Posts Tagged ‘Family’

It is amazing how much I can talk and still have trouble communicating. I am extremely bad at communicating my needs and wants. It may come from the fact that I don’t even know what I want! I just hate that people assume they know what I want all the time.

I try to communicate with people the best I can. But how do you tell people what you need so that they understand. And what if they never do? What do you do then? I am always oscillating between trying so hard not to hurt anyone’s feelings and blowing up because I don’t feel heard.

I am currently reading Eat Pray Love, and I just finished the first section of the book where she goes to Italy in search of pleasure. What is that exactly? Just like the woman in the book, I think I am at a point in my life where I am trying to figure that out. I just don’t have the money to go to Italy for months an figure it out. So I’ll have to keep going and figure this out while living my life and doing what I have to do.

Hopefully once I figure it out, I’ll be able to express myself better. This may help my various relationships immensely!

I am seriously guilty of this. I too often argue for the sake of being right but never actually gain anything from the argument. Me and D. often leave arguments both frustrated. I will work at being happy and not being right. I will try to let go of arguments and try to listen more… in all my life’s situations! This article found on http://charlottekamman.com/ really made me think and I will try to apply this as much as I can!

Counter-Values are things you just can’t stand. Things that make your life miserable when it happens. Things that you try to avoid at all cost in your life. Just like the values I mentionned in a previous blog entry, counter-values need to be respected if you want to be happy and live a life you are comfortable with. Of course, there are moments in our lives where we must do things that don’t necessarily please us. But if your life is full of your counter-values, you will be extremely miserable!

Here are my counter values according to the book by Isabelle Nazare-Aga titled: Je suis comme je suis (it’s a French book, the title means I am who I am)

Counter-Value #1: Boredom

I hate being bored. I simply can’t stand it. I agonize over events where I know I will be bored. I try to carry stuff with me at all times to keep me occupied: magazines, books etc. I can’t even eat alone… I find it boring. So I read or watch TV if I have to be alone. When I feel boredom, I have to find something to do. Even if it’s just going to the store to get milk. Weekends where I have no plans are awful. I need to see people, do things… anything!

Counter-Value #2:Uselessness

I don’t like feeling useless and I don’t like things I consider useless. I like helping other and being attentive to the needs of others. I will often offer my help to people. I also don’t like meetings where people talk and talk but don’t come up with any action. Being proactive is important to me.

Counter-Value #3: Lack of trust

I need to trust people. When I buy for a company I need to trust it. My first reaction to new places or people is to be careful before I trust them. I have a hard time with change because once I trust a place or a person, I don’t want anything to change.

Counter-Value #4: Lack of recognition

I am very sensitive when it comes to compliments or even thank yous. I feel really offended and hurt when people don’t thank me or recognize the work I have done. Sometimes I do expect to much though, and I am often dissapointed. I like when people recognize me as a good person or a good worker.

Counter-Value #5: Break-ups or loss

I get very anxious if I lose someone or when someone leaves. I am often very sad, even if that person has just left for a trip.  In love, every single fight or conflict brings up the fear of a break up. Thinking of anybody I love dying terrifies me. I also have a hard time moving or changing something major in my life.

Counter-Value #6: Solitude

I feel awful when I have to spend a weekend night alone at home, especially on a Saturday! I try to have people around me. When I am alone I feel anxious, sad or even depressed. I try to plan my weekends so I always have something to do. I like doing things with other people, not alone. If I am alone one nigh, I will call someone and chat. In love, I am very dependant, I don’t want to be alone. It scares me immensely to think that I might end up alone when I’m older.

Ouch… reading this I realize I have a lot of stuff to work on. Counter-Values are not all necessarily positive. They are just what I need right now to feel fulfilled. But some of those I’ll have to change. Especially the being alone one. With the situation with D. I will have to get used to being alone… I need to find a way to appreciate it or I will go crazy!

I’ve been absent lately from this blog… had a lot of emotional stuff to deal with and did not know what to write about. I thought everything would sound depressing.

