An Experience

Riding Marta is an experience - ALWAYS - but I love it. and am thankful that Atlanta has this service available to us.


I had always used the tokens for marta. Now they have these ingenuous breeze cards that allow you to reload. Much easier to use than digging around for marta tokens.

Downtown was hopping! As usual. Tons of vendors selling things. Yummy smelling food out of street cars. and want to talk about BUSY!! The pace of life downtown is nothing compared to having a two year old and a 8 month old. Whew.





I had my interview for the Early Childhood Education Program at Georgia State University.

His Needs Her Needs For Parents keeping the Romance Alive : Harley, William F

Subjects :

• Marriage
• Parenting
• Child Rearing
• Love

I recommend this book to anyone who has kids. It gives great insight on relationships with kids. This book gets a two thumbs up from me.

1.And Then there were three :

Are children a threat to your marriage?

My advice to parents is simple, If you want to be good parents you need to care for each other first.

What is at stake?
Parents should do what ever it takes to love each other for their children's sake.

Prioritize Love
Children suffer when their parents divorce. and they thrive when mom and dad make their care for each other a top priority.

Give love Time
Your children learn from the way that you care or do not care for each other.

• Marriage

Part 1 Romantic Relationships 101
2 Whats Love Got to do with it?

Why Romance matters?

a romantic relationship consists of two people in love who meet each others emotional needs for intimacy.

What is love

• romantic love -is a feeling that couples can experience for life
  
• caring love

The Love bank
there's a love bank inside each of us that keeps an emotional record of how people treat us.

what goes up can also come down
when the feeling of love is lost you'll also lose the instinct to make each other feel happy.

Emotional needs
failure to meet each others emotional needs is no shortcut- its a path to disaster.

3 Just between you and me

Intimate emotional needs

Wired for romance
when it comes to marriage a romantic relationship is just about everything.

Intimate conversation
since intimate conversation can be intense and enjoyable its easy to fall in love if you conversation is with someone of the opposite sex.

Recreational companionship
if you are spending most of your enjoyable time away from one another then you are not in a romantic relationship.

Intimate Affection

Sexual fulfillment
if either of you withholds sex from the other you'll find yourselves very frustrated.

Shortcuts don't work!
most couples strive for efficiency especially after children arrive. and romance is often the victim.

4 Love Takes Time

Too many couples simply let their romantic relationships slip away. mistakenly thinking that it is impossible to keep the romance alive after marriage.

Just in Time

Policy of Undivided Attention
Give your spouse your undivided attention a minimum of 15 hours a week using the time to meet his or her needs.

Try: babysitting partners

Try: taking a walk every evening with your spouse - great way to spend time together and get exercise.

Try: to create a weekly babysitting night so that you and your spouse can reconnect on a date.

Where will I find time?
*put it on the calendar*
remember the most important gift you can give your children is the gift of your love for each other.

5 Love Bankruptcy
when love busters break the bank

love busters if left unchecked will be the greatest source of your unhappiness.

What are love busters?

• selfish demands

Demands do not build up cooperation, they build up resentment.

• disrespectful judgments
  

when we impose our opinions on spouses we imply that they have poor judgment.

• angry outburst

when anger wins love always looses.

• dishonesty

honesty is like a flu-shot. It may give you a short sharp pain but it keeps you healthier in the long run.

• annoying habits

• independent behavior

Love busters are double trouble. They make love bank withdrawals and prevent love bank deposits.

Join the Club

Joining the 26ers club isn't so bad, Enjoying my BUSY life right now. I did take a moment to reflect on the past and had a good laugh. Enjoy!

Top 20 of the 80's that still make me giggle:

1. Sqeeze its or HUGS - those things were just plain sugar water


2. Super Nintendo...Power Pad...Duck Hunt - just blow real hard on the cartridge like 4-5 times and jiggle it and it will work .
   


3. Misbehaving in the store-! no mom I do not have to go to the bathroom.


4. Cell phones - can we say payphone!


5. Psyche!


6. Can we do the "Carlton" or sing the song to Fresh Prince of Belair.


7. Girls : Babysitters Club - did you have your own ?


8. Hammer Time - or Pants - wide leg pants with the dance ! cant touch this - nah nah nah!


9. Oregon Trail day on the Apple Computers - then we got Mac computers - YAY - color !


10. L.A. Gear... need I say more


11. You ever wore fluorescent clothing.


12. You have ever wondered why Smurfette was the only female smurf?


13. Slap bracelets


14. loved She-ra


15. You ever owned a pair of Jelly-Shoes


16. You remember going to the skating rink before there were inline skates


17. You knew all the characters names and their life stories on "Saved By the Bell ", the ORIGINAL class.


18. Homemade Levi shorts. (the shorter the better)


19. You tight rolled your jeans.


20. You had big hair and you knew how to use it.

Pound for Pound Challenge: Loose Nationally - Feed Locally

The Kroger Co. Family of Stores, General Mills, NBC’s hit TV Show “The Biggest Loser” and other key sponsors are partnering to donate up to $1,080,000 to Feeding America this year.

