This is a guest post written by Hugh DeBurgh of The Passionate Warrior

Dear Friend,

Did you ever notice, while driving to work or just out and about, those fancy RVs (recreational vehicles) go by, with bikes hanging off the back and stuff all over the roof, and wonder what it would be like to be the guy or gal driving that thing?

Did you ever wonder where they might be going, or where you would go if that really was you?

Do you imagine that the folks inside are on a long-awaited vacation? Kids laughing and singing while they drive to the beach, the mountains, or a resort somewhere?

Do you wonder how you could ever afford such a junket? How you can ever get ahead when it seems that you are running in place, with earthquake set-backs every so often for good measure?

Are you getting tired of this life of yours?

I’d like to give you a sneak peek inside a world you may know little about. Or perhaps you’ve heard someone mention it and wondered what it was?

First, I want you to form a picture in your mind. The central character is you. Around you are those people that you most love being around. And the activity that you are engaging in is that which you love the most.

I want you to imagine that you do not have money worries. That your family is safe and you are a model parent.

No. This is not a 1950’s TV show. Those shows crafted an image of what was supposed to be your ideal life. A standard set by the culture, which you were expected to conform to.

No, I’m talking about you living the way you really want to. We’re talking about a lifestyle carefully crafted around the things you love most.

Love your work? Great! Hate your job? Great! Love spending time with your family? Great! Crave sitting in a hot tub with gorgeous gals or guys all over you? Great!

Why am I doing this? Am I trying to depress you by reminding you of everything that you don’t have in your life?

No I am not. Instead, I am daring you to dream again. Honestly. I am encouraging you to seriously consider, perhaps for the first time in your life, the possibilities that your life could hold for you if only you knew how to achieve them.

And then I am going to tell you exactly how you can achieve them.

No, I am not selling anything! There is no catch. And yet what you will do to achieve your dreams will not be free or a walk-in-the-park.

But it is achievable. And it is much easier than you imagine.

The reasons that most people fail to pursue their dreams are typically one or more of the following:

1) They get overwhelmed with the everyday
2) They imagine that their dreams are not realistically achievable
3) They follow the crowd, and the crowd is not living its dreams
4) They think that their dream life will require tons of money
5) Peer pressure keeps them on their current life path
6) They think that guys like me are living in a fantasy of our own – that none of this can possibly be true – at least not for regular people – unless they win the lottery or something.

Do any of the above reasons sound familiar to you?

If you would prefer a change in your life, but you are not currently pursuing that change, ask yourself “Why?”

Why don’t you do something? Are you afraid of failing? Of succeeding? Of disapproval of your true desires by those closest to you? Are you embarrassed by your dreams? Do you think maybe you don’t deserve such a life? Do you hardly have time to read this article, much less do anything else right now?

I am going to challenge you to convince me that you simply cannot pursue your genuine dreams right now.

I want you to write down, on a piece of paper or whatever, all of the reasons why you simply cannot live the life that you truly deserve, starting today.

I’ll just wait here while you do that………

Hmmm hmm hmm…….

Done yet?

Good. Let’s take a look at that.

Oh, I see..Reads a lot like that list I just read to you above, doesn’t it? And I see that you weren’t joking. Some of you have serious responsibilities right now. Stuff that you just cannot blow off, no matter how much you might like to.

One of you is caring for a sick loved one. Yeah, that’s a toughie. What else do we have here? Hmmm. And I see that another one of you is working hard for a promotion. You’ve spent years getting to this point, so you just can’t drop out now. You’d be throwing out all of that effort that got you to this point. You are just about to cash in on your efforts.
And one of you owns a business? Or perhaps it owns you?

Ok, A lot of pretty good excuses (I mean reasons) as to why you just cannot pursue your dreams right now. A few really are difficult to deal with. But most of them are well within your control. If you choose to take control, that is.

Fine, why don’t those of you with the best reasons just stop reading now. You won’t need to hear any more. You have my sincere sympathies. I wish you the best.

If you are still with me, I appreciate what you just did. You see, you just did something that most of us rarely do. You put yourself first.

Our culture teaches us that to put yourself first is selfish. And selfishness is a bad thing. Sharing is good. And serving others.

We are told that you should derive your highest satisfaction from waiting on those around you.

But you don’t really believe that, do you? Have you ever believed that? Have you ever really derived any true pleasure from serving people? I’m not talking about volunteering at the local soup kitchen – anyone would derive satisfaction from helping out people who really need our help.