I did however finish the little exercise of finding my core values from that book I talked about last time. We were asked to read each value and its description and choose 10 that represented us. We then had to give them a rating of 1-10, placing them in order of importance…. so here are mine.

1. Family: My family is important to me, in fact it is a priority. This includes my parents, my brother but of course also my daughter and my boyfriend. It is important to me to not have my job or career affect my family and the time I can spend with them. I am not able to understand how celebrations and special occasions like Christmas can be spent with anybody else than family. I need my family daily, as a part of my life.
2. Material and Financial Security:  I do not like to take risks when it comes to a job or my salary. I tried working freelance and hated the fact that I could not count on a regular income. I like having a bi-weekly salary that I can count on and budget from. I have chosen a field (teaching ESL- English as a Second Language) for many reasons but a big one is the job stability it gives me. It is a field where I can always find work. I’m not a big fan of change and I love when things stay the same for a long time… although none of that has actually happened in my life!!!
3. Emotional Security: I need other people (family, friends and boyfriend) to help feed my need for affection. I’m looking for a stable relation, stable friendships etc… (although that too has not actuallly happened…). I make a point to create traditions, rituals with friends and family for us to keep in contact. I’m not a big fan of solitude, being alone is ok but not for too long! I can be extremly jalous when it comes to my man. I will work very hard at making a relationship work and will have a hard time actually leaving a relationship.
4. Friendship:  It is fondamental in my life. I need friends and I am a very loyal friend. I make sure to organise things to that I can see my friends as often as it is possible.
5. Complicity: I like to have complicity in my interactions with the people around me. I don’t have thousands of friends but what we share is real. I also need this complicity with the man I love. I like feeling close enough to someone to feel like we are one, like we understand the other without them talking.
6. Respect: I believe in social etiquette et social rules. I like to be informed of the law and know what needs to be done if someone does not respect it.  I can easily point out people who are not following the rules. I like to read every line of a contract and be sure I know everything before I sign… I actually read my ENTIRE insurance contract before agreeing to it.
7. Creativity: I pretty good at imagining, inventing and creating. I like creating things myself. I like decorating, writing, painting etc.
8. Estheticism: I like when things are visually harmonious. I like nice furniture, objects and so forth in a house. Now, this does not have to be expensive however! I look for beauty, in things and in people. I can automatically see when things don’t go together, clothes, colours etc. I like to look good and make sure my house looks good. I like fashion and decorating magazines and they give me lots of ideas. I also like when food has an apetizing look.
9. Passing Down: I like to communicate what I have learned. I like to teach and train other people. I like to read about things and pass down what I have learned to other people. I love teaching my child or other children to do new things.
10. Efficiency: I like to be efficient in everything I do. I like how I do things and I am a very organised person. I know where my stuff is at all times. I don’t like to procrastinate. I like things to be done and when they are not, I can become anxious. I often do lots of things at once. I don’t forget things too often and I hate it when I do so. I am someone my friends and family can count on, I am reliable. I hate meetings where nothing gets done and no concrete actions are decided upon. I hate wastes of time, especially waiting for other people who are NOT efficient.

So here they are. The description I gave next to each comes from the book. They are the things I recognized in myself and helped me identify these core values.

Next step: My counter-values, things I cannot stand… Then, D. said he would try it as well… I always feel like are values are so far from one another… I wonder If this book will prove me wrong!

Me and D. had a bit of a fight yesterday. It’s a bit difficult to see where our relationship is going. We do love each other but I don’t know what he has to offer… He can’t be WITH me. All I get is time here and there, as much as he can because he does make the effort, but only time here or there anyhow…

And he asked me a question yesterday. He asked me what I wanted. I just heard this song on the radio and that’s what I would like… A home, a family, happy children and parents in love. Enjoying the little things from daily life. Seeing my children grow up and enjoying every moment of it… and a home I can’t wait to get home to!

