Water, please.

Lately, I feel like this is the place I come to vent my opinions and get on my soap box. That was never the intention of this blog, so I hesitate to do it. BUT, here it is.

CNN recently posted a story about what doctors recommend for kids to be drinking. While I realize from the article that they are including teens as children, I have to sit here and think, DUH.

Doctors have recently recommended that the primary drink of children should be.....water. Really? Never would have guessed that. I never buy juice or soda for Archer. He really only likes apple juice because that's what he has at daycare, so I'm not giving him more. It's just so much sugar. His sweet treat drink is chocolate ovaltine, and he gets that once in the morning and once after dinner, which is probably too much but it's the only sugar he gets at home other than grapes. I don't buy cookies or snacks often, and when I do it's 100 calorie cookies and he gets one pouch. He thinks the best sweet snack is honey on whole wheat toast.

I don't worry so much about the milk because, at almost three, he's still only about 27 pounds. But I want to set a precedent that sweets are just for moderation. I occasionally let him have soda at a restaurant, but only because he doesn't like anything sour like lemonade and most kool-aid type drinks, or even clearer sodas like ginger ale or sprite. He will drink root beer, but nothing like coke that's really carbonated.

I didn't drink soda until I was much older than he is, only ever water. I still love to drink water, but my body craves the sugar and soda. A nasty habit I need to kick. I lost 20 lbs in college not drinking any soda, and I wish it was that easy for me now. I only had caffeine free soda during my pregnancy, and relied much more on green tea and juice for my sugar fix. I wish it were that easy when I didn't have as much motivation to do so.

Anyway, I guess the point of my soapbox is, sugary drinks are not for kids. Limit juice, gatorade, kool-aid, etc and give them water. There are lots of flavored waters out there if that's what it takes, but really, teach them to love water. It will make their weight management later in life easier, lower their risk for diseases like diabetes, and make them healthier people overall.

She's Timeless

Received this email today and thought it was too cool not to share. 

Need Help Picking!

So, if you'll remember, I ordered a canvas for a picture of Archer and I. Well, I took a picture of Archer and Chance with the hopes of having one framed or made into a canvas. Which one do you like best?

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Facebook, you homewrecker!

My local news station is doing a piece on how facebook ruins marriages. There are divorce attorneys coming on using statistics like social network sites are involved in 50% of divorces.

It’s not really the story that bothers me, but the message it sends. Facebook is an incredible place to catch up with people you haven’t talked to in a long time, or leave a short note for your mom telling her you love her. It’s a place to share photos of your children with family members who live far away. It’s also a place that people are catching up with high school sweethearts, college lovers, and that person in the workplace you once had great chemistry with. Is that a bad thing? Possibly, if you’re married or in a committed relationship. Is facebook to blame? No. They don’t force you to message that person you know you shouldn’t. They don’t force you to then meet up with them or pursue any kind of relationship, emotional or physical.

One thing I've heard of a ton of couples doing is creating a couples facebook page. One pastor is even suggesting his congregation do this. Can I just say, I have no issue with that. If you want a couples page, that's fine. But please, don't think for a second that if you have a spouse who would use facebook to cheat won't find some other way to cheat. Don't think they won't (ps, I know that's a double negative, but I like how it sounds) create a page and keep it a secret.

This is a bit of a soapbox issue for me, but honestly, it’s not acceptable to blame someone/something for your personal decisions. If your relationship is causing you to seek out someone else, talk to your significant other about it, not someone else. Seek counseling, not another person. I think our current society, one in which the most pleasurable thing that you can get the quickest, we go after those quick fixes that make us feel good. I wish that we, as a race of humans, instead weren’t so proud to ask for help when we need it, for ourselves and our relationships.

I have, fortunately, never personally been in a situation of infidelity, but I mostly just hate hearing people blame a social networking site or other third party cause for something so complex as a marriage. There are so many other factors involved that you cannot put it off on something so simple as facebook.

I found this very insightful article when searching “Facebook Ruined My Marriage” (which is what the local news article searches for info on their article). It has basically the same tone as this blog, except with a first hand account from a woman who actually cheated on her husband of 20 years after reuniting with her long lost high school sweetheart. Thought I would share for anyone interested.