I’m talking about waiting on those people around you – family, friends, lazy bosses and co-workers, and various hangers-on.

Any of us who work hard are likely carrying an armload of others with us.

Is that fun for you? But you have no choice, right? You have a duty to these people, right? Well, at least to some of them? And the rest you tolerate because your spouse or other high influence individual won’t let you kick them out?

How much of your efforts, do you estimate, are really to cover the extra expense and burdens of these hangers on?

OK, and how about taxes. If you work hard you probably pay a lot of these too. But they are necessary, right? I mean, we hear everyday about the huge bonuses that the top executives at defense contractors are getting, right? And all of those hard working people down at the DMV need to be paid, too. And then there is the monumental waste. But taxes are the same everywhere, aren’t they?

And who knows who else is relying on you to keep on driving to work, and forget about those crazy ideas.

It was all just a momentary daydream, anyway, wasn’t it?

But let’s stick with this and see where it might go. Just for fun.

How much effort would you need to expend merely to support you and those you care about most, at minimum?

Do you know this number?

Minus all of the hangers-on and involuntary expenses that I just mentioned? Now factor out all of the stuff you buy to keep up with the latest things, or just to entertain yourself at the mall. Did you really need that 3-way automatic wizbang device in your home shop, guys? Ladies, did you really need that thirtieth pair of shoes?

And then there is health care. If you’ve been sick lately, you know how unbelievably expensive medical care is today in the US. You need to work just to pay for health insurance.

What else is there? House payment, car payments, fuel, parking fees and tolls. Food for the hungry munchkins in your home, and of course, you.

What you are doing now is a quick lifestyle audit.

You are thinking about why you need to work. And work takes up most of the time of those of us who are employed.

Time is the one resource that you cannot duplicate. Your only have so much of it. And the time you spend doing whatever you do every day defines your life.

You are also considering your life’s priorities. By breaking down the cost of things by the importance that they have in your life, you are discovering what you may be able to abandon some day, and what really matters to you.

How much do you really need to work to support just those things that you voluntarily choose to support?

And what about the not-so-obvious expenses that you may not really need to carry?

For example, where does the vast majority of your money go?

Do you really need that huge house? All of those cars? How much of your auto expense is related to commuting to work? Or running the kids around to incessant activities? Do they really need to be involved in all of that stuff? Do they really want to? Could you achieve the same thing by just letting them have some sleep-overs with their friends? What will that cost you? A couple of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and a bowl of cereal in the morning?

Now you can determine your true cost of living.

OK, Great. Now hold that number.

Add to that the costs associated with a moderate involvement with those newly prioritized activities that you truly love. This is about you putting what you love first. And what about your family? They have loves too! And with all of this newly freed up capital, they can afford to live it up, too.

Now, how much do you really need to have each month to live a life with your loved ones truly crafted by you? A life built directly around what matters to you most?

Not really that bad, is it? And you haven’t really sacrificed anything important to you. Just a lot of fluff and stuff you didn’t want or need anyway.

So, how do you get from where you are to this “dream life?”

One careful step at a time, my friend.

Some of these steps will be easy. Others can be quite complicated. But every single one of them can be achieved by you.

How much energy do you think that you should put into an effort like this? Well, how important to you is your quality of life? How badly do you want to be happy?

You get the idea.

I call this process of re-crafting your life to fit your dreams “Creative Family Lifestyle Design,” and these days I spend most of my time writing about it.

When I discovered this concept, after much difficulty and trail and error, I realized for the first time how huge it was. And how much people like you and me need to know about it.

That’s why I’m writing this article.

I hope that by reading this piece I have stirred up in you a realization of what your life could be like if you woke up one day and decided to really live it.

Might today be that day? I hope so!

All the best,

Hugh

Hugh DeBurgh, The Passionate Warrior, has dedicated his life to the achievement of the ultimate family lifestyle. You can find him writing about Creative Family Lifestyle Design over at his blog, The Way of the Passionate Warrior. Currently he is on the second leg of a worldwide travel adventure with his wife and four young children. Follow Hugh on Twitter or sign up for his RSS feed and don’t miss an update!

Post written by Sherri Kruger. Follow me on Twitter.

Let’s face it when you’re trying to play with an infant or toddler it never really goes according to plan, at least that’s been my experience.

I look at some articles and photos of young kids playing and engaging in some pretty neat and innovative activities. They way the articles make it sound is some of these activities will keep kids busy and quiet for hours. Yeah right. Here are a few of my experiences to date.

