Back to the Roots.

I don't know if this disgusts me or scares the hell out of me:

A study done by AVG found that 19% of 2-5 year old kids could play with a smart phone app, while only 9% of those very same kids could tie their own shoes.

And learning how to dress themselves isn’t the only thing that these kids are not learning.

Tech skills are replacing life skills.

More kids know how to open a web browser than swim by themselves. More kids know how to play computer games than ride a bike. Pretty scary. Competent in life? Or they just know how to play with electronic toys.

Now, all you parents out there. I want to encourage you to take a look at your own parenting skills. Your children will take your lead. Are you coming home and sitting in front of the television and telling them to go read? It doesn’t work that way. Your children will also look at your own work ethic. If you say you are going to go and fix the broken toilet this weekend, and come the weekend you are not fixing the toilet, your children will see that. If you have a desire to try new things and learn new things, your children will also reflect a boredom in just sitting around watching television. If you like to read, even if you don't like to read, cuddle up with your kids and read your book while they read theirs. I for one am scared at the amount of technology that is taking over our lives.

So, just because I don't have children doesn’t mean that technology is taking over different aspects of my own life, I am committing now to put forth effort to get back to my own roots. I am going to challenge myself to something right now for 2 weeks. I encourage you to find something in your own life to challenge yourself to.

My challenge: I am not going to get on Facebook or turn on my television for 2 weeks. I am herby committing to that and I hope those of you who see me on a regular basis will ask me how it is going. I will report back on my experience here in 2 weeks. If any of my readers want to challenge themselves to a similar challenge, and want to share your own experiences, I would be happy to feature you on the blog to share your own experiences. 2 weeks starts today and ends on February 21. I may even keep it going longer than that.

I will tell you that I am going to be linking my blog on Facebook, but I can do that without actually getting on, so even if you see a blog update doesn’t mean I didn’t follow through on my deal. 

Sayonara Facebook. I honestly don't think I'm going to miss you

The Emotionally Mature...

Soooooo... I am going to start doing a little 'fun for me' segment on the blog… Book Reviews. I love to read, and I want to share my good reads with people. One of the ways I have decided to do this is here on the blog. These will be ranging from self help type books to novels to books with topics about family and politics that I personally find important and that I have enjoyed reading. I am going to start that today; however, today it’s actually going to be a book that I would not necessarily recommend.

Before I tell you what book that is, I am going to tell you a little bit about why I picked it up. I was talking to a good friend, having a thought provoking conversation (as they always are) about qualities to look out for when picking a good man to marry and she mentioned to me 3 qualities to make sure to pick in a husband. I was intrigued and interested to hear what they were, and actually they were quite intuitive. She told me she got them from a book. Since I was impressed with the qualities, I decided to read the book. To her: I actually am not sure if you liked this book or not, so sorry for my somewhat negative review of this book, but I thought it was kind of a cop out. There were about 5 pages in this book that turned out to be valuable; the 3 qualities discussed being a part of that value. The rest of the book, in my opinion, was like total common sense. It was to me like this woman wanted to make money and get credit for taking some common sense and turning it into a book. Perhaps there are some woman who might need to read about some of the common sense things in this book, but personally, I didn’t learn too much.

There is another reason that I don't like this book. I personally am morally against those with children under the age of 18 remarrying. This book is kind of a guidebook on how to do that, how to remarry when you have divorced. The author herself divorced with a small child and remarried. Again, I DO NOT think this is fair or morally correct to do that to children, which is another reason why the book didn’t knock my socks off.

Without further adieu, the book that didn’t knock my socks off is called Dating Secrets for Marrying a Good Man by Alisa Goodwin Snell. 

 So, I am going to take the small amount of valuable knowledge out of this book and summarize what I learned from it. First and foremost, this book is all about learning how to pick a man who is emotionally mature.

The Doc is completely focused on being emotionally mature. This book did help to shed some light on what exactly it means to be emotionally mature. This I agree is the first step to having a good marriage. One point that was made that I did find very interesting was that 15-25% of the population never emotionally mature past the age of 14. Their behaviors stay selfish, they are motivated by rewards or punishments, and acknowledgements. They long for love, approval and acceptance but they make little connection to their responsibility to love. They largely don't know any better, it’s like a light never turned on in their minds. (p. 33) These are the kinds of people that do not make good spouses and should not be married, and if as much as 1 in 4 are like this, we spouse hunters really have to keep our eyes open. Those who are emotionally mature are first of all Empathetic.

