The Mom Blah Blah Blog

I realized today that it's been a long time since my last blog update.  I know it's summer and there has been lots going on.  Plus I'm feeling a little under the weather so updates have been put in hold.  It's not that I haven't been thinking over some ideas for posts or working through new problems and attempting a little personal growth because I have a few ideas that are building and churning in my head that I would like to share.  I'll get to them soon, I really will.  If I am to be completely truthful though, summer business is just one of the excuses I have given for my lack of correspondence.  The biggest factor in my reprieve from blogging is...my smart phone. I know this might seem backwards to people.  I mean, why would a technological breakthrough be a setback when it comes to a different expression of technology?  Now this might be showing my age a bit, maybe a lot, but it made me think of the song Video Killed the Radio Star, an 80s...

It's funny how the smallest little incident can bring you back down a few steps on your road to self acceptance.  One of those incidents happened to me just the other day.  When I was out I saw this woman, I did abut of a double take, she looked familiar but I couldn't quite place her.  She gave me a little look to but I wasn't sure if it was because she knew me too or if she just caught me looking at her.  That's it, end of incident.  I know you're thinking what's the big deal and it would have just passed through my mind and would have been over if it hadn't been for what happened next.  I climbed into the van with my husband and he said "I think I saw ________'s wife."  A lightbulb went off.  That was the woman I saw!  It was her!  The problem is she and I had a falling out a few years ago and I haven't seen her in a long time.  I also know that she really isn't fond of me...at all.  For reason that I am still not fully a...

In the last few posts I have focused on having an attitude of forgiveness and steps that can be taken towards that but there is also the other side of the equation, when you are the one in need of being forgiven.  I think all of us have also been in this position too and sometimes it's not easy to accept.  I have titled this post "It's Not Easy Being Mean" because, although we don't want to accept the idea that we do things that are hurtful and mean to others we are all human and make mistakes.  Those mistakes do hurt others. Usually the first thing that happens when we get caught messing up is we try to shift the blame elsewhere or make excuses for why we did it.  "I only said those mean things because SHE said ... about me."  "I just took that opportunity/object/person/etc. from him because HE wasn't holding up his end of the bargon."  We can come up with any number of excuses  reasons for doing what we do. That doesn't make it righ...

I have a feeling some of the people that might have read yesterday's post could be mad at me.  It's possible they are thinking about some horrible thing that has happened to them and wondering how, or even why they could forgive that.  Some of you could be angry because you think I'm shifting the "blame" to the one holding out on forgiveness instead of the one that did the wrong thing.  It might sound like I am making light of a difficult situation and I don't know how hard it is to choose to forgive. I have never really liked the motto "forgive and forget" very much.  I know that I can forgive but forgetting, well that's another story.  We have a tendency to really get stuck on the negative too.  It makes it SO EASY to hold a grudge.  It would be really nice, not to mention helpful, if we had a delete button for our brains.  Someone calls us a nasty name, delete.  We are abused by someone who is supposed to protect us, delete.  We get...

Have you seen the movie Wreck it Ralph?  If not then I certainly recommend it.  It was a great movie that our whole family enjoyed.  One thing that I really liked was how the "good guy" Fix it Felix, had a magical hammer that fixes everything when he hits something with it.  Even things like, say, his face.  Sometimes I think my kids believe my husband must have one of these hammers stashed away someplace.  After all he can fix just about anything.  Even if the supplies to repair said item cost more than the item itself.  It doesn't matter cause it's about making them happy. Once in a while though something will get broken that is irreparable.  That's when I really wish I had Felix's hammer.  Especially when what gets broken is a relationship. I was thinking about one of these relationships today and mourning for the unnecessary pain that still exists there that I wish could be fixed.  This is when I started to think about what ...

Last fall my daughters school had a magazine sales fund raiser.  For a little treat to myself I thought I would subscribe to the Martha Stewart Living magazine.  I have enjoyed picking it up in the past and gotten a few good ideas for crafts and decor so I sent in my information with high hopes of all the fun, crafty and adorable creations I would be making this year.  I also started devising a plan.  I thought about how sometimes Martha Crafts don't quite work out the way they are supposed to.  I remembered a few previous attempts at making items found in the pages that ended up costing far more than you would imagine to make.  I started to think of how I could attempt an item from each edition that came and then blog about my results.  I know I'm more crafty than the average individual so if I could come up with one thing to make I could inform others about how closely my results resembled the ones in the magazine. As soon as I received the first i...

To be honest, I don't remember the last time I bought a cook book.  Though I have (really over the last few years) developed a love of cooking, mostly I have avoided books on the subject.  There are a few reasons for that.  One, I am reluctant to buy a cook book if I don't know that the recipes will actually be good.  Two, I have a few books I don't use a whole lot and didn't think buying a new one would be neccessary and Three, I have mostly been using the internet as my source for quality recipes.  This book has changed my mind about these things. First off, many of you, like myself would have sampled some of the recipes from the first installment of this book as we were growing up.  When I mentioned to my mom that the Mennonite Girls Can Cook have relieced a new instalment she was nostalgic for the first book and intregued by this second edition.  The recipes included are for things I, as a person from German Mennonite decent grew up eating. ...

I have been wondering since this book arrived how I would handle writing a review for it.  Since the issue of same sex marriage and homosexuality is such a controversial topic and a really heated argument in Church as well at in society.  I did want to read this book however, since I have often wondered if my stance on the subject lines up with scripture and theological debate.  I also have struggled with some of my own views on what I believe and hoped this book would clear that up for me. I believe this book attempts to resolve the tension and strife between the extreme sides of the debate.  Through the analyses of scripture, using logic as well as natural theology the author analyzes the scriptures about marriage and sexuality as well as the theories of those that are both anti and gay marriage.  He mentions early in the book that he was at one time of one opinion on the topic but over time, though prayer and study he changed his views.  This helped m...

My daughter turned 7 yesterday and for one of her birthday gifts we gave her a little diary with a lock on it.  She has been all about privacy lately and has been loving writing on any little scrap of paper she can find so we thought this would be a good idea.  I asked her this morning about where she put the key.  I don't think she really understands the idea of how this "secret book" works since she told me she put it with the book so she doesn't loose it.  I tried to explain that if the key is with the book it really won't keep her brother out of it but she apparently doesn't have a firm grasp on his level of curiosity.  Even though he just turned 4 and has no ability to read he has still managed to break her privacy in less than 24 hours. We were upstairs today and my son brings me the opened book.  She apparently also doesn't understand how to even lock it since it was locked on only one loop, therefor not locking it closed at all.  The book was...

If you know someone with low self esteem, and I'm sure you do, you might wonder why no matter how many times you compliment them it just doesn't seem to sink in.  They just can't seem to see themselves the same way others do.  You can tell your friend, girlfriend, wife, mom, or whoever how amazing, intelligent, funