Life Updates of a Larger Magnitude

Last fall one of the businessy books/podcasts/articles I was absorbing talked about designing the life you love and scheduling the important stuff first.  So at that time, months and months in advance, I scheduled a camping trip for each summer month.  We just finished #3 of 4, and I could kiss whomever wrote/spoke that businessy thing that encouraged me to do this.  Normally with camp with my most amazing sister Lisa and her friend, Rose, and those ladies are QUEENS of camping.  They have it down to an art, and they are such amazing souls that they take care of everyone else who camps with them.  But this time, alas, we went without them.  And since I had to really think through the gear thing, I realized that this is the one vacation that you can do with a family of 5 for pretty cheap.  I put together an Amazon list of the basics as I see them, and even if you bought all the essentials on it for a family of 5, you'd be at $700*.  $700 and you ca...

Having kiddos is tough!  Tough because they force you to try to be unselfish and truly understanding of someone other than yourself.  I thought that dating and marriage forced you to do that, and it does, but not at this level.  When dating someone and they get to be a pain, you can retreat to "They're a jerk, maybe this isn't for me." or "We're not a fit."  When kids get to be a pain, you are basically left with, "I made this creature, and we're going to be together forever, so I better figure out how to get better at communication."  And that's what I am focusing on today.  I just did a brief read-through of "How to Talk So Kids Will Listen and Listen So Kids Will Talk."  A lot of it has already disseminated through today's society and wasn't really earth shattering, but it was still full of things that basically mean I have to be way more empathetic and put serious effort into how I respond, not just knee-jerk react...

I've been having low level headaches for about 6 weeks now, which means one of 2 things.  Either I have a brain tumor, or I'm not doing as great a job managing stress as I think I am. At first I thought it was a by-product of theWhole30 challenge that Matt and I were doing.  I've managed to stay pretty hydrated recently, so that's not it, but I thought perhaps cutting out sugar and dairy was effecting me in weird ways.  But we ended that, I binged on sugar, I'm still hydrated, and the headaches keep coming.  That, combined with the fact that every time I'm driving in the car I realize that I have to focus to get a full deep breath, makes me think my stress level is pegged even though I seem to think I'm mentally great.  Or I have a brain tumor.  I hope it's the stress thing. The downside to that is that I don't actually think I'm that stressed.  I do my whole Miracle Morning routine each weekday, so I'm getting some exercise, some meditat...