I see you

I have recently been reflecting on my life…I find this a good thing to do, but somehow this past 6 months I have really looked, not just glanced back. Your history, all the little choices that were made lead you where you are today. It’s the small choices that make a difference. Yes, parenting style, the teachers you have, the friends you make, your neighbors, all the big things they give you direction. The little things that only you control, those are the decisions and choices that will make the most significant difference. When no one is looking, do you stand up and face a decision. I tell my daughter frequently that making the right decision in the face of the easy one is where you determine your character.

What kind of character do I have? I know what kind of character that I want. I know what I want people to say about my life when I die. But do I really live those values. In the quiet moments am I doing those things. Who am I to say that?

I am here to help. I believe this strongly enough to consider getting it incorporating into the existing tattoo I have. It is the name of my blog, I tell people in job interviews that it’s my personal motto. I ask myself frequently am I doing that. Why do I want that so passionately? Quite simply there was a long stretch in my life that I felt alone and helpless.

Was I actually alone and helpless? NO. That was a lie I told myself because I let that little voice inside my head win. BUT that was my reality. I strongly believe that I lost the battle with the voice inside my head because for reasons that are totally legitimate I did not have someone who spoke encouraging words into my life.

Let me stop here and say that I could not have had a parent that believed more in the fact that I could do anything in this world I set my mind to. But my father and I didn’t learn to communicate until I learned to hear what my dad’s words and actions were saying.

It is all very simple to experience life as it happens to you. To learn how to see the world as it happens around you is a skill we all need to learn. While my dad was supportive in his way, there was very little else happening that really helped me see where my value was in the world. I am here to tell you that even if my dad and I could have communicated, I probably wouldn’t have listened anyway. I was a kid and he was my dad, he knew nothing about what I was going through. The truth was he didn’t know, I never let him see it. How could he know I needed anything?

During my almost 3 years of counseling I realized what I had been missing and vowed that I would never let the moments I needed go unspoken to someone else if I witnessed it. I would stand up for someone being bullied, I would encourage someone to keep trying, I would hold a hand and give a touch to someone who obviously needed to know that they were seen and important.

I didn’t really understand how to do this until I gave birth to my daughter. Then it was suddenly clear what must be done. I was able to really get outside myself and see the world from other people’s perspectives. Relate to their experiences or acknowledge that I could not know what was going on in someone else’s life, but I could be there. I could do the right thing in the face of the easy one.

How I did this isn’t so important. The upshot is that I try to encourage people. I do my best to see people, look them in the eye. What small part I can do to make people feel seen, heard, valued or all three if I can.

When I reflect and ask myself if I am doing that, I hope that I am. It’s not like you can take a survey and ask people “hey do I make you feel valued?” “Do you feel encouraged” “Is there something I can do for you?” People I have impacted know it, but I am not asking for that acknowledgment, I did it because it is right and important to tell someone else that they are just as, or more important than you. Everyone needs to know their pricelessness.

I know I have had an impact on a few people, but is it enough? Society says if we aren’t changing the world we are just sustaining ourselves. What if I just work on my community of people? The people I know, interact with and meet? Then if I influence someone in that group to do something similar in their network…does that change the world? I think so. It’s not flashy, but it’s pure and real. This act of acknowledgement goes to the heart of human nature. We matter, each and every one of us matters.

I believe one of the strongest values I bring to this world is my gift of “help” in whatever shape that comes in. How do you show people their value? Even if you can't give your value a name, what small thing do you do? We are talking small things people. Do one small thing every day and work up to bigger things. I’ll list some ideas to get you started, then make up your own…

·        Look a homeless person in the eye and smile at them, or simply acknowledge they are talking to you. They are real people.

