Time, Time, Time, Is On My Side... Yes, It Is?

Jerry Ragovoy (Norman Meade) wrote the song Time Is on My Side, made famous by The Rolling Stones, and I'd like to meet this man.  Although he is no longer living... I'm very curious where he got all this time.

I can never seem to find enough time in a day.  I believe this a partly due to being a stay-at-home mom. Of course, you might think I have all the time in the world... but if you are a stay-at-home parent yourself you can probably relate.  Every day I write out my to-do list.  I'm trying to get a business off the ground and there are key things that I believe are imperative to getting done on a daily basis, some of which only last about 10 to 15 minutes, yet the end of the day rolls around and I realize I haven't been able to get it done.  My time spent at home with Mason is so sporadic and choppy that no matter how much consistency I try to place in our schedule, even the smallest thing out of our routine throws off my ENTIRE day!

How do people ever get used to this life style, and better yet, how do some perfect it?

I would like to add a personal disclaimer to future blog posts now... I am not supermom.  I try to be, but I am nowhere close!  But I do have days where I accomplish a million more things than I do on others, and I feel like I am on top of the world.  So if in the future I or you ever find me bragging about these things, please remember that there are also days where I feel like I climbed Mt. Everest just if I am able to get Mason and myself bathed!

Daily Dose of Chocolate

So I know I told you guys in my last blog, my husband and I were going to Dallas for a sort of Personal Development type of training.  Well it ended up being way too last minute for us, and we're trying to save money for an upcoming move so we decided not to go.  Thank goodness we opted out considering everyone in my household now has a cold... it must be that time.

All things considered, this means I will definitely not be going to Denny's every day for the weekend, (THANK GOODNESS!) and I won't be able to report on eating clean while eating out.

I honestly have no idea what I'm even going to eat for breakfast yet since I need to go grocery shopping today.  I'll probably end up drinking a Shakeology smoothie for breakfast.  I really want to move that up to lunch time though considering it does really help me curb cravings through out the day...so I figured if I have it for lunch instead, it will help with those pesky nighttime cravings.

Speaking of cravings...

I used to be a chocolate craver for a long time... then I wasn't... now it's back!!! NOOO!!! BUT... studies do report chocolate being good for you; actually it's the alkaloid, theobromine, that is in the cacao plant, which is good for you.  Theobromine is actually the thing in chocolate that dogs are allergic to.  I studied holistic medicine for a little while, so I know about an ounce of information about this. Hehe...  Anyways, I'm allowing for some chocolate dosage in my daily diet, however, I do need some discipline when it comes to the chocolate department!  So I bought this little weekly pill case from the dollar store where I will put my daily dose of chocolate.

I found this article to back me up...11 Reasons Chocolate's Good for You... but I will give you the 11 basic reasons...

1.  Chocolate decreases stroke risk.
2.  Chocolate decreases the likelihood of heart attack.
3.  Chocolate protects against blood inflammation.
4.  Chocolate helps with math. (I'm calling bullshit.)
5.  Chocolate may prevent cancer.
6.  Chocolate reduces the risk of diabetes.
7.  Chocolate is good for your skin.
8.  Chocolate can control coughs. (yay!)
9.  Chocolate improves blood flow.
10.  Chocolate strengthens your brain.
11.  Chocolate makes you live longer.

ALRIGHT! Take this with a grain of salted chocolate considering this article was probably written by Hershey, but I believe there's enough support to say that in moderation chocolate isn't all that bad for you.  I would highly suggest sticking as close to the source as possible with dark chocolate and cacao for highest levels of theobromine.

*Update*
Here is what I did eat for breakfast... not my proudest inner chef moment but at least I ate something...

And yes... I need that ridiculous knife to cut my fruit!

Why You Should Blog

OK… Chances are if you start blogging, your life won't suddenly become as glamourous as you hope. You won't become a famous blogger overnight, and you won't get rich. You probably won't be at Starbucks everyday typing your little heart out and enjoying your Carmel Macchiato with soy milk and no whip.  More than likely if you decide to start blogging, words will not just come to you.  Unless you have a LOT to say then you might even find yourself at a total loss for words, and wondering if everyone else finds you just as boring as you're discovering yourself to be.  In fact… a productive blog takes way more work than you even imagine at first.  It's something  you have to work on even when you are not actively working on it.  For example…when I think of something funny I write it down RIGHT AWAY, otherwise it will be forgotten and never make it to my cyber thoughts.  I am constantly capturing moments, thoughts, ideas, words, and pictures.  

So why in the *bleep* would you want to do this?

I'm learning a lot more about myself than I imagined. 

It might be possible you don't even want to learn about yourself… if that's your case, then that is very sad, but very relatable, so I can't judge.

It's giving me a better relationship with my husband. 