Dreary Day

Yesterday was just perfectly warm, the sun was bright. The skies were blue and wonderful. It was the perfect spring day.

I had my windows open all day. Cleaned the house, which is not anything I enjoy doing, by the way. I just had the whole day with nothing major planned. It's my only Saturday off until the end of the month, and I planned to enjoy it.

Chance and Archer were gone most of the day to Chance's parents and then to our nephew's baseball game. Archer took a long nap and it was just a nice day.

I woke up this morning to thunder at 5am. Never a good sign for the coming day. It's been rainy, cold and windy all day. I made lasagna for lunch, and afterward the boys settled in for a nap.

I took a bath, no picture of that. :) And once the wii remote charges, I'm going to play just dance.

I always liked cloudy rainy days like this before I had kids, and when I didn't work. Now that my time off is limited to weekends, I hate it being rainy instead of sunny. My poor kid gets cabin fever, and begs to go outside. But then, my office is outside the main part of the building so my students and I get rained on, so I don't like rain during the work week either. Guess I can never be pleased. : ) Actually, I don't mind rain when it doesn't drop the temperature to 40 degrees in May.

Ah well. At least tomorrow is pay day. And the summer is rapidly approaching. Can't wait to just spend the day having fun with Archer.

Anniversary Chronicles

If you'll remember, my ten year anniversary (since dating) was last month. Chance and I (well, mostly just I) decided to take a picture of just the two of us every year around our anniversary. I thought it would be a fun way of measuring the years.

So, we took this picture.

Well as I was recently going through my photos and organzing them on my computer I found a random picture in my phone from the same time last year. We actually took a picture of just the two of us, both dressed nicely, on the exact same day the previous year. Apparently I must have thought about taking an anniversary pic that year too and just forgot? Who knows, but it's most definitely a tradition I'm starting.

How about you? Any traditions for your anniversary? Any you want to start?

Photoshop Fun

I took Archer out in the beautiful sunshine today to snap a few quick pictures. I love the effect of the spring and summer sun in pictures. Well today, I wanted to do something kind of fun, but he wouldn't sit too still. We ended up with this.

To which I first edited into this. Basic reverse black and white, created with the reverse b/w tool in Photoshop Elements 9.

Then I wanted to do even more, so I played around with the hue and saturation of the image in quick editing, also PSE 9. 

Both of these turned out cute! I'm thinking of doing a collage print, Andy Warhol style. 

Chance bought me PSE 9 for my anniversary gift, so I'm learning my way through it. If you have any tips, please feel free to let me know. I've looked a few up on youtube and found how to brighten the eyes, but that's basically the extent of my knowledge.

Heartbreak in the Southest

Because one of the major complaints of Americans about the massive overwhelming media frenzy following the royal wedding was that there was a major disaster happening in our country. My personal response to that was, it was getting plenty of media coverage, and must we always only witness depressing news? But in all fairness, I will tell you a story about how the disastrous tornadoes in Alabama have affected me personally.

I live in Oklahoma where tornadoes are extremely frequent. I've seen more than my fair share, and I'm constantly scared to death of them. Scared to the clinical phobia level, with extreme anxiety attacks resulting. Luckily for me, we have had mild weather this year with no tornadoes.

A few years back, just after Chance had gotten into bed I saw on the news that our county was in a tornado warning. Upon closer look, the tornado was about 10 northeast of my house moving south. I screamed for Chance to get out of bed, tossed Archer in his carrier and ran for the car. We don't have a cellar but my sister has a basement. She lives about a mile west of town, and we thought we had time. We weren't 10 blocks from the house before the wind hit. Chance had the steering wheel locked to the right, and we were still getting pushed nearly off the left side of the road. We could see power lines and trees falling behind us due to the wind. I honestly made reckoning that we weren't going to make it. There was no way we could get there alive. By God's grace we made it, and after beating on the door to her house and the wind nearly knocking us off our feet, we made it in. Thankfully our house had no damage, but a tree was blown into the house two doors down and both of our neighbors lost several shingles and have since replaced their roofs.

Even with all of the media coverage of the April 27 tornadoes, I somehow missed that the tiny town of Phil Campbell, AL had been hit by a tornado. Friday my grandpa made his routine call to my aunt. She didn't answer. He thought that was strange, and got worried that maybe the town she lived in (Phil Campbell) may have been hit. He called the police department there and found out that she and her family too, were fine. The house had some damage and they had lost their chicken barn, which was their livelihood.