·        Say “good morning” and mean it

·        Ask someone about themselves and don’t say one word about yourself

·        Stand up to a bully for someone else

·        Acknowledge an injustice to the person that suffered it – acknowledge their feelings as real and justified

·        Concede in an argument that doesn’t really matter

·        Give a hug, then give another

·        Call your parents

·        Call your grandparents

·        Text a friend when you are thinking about them and say only that

·        Schedule that dinner with a friend, don’t just talk about it

Give yourself a break. You do not have to be perfect. You do not have to go out and do monumental acts of kindness. What you put out into this world you will get back. That acknowledgement of someone who is invisible one day, will be returned to you on a day when you need the same thing. We are all here to help each other, we have just fallen out of practice.

My reflections tell me that I am getting better at living my credo, but there is work yet to be done.

Be encouraged, I see you. You are important. You bring something unique and wonderful to this community. Let that shine through and beat back that small and ugly voice inside your head. You are loved. Acknowledge this fact in yourself and then you can share it with someone else.

Update: Eating In = Saving $

Well, we are 2 weeks in to this goal of not buying food out for an entire month. It has been an interesting transition and I have some findings to share.

• First, let me clarify that we are not "Clean eating" we are just eating food we make at home. 
• We have had to up our food preparation, but that just means we are eating at home. If I can't make it in 30 minutes we don't make it. We do not decide on Sunday what we are eating all week. We have staples in the house and I make food based on what we feel like eating. We are trying a lot of new things, but they are made with the staples that we have normally in our diets.
• My Fitness Pal App
• Rob and I added one twist to this effort. We have started religiously logging our eating and exercising in an app called my fitness pal, which we are now addicted. This addition has made us more aware of what actual nutrition we are getting. So far we are painfully aware that Iron is something we don't get a lot of since we don't really eat red meat. I have a potassium lack in my diet and without a calcium chew I have one of those too, since I do not eat dairy except on occasion. This app is much improved from when it first came out and way more user friendly. 
• Physical/Mental Changes
• Rob reports sleeping better and feeling generally better all around since starting this effort. 
• As for me, there is a lot to say. I have done research on how clean eating can take away your cravings for sweets and carbohydrates. I never thought I could handle this. However I can honestly say that after two weeks of eating only food we prepared and paying attention to what that food is I am not craving candy and sweets. Now let's be honest I am a true addict. Candy is crack to me for real, all joking aside. I still look longingly at the cookie display in the cafeteria at work and the snack shack just outside the bathroom. However, I can recognize that its my brain telling me I want to eat that, not my body telling me I am hungry. I can honestly say I have never had that distinctive a felling. Not even when I lost a bunch of weight when my daughter was younger. 
• The Grocery Bill
• Before this goal we spent about $225/week on groceries and another $125-150 eating out
• Math says that we as a family eat 63 meals a week, divide $375 by 63 and we paid about $5.95 a meal per person or $18/day for each of us to eat. 
• Now we spent about $275 for the whole week (this is inflated since we bought coffee pods and toilet paper this week)
• Math says that we eat the same 63 meals, so this week we will pay approximately $4.36 a meal or ~$13/day for each of us to eat. 
• In 2 weeks we have reduced our spending by 30%!!!
• Kid benefits
• Tonight our daughter prepared a salad for herself that boasted fresh butter lettuce, celery, broccoli, carrots, cucumbers, feta cheese and some croutons. the bowl was filled to the brim! 2 weeks ago she would not have even come close to eating that. She is now eating a 2/3 full bag of 4 types of vegetables in her lunch (including broccoli). She is not asking for treats every ten minutes and is talking with us about the value of nutrition. 
• How many 10 year olds do you know that will eat a salad like that with NO dressing? Not many. This is a super exciting development in our house!!
• Exercise
• Since we are using the app we are working at at least 4 times a week and this is having its own set of benefits as well. 

Overall I am blown away by the results of this trial we are doing. Rob and I are working together which is GREAT for me. He is disciplined and does not require this sort of support. I however am a week sugar addict that needs a buddy to be accountable too. Thank God Rob knows this. He is a good husband. 

Road trip without buying food? Impossible?

Yesterday I write about the fact that we are not going to eat out and now today I come to a realization that I am going to fail right out of the gate if I do not get myself together.