When it comes to my own thoughts, and words, I'm way more self-conscious about what my friends and family think than I am about what strangers think.  Reading my entries to him before publishing is very intimate for me.  It's opening myself up, and allowing him to learn even more about me than he already knows.  I say things in my blogs in a different way than I would normally tell him out loud, so it gives us something to talk about in a light way.  He also gets super excited when he hears that he's in my blogs even though I've given him the role of the "dumb man" (his words), but he says that's ok because he "plays the role well". (Again…his words.)

Time management…I suck at it, but I'm getting better.

I am absolutely awful at managing my time!  I have the hardest time finding a schedule for myself and sticking to it.  But I am finding the more "responsibilities" I give myself, the better I am at finding time for them.  I have turned my blogging into a "responsibility" therefore I have to find time for it, making it so that I have to manage my other activities better as well.

I'm trying to be more interesting.

Is that weird?  I don't necessarily think I am boring… but I don't always think I'm fun.  And who wants to read from or about someone that's not having any fun?  I wouldn't.

Might I add that I currently am sitting at Starbucks, drinking tea, and blogging (obviously)… and it's not as great as it sounds.  I now know all the words to Louis Armstrong's, "I Ain't Got Nobody".  What's the big deal?  The big deal is that there are only a handful of words in the song, and it's about 10 minutes long, and plays almost every 10 minutes.  

Anyways… my point is that you shouldn't expect to be the next Carrie Bradshaw (although I believe she was a newspaper columnist…and then a write for Vogue…not a blogger)…but you just might discover that you have your very own inner Carrie Bradshaw.

"As we drive along this road called life, occasionally a gal will find herself a little lost.  And when that happens, I guess she has to let go of the coulda, shoulda, woulda, buckle up and just keep going." Carrie Bradshaw

Personal Development

Personal Development might be something that's difficult for you to get into at first.  Only if you beat around it though; the trick is to just dive on in with it all.  

Why do I think it might be hard?  

For some odd reason, to most people, Personal Development may seem silly.  For instance, yesterday evening I bought John C. Maxwell's The 15 Invaluable Laws of Growth: Live Them and Reach Your Potential.  Leaving the bookstore I was literally giddy, and said to my husband, "I feel like such a grown up…hehe".  Yes, I believe that's exactly how it came out.  He told me just for saying that I did not sound very grown up. <sad face> Oh well.  

I think the main reason people have this silly feeling about Personal Development is they are perhaps terrified of it.  Why be scared of growing?  For most of us, it's out of our comfort zone. It is something you actually have to set out to do.  The biggest example of this, is what Maxwell describes as "The Assumption Gap --  I Assume That I Will Automatically Grow".  I'll give a little more from this since this particular paragraph was my "a-ha!" moment.

"When we are children, our bodies grow automatically.  A year goes by, and we become taller, stronger, more capable of doing new things and facing new challenges.  I think many people carry into adulthood a subconscious belief that mental, spiritual, and emotional growth follows a similar pattern.  Time goes by, and we simply get better.  We're like Charlie Brown in Charles Schulz's Peanuts comic strip, who said once, "I think I've discovered the secret to life -- you just hang around until you get used to it."  The problem is that we don't improve by simply living. We have to be intentional about it." (Maxwell)

We get so used to simply living, that before you know it 5 years go by and you realize you've been on auto-pilot for exactly that long, and maybe even longer.  This has happened to me already, and it was only by having something bad happen that I realized what was happening with my life (or not happening).  I don't want to just "simply live".  I want to DO things, and be more AWARE of what I'm doing, as I'm doing them.

So now I am "diving on in with it all" and growing.  Well… learning how to grow, anyways.  Unless you've read a book, or attended a seminar on Personal Development, you might be saying, "Whatever…" about it, but I really feel like the author is speaking to me personally.  It's as if he wrote this book just for me, came to my front door, and handed me an autographed copy and said, "Here, this is for you!".  Now you might be thinking, 'Clearly this chick needs this.' <HA HA> but I truly believe this is something we can ALL benefit from! 

Laying in bed, reading my new book, I'm wanting to write down practically everything.  (I own the book… it's mine… I probably don't need to write it down.)  Every other sentence I'm thinking to myself, 'WOW! Why didn't I read this years ago???'.  (Probably because it was just published this year…) Every other paragraph, I'm bugging Brandon in the middle of reading his Toyota 4x4 magazine, "You HAVE to listen to this!"  (He's probably not...)

If you think reading a few pages from this book has made me sound like a crazy woman, and you would like to feel like a crazy woman... or man, too, then check it out!

$25.99 new at the bookstore... or $28.99 for all my Canadian folk

$17.05 new on Amazon.com

$12.99 on Kindle

"What great accomplishments we'd have in the world if everybody had done what they intended to do." Frank Clark