Painting with water. I went to the dollar store and bought a couple of bowls and paint brushes so the boys could spend the day outside painting the deck or the fence and just doing something that’s different to anything they’ve ever done before.

Expectation: The boys and I would head outside and spend a few minutes (stretch to an hour maybe) painting the fences. Starting over at the beginning when the fence dried.

Reality: The boys and I headed outside they thought the water in the bowls was cool. They watched me show them how to paint and then gave it a try themselves. Once. They then dumped the water and proceeded to suck on the paint brushes. All up this little activity lasted about 2 minutes and that include sucking on the paint brushes.

Drawing with washable markers. I tried starting with crayons but it would seem Labrador retrievers love Crayons. Yeah. So I moved to washable markers. I thought it would be nice for the boys to get creative, doodle and work on their shapes.

Expectation: The boys and I would sit down and draw shapes, faces, animals and practice our colors at the same time.

Reality: The kids hoarded the markers, removed all the lids, chewed them until they couldn’t go back on the markers but not before trying and getting marker all over their clothes, legs and arms. I’m still not sure if they actually got any on the paper.

Play dough. This is a fun one. The kids are meant to roll and pound and make all sorts of interesting animals and shapes. When I was a kid I remember playing with play dough for hours (although my mom may remember it differently).

Expectation: Divvy up the play dough and let the kids play to their hearts’ content.

Reality: On one occasion the  play dough was packed up just as quickly as I had brought it out and I was told, rather enthusiastically, “DONE!” Another time they started out playing fine and it was going really well for about 5 minutes. It then quickly deteriorated to throwing play dough at each other and stealing it from one another.  Once that was resolved, enter the Labrador retriever for round two.  The boys decided that eating the play dough themselves wasn’t much fun so they recruited the dog!

Now you may think “why would you let your kids eat play dough or feed it to the dog?” Well I can assure you that none of it was by choice. Kids are quick (all parents know that) and the only thing quicker than a kid is a Labrador retriever around anything remotely edible.

Fun activities that I have found to keep their interest (mine are 1 1/2 and 3 years) are anything to do with water and the sandbox. Fill a little pool with a couple of inches of water and add a bunch of cups, buckets and toys my little ones are literally in there for hours. They also love playing with their trucks, shovels and buckets in the sandbox.  Filling the trucks and dumping them out again. Good fun!

So next time you try to get your kids involved and engaged in play and expect them to be enthralled for more than 2 minutes remember it doesn’t always go according to plan. Adjust your expectations, go with the flow and let them make up their own fun.

What’s been your experience in playing with infants or toddlers? Does it sound anything like mine?

Post written by Sherri Kruger. Follow me on Twitter.

There was an interesting theme amongst the responses to the quick survey I did a couple of weeks ago – (thank you to everyone who took the time to complete the survey and if you would still like to have a say it’s not too late, you can still find it here).

There were a lot of people who felt they were struggling with organization, time management, and just generally keeping it all together.

Reading these responses I could feel the anxiety, stress and, to a certain extent, despair coming from a lot of you. One thing is for certain.

None of you are alone.

When I was younger I started out trying to uphold an image. This image was one of perfection, intelligence, and in general just having everything together … all the time. Some people who know me well may be thinking “Really? well you didn’t do a very good job”. Others that didn’t know me as well may have thought differently.

Truth is, it’s exhausting! It’s exhausting to pretend to be something you’re not and living to an imaginary standard that you think “everyone else” is holding you to is crazy.

No one that matters will think any less of you if you forget things occasionally, have a pile of unfolded laundry in the corner or a bunch of kids toys strewn about your living room.

No one that matters really and truly cares if you have a fancy car, big house, fancy clothes or make a gazillion dollars a year.

No one that matters will think you’re not quite good enough.

Give some quality thought towards appreciating who you are and what you bring to the table in every aspect of what you do. Even if it’s something that a million other people can do, how do you do it differently, better or with more pizazz?

Give yourself permission to give yourself a break, even a little one. Who’s standards are you really trying to live up to? Who is it you’re trying to impress? When you’re saying yes to all of these things you “need” to be doing what or who are you saying no to?

I’m still sorting through the results of the survey but I will post a summary here and address some specific concerns when I’ve made a little more sense of the data. Thanks again everyone! You all rock!

Post written by Zen Family Habits contributor Mandi from Organizing Your Way.