Empathy is the first quality of the emotionally mature. I am sure that most of you understand what empathy looks like. Looking past oneself to the feelings, needs and rights of others shows empathy. Those who are quick to anger, or who are capable of backstabbing are not empathetic. There is a whole page of what a non-empathetic person looks like in this book (and if you don't know, you can go check the book out, read this small section, and return the book.) I thought that was an interesting first quality. I appreciated that point of view.

Quality number 2: Self Control. Is this person able to exercise self control? Self control comes in lots of areas. Obviously drug, alcohol, and sexual addictions are a big sign of someone not having self control. But some of the less obvious ones may be uncontrollable spending of money or even jumping from one relationship to another very quickly. Again, there is a whole page in the book listing what behaviors someone who lacks self control may possess. And another thought provoking quality for me.  

Third quality, accepting responsibility. Someone who has emotionally maturity can accept responsibility. They don't blame, lie, or excuse their behavior. They apologize when wrong, don't justify, or manipulate. Another fairly self explanatory quality, yet thought provoking.

So those are the 3 qualities that an emotionally healthy person will have. It gives me great perspective towards myself, what I need to work on and where I still am emotionally immature. It also helps me in my spouse hunting to make the wisest choice in my future. I appreciated these 3 pages in the book. There were a few small things I did get out of the book that I enjoyed. Some are things I have mentioned on the blog, others are things I still plan to mention. I will summarize.

One thing that Alisa mentioned in this book was about men loving to sacrifice. This goes right along with the pre-marital sex problems I have mentioned previously. She says that men see no point in sacrificing for things they can get for free. When toys, cars, money, or women come easily, a man is quick to enjoy them in the moment and then forget about them just as quickly. (p.96) Although she was not talking about premarital sex, I felt it was applicable and I appreciated the point made.

She also echoed the point I made about being single yet still living life and not pausing your life to whine about what is wrong with it. Do not live she says as if your life will only begin when you are in a relationship. (p. 112) I liked that, because all any of us really has is time, so with or without all our dreams in place, let’s not stop living.

So there you have it. My not so enthusiastic book review of Dating Game Secrets to Marrying a Good Man by Alisa Goodwin Snell. And like I said, I really appreciate the 3 qualities that an emotionally person has, and other than the few valuable one liners here and there, I found the rest of the book to be a little bit basic and containing mostly common sense. And unless you have no idea what a controlling or abusive man acts like, and I do mean NO IDEA, then I would not send you in the direction of this book.     

Charming Mum's

Remember how I love SAHM’s? I love everything they do and everything they stand for. I love the concept of actually raising the children you bring into the world. Well, I could go on and on for forever with the emotional and developmental benefits kids have from having a SAHM, but I came across this cool article on the health benefits that SAHM’s provide for their kids. It was written for a newspaper in the UK, so it uses the cool mum spelling which is just charming right? 

 

Children of working mothers tend to have a less healthy lifestyle than those whose mothers stay at home, a study has found.

They snack on more junk food, spend more time in front of the TV and do less exercise.

Those whose mothers work part-time follow a slightly healthier regime, while the children of stay-at-home mums have the most nutritious diets and enjoy more exercise. 

However, researchers insist the results 'do not imply that mothers should not work'. 

 But they say there is a definite link between paid employment and a lifestyle that leaves children more at risk from obesity and disease.

And they suggest a lack of time is the biggest factor keeping the healthiest lifestyles out of reach of many working families.

The findings come from a study of 12,500 British school children published today in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health.

It shows children whose mothers are employed are more likely to be driven to school, watch TV, snack on fizzy drinks and eat too few portions of fruits and vegetables.

Love it! Yet another reason why I am stoked to hang with the kiddos. At home. Unemployed.

The Feminist Movement. Part 6. The Decline of the Family.

The problems we are having in our current society are pretty serious. They are causing a lot of destruction, pain, and confusion. They are causing more and more children to grow up in broken homes or homes with never married mothers which usually equal no fathers. An intact family with both a mother and a father is biologically necessary to completely normal human development, and so the lack thereof cause a lot of people to have what we call in the pop psych world, issues. Issues of abandonment, issues of distrust, issues of low self esteem, issues of insecurity, and so on. We are then using those issues as excuses for making poor decisions and bad behavior, which more often than not affect dozens of lives outside of oneself and of course have a very negative effect on the society that we live in. Where did all these problems come from? I have asked myself this many times as I have pondered the problems we have now that we never had 50+ years ago. I have my own theory as how we digressed from a practically crimeless society with virtually zero percent divorce rate in the 50’s

