!
My goals when "life happens" is to now curl up with a good book or work on a cross stitch or another craft project. I try not to think of what needs to be done or the what ifs, if they're not done and just concentrate on myself. Does part of myself feel guilty for this? Yes, but if I don't take care of myself, who will take care of my family? It all comes down to me being healthy and doing what needs to be done.
Now, if I could only figure out how to be in multiple places at one time during all of the sports and other activities the kids are involved in................ life would be "perfect"!
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Wednesday, March 30, 2011
Wednesday, March 23, 2011
The Worries in Life
My daughter seems to have what is called separation anxiety. She has had this for awhile, but recently it has been so bad, I have been taking her to a counselor. It was working fairly well, but with all of the medical procedures and doctor appointments I have been having, it is getting worse again. She had a pretty bad anxiety attack a couple of weeks ago and it even scared me! The worst part of all of this is knowing that while I can help her a little bit with this, she actually needs to do most of the work herself. And at being 8 (9 on this coming Sunday), she gets confused at some of the techniques she is supposed to use. I can't say that I blame her, I have a difficult time with my own anxieties. I can also say that telling her that everyone has worries isn't much help either.
We already had her think up a bunch of what if thoughts, which seems to be her biggest thing, and we put them in a zip lock bag on the top shelf of her closet. This way those thoughts are locked away and they can't escape. She has her affirmations, or good thoughts, written on paper and these she has put in her happy box. Her happy box also contains things that, well, make her happy. A smooth blue stone, pictures of her grandma and her cat and a couple other items. She needs to work on her slow, deep breathing, as this is supposed to help calm her down and she also needs to work on recognizing when she is going to start having an anxiety attack. I can barely tell when I'm starting to have one!
As a mom, this whole situation breaks my heart and makes me feel like I've done something wrong in my parenting. I have tried to be the best mom that I am able to, but did I miss something along the way?? I almost can't help but wonder what is going to happen when she gets into middle and high school. Will all of this get worse or will we have her coping skills managed by then? Is this going to happen with my boys? My oldest is very quiet and keeps many things to himself, so maybe he has had these thoughts and has just kept them away from me. My youngest is very vocal about many things, so I'm sure I would know if he started all of this, but can a mom ever be sure?
I think I will be continuing to talk to my children and try to find out as much as I can about their day and their lives, so I can keep trying to steer them in the right direction, in this place called life.
We already had her think up a bunch of what if thoughts, which seems to be her biggest thing, and we put them in a zip lock bag on the top shelf of her closet. This way those thoughts are locked away and they can't escape. She has her affirmations, or good thoughts, written on paper and these she has put in her happy box. Her happy box also contains things that, well, make her happy. A smooth blue stone, pictures of her grandma and her cat and a couple other items. She needs to work on her slow, deep breathing, as this is supposed to help calm her down and she also needs to work on recognizing when she is going to start having an anxiety attack. I can barely tell when I'm starting to have one!
As a mom, this whole situation breaks my heart and makes me feel like I've done something wrong in my parenting. I have tried to be the best mom that I am able to, but did I miss something along the way?? I almost can't help but wonder what is going to happen when she gets into middle and high school. Will all of this get worse or will we have her coping skills managed by then? Is this going to happen with my boys? My oldest is very quiet and keeps many things to himself, so maybe he has had these thoughts and has just kept them away from me. My youngest is very vocal about many things, so I'm sure I would know if he started all of this, but can a mom ever be sure?
I think I will be continuing to talk to my children and try to find out as much as I can about their day and their lives, so I can keep trying to steer them in the right direction, in this place called life.
Monday, March 14, 2011
The Day After......................
It's the Monday after daylight savings time and what a day it's been! My oldest decided he thought he was going to be sick minutes before he was to get on the bus, so being the mom that I am, I let him stay home. Come to find out, he has a health fair this week and had to have a presentation prepared to speak in front of other students. Could this be the issue behind the tummy trouble??? He also needed a poster for this presentation, that he never told me about, so being the "mom" that I am, he is working on it now, with the bucket next to him (just in case it really is tummy trouble).
My daughter has been going through anxiety issues, so I had to try to keep her calm all morning, which was no easy task. One of these days, I would like a very easy morning (waking up to something other than "mommy, so and so is doing _____________!", maybe some breakfast in bed (or at least breakfast), and no chaos when I'm trying to make sure I've signed everything homework wise for the kids. Ok, now thatI'm done dreaming, back to reality!
My game plan for the week is to try to get some baking done, since I have a few things in my fridge that are going to be expiring soon. I also would like to get started on my spring cleaning. Before I do that, however, I would like to go through a lot of the stuff in the house and pull out things that we are not using anymore and either giving them to friends, selling them on craigslist or donating them to people who are less fortunate than us. I am trying to teach my children that not everyone has as much as we do, and that they should consider that we are very lucky. I am also trying to teach them that as long as we have each other, a roof over our heads and food on the table, we should feel very blessed. It's an ongoing lesson, even with myself at times!