Sherri recently shared 11 tips for making summer last through pictures. I think capturing the everyday and exciting moments on camera is an important goal and a gift to our children as they grow into adulthood and have the opportunity to share them with their kids.

But I don’t think just capturing them in a scrapbook or collage is enough.

When I was expecting our oldest daughter, I heard an experienced mother say that she does her best to soak in the everyday moments and memories — snuggling with a newborn baby, watching her children drift off to sleep, laughing hysterically together. She soaks them in by literally taking time to focus on each element of the moment. She draws and memorizes her kids faces in her mind, records the sounds of the moment in her memory and breathes deeply to remember the scents (which could be dangerous if you have a little one in diapers, but it does sound lovely). Rather than just letting her memories happen, she takes the time to really create the memories that are important to her.

What it really comes down to is being present in the moment.

Life is full of to-do lists, opportunities and challenges, and it’s so easy to get caught up in those and miss the important things. There’s nothing wrong with pursuing your passion or working hard, even if it means you have less time to just sit and play — in fact, many people would argue that it benefits our kids to see us passionate about something we’re doing — but when you are playing on the floor or reading a story or even just cooking dinner together, it’s important to be fully present.

So many times when I find myself frustrated at my girls’ childishness, it’s simply because I’m living inside my head and not focused on them. And I wonder how many moments I never fully experience because I’m living there?

Here are five strategies that I’m trying to incorporate into my own life to be fully present in the everyday moments:

1. Do a brain dump.
Sometimes we have a hard time living in the moment because we’re trying to remember a dozen different bits and pieces of information, and we’re afraid that if we stop thinking about them, we’ll forget something important. Take a few moments each day to do a brain dump, and write down everything that’s in your head. As you think of other things and tasks, write those down right away as well.Your brain dump doesn’t need to be neat or organized; it’s just a place to write down those thoughts so that you can refer back to them later to create your to-do list or schedule.

2. Get outside of your normal environment.
Although I think it’s important to learn to focus on our families even when there are other things vying for our attention, sometimes it’s best just to get away from all of the to-do lists and chores. Our family often goes outside to sit on our front porch after dinner because it’s so much easier for me to just enjoy being with them when I can’t see all of the clutter and chores that I “need” to do.

3. Look your children and spouse in the eyes when they talk.
“Mm hmm. Uh huh. Oh wait…what?” I’m embarrassed to admit that this happens to me more often than I should when I’m caught up in whatever it is I’m doing and only pretending to listen to my girls. Even as young preschoolers, they know when I’m actively listening and when I’m really focused on something else, and trying to pretend I’m available and present when I’m not isn’t fair to them. The most effective way for me to avoid this trap is to stop what I’m doing and look them in the eyes when they talk to me so that they have my full attention. It’s hard to be distracted while looking into someone’s eyes (try it!), and it lets them know that I’m really listening.

4. Burn candles and incense or use essential oils.
We’ve all experienced the rush of memories that goes along with certain aromas and how clearly we remember and feel the moment and its associated emotions just by smelling a certain scent. Just as some people recommend using aromas while children study to help them recall the information later on, we can use aromas to seal moments in our memories.

Look for several different scents that you love and burn each one at a different time. Use a vibrant, energizing scent for the crazy, fun, chaotic play times at your house (ours are usually after dinner, when my husband is running around and roughhousing with the girls). Use a peaceful scent when you’re cuddling on the couch reading together or doing a quiet activity like arts and crafts. Use lavender or other sleepy scents during your bedtime routine, and so on. Later, these scents will help bring back the memories of everyday moments long gone.

5. Schedule time together.
If you’re a task-oriented person, turning off the to-do list and get-’er-done attitude may be easier said than done. As counter-intuitive as this may sound, add focused family time to your to-do list and/or schedule because it will be easier for you to set aside that time and give it your all once it’s actually on “the list.”

We all know that kids grow up in the blink of an eye, so make sure you’re taking the time to soak up the little moments and store away memories that will last a lifetime!

What memories do you want to treasure for decades to come?

Read more about productivity, organizing and home management from Mandi at Organizing Your Way, or follow her on Twitter.

Post written by Sherri Kruger. Follow me on Twitter.

When you plan a party, plan to go camping, plan to move, or want to create a budget, do you create a checklist?

If you answered yes, then you’re a list lover just like me!

I am proud and super excited to introduce you to my newest online project. It’s been several months in the making and while it’ll be a continuous labor of love, today is the day I release it into the wild. I hope it will help you all be just a little more awesome than you already are!