I am driving to Wenatchee this weekend and back. What do people in this day and age do when making a road trip over an hour anywhere? Eat snacks! How many of thoe people do you think plan ahead and have them in the car ready to go?

I'll tell you, moms of small children pack an entire pantry to keep their kids mouths full to prevent screaming and other mayhem from tempting them into losing their parental minds and driving off a cliff. Do you think those same prepared moms remember food for themselves? Not likely. Either they are lowering themselves to eat great gobs of fishy crackers, because stopping the car will wake the QUIET child. Or they are stopping at a mini mart to get a huge coffee/soda and a "snack" to eat on the way.

If you are like most other people you are leaving town near dinner time, so you run through a drive through, eat in the car AND stop for snacks at some point. What is it about being stuck in the car that drives you to pork rinds and high volumes of caffeinated drinks? This just makes us have to stop more frequently at rest stops. However, I am not writing to guide you on how to manage your road trip.

I now have to come up with a plan that will feed my snacking needs, but not reduce me to fishy crackers and warm water bottles, without going to a mini mart or a drive through....Sigh. Grease tastes so much better on a long car ride, where you have nothing to do but pay attention to the road and stuff things down your gullet.

Alas, I must resist. I can go with old standby PB&J, easy to eat while driving, but not really good for the grease factor. Maybe I can make some cookies/fudge tonight and that will give us some treats to eat. Sugar might be able to overcome my need for a burger and fries. I must give this some thought and be sure to plan for both the over and back parts of the trip.

The more I think about these problems we are facing with food, the issue is less with the food and more around my thinking about food. I am definitely the type of person that has a picture in my head about how things should go and anything that doesn't meet that can be disappointing, or in this case cause loss of appetite.

On a final note. The Sloppy Joe's II recipe was a big hit! Even I liked it. The only changes I made was to split the ketchup amount in half and use BBQ sauce for the other half and used ground Turkey breast seasoned with steak seasoning to add some savory flavor to the meat. It was very easy to make and I like the idea I saw in one of the comments of freezing the extra in a cupcake tray and then bagging so Hannah could make one on her own in the microwave if needed.

Eating out, the great financial leeching of our family

Since buying our new house I find myself asking every month it seems, where did our money go? Since there is a phased remodel in the plans, all possible money must be set aside to support this effort. Rob and I have determined that we are going to pay cash as much as possible, so with that we must have discipline to save money for this little endeavor.

Initially it was very easy. The one benefit of being laid off with a package, you get this 3rd paycheck of sorts that can automatically be saved. Saving is VERY easy under these circumstances. The difficulty lies in saving during ordinary times. 2 paychecks enough bills it seems to keep an island afloat and life happening all around you.

We are reverting to our Dave Ramsey lifestyle in many ways. Not that we have gone that far astray from when we used his methods to get our finances under control. At any rate, I have been slowly assessing where our money is going since the start of 2013.

It seems we like to eat out...A LOT. Alright if we are honest its probably me or Hannah, much more than Rob if I am being honest with you. I know many of you think I am some super mom that gets it all done and works. The truth of the matter is that cooking is the LAST thing I want to do when I get home from work. Getting up as early as I do now, when I get home I want to take a nap. However, there are chores yet to do and cooking is last on my priority list, mostly because I do not feel I am that good at it.

I am actually alright at cooking, but if I didn't have Hannah and Rob to feed, I would probably subsist on PB&J, Spaghetti, Diet Coke and Chocolate Milk. Since my family needs nutrition and we must teach Hannah about healthy food and portions, I must face the evil task of nutritional cooking. Don't get me wrong I like food and eating, but healthy isn't necessarily mixed in with that. I like ground beef instead of turkey. I like red meat instead of white meat. I am not IN LOVE with vegetables of any color or variety either. Bread...well bread is a different matter I LOVE it. And that is the problem isn't it? Bread is bad, so now we limit that as much as possible. Food isn't fun anymore.

So, what is a girl who would prefer not to cook, but must save money and consider nutrition to do?