Oh yeah
Yeah oh yeah

The only ground I ever owned was sticking to my shoes
Now I look at my front porch and this panoramic view
I can sit and watch the fields fill up
With rays of glowing sun
Or watch the moon lay on the fences
Like that’s where it was hung
My blessings are in front of me
It’s not about the land
I’ll never beat the view
From my front porch looking in

There’s a carrot top who can barely walk
With a sippy cup of milk
A little blue eyed blonde with shoes on wrong
‘Cause she likes to dress herself
And the most beautiful girl holding both of them
And the view I love the most
Is my front porch looking in, yeah

I’ve traveled here and everywhere
Following my job
I’ve seen the paintings from the air
Brushed by the hand of God
The mountains and the canyons reach from sea to shining sea
But I can’t wait to get back home
To the one he made for me
It’s anywhere I’ll ever go and everywhere I’ve been
Nothing takes my breath away
Like my front porch looking in

There’s a carrot top who can barely walk
With a sippy cup of milk
A little blue eyed blonde with shoes on wrong
‘Cause she likes to dress herself
And the most beautiful girl holding both of them
Yeah the view I love the most
Is my front porch looking in

I see what beautiful is about
When I’m looking in
Not when I’m looking out

There’s a carrot top who can barely walk
With a sippy cup of milk
A little blue eyed blonde with shoes on wrong
‘Cause she likes to dress herself
And the most beautiful girl holding both of them
Yeah the view I love the most

Oh, the view I love the most
Is my front porch looking in
Yeah
Oh, there’s a carrot top who can barely walk
(From my front porch looking in)
A little blue eyed blonde with shoes on wrong, yeah
And the most beautiful girl
(Beautiful girl
From my front porch looking in)
Holding both of them
Oh, yeah

See the video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r-HtiZcHUmE

I am currently reading a great book titled: Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff. I read my books from the library so sometimes, I find old stuff that’s still really good Well, old is relative but anyway…

The book is really easy to read. I read one advice per day and it gets me thinking thoughout that day. The one I read last said that we have to learn to be bored. That it’s ok! The author mentions how we keep ourselves busy all the time and that is something I do. We get impatient waiting in line and kids today need stuff to bring for a car ride so that they are NOT bored.

But being bored actually helps creativity and imagination. It gives you time to think and we do very little of that when we are rushing from activity to activity. I see that a lot in kids today. My daughter likes to have friends over or go play at the park with friends. But she often has a hard time finding a friend who is free. Her friends are involved in all sorts of activities. They are never bored. On the weekends, their parents bring them to various activity and plan the entire weekend as if they are at day camp. Entertainment must be provided at all times, even during meals!

Whatever happened to kids being bored and finding something to do on their own? Wh is it that parents must occupy their kids so that they are NOT bored? I see that in class a lot with students. They don’t know what to do with themselves if they are not given clear instructions. They have a hard time with thinsg like: write about anything you want. They actually freak with that one. They want to be told what to do, how many words, what the topic is and everything. Where is the imagination and creativity in all that. It is very limited!

So try this: next time your kids tell you they are bored, let them be bored until they figure out something to do! You’ll be surprised!

This is something I always try to do in my life, although not always successfully. D. has LOADS of issues with this and I know lots of people around me who struggle with time debt! This article really makes a whole lot of sense! We spend so much time worrying about money, we should spend some time worrying about how we spend our time. This is also a good way to teach our kids not to be stressed out, going from one activity to another. To learn to say no sometimes and have time to do the real important stuff: develop relationships and take care of ourselves!

Struggling with Time-Debt

I recently found myself, late one night, staring at my computer screen with a sinking, hard feeling in my stomach and a bad taste in my mouth. A familiar bad taste. The taste of debt. But I wasn’t looking at my bank statement — I was looking at my calendar. 

I’d borrowed a few hours from my normal work routine to do something special with my kids, and then cancelled a date with my husband to make up the work hours, and then tried to reschedule with him but ran into a doctor’s appointment I’d forgotten about. 

Time-management coach Thekla Richter says I’m not alone. “Everybody has that problem,” she says. “No matter how good we are at time managment. We want to do more things than we have time to do. It just means that we have lots of desire and lots of imagination.” 