Let me introduce you to Listbean!


Listbean? What the heck is that?
Listbean is a site that is completely free and packed with value adding pre-populated checklists.

Now, before you roll your eyes and say “oh great another checklist site” let me share with you how Listbean is different and how it will be *the* checklist source online.
The Benefits:

1. Checklists are great but it’s sometimes tough to know where to start. Well, we’ve done the hard part of pulling the lists together. You can use the lists as is or as inspiration to create your own personalized checklists.
2. It’s annoying to have to rewrite checklists you use frequently. With Listbean you don’t have to do that. When you create an account, you can customize any of the lists you see on the site, save them and come back time and time again. Awesome.
3. Be more efficient, effective and deliberate in everything you do. With checklists addressing a lot of what you need right at your finger tips you can just get on with what needs to get done. A little work up front can save you several minutes several times a month or year.
4. Don’t find what you’re looking for? Create your own. There are two ways to create your lists from scratch and have them appear on Listbean. 1) Submit a suggestion via the Feedback form using the Feedback tab at the top left of each page. 2) Add it yourself. Once you’ve customized a list on Listbean you are given the option to add your own list from scratch to save in your lists. Easy right?
5. Listbean has a very simple design. It was custom designed to be simple, sleek and easy to use. Give it a try and if you have any suggestions or feedback please submit it using the feedback form via the feedback tab at the top left of each page.

That’s it really, it’s pretty simple and straight forward. It includes a number of checklists on topics such as:

• Home and organizing
• Shopping and meal planning
• Budgets and finance
• Kids and family
• Vacations
• Celebrations
• House maintenance
• and many more!

I invite you all to check out Listbean and give it a try. If you like it, I’d love for you to spread the word online or even email the link to a couple of list lovers you know in ‘real life’ :)

I sincerely hope you enjoy it and that it becomes a valuable resource for you.

Post written by Sherri Kruger. Follow me on Twitter.

Advice on what you should do is plentiful.

There are as many ways to live a life as there are people on the planet.

How you live your life is up to you.

What you do today is up to you.

You can choose to do things other think you should do or you can do things you think you should do.

Don’t like eating in the lunch room? Take it outside, go for a walk or eat at your desk.

Don’t feel like entertaining 45 kids at your daughters birthday party? Invite 5 instead or take a family road trip.

Getting married but don’t want a traditional ceremony? Then don’t. Head off to Hawaii or Mexico or Australia and get married on the beach or have a small gathering in your parent’s backyard.

Did you just get married and now want to travel the world instead of “settling down”? Go for it.

Thing is there are no rules to how you live your life. You choose each and everyday to do what you do. You choose to be mean, impatient, angry, hurtful or to hold a grudge in the same way as you choose to be happy, grateful, thoughtful, patient and kind.

Be clear on what you want. This will take some time to sort though and that’s okay.

Realize that you will encounter resistance. People are typically afraid of what they don’t know, what they don’t understand or what lies outside of their comfort zone.

Go for it. Being true to yourself, your morals, your priorities and your values is really the easiest way to live. There are no games and life is just a lot less complicated.

Live according to you.

For more on how to live a life you love check out my book: Your Life | Live it. Love it.

Editor’s note: This is a guest post from Sandrine of the Paris Ankara Express blog.

Put it this way: if the Buddha were to visit our home, he wouldn’t exactly be impressed by our Zen like attitude to worldly possessions. Matter of fact, he might think he accidentally teleported to the Covered Bazaar in Istanbul. That or a library. But we still think we know a thing or two about minimalism when it comes to children’s toys.

I can pretty much list what our kids have. We store most their toys in medium sized boxes. There’s a box of small cars, one for the tea set, one for Lego and one for doll house type toys. There’s a big box with the bigger cars and a couple of electronic toys. Then there’s the doll house we made for our son, a tin full of refillable bubble mixture pots, a box of wooden bricks, a couple of wheelie toys, a fold up play tent, a plastic garage, a Teletubbies house and a few musical instruments (mostly percussions). Add to that some cuddly toys on their beds, a cupboard full of board games and jigsaw puzzles and that’s it.