into one that is crawling with crime and up to a 50% divorce rate. How did we go from a society where having sex out of wedlock was reserved for prostitutes who were disrespected, to a society where sex is almost expected on the first date and one night stands are as prevalent as brushing one’s teeth? A society where those who wait for marriage are pretty much mocked and looked at as prudes? Where did the digression start? Of course my theory is that it stemmed from the feminist movement, but before I get into explaining that, I want to get into what I believe to be the basic unit of society—the family. I just graduated with a minor in child and family studies in which I studied children, the family and family relationships quite extensively. The fact that the family is the basic unit of society was discussed over and over again. It is a fact. There have been numerous studied and it’s been proven and written up in plenty of journal entries and text books. Families are the cornerstone of civilization. Basically the idea is that when the family is stable, it produces stable offspring. When we want to examine society we just look into the families that make up that society. All those families who live in the ghetto have many similarities. Likewise those families who are living in the suburbs, or the gated, nice and clean community oriented neighborhoods—all of those families have similarities too. When the decline in our families began, the decline in our communities inevitably followed. When we stopped raising our children in strong, committed marriages they began to become weaker, less responsible members in our society. Families shape society. That is a proven fact. Now what is the one difference between the families in our society today and in the world 50 years ago? Yup, the Stay At Home Mom. Now, this is just my opinion and you can take it for what it is worth, it isn’t a proven theory. I didn’t read about this from a study conducted or from a professional. I was just thinking about the problems that we face as a society, the sex problems, the drugs, the abortions, the teen pregnancies, the stupidity of the growing generation, and so on and I was thinking about the Leave it to Beaver 50’s generation when this dawned upon me. The difference is mothers who were in the home taking care of the house and the family, and not somewhere else, working. When we took mothers out of the home chaos ensued. The decline in our society is largely a result of the feminist movement and the dying breed of the Stay At Home Mom. Being a wife and mother is unfortunately no longer respected and is no longer a priority in the families of our generation. A lot of feminists believe the nonsense of “No man is gonna tie me down! I ain’t gonna be a slave to any man. I'm not going to sacrifice anything for kids.” And then they get to 40 and realise “It was a lie that my womanhood was served by ignoring men and kids.”

This is why I am an anti feminist. Because I have come to truly know and understand that my womanhood IS served by sacrificing for your husband and children. That is where I have found happiness in life. (Granted I am single and I do not have children yet, but already I know and understand that that is where my life’s happiness is going to come from.) That is why I dream of nothing else than being a stay at home mother and taking care of my family. That is the role that the biology inside me was destined to do. It wasn’t until I realize that and started taping into that natural desire that I realized how happy a woman can really be. It was suppressed for so long by all the feminists in my life who have turned the role into a condescending one that I had to and still have to fight daily. Anytime I tell anyone of my plans to just be a stay at home mom, I am given quite a hard time about it. But at the same time, anytime I have a thought about being a parent, I am filled with joy, cause I get it. I get the biology of the gender role, and I get the source of happiness that it will someday bring to my life.  

In closing, I want to share a quote from the Doc from you.

The denial of the male/female differences, the tyranny of feminism, has resulted in the sexual revolution (casual sex, casual abortions), fatherless families, children being raised in “day orphanages” (my term for day care) instead of by a mommy and a daddy, and destructive mandates like Title IX. 

Neither men nor women are happier apart or together since feminism took hold in our society.  The ongoing response I’ve had to “The Proper Care and Feeding of Husbands” proved this point as thousands of women wrote to tell me that they understood their power as women, appreciate their femininity, and have found tremendous happiness being their husband’s girlfriend instead of persistently disgusted wife.  Women have been discovering for several decades that “having it all” simultaneously is the quick road to an emotional implosion.

The efforts that are being made to equalize our society are causing a lot of problems. I for one rejoice in the difference men and women have. I do not find it disrespectful or offensive to be noticed for my differences in abilities or talents due to my gender. I actually have found endless joy in embracing those differences and looking forward to playing the role of wife and mother.

To Debbbbz. Love Me.

So, I Loooooooooove old movies. (Juile- put that on the list.) Especially old musicals. The dancing and the costumes and the music and the sheer talent that went into those films. They just don't make movies like they used to. I just wanted to give a shout out to one of my all time favorites... Debbie Reynolds. She is smokin. Those feet, that voice, and that beautiful face. She is a wonder and an amazement to behold. I mean just look at her! 

 She is picturesque

I just could not get enough of this woman! She is one of my favorite artists, and remember how much I love art? Everything she does is artistic. Everything she does is inspirational. Her singing, her dancing, even her costume arrangements! I could never tire of watching her be artsy.

Watching her and the dozen of other MGM legends is one of my favorite past times.

If you all have never seen her in Singing in the Rain, first go repent. And then, get it on Netflix. 