Because there had been so many storms going through, there were a lot of people in AL without power, and the communication was hindered. I follow my local weathermen on facebook, and one of them basically said this is one of the most dangerous tornado situations they had ever seen and requested that everyone contact their family members and let them know what was happening. I copied his status to mine and posted it for anyone who might have family there, as I didn't have any on facebook. Almost immediately after, a close friend texted me to say thanks for posting, her dad was driving across the state and she hadn't been able to contact him. She messaged me back later to say she was able to contact him, and that he had pulled over and gotten into a shelter. He could see the tornado. If I hadn't copied that status and she hadn't called him, he may not have stopped.

I'm so thankful that his story turned out so well. I'm so thankful for social media sites and quick communication means like text messages. Because of this, at least one life I know may have been saved. I'm certain there were countless others. If you see these things happening, please pass them along, you never know how beneficial it may be.

(Picture of one of the trees that blew down as we drove past. It was a very old, huge tree.)

Royal Wedding and Morons

I realize that not everyone is obsessed with the media attention the royal wedding has received. I didn't even actually watch the wedding until today. It was sweet and really pretty. My favorite part of the whole thing was Prince Harry's sweet smile when he told his brother, "Wait til you see her" with a face cracking grin. (PS, I heart Harry)

But really, I haven't been obsessed over it, just watching snippets and keeping up with Yahoo!'s news updates. However, I have see many people on facebook totally obsessed, either with non-stop photos and praise or non-stop complaining. Just in case you are wondering, constantly complaining infers to me that you actually do care. If you didn't care at all, you wouldn't be posting on facebook.

But this really gets to me. Someone posted this on someone else's facebook page.

Friend one: I am dvring it, I am excited !!! So is my gdaughter!! She said that she did not know that princesses were real !!!

Friend two: nope she lived with him for 2 years now. no princess just a regular whore

Honestly, that is the most immature thing I've read in a long time. Just really...pisses me off. I hate to break it to you, but living with the person you intend to spend the rest of your life with before your married does not make you a whore. I cannot stand small minded opinions like that. Just so you know, I will delete any similar comments of this blog as well.

It's unnecessary.

Fit for a Princess

I haven't been too up on the Royal hoopla, but I was excited to see the dress. It turned out to be a truly beautiful dress, for a very beautiful young woman. I'm impressed.

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But even more than the dress, I truly hope that the look on her face in this photo is how she feels now and 50 years from now. I wish them all the happiness in the world.

Source

Free Canvas Print

I might just be the only one who didn't know about this, but in case your like me, Canvas People offers your first print free and pretty decent prices thereafter. I'm impressed to say the least, and will most likely order another.

After seeing Little Miss Mama's I Spy series today, I must admit, a little bit of jealousy surged me, and forced me into buying this:

I got it upgraded to a 16x20 for only $12.99 plus shipping. I can't wait to get it in and hang it in my living room! :)

What is counseling?

Ever wondered what counseling was, from a counselors perspective? Well I recently had to write a journal about an experience in a class, and thought I would share.

How do you define counseling? Before taking any counseling classes, it was just talking. Helping people solve their problems. Giving advice. Now that I’m (thankfully) almost finished with my master’s degree, I now know that counseling is something much more complex than I ever imagined. Now I know that it’s theory and training. A process for the client that the counselor walks them through, training them to find their own way, not necessarily walking with them and “helping.”

Counseling is knowing what theory drives you, and not just mixing what sounds good, finding something that is proven to work and following the lead of pioneers, not reinventing the wheel. Counseling is using that theory to observe and learn about a client, and then use that knowledge to create goals and plans, and follow them through. Counseling is not always successful, and success is not doing it “right.” Which honestly, right was never a concern for me. I was more worried about wrong, damaging, or harming. Those things seem more daunting to me.