So it may sound like a lot, but I challenge any moderately affluent parent to list all of their children’s toys in one hundred words! Most people will have a room full of toys representing each year’s latest craze as advertised on tv. And I don’t mean extravagant people either. It just seems that for most families, it’s increasingly hard to keep a lid on how many toys the children end up with. There’s grandparents, for one thing. And birthday parties. And all the adverts on tv for new, more exciting toys. There’s the marketing that goes with every new film – you need to see the film, and you need to buy the toy that goes with it. And mostly, there’s the fact that kids tend to get bored with their toys and forget what they were good for in the first place. To be able to play, they need new ones.

How can parents deal with that? Well, for us, it’s easy to put limits to what grandparents bring: we live in another country from them and the postal service isn’t that reliable or cheap. So they have to be fairly selective in their present buying. As far as parties are concerned, we tend to celebrate our kids’ birthdays at the same time, mostly with local people who know what they’ve got, what they like and what they don’t like. So no huge plastic, vastly inappropriate toys usually find their ways to our house. (And if they do, they find their way out again very quickly!) But you can find excuses to tell parents not to buy something: say someone else has already bought it! And if you can get your kids on your side, all the better. Be a team – get them to work with you and to value quality over quantity.

We have had barbie dolls, inevitably, as friends gave them to our daughter. She was never that much into them (not even to cut their hair!) and ended up giving them out as a Christmas charity gift. That is something most kids like to do – sharing their surplus with less fortunate children. So you feel that a surplus of toys is on its way, why not start talking to your children about how they can help others? Children love to share – give them a chance.

Mostly what made a difference to how we related to toys as a family is that when we first arrived in Turkey with a 15 month old child, we had very few toys. And there weren’t many on sale at our local store. So we took great care of what we had, made sure we taught our daughter to make the most of it. We still had most of the toys we came with (except the baby toys which we gave away once our son had outgrown them). We still have the bricks, the percussions, the tea set. We have toys we were given when our children were very young, including our son’s teletubbies house set, with no piece missing. If you look after their toys, and encourage them to do the same, chances are they’ll treasure them.

Actually, we did lose Tinky-Winky a few weeks ago. We thought it would be the end of the world but it turned out a paper cut Tinky-Winky, roughly coloured with a purple pencil, and hence easily replaced, was perfectly acceptable. Which brings me to the next point. Our children love their toys, but they much prefer pencils, papers, glue and scissors. They both spend hours in imaginative and creative, and mostly silent play at our living room table, with just a few bits of papers and two pots of pencils. In fact, it’s so much part of who they are, that we never go anywhere without a small pouch containing drawing necessities. I can see it poking out of my bag now. And it’s not just our kids that like this. Very often we find ourselves sharing out the paper and pens with children we’ve never met before, at restaurants, the airport, anywhere where kids get bored and are likely to misbehave. So invest in plenty of scrap paper and coloured pencils, and have some ready at all times.

So I don’t want to give the impression that our kids are happy with a cardboard box and bit of string and that I could throw away all their toys if I wanted to, or that they spend their time in quiet, creative, imaginative play with hand crafted wooden organic toys from a Swedish village. I don’t think I’d want them to be like that. But they do seem to manage with a lot less toys than children their age they know in France or the UK.

Sometimes it doesn’t work: I often promise my son small gifts if he gets a number of sticker on his chart, something which the special educators at the autism centre encourage. A lot of the time he’ll ask for bubble mixture or pencils. One day I stupidly suggested he choose a little car in the toy section of the supermarket. So off we went to look at them. He picked a lime green one. As big as him. I think to this day he hasn’t forgiven me for saying no.

Sandrine who lives in Turkey, writes together with her sisters, who live in Paris at the Paris Ankara Express blog. Sandrine writes about her family’s life in Turkey, raising trilingual children, working, and travelling.

Post written by Sherri Kruger. Follow me on Twitter.

We’re not perfect, as parents or as people.

If we were I would suspect life would be rather boring. We all make mistakes all of which are valuable lessons to be learned.

We may not be the model parent, sibling, spouse, or friend but it’s not too late to start over. Today is a new day. Make the choice to make today better than the ones before.

Let go, forgive yourself, apologize if you need to, refocus and move on.

What can you do to start over today?

• Call a friend just to catch up.
• Hug your child and tell them you love them.
• Surprise your spouse at work with a cup of coffee or a picnic lunch.
• Get on the floor and play with your kids.
• Make up a new game with your kids or take them to the park.
• Snuggle on the couch after dinner and hold your spouses hand.
• Go for a walk outside and strike up a conversation with a neighbor.
• Apologize to someone you’ve wronged and make amends.
• Make plans to celebrate a birthday.
• Invite the whole family over for a kick off to summer BBQ in your backyard.
• Tackle one thing on your to-do list and then tomorrow tackle two.
• Read a story to your kids and sing to them when you tuck them in at night.