Here’s how you can help:

• Visit www.pfpchallenge.com/Kroger to make your pledge to lose weight and to get more information and to find tools to change your life for the better. It is free, easy and only takes a minute to make a change that can help you and help the hungry in your local community.

• Through June 30, 2010, for every pound you pledge to lose, the Pound For Pound Challenge will donate 14¢ to Feeding America® — enough to deliver one pound of groceries to a local food bank!

This is a good opportunity to help the community and get healthy all at the same time. Great opportunity to get involved in the community.

Lots of Land = Lots of Work

When the trees came down last August, the logger men took every single blade of grass from our yard with them.
Then I had a brilliant idea... I went to bible group and prayed for rain. God heard my prayer and he listened and we have recieved our fair share. This would have been a great thing if we would have had grass on our yard, however- haha - can we just say our yard quickly turned into a mudslide. It taught us how to create barriers and breaks for the water. Jon is not an engineer - but I think he could be with his smarts.
So now that the rain has stopped - we put out grass seed in the spring. It came up, was looking okay but a little sparse. We put more seed out - it came up - however our yard is still showing more dirt than grass. My idea about planting grass seed: you feed more to the birds than really gets planted in the dirt : which is fine if you like feeding the birds and having grass in other places of your yard than you expect. ie : the flower garden!

Making Babyfood

Essentials:
Blender or Large Food Processor

Green Beans and Corn

1 can of green beans
1 can of whole kernel corn
opt. 1 can of red. fat cream of mushroom soup ( nice to take to family get togethers )
* can always put crushed up ritz crackers on top*

cook corn and green beans on high until tender - season - do not drain- put into food processor and blend.

Carrots and Apples


1 can of sliced carrots
1 single serve container of cinamon applesauce

cook on high for 5 minutes - do not drain - put carrots and applesauce in processor and blend.

Sweet Potatoes and Pears


1 #2 can of Sweet Potatoes
1 #2 can of light syrup Pears


Cook Sweet potatoes for about 5 Minutes on high. Drain Pears and add to processor. Process Pears. Drain Sweet Potatoes and Add to Pears. Process.


Bananas

Cut Bananas in Chunks and Add 1/2 tsp lemon juice for every banana. blend in the processor.

Peaches
#2 can in light syrup

add to blender - great over vanilla yogurt.

Roast beef with carrots and potatoes

serve to the whole family - save out some for baby and put it in the processor- you will probably need to add some stock or water to it for it to be the right consistency.

Put Roast in Crock pot with 3-4 diced potatoes and 1 bag of baby carrots season and cover with water. - oh yeah turn the crock pot on -

Chicken with rice and tomatoes

again serve to the whole family and save out some for baby and put it in the processor- you will probably need to add some stock

1 whole chicken
1-2 cups rice ( thin/chunky)
1 onion
2 cans diced tomatoes
opt. red. fat cream of mushroom soup ( creamy )

boil chicken/cook in crock pot - debone -
cook rice in stock ( 1 cup dry rice = 2 cups liquid) ( 2cups dry rice = 4 cups liquid)
After rice is done cooking add chicken rice and tomatoes and onions back to original pot - cook for at least an hour - covered - on low. The longer it cooks the better.

Gifted to Lead : Nancy Beach

This is my new favorite book so I thought that would share some highlights with you.






Chapter 1 God Didn't make a Mistake

"I want my life to be different from others"...

"I will somehow make a difference in this world"...

"I will I will I will"...

as a woman with a leadership gift I got the message loud and clear.

God did not make a mistake when he made you. when the gifts were handed out in heaven they were evenly distributed and the angels did not say uh oh! Scripture tells us in 1 Corinthians 12 that the holy spirit distributes gifts just as desired. Every gift you have came from the loving father, whom crafted you in your mothers womb. He delights in who you are becoming. You are no accident. Your dreams come from your Creator along with your instincts to lead and your passion to make a difference in this world.