Counseling is about helping people, but not getting so involved in their problems that you aren’t doing your job or are damaging yourself in the process. Counseling is continuing your education and being a part of your field and knowing what’s new, next and cutting edge; and also knowing what’s no longer appropriate.
Counseling is knowing that not everyone thinks like you or learns like you, and most importantly that no one has been through the same life experiences as you. Those things shape how other people think, learn, and live. Culture, gender, socioeconomic status, race-and it’s implications-all create this environment we as counselors must learn to balance in our daily work, but really, all we have to be is empathetic and know that it doesn’t matter what we think, know, have learned or experienced. It’s about the client and what they have been through. We should know our own biases, how to put them in their place (not letting them interfere with our work), and when to let a client go if this is something we can’t do.

Not having a psychology degree, I sometimes get bogged down in the details and the process. I forget to think like a counselor, it isn’t instinct; I have to work at it. When I think of counseling in this way, it reminds me of Mark Twain’s “Two Ways of Seeing a River.” When you think of this career, it’s this awesome and humble career of helping people. You spend your day making the lives of others so much better. And then when you learn what it actually involves, how much work and training, and for me, this entire perspective shift, it really changes the way you see it. It’s no longer awesome and humble, but just a career. A job that pays the bills, that I plan to enjoy, but none the less, the magic is gone. I now know how it works, the mystery is gone. I’m sure there are still plenty of mysteries left in the counseling field, but overall, big picture, I know the basic procedure.

For me, counseling is this in progress thing that I wonder if I'll ever really understand. I think, at this point, I could have a PhD and still not know enough. I'm hoping that my internship in the fall will help with that.

So, as my professor would say, What's your take on counseling?

What does perfection lead to? Self Control I hope.

Came across this on facebook today, and I'm not sure how I feel about it. It's incredibly well written, and a very moving piece that I'm sure will garner much acclaim. Well deserved acclaim. And I don't intend to sound insensitive to anyone out there reading it and agreeing whole-heartedly, but, to be blunt: I didn't.

Some of the situations mentioned are dead on. It's false perfection to lie about how amazing your husband is when he's really not. It's verbal abuse when he calls you a whore for smiling at a stranger. I'm not saying the calling of one name is verbal abuse, but I know people like that, and it doesn't stop there. Ever. It doesn't stop at verbal abuse, usually. I'm also going to take a leap that the same husband doing this transgression is the same one telling his kids he wished they were never born. Because this:

""Perfection" is a dad hating himself because he can't give the same thing to his kids that other dads do, and then hates himself further because he takes his self-loathing out on his kids behind closed doors. You know what would have been nice? If you were never born. Do you realize how much money I'd have right now? Now come give Daddy a hug because I can force you to give me validation." (Single Dad Laughing)

to me, is also verbal abuse.

Again, some of these are dead on. Someone does need to tell that pregnant unwed girl that it will all be ok. That not everything is so big that it can't be fixed. She most definitely needs a shoulder to cry on.

But that verbally abusive husband, wife, mother, father, they need counseling. They don't need coddled and told it's OK to not need to be perfect. There comes a point in time when you have to realize the level of stress you are under and how it is affecting those around you. If you, the reader of this blog, are currently telling your children you wish they had never been born, please stop. It's not ok. If you're calling your wife derogatory names for being friendly in public, stop. If you're running your husband into the ground because it makes you feel better about yourself, stop. Those things aren't ok, and they are affecting your relationships. They are affecting the people around you. The things you are saying are being soaked up by those you are saying them to and the others around who can hear. You are teaching your sons and daughters how to act, and it's not ok for them to treat others that way.

This is a bit of a soapbox of mine, but if you are a wife/girlfriend or husband/boyfriend, whatever of a man/woman who treats you like dirt, DO NOT stand for it. Tell them you want to see a counselor or you're leaving. Those behaviors will be taught to your children. Do you want your son to treat his wife that way? Or your daughter to treat her husband that way? I don't.

Again, not saying that SDL is wrong in anyway, but that a clarification needs to be made. I, personally, will not put my arm around an adult treating another human/animal you name it, badly for their own personal validation to tell them it's ok to be imperfect. These people need to be told it's not OK to act that way, and it's ok to feel imperfect. Actually, I'm going to change that statement. They need to be empowered to learn that it's not OK to act that way and it's ok to BE imperfect.

Have you ever noticed my categories? The majority are marked Blissful Life and Real Life. There's a reason for this. Even though my existence is pretty blessed, it's not always perfect. There is real life thrown in.