There are many simple things you can do to realign yourself with who you want to be, and indeed know you can be.  If you feel you’ve gone off course lately don’t panic and don’t think you can never recover because you can.

It doesn’t take much to get back on track and the people in your life (yourself included) will be thankful for your initiative.

Post written by Sherri Kruger. Follow me on Twitter.

The joys of parenthood: the cuddles, the coos and the I love you’s. Watching your little one grow and learn and meet significant milestones like walking, talking, running, reading, singing and dancing.

Kids are fun and parenting is so rewarding there’s no doubt about it.

But I’m sure you’ve heard all of this before.

I know before I had kids this is what I thought everyday was going to be filled with. Of course I thought there would be the occasional temper tantrum but surely that would quickly pass and we would be back to coloring and playing with cars. Well … not quite.

Here are a few things I’ve run into that no one told me about before I had my kids. To those of you who have kids – I hope I’m not alone and to those of you with no kids just yet – you’re welcome.  :)

1. The poop factor. People tell you about it and you know it’s coming but you have no real appreciation for the sheer quantity or frequency with which these little machines can manufacture the stuff. It’s amazing. There were times with our little ones when we just put on a fresh diaper; we left the room only to have the smell “follow” us out. Turns out it’s not the smell that was following us … we were carrying the smell. When you find yourself saying: “No! It can’t be. I just changed him.” rest assured it can be.

2. There is no such thing as being cool. No matter how cool you think you are or how cool you were in high school, when you become a parent that all goes out the window. You will find you will do anything to make your crying baby stop when you’re in line at the grocery store. You’ll sing ABC’s, twinkle-twinkle little star, or old MacDonald in front of a crowd of strangers. You’ll snort like a pig, give raspberries, and speak in a really strange voice. Sometimes it’s fun and you can really get into it, other times it’s just downright embarrassing.

3. You will wonder if you’re a short order cook. In the first few years of parenthood so much of your time is spent in the kitchen it’s ridiculous. There’s cleaning bottles, sippy-cups, spoons, bowls, plates, and bibs. There’s preparing breakfast, midmorning snacks, lunch, mid-afternoon snacks, dinner, and bedtime snacks. Top all of this off with cleaning everything as you go throughout your day,and your kitchen can feel like home base for the first few years.

4. Sleep is for wussies. For every poop story you encounter there will likely be one warning you of the scarcity of sleep. I remember the first night our first son was here, that was a wakeup call. He was finally quiet for a 2 hour period and my husband and I both woke up, looked at each other and commented on how great it felt to get 2 hours of solid sleep. It was that night that we really got what it meant to be sleep deprived.

5. Oh more unsolicited advice please! It seems as soon as you know you’re going to be a parent everyone is a parenting expert. From what to eat to avoid morning sickness, to the amount of exercise you should be doing. From what the only type of diapers to use are to when babies should nap and how long they should be held. Oh yes the advice is plentiful.

6. You will wonder why you ever wanted them to learn to speak. I’m just coming upon this one now. I used to say oh it’ll be so nice when they learn to speak and they can actually tell us what they want. Yeah that part of it is nice. Having the same word barked at you 40 times in a row … now I finally understand a little plaque my mom had hanging in her kitchen that said: “Raising kids is like being pecked to death by chicks”.

7.  You will experience frustration like never before. I had an idea in my head of the kind of parent I would be: laid back, kind, gentle, never raise my voice and perhaps even change my middle name to patience. Riiiight. Try unpacking a dishwasher of clean dishes only to have one child with peanut butter fingers grabbing at every dish as it is removed while the other one is shoving random toys down the heat vent. “Can’t I just finish one thing?” I found myself asking. Nope and likely not for several years.

8. You would do it all over again if given the option. Despite all the stuff nobody tells you about parenthood, when you come to discover all these things for yourself you would do it all over again if you were given the option. With respect to all the points I mentioned above here’s what I’ve learned.

Poop: The poop factor loses its initial effect and becomes but a minor inconvenience. What once made you gag is now suddenly not that bad.

On being cool: It’s not that you’re not cool anymore it’s that the definition has changed. In my opinion there is nothing cooler than a mom or dad who will do anything to see their kids smile or to make them laugh.