Apparently, I have to cook. Planning would be optimal, but cooking is required. I have made it a goal to pay to eat out on only 2 occasions in the month of May. First for my Aunt's birthday this weekend and for Rob's birthday at the end of the month. In between, cooking and cooking alone will be my source of food.

In recent months and years fast food (pizza not included since it doesn't deliver fast) consumption is way down for us, but we still would eat at restaurants 2-3 times a week. Add a pizza in there every couple of weeks and viola, your money is zipping through your fingers at an alarming rate.

Now, I have meal planned before and really only successfully for 2 weeks in any given attempt. I have determined that planning the week in advance is bad, since you just don't know what you will feel like eating until the day comes. So I am going with a different approach. I have made a list of all our go to meals and will ensure we have the ingredients for those dishes in the house. Then on Sunday if someone has a meal request we can shop for the special ingredients required.

There is a problem though. Since we have typically eaten out a lot, our go to list is only about 15 things long. You can run through that and get to monotony pretty quickly if you aren't careful. If that happens we are doomed to failure. So now what do you do?

Well right now I think about what meat I have a lot of or haven't had in awhile and go to my good friend www.allrecipes.com and search for recipes that use that ingredient. See if there is something that looks appetizing and can be augmented for my picky tastes (I am no foodie). Tonight we will have turkey Sloppy Joe's, using the Sloppy Joe's II recipe from all recipes.

In an attempt to hold myself accountable I will try to post regularly how my challenge is going. Mostly I hope I find it fulfilling so we can save money and I can maybe enjoy cooking a little more than I do now.

I'll love you forever...

Since my daughter was born I have read I love you forever to her. This book makes me tear up every time. almost eleven years later and it never fails. My daughter has no idea now what it means to me, but one day she will. 

"i"ll love you forever. I'll like you for always. As long as I'm living my baby you'll be."

When she was a baby the emotion that hits you so strongly when your child is born would overwhelm me at the words in the story. I was terrified and awed that for the rest of my life I would be thinking of this little bundle every minute of every day. It's a raw and powerful emotion when your child is an infant, so helpless and needing you. You rush to reassure them just as the pictures in the book portray. 

Soon your child is a toddler and trying to set boundaries and become at least in small part the person they will be as an adult. This is where unconditional love is really defined for you. You see that lovable helpless child that needs reassurance that you will be there even when they push you away to try and find their own path. Even at 2 and 3 this is hard, you have to let them learn that things are hot or sharp or let them scrape their knees. You are there to console them or teach them, but no matter what you are there. Sometimes it's in those moments when you are deeply moved by something they do that you get choked up with emotion. The spontaneous hug and a kiss, that smile that melts your heart or their goofball antics in the bathtub.  

Next she is approaching school age and we have never questioned our parenting more. Where do they go to school, how do you protect them from this brave new world? No one can possibly know how to shepard your child towards adolescence as well as you? right? You question yourself at every step. It suddenly seems like every decision you make is setting the groundwork for the rest of their lives and you are the one who can screw it up for them. They of course have no control or say in who they become. We think we  are God-like in that way as parents. 

Kids of course are oblivious little creatures and thrive where they are planted mostly. In spite of anything we might think. But you love them fiercely and do your best, but they still grow and continue to grow and push and develop. 

Somehow in the blink of an eye you are facing what I like to think of as the gates of hell. Tween-hood. Your child is going crazy and they don't like it anymore than you do. They want to be loved, held and coddled, while at the same time allowed to do things that they are clearly  not ready for. Their bodies are taking over and their brains are disconnected. You ask them what they were thinking and the really do not know, but that doesn't make you any less aggravated with them. Then in a few minutes of clarity they hug you and thank you for doing something or just look at you and smile or text you a note that says: 

"I'll love you forever. I'll like you for always. As long as I'm living my Mommy you'll be."

Then you cry for happiness and for love and for the hope that all these worried decisions have helped shape a kid who is willing to send that kind of message. Maybe we are doing at least one or two things right...

