Tag Archives: friendship

Family, Health, and Happiness: My Priorities are Why I blog

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If this is your first stop at the blog, welcome. If you’ve been here before but are curious why I started this blog and what drives me, then you’re in the right place. This blog is all about living our best lives by becoming more in tune with our priorities. We all have priorities. For some it’s fame and fortune. For others it’s creativity and freedom of expression. Mine come down to three basic things. Family, health, and happiness. My goal in life is to live in alignment with those priorities, rather than squeezing them in “when I have time” around everything else. I’ve lived that way in the past, and it’s not fun. I’ve made changes to live my … More…

How To Increase Personal Growth and Enhance Your Life; Accept Advice!

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If there is one thing parents hate, it’s unsolicited advice on how to raise their children. The best way to feed them, how to care for them properly when they’re sick, and the best forms of discipline are all popular topics. It can be so frustrating to feel like everyone is telling us what to do. Not to mention, it makes us feel like other people don’t think we know what we’re doing. It’s insulting and makes us feel belittled. Parents aren’t alone in this battle. Everyone struggles with being offered advice when they didn’t ask for it. Whether it be about a serious topic like marriage or a superficial one like which brand of shampoo is best, unsolicited advice … More…

5 Ways to Eliminate Negativity

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If you ask people who know me to list one strong personality trait of mine, a lot would say that I have a pretty hot temper. It doesn’t take much to get me fired up. Generally, the things that really get me worked up are when people are inconsiderate of others. Cutting cars off in traffic, being rude to waiters and sales clerks, and the like. It’s the self-absorbed, negative nature of people that really ticks me off. The fact that I have no control over their actions just makes it all so unbearable to me. Since I have no control in these situations, I realized long ago that I needed to find a way to make them impact me less. What I discovered was … More…

How to Celebrate Christmas with Alternative Gifts

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Two years ago, we tried something new. It was back before I started budgeting for Christmas gifts after Christmas of 2013.  I had added up how much we spent on Christmas gifts that year and was depressed by the rather large number. Then I added that to the amount we spent on Birthday, Mother’s Day, and Father’s Day gifts. I had just been telling Andy that I felt like the holiday’s had become too much about the gifts. It’s all about what you spend, how much you receive, and not the spirit of giving like it should be. Armed with this new financial data to back up my moral objection to all the gift buying, we decided came up with an idea. One of our goals for the … More…

1 Simple Way to Keep in Touch with Friends and Family

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  There’s nothing more important in life than family and friends. The relationships we have are what life is made of. They are what gives purpose, pleasure, and meaning to our days. As such, it’s important that we nurture those relationships. It can be difficult to keep in touch with friends and family when life gets busy. We’re all guilty of it sometimes. And we’ve all been on the receiving end of having others not keep in touch with us. It’s crucial that we develop a way that works for us to stay connected and maintain our relationships.   A simple letter rebuilt relationships-the way I keep in touch A few years ago, as part of my New Year’s goals, I decided to … More…

Grateful Living – July 2016

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So often we get stuck in the day-to-day hustle and forget to acknowledge what’s really important. If someone were to ask “What’s most important to you?” we would be quick to respond with things like family, friends, being a good person, and so on. Unfortunately, we allow ourselves to get sidetracked a lot and temporarily “forget” our priorities. Unanswered emails clamor for our attention, deadlines and “to-do” lists clutter up our minds and steal our attention. As a way to temporarily silence these outside distractions, I like to look back over the past month and remind myself what is beautiful in my life. I try to identify three things that have happened in the past few weeks that I am grateful for … More…