~Nancy Beach

Chapter 2 : Welcome to the Boys Club

• The Freight of Being Iconic- Henry Gates Louis Jr.

-as a woman in a leadership role finding yourself in the minority.

On every leadership team Ive served on over the years I have always felt like the experiment, the exeception, the only one who sometimes wore a skirt and who didn't belong in the boys club.

• Character First
  

Above all else what would count most in my efforts to lead and relate effectively , is my character

1. honest
   
2. trustworthy
   
3. ethical

who a person is will ultimately determine if their brains talents competencies energy effort deal making ability and opportunities will succeed.

• Humility : seeing yourself with sober eyes

Don't push your way to the front; don't sweet talk your way to the top... don't be obsessed with getting your own advantage. ( Phil 2:3MSG)

think about the story when Soloman asked God for the gift of Wisdom ( 1 Kings 3:7-9)

Soloman saw himself as a child and in desperate need of the guiding hand of the father.

when we see ourselves accurately in that light , humility is a natural result.

• Self Confidence

there is a fine line between Confidence and being humble. A balance must be found between boldness grace assertiveness and collaboration strength and vulnerability.

• Humor

be willing to laugh at yourself - your burdens will be lighter

• Integrity

Book- Integrity: Henry Cloud

reminds us, that every leader leaves behind a kind of wake just like a boat. The question is what kind of wake or legacy are you leaving behind?

Are you becoming more like Jesus in this lifetime?

No highly developed leadership skill or natural talents make up for a lack of integrity.

Chapter 3 : Doing the Work

Work Hard and Earn Respect

I never want the fact that I am a woman to be the focal point of my work.

Take this one to the Bank: (Matt 25:23)

the servant who buried rather than investing was rewarded - Jesus said to him - " well done good and faithful servant" You have been faithful with few thing now I will put you in charge of many things.

Be true to your own Leadership Style

Leadership styles are not defined by gender

Be wise when working with men

In the Early Church Paul instructed Timothy :

Treat younger men as brothers older women as mothers and younger women as sisters with absolute purity. ( 1Tim 5 1-2)

enjoy working relationships and celebrate the perspective each one brings to the team.

Chapter 4 : Running with the Big Boys

• Navigating the "Man World"
  

Navigating the Man world is doable and ultimately can be deeply rewarding.

Leading up : a guide

1. Be a Student to your Boss
2. Learn to Initiate and Engage in Difficult Conversation

the only way I know how to get through a relational breakdown is to be willing to engage in difficult conversation.

All of us can get better at working through conflict and none of us will be able to avoid it altogether.

Chapter 5 : then we had kids
one size does not fit all - women have many options available to them, married to have children, to choose to be a single mother outside of marriage. One size does not fit all.

There is NO ONE RIGHT WAY to navigate life as a woman.

( for example Ester, Deborah, and Priscilla in the old testament)

If we confine our way of thinking to aone plan that every woman , we limit the possibilites of each person on this earth.

Good Enough Mothers

PMS ( perfect mom syndrome)

1. is always there
2. looks great and so does her perfect house
3. never looses her patience
4. never misses a field trip or an opportunity to be a room mom
5. serves nutritious home cooked meals
   
6. if she works outside the home - still does all the above flawlessly
7. and of course the perfect mother has perfect children.

What ever I am doing whoever I am its never enough.

If you are a mom I urge you to listen to the quiet voice of the spirit and allow our God to help you design your own path for motherhood.

Remember:
Every family is unique and every situation is different.

What we Model matters : our fundamental Identity is not as mothers and fathers.

Chapter 6: Finding your Voice

communicating effectively is not an option it is a absolutely essential.

Essential Tools for Everyday Communication

1. attentive listening
2. perceptive questions ( Luke 10: 25-37) on asking Jesus about Eternal life + the response
3. teachable moments
4. talking back

Listen to your life : the best communicators practice the art of paying attention to their lives.

Listening to God :

The Apostle Paul write to the church of Corinth, " ( Luke 10: 25-37) When we tell you these things, we do not use words that come from human wisdom. Instead, we speak words given to us by the Spirit, using the Spirit’s words to explain spiritual truths.

Without your voice your community will not shine brightly or be as healthy as it can be.

Chapter 7 : An Open Letter to a Male Leader

women leaders offer a perspective , a voice and entire world of experience that is essential for both men and women to experience.

the decisions you have on women in leadership will have a ripple effect for generations to come.

Chapter 8 Leaning into your tribe

do not be a lone ranger in life- when the storm blows you will desperatly need the reinforcement of other women that you know well.