Love her. 

An Emblem of Magnanimity and True Courage

I would be willing to bet that most of you have seen this flag.

 

I would also be willing to bet that you don't know what it means.

This flag is very symbolic, and once a person knows the symbolism behind the flag, I would again be willing to bet they would be motivated to fly this flag alongside the Stars and Stripes. This flag is art in it's most inspiring form, and remember how much I love and am inspired by art? This flag is inspiring to me.  

So, today I am going to teach you what I know about the symbolism of this really cool flag, because I am all about educating people about the history of our country that touches me. 

This flag is called the Gadsden Flag, designed by an American General named Christopher Gadsden. Now, there is a lot of history and story behind the flag that I am not going to get into, because I am no history buff and no doubt I would get something wrong about the date or the war or the man and men behind this awesome flag. Instead, I simply want to tell you about what the snake means.

                                                                                                 

In December 1775, "An American Guesser" (we later believe to be Benjamin Franklin) anonymously wrote to the Pennsylvania Journal stating that he saw this flag on one of the drums belonging to the marines. He stated that each country has its own mascot and he believed this to be the mascot of the American country. He then speculated why he thought a snake would be a fitting mascot for this great country. He gave an awesome and fitting analysis.

Firstly, for those of you who don't know about the behavior of a rattle snake, they never begin an attack but once they do, they never surrender. They fight to the death. They never strike until they have generously given notice to their enemy and cautioned them against the danger of treading on it. Or, as The American Guesser put it: “She never begins an attack, nor, when once engaged, ever surrenders: She is therefore an emblem of magnanimity and true courage.”

Can you see the parallel to America? The rattle snake therefore becomes an “emblem of magnanimity and true courage” truly fitting for this great American country. Then comes the powerful and bold warning not to tread on this creature. Just as the early American Colonists warned Britain.

How beautiful is that?

There is more symbolism in the rattles. I'm sure most of you know that originally there were 13 American Colonies. Well, this just happens to be the number of rattles the average snake has. Also, it is symbolic of the loyalty and connectedness that those original colonies had for and towards each other. It is, as this American Guesser stated “curious and amazing to observe how distinct and independent of each other the rattles of this animal are, and yet how firmly they are united together, so as never to be separated but by breaking them to pieces. One of those rattles singly, is incapable of producing sound, but the ringing of thirteen together, is sufficient to alarm the boldest man living."

There is even more symbolism in this Join or Die flag that Benjamin himself designed that those of you fellow and faithful tea party activists have certainly seen:

It is more symbolism on the 13 colonies, with New England at the head and South Carolina at the tail and the rest following their order along the coast. I am sure there are more stories behind these 2 flags that are fascinating and inspiring, I am as I stated no expert and am unaware of every story or symbolism.

I am inspired by the courage, boldness, pride, and leadership that our founding fathers had. They knew the beauty in the concept of freedom and liberty. They fought hard. They were divinely inspired and divinely helped. They worked hard and sacrificed everything they had for what we have in front of us now. It took them being controlled in England to be able to appreciate what the idea of America could offer them. It scares me to death that the citizens of our country are unaware of the magnanimity of liberty and are literally falling asleep while those who yearn for control and dictatorship take serious advantage of our innocence, trust, and obliviousness. Let us awaken and take back what our founding fathers gave to us. Because as I see it now, we are having our liberties stripped from us, our freedoms pried from our no longer grasping fingers and we are about to have the rug ripped right out from under us. Will that wake us up I wonder? It is time we once again lived up to our symbol of the rattle snake. It is time we once again stand up and become again an emblem of magnanimity and true courage.

One. Gorgeous. Redhead.

“Once in his life every man is entitled to fall madly in love with a gorgeous red head.” Lucille Ball

One day, one lucky man will fall madly in love with this gorgeous red head:

I am beautiful. 

It took me 24 ½ years of life before I was able to even say that, let alone believe it. And I am only able to do both now thanks to the Doc. 

I struggled for 24 ½ years of life with self esteem. I would go through stages here and there of having less and more self esteem. I would go through periods of having or faking confidence. But deep down, I was convinced I was ugly. Deep down, I was convinced I was fat. Deep down, I was convinced I was completely undesirable to boys of all shapes, sizes, and ages. Deep down, I could NEVER even fathom the idea that someone besides my family (who are morally obligated) could possibly love me. It was tough.

Then I found the Doc. The Doc, over the course of about a year taught me how to love myself. She taught me where my identity and self worth needed to come from. She taught me where I ought to find my sense of well being and sense of value. Up until that point I had always thought I would find it in the amount that other people loved and cared about me.