Of course, we will have the usual things that need to be done this week as well, but I feel very refreshed, because we really didn't have any plans this weekend. We did run a couple of errands Saturday night and then went to dinner at Denny's. It was nice to not have to cook and especially nice to not have to clean up everything after! Not a bad deal, either, since we had a 20% off our entire purchase coupon and I had a $25 gift card. Our total before tip was only 78 cents! My kind of deal. I'll have to try to do that more often.
I also have to start planning my shopping trips for this week. A couple of stores have some good deals and some are so-so. If I get to them all, great, if not, I'm sure we can survive with what we have. It's time to clean out the coupon binder again as well. Have to make sure I use the coupons that will expire at the end of the month, if I find a great deal to pair them with. Nothing is worse than finding a coupon a couple of days after the expiration date and knowing you could have used it and gotten a good deal on it.
My daughter has been going through anxiety issues, so I had to try to keep her calm all morning, which was no easy task. One of these days, I would like a very easy morning (waking up to something other than "mommy, so and so is doing _____________!", maybe some breakfast in bed (or at least breakfast), and no chaos when I'm trying to make sure I've signed everything homework wise for the kids. Ok, now thatI'm done dreaming, back to reality!
My game plan for the week is to try to get some baking done, since I have a few things in my fridge that are going to be expiring soon. I also would like to get started on my spring cleaning. Before I do that, however, I would like to go through a lot of the stuff in the house and pull out things that we are not using anymore and either giving them to friends, selling them on craigslist or donating them to people who are less fortunate than us. I am trying to teach my children that not everyone has as much as we do, and that they should consider that we are very lucky. I am also trying to teach them that as long as we have each other, a roof over our heads and food on the table, we should feel very blessed. It's an ongoing lesson, even with myself at times!
Of course, we will have the usual things that need to be done this week as well, but I feel very refreshed, because we really didn't have any plans this weekend. We did run a couple of errands Saturday night and then went to dinner at Denny's. It was nice to not have to cook and especially nice to not have to clean up everything after! Not a bad deal, either, since we had a 20% off our entire purchase coupon and I had a $25 gift card. Our total before tip was only 78 cents! My kind of deal. I'll have to try to do that more often.
I also have to start planning my shopping trips for this week. A couple of stores have some good deals and some are so-so. If I get to them all, great, if not, I'm sure we can survive with what we have. It's time to clean out the coupon binder again as well. Have to make sure I use the coupons that will expire at the end of the month, if I find a great deal to pair them with. Nothing is worse than finding a coupon a couple of days after the expiration date and knowing you could have used it and gotten a good deal on it.
Monday, March 7, 2011
Book Review
I am reviewing a book that I received from http://www.booksneeze.com/. They sent me a complimentary copy of Seek Me With All Your Heart by Beth Wiseman. I would like to remind everyone that the review I am posting is one with my own opinions, with no input from the website that I received the book from.
This book was an easy read with wonderful characters and a wonderful setting. I loved that it incorporated true Pennsylvania Dutch language (there is a glossary in the front of the book) which the Amish use. Being part Pennsylvania Dutch, it was nice to learn some of this language myself.
This story is about two families who moved from their original Amish communities, because of complications in their lives. The new community they moved into is much smaller than their old ones and they have to learn how to grow food on their new land. They also have to move into houses that weren't as nice as their old ones. These new ones required a lot of renovations and those renovations didn't even require electricity.
They learned how make new friends and find their way with new ways of thinking. Their families combined together during worship and in times of need and together they learned how to renew their faith in their community.
This was a great book with a lot of information regarding how the Amish live. You don't have to know a lot about Amish people to enjoy this book. This book will give you the guidelines you need to understand that people of different faiths can still be friends and help one another. Definitely on my recommend list.
This book was an easy read with wonderful characters and a wonderful setting. I loved that it incorporated true Pennsylvania Dutch language (there is a glossary in the front of the book) which the Amish use. Being part Pennsylvania Dutch, it was nice to learn some of this language myself.
This story is about two families who moved from their original Amish communities, because of complications in their lives. The new community they moved into is much smaller than their old ones and they have to learn how to grow food on their new land. They also have to move into houses that weren't as nice as their old ones. These new ones required a lot of renovations and those renovations didn't even require electricity.
They learned how make new friends and find their way with new ways of thinking. Their families combined together during worship and in times of need and together they learned how to renew their faith in their community.
This was a great book with a lot of information regarding how the Amish live. You don't have to know a lot about Amish people to enjoy this book. This book will give you the guidelines you need to understand that people of different faiths can still be friends and help one another. Definitely on my recommend list.
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