All too soon she will be a teen, then onto college and making her own life and her own memories. Rob and I will be proud and wistful, but I think we will always have this story to squeeze our hearts and remind us of those moments that make you choke up just at the sight of the words on a page. 

Speak NOW!

it is not just men that can't read minds. All people in the world make assumptions about how people feel about them. How does anyone really know how you feel unless you tell them in some way? I live on they principle regularly. Usually from a negative perspective, for instance I often say to people that if you don't tell me what I am doing to upset you how can I adjust my behavior to prevent that? What about the other way around? How are people whom you love supposed to know that you do in fact love them unless you come out and hit them with it straight on? Actions do speak loudly, but it is words that set the foundation for those actions to mean something.

This is a letter to my friends, those people who are not related to me and therefore not required to like me or dedicate any prat of their life to anything to do with me. I know my personality is something else to behold. I understand that who I am is the gift that I was given, I must accept it for what it is and use it as the tool to impact this world in as positive a way as possible. However, my personality such as it is can be challenging for even the best of friends.

I make it my goal to ensure that I stay in contact with my friends, calling, texting, seeing them, being a part of their lives. The good, the bad, the everyday. I aim for this goal and do not always achieve it. It is all to easy to get caught up in the day to day and determine that you do not have even the time for a text message. Really? no time for a text? Ridiculous, but it happens frequently. I apologize to all of you.

Each of you are a gift to this world. Your personalities are vibrant colors and textures that give me perspective and understanding to so much. I am honored that you all would allow me to be a part of the greatness that you are. You open your lives to include myself Rob and my lovely daughter. There is no expectation of performance so to speak, you accept me in my raw form and I am grateful. You allow me to butt myself into your doings and never send me packing. I am so grateful for you.

I think about all of you often, when I do I should tell you and I am not consistent enough in doing that. It's so important to know you are thought of. The comfort of knowing someone out there who isn't required to, cares enough to think about you and your well being. I am thinking of you, praying for you to be blessed beyond measure, asking Him to present me an opportunity to grace you with a blessing.

You make me a better person and I thank you.

Love to you!

Tristanne

Daily phrase in review

I wrote this quite awhile ago, but never got it posted. This is a recap of my experiment of uplifting the office.

Experiences reviewed:

Well it has been well over a month and while I am not writing every day, have been continuing my daily phrases on the board. It has proven a great buoy to my attitude and how I guard against moving to an ugly place with my emotions. In addition I have gained quite a following of fellow of employees that endeavor to make their way by my office to see what has been written for the day.

I used to quietly snigger at people who tell you to write affirmations and stick them on your bathroom mirror so that you can read it everyday. Honestly I still think it's a little silly,but I have found a great difference in my general disposition since starting this new habit.

The only real problems have is to come up with something meaningful EVERY day. Funnily enough my peers do not like me using cliches or quotes. They prefer me to come up with my own phrases. When I first started this was not trouble, but a mere 20 days later it is much harder than you might think. Everyday isn't awe inspiring but they all have a point.

Every morning while my computer is booting ups have to come up with some turn of phrase that will inspire thought or provoke action. I have truly enjoyed having something that I can look at when I need something to lift me up or bring me down from a heated spurt of emotion.

I was pleased to experience a sort of drawing together of my fellow work friends to endeavor to at least to read and give some thought or short discussion about whatever was on the board.

People felt comfortable giving me their honest feelings about it. If they like it or did not, if it fit their situation for the day, whatever came to mind. Sometimes it would remind them of a memory or and experience and they would share it with me.

While I was pretty scared at starting this practice I have found that it has been very therapeutic for an office of people that are i n a constant state of flux right now.

For now I will continue this practice until I just can't keep it up anymore.

Update:

I quit putting phrases up because let's face it, it is really hard to come up with something "magical" every day. However this ended up creating a new phenomenon. Many who had come to expect the board to have something to read everyday werer disappointed. So I encouraged them to start writing their own. Pretty soon my board had 10 phrases on it. We have erased and are starting over. It seems to be a therapeutic outlet for the people who work in the office.