It was from her I best learned that a tremendous amount of insecurities often come when there is insufficient bonding between a parent and child. The first place we get a sense of value is a parent’s love. There were some dynamics in my early life, including the breaking down of my beloved home due to divorce, which I can now see lead to low self esteem as a pre-teen to teenage life, and well into my young adulthood. I was looking any place I could to be filled up with love. Friends, family, boyfriends, acquaintances, you name it. Everyone else had control of my self worth. I found it absolutely impossible to love myself.

It seemed to just click one day listening to the Doc, although I am certain that it was over the course of at least 9 months of solid listening and pondering. The only place where my identity, self worth, wellbeing and sense of self could now come from was within myself, and it had to be earned.

My whole life I had been measuring my self worth by the type of people that really loved me. From the Doc I learned what a mistake that had been. The hardest I’d ever fallen, the one time where every ounce of my identity and self worth had been given to another was with the ex. I have mentioned him before, and I will likely mention him again. (I only have one real EX that I will ever refer to on the blog) when this man broke up with me, (I feel juvenile admitting this) it was the single most traumatic experience I had ever experienced in my life. I was 23. We had dated for about a year and deep down I was miserable with him. He treated me bad. He took advantage of my kindness and willingness to be a good girlfriend. He took me for granted. He never chose me over his friends (even though I chose him over my friends all too frequently). All in all, he was not a good boyfriend. Everyone who saw us interact was wondering what in the hell I was thinking. I will tell you what I was thinking. I was thinking that I finally found someone who loved me. I thought that for sure if I could get this man to love me than I was in fact lovable. I was trying to prove to myself that someone in the universe was capable of saying “I love you” to me—something that I had previously thought was completely impossible. I also was thinking that because I was so unlovable, he was the best I could ever dream of being with and I’d had better appreciate those words while I had them, because I may never hear them again. It was as though I was feasting on my last meal. You would think that as miserable as I was with him I would have been happy to break up and be freed from him. I wasn’t. I was devastated. I was holding on to him as my last shred of human worth, and when he looped me off, I felt as though my very existence could be looped off without a single person taking notice.

 It was a tough time in my life, but I don't want anyone to think that it is how I still feel. I don't want anyone to feel sorry for this period of time in my life. I look at it as one of the most valuable learning experiences in my life. It's like those cliché sayings about having to see how dark things can really get before being able to appreciate the light. Well my friends, I can finally say I know and appreciate what it feels like to love yourself, because I truly know what it is like to loathe yourself.

I now understand the light and life that comes from truly and sincerely loving oneself. The Doc was the only person who has been successful in my life at teaching me to love myself. For this, I will love her forever. She has made my life bright and enjoyable. I know the title of my blog sounds uber cheesy, but I kid you not, I had NO CLUE what life could be like until I started seeing it through her eyes. I was alive (breathing in and out) but I was not alive (finding joy in the journey) until I found her. That is what I mean by living half alive.

So, I am sure those of you who find yourself to be difficult to love are dying to know just what it is she said that made it click with me… Here is one of my favorite paraphrased explanations on self esteem from the Doc:

Self esteem is a person’s awareness of their value. That’s earned. If no matter what you do, there is no judgment towards you, everything you do us just all wonderful then you have an inflated notion about yourself not built on earning it. And its ephemeral (short lived). Our self esteem comes from our efforts. Self esteem comes from impressing the self, and you impress the self with hard work and tenacity. Once you learn that you can accomplish a frustrating or a difficult task because there is deeper in you, you will find self esteem. That truly impresses the self. When you come to know that by your own efforts you are ok… that is the solid stuff. Getting hurt and surviving it will also make you solid.

A selfish man “loving me” never taught me any self esteem. Working hard and sacrificing myself to serve others-- did. Working hard to look honestly at my weaknesses and putting forth real effort to improve on those weaknesses-- did. Coming to learn what a real woman looks like and acts like and putting forth great effort to become just that-- did. Putting forth hard work in school and in my job--did. Learning how to become a better friend-- did. Owning up, swallowing my pride, apologizing for my wrongdoings and taking responsibility for my actions-- did. Looking in the mirror, and telling that tough critic in my head to shut the hell up-- did. Finally believing that I am beautiful, inside and out--did. Finally understanding that I do have something amazing to offer a man in a relationship-- did.  

I used to think that I would be lucky to have any crumb bum who would take someone as unimpressive as me. I no longer think that. Now I know that whoever chooses me, will be the luckiest man in the world. I now know that I have the world to offer someone. I now know that I deserve the best and will hold out till I find nothing less. One day, one lucky man will fall madly in love with this gorgeous red head.