Living in the kitchen: It’s fun to be the one to introduce new foods, flavors and textures to your child’s diet. Take the opportunity to get creative have fun feeding your family new, exciting dishes.

Sleep: My thoughts on the sleep deprivation thing: it’s hard in the beginning, you eventually get used to sleeping in 2-3 hour bursts and if you’re lucky your little ones will “all of a sudden” just start sleeping through the night and you’ll wonder what all the fuss was ever about. Heed this warning – I urge you to cherish every bleary eyed mid-night diaper change and feed as they are but a tiny portion of this parenting journey but just so special. Just as the kids start sleeping through the night those dark, quiet cuddles come to an end. Soak it all in.

Unsolicited advice: While yes it can become quite annoying, remember people’s intentions are usually good. Most people really do want to help and believe it or not some people actually do know what they’re talking about.

On our kids learning to speak: It’s really quite amazing how one day the coos and flurries of random noises turn into actual words. It’s only when you’re bombarded by the same word 40 times in 60 seconds that you ask yourself: “Why did I ever wish for them to speak?” Cherish this time as well as they master the language. Take time to document some of what they say because kids do say the darnedest things and you will soon forget.

Frustration: You will get frustrated, lose your cool and perhaps even raise your voice. You’ll feel horrible, out of control and like the worst parent on the planet. In other words, you’ll be completely normal. Kids are kids there’s really no other way to describe it. All of what frustrates us about them is also what we envy the most: spontaneity, curiosity, fearlessness, and candor.

Having kids is my biggest and best accomplishment yet. It is all the wonderful things everyone has to say about it and so much more. If I had my life to live over I would choose to do everything exactly the same because it’s all brought me to where I am now. Is it always a barrel of laughs? No, not in the least.  But all the frustration, sleep deprivation,  unsolicited advice from strangers, hours spent in the kitchen, and being up to my elbows in poop is more than made up for by every smile, high-five, giggle, spontaneous dance move, and hug I ever get.

I am very excited to be able to share with you my first e-book,Your Life | Live it. Love it. It’s inspired by the work I do at my other blog, my baby, Serene Journey and is a collection of the best articles on living and loving your life with a focus on you, your relationships and enjoying the little, simple things in life.

The book is 69 pages, and organized into three sections which are designed to logically move you through bettering yourself, the way you relate with those closest to you and finally to inspire you to enjoy the little things in life. All of us could use a little inspiration in one, if not all, of these areas, I’m sure you’d agree.

The book is 19.95 and you can get your copy here: Your Life | Live it. Love it.

This book can be used as a reference anytime you feel you are struggling, having a bad day or are simply in need of a little motivation. You can also choose to focus intently on any one of these sections using the ideas and tips within to inspire you to keep going and live your best life yet!

This book contains hundreds of tips and ideas for bettering yourself, building, strengthening or tweaking relationships good, bad or otherwise all so you can enjoy the life you live even more.

From the table of contents:

Focus on you

• Grab the Reins and Enjoy Your Life
• How to Be the Person You Want to Be
• How to Become a Catalyst for Change
• Your Past is Not Who You Are
• Do You React or Respond?
• Tips on Dealing with Anger
• How to manage your stress

Focus on your relationships

• It’s all in how you Say It
• Is Keeping Score Making You Unhappy?
• Stand Your Ground but Only on the Important Stuff
• Form Meaningful Relationships
• How to Reconcile With Family or Friends
• When Reconciliation Just Isn’t in the Cards
• 10 Ways to Add a Spark to Your Relationship Today

Enjoy the little things

• Tips to Enjoy Life
• The Grass is Always Greener Right under Your Feet
• Do Something Nice to Restore Faith in Humanity
• Gratitude Journal: 30 Days to Happiness
• 10 Ways to Feel Better in 60 Seconds or Less
• Secrets of the Perpetually Unhappy
• Create Experiences: Gifts That Last a Lifetime

I’m sure you will enjoy this book. If for any reason you are not completely satisfied please just send me an email and I will refund your money in full.

Be sure to check out the page I’ve created specifically for Your Life | Live it. Love it. Not only will you get more information about the book but you’ll get to see what other people are saying about it too.

As always I’m interested in what each of you have to say and I sincerely look forward to hearing your feedback.
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My fellow bloggers: If you’d like to sell Your Life | Live it. Love it. on your site, please head over to the affiliate resources page to get all the information you’ll need to become an affiliate. Thank you.