Once I’d had that rock-bottom moment of insight, the pattern that led to it was clear. 

Running out of time
Looking back, I could see how over the past six months I’ve taken on more and more freelance work without letting any of my other commitments go. To make it all work, I started borrowing. It was just a few hours here and there at first: saying I’d do the laundry tomorrow instead of right now, asking my husband to drive for gymnastics this week and promising to do it next time. 

Pretty soon, I needed to start repaying some of that borrowed time. Deadlines I’d gotten extensions on came due like dreaded tax bills, chores I’d postponed piled up around the house. I ran into the same problems I’m familiar with from money-based debt: I owed more than I could pay. There were simply not enough hours in the day for all the commitments I had. 

Richter says the biggest consequence for perennial time borrowers is losing joy in life. You’re constantly rushing around, and even the things you love become no fun anymore. I’ll add health problems, sleep deprivation, short-tempered fights with my family and making expensive mistakes to that list. 

Being out of time is not unlike living under clutter in that sense. When you always need to be in two places at once, you can’t be your best at anything. You make mistakes, lose things, miss deadlines. That can start costing you real money, as well as lowering your quality of life. 

Time wasn’t always in such short supply for me. As a stay-at-home mom managing a household of five people on one salary, I’d adopted the adage, “I have more time than money” as my personal motto. 

For years, the best solution to any problem I faced was the time-intensive DIY approach. I learned a lot of money-saving skills during that period, and spent many hours gardening, baking, mending, doing bike repair and bartering goods and services. 

But when I didn’t drop my DIY ways after I started working for money again, it quickly became apparent that I no longer had more time than money. 

I was sleeping four or five hours a night trying to make my temporal ends meet, and still falling further behind. It seemed like I was working every waking hour to keep a commitment for someone else. My kids were feeling it, too. They wanted more downtime, and were showing it through frequent tantrums and poor sleep. 

Something had to give. 

Finding time
First, I did the time equivalent of declaring bankruptcy: I quit everything. No more writer’s group, no more swim lessons, no more gymnastics classes, no more weekly library story hour. 

I turned my suddenly-much-happier kids loose to play with their neighborhood friends, watch Sesame Street and bake cookies with me in the afternoons. I spent my evenings at home, not running around town trying to keep up with a social life that suited my 25-year-old self better than my mom-self. 

After quitting (almost) everything, here are a few techniques I used to bring my time debt under control: 

• I prioritized. Just as the first step with money management is to know where your money is going, you need to know where your time is going. “You need some kind of system where you know big picture what are your priorities and values and what are all the projects that are on your plate,” Thekla says. “That’s really like a budget.”

 

• I paid myself first. To get out of debt, you need to pay yourself first. Just like saving money, I needed to put time for myself ahead of the time I give to others if I wanted to make any headway on my ‘time debt’. I started insisting on ten minutes alone in the bathroom each morning to take a quick shower. That ten minutes of private time has grown into hours of personal time each week as my whole family gets used to the idea that Mommy needs time to herself.

 

• I practiced saying “no”. Richter told me that the key to time management is being willing to say ‘no’ to yourself and other people. “It all comes down to having to make some really tough and really proactive choices,” she said. Just as you can’t spend the same dollar twice, each minutes can only be lived once. Whatever you choose to do with it means not doing something else.

Unlike money, you can’t get more time. Sure, you can become more efficient up to a point, but eventually you just have to say no to something you really want to do, because you want something else more. Time management is all about tough choices. 

Richter suggests asking yourself these questions when choosing to make a time commitment: 

• “What am I giving up to do this?”
• “How am I going to feel about this decision later?”
• “How will I feel about this in a month, in a year, in ten years?”

She also suggests making time commitments for now instead of later. Like money, time we commit to spend in the future seems easier to handle than time we have to spend right now. But like money, it really isn’t. You won’t have 20 free hours in six months that you don’t have now. 

Take time for yourself
Speaking of free hours, be sure to leave yourself some as you plan your time. Keep a bank of unscheduled time in your day is like having an emergency fund. Things will crop up unexpectedly that demand your time. Having resources to put towards them will save you from breaking other commitments or stressing yourself out. 

I’m still far from perfect at this. The great time management tips Thekla gave me I got during a phone interview at 1 a.m. But I took a break while writing this article to have a romantic dinner with my husband. I’m bringing things back into balance. 

That doesn’t mean I’ll never be busy again, just like managing my finances doesn’t mean I’ll never have a broke week again. But the overall picture is healthier and more joyful. 

J.D.’s note: I so relate to this article. I, too, have been struggling with time-debt, and have been trying to find ways to beat it. One method that seems to be working for me is to put first things first. (If you’ve got a copy of my book, turn to page 20. See that sidebar? That’s what I’ve been reminding myself of as I work to make time for the important stuff.) 

This article is about Self-Improvement  Thursday, 8th April 2010 (by Sierra Black)  

 http://www.getrichslowly.org/blog/2010/04/08/struggling-with-time-debt/

I’m rethinking my life right now and that involves money a lot. I will need to make enough money to pay for this new appartment and the new car I bought last year. I had made all these plans for my life that depended on D. and us living together. I thought I could finally find a job where the hours would be great and I could devote myself to my family more and watch all of them grow! It is now different. But I will still add this goal to my list. I want to reduce my expenses and find a way to have more time. Not work 50 hours a week, not spend my evenings working or my weekends finishing up some work assignment. I want to be able to write, continue this blog, write for magazines etc. And most of all, I want to have lots of time to spend with my daughter, my friends and my family!

I think this article really nails one of my life goals!

I talk to a newspaper, radio, or television reporter on the phone once a day on average. The topics vary all over the place, but they’re usually seeking a quote from the “author of 365 Ways to Live Cheap” for their article or report.

Usually, my response has to do with some financial discipline. I often talk about the many ways my wife and I have cut our spending. I usually mention the fact that our daily routine doesn’t involve much spending – we eat at home, I work at home, our children play outdoors a lot, and so on. I also often include the fact that we don’t indulge in luxury items that much, particularly new ones.

These revelations usually cause the reporter to ask some variation on the big question.

Are you happy living like that?

Absolutely. Here’s why.

I realized that the best way to spend your money is to spend it on time, not on stuff.

For starters, that means trimming your spending on material items. We just don’t buy as much stuff as we used to. Our entertainment budget is about 20% of what it used to be. We don’t buy gadgets very often any more. I wear my socks until they’re actually worn out. We buy many items in bulk and try to get every possible use out of them. The end result of that is that our normal routine of life is a lot less expensive than it used to be.

Many people, in that situation, would channel that extra money into more stuff. We choose to channel it into more time.

Because of these spending choices, I get to spend tons of time with my kids. I was able to switch to a job with a much more flexible schedule (writing) because we didn’t require the nice income from my previous job. Now, we go to the park, the Science Center, out in the yard, and do countless projects all of the time. These are things I simply didn’t have much time for until we took control ove our life.

Because of these spending choices, my wife will take a sabbatical from her job for a while to be a stay-at-home mother. She loves her job and wants to go back to it, but like me, she wants to spend a lot of time with our children, especially when they’re young. This would have been impossible a few years ago – we “needed” the money too much.

Because of these spending choices, I have the time to learn new things. I’m learning to play the piano. I’m steadily improving as a fiction writer. I’ve become very adept in the kitchen. I’ve been able to tackle some extremely challenging books and really stretch my mind. Back in the day, I would have never had time for all of these things.

My life is more rich not because I can afford more stuff, but because I have more time. I’m able to have that time because I applied some financial discipline to my spending.

To put it simply, I stopped trading my time for more stuff that I didn’t have time to adequately enjoy. The first step in this journey, of course, is financial discipline, and it can be hard. But when you reach a point where your debts are taken care of and you’re spending far less than you earn, you begin to see a huge world of opportunities before you. You can move into work that matches what you want in terms of professional challenge and time flexibility instead of whatever work pays the best.

That might not be the result that everyone wants – or even that most people want. I certainly know people who seem very happy with the material items that they have.

I just know that because I took control of my spending and installed some financial discipline, I was able to find a lot more of the one thing I wanted most – time. And I couldn’t be happier with it.

http://www.thesimpledollar.com/

One of the things that is the toughest for me right now, is to find new goals for my life. I always thought that my life was going to be: meet some great guy, have children and enjoy my family. Things are a bit different right now. I have met this great guy but babies are no longer in my future and the family is quite different… Professionally I choose a job I like but mostly chose it because it allowed me to spend more time with my daughter and was good for my future family. I did not see some great future or goals in this career…

I had not dreamed of visiting countries or learning anything specific because my life goals were so clear cut and simple. The rest to me, if it happened (like a trip for example) was just a bonus. I lived my life wating for this family to happen instead of enjoying the family I did have and the life I had already.

I read this article my mother forwarded to me where the author talked about creating a life list. I found this great website that allows to create a life list and even share with others. What is most important in creating this list is to not see it as a goal to be reached no matter what. What the author mentionned is to reassess this list at least every year. She mentionned that if you goal is learn german but that you hate every minute of the german class, that goal should be removed. The point is to have dreams, things you would like to have done when your time is up. But the point is not to make yourself miserable by feeling unfulfilled if the list is not completed.

I have created my list. I’m not sure how much access you guys have to my list. I’ll have to verify that but please feel free to take a look at it if you can. I strongly encourage you to do the same and start trying to cross things off your list. I keep adding to it and some stuff I’ll probably never do. But I’m discovering things I’d like to do, things I like, things that I can dream about and look forward to.

http://www.mylifelist.org/Home.aspx

I was not sure about this move. I knew that for myself I needed to do it. But I was certain that it would mean the end of me and D. I am pleasantly surprised. D. and his son came over for supper last night. This is our second get-together since I moved out and once again, it went great. Everyone was relaxed, happy to see each other. His son kept saying how good my supper was and the kids had a blast playing together.

My relationship with D. has changed completely as well. We are a lot less tense. We are a lot more focused on the two of us. I feel as though we are falling in love with each other again. I was especially surprised to find that our conversations have changed dramatically. Before, it used to be 95% talk about the stepfamily, the kids and the ex. Now it was quite the contrary. We talked about our kids but sharing info and supporting each other, not criticizing or anything! The ex does not come up in our conversation at all. We talked about work, plans for the future, plans for our summer, things we like etc. REAL CONVERSATION.

We are spending the weekend together and I can’t wait. This was a really good move I believe!

I have just finished reading this entry and this part really got to me:

3.  I am better off not knowing everything. Before this challenge, I would listen to my stepdaughter tell me all about her phone conversations with her mom. Then I would get so worked up when I heard all the lame excuses why she hadn’t called for six months or made promises that I knew she wouldn’t keep. I would see my stepdaughter get off the phone and dance around the house in complete “joy” while I knew what was around the corner – more rejection when the promises were unmet.  I would start visualizing what that meant for me.

Now, I choose not to listen to the recap. I don’t want to know what was talked about and I feel 110% better on days when she does call. I put myself on a need to know basis and I love it.

This can be applied in an ex-wife situation. You can let your husband know you don’t need the details, just the info regarding dates and times for visitation schedules, etc…. This will blow his mind and make him eternally grateful. Men typically aren’t into details plus they don’t like to deliver information to their wives that they know can be potentially explosive!

read more at: http://thestepmomstoolbox.com/not-taking-things-personally-lessons-learned-from-the-40-day-challenge/

I have decided to apply this in my life now. I will not ask for details about the ex anymore. Of course I need the info about dates and stuff so we can still plan a life together but I don’t want to know about anything else. I will let D. deal with her and I will not let her poison my life anymore. It is no longer any of my business. And this time, not living together and not being so completely overwhelmed with this stepfamily situation, I think I can actually do it. Distance myself from this drama and simply love my man, myself and my daughter and learn to accept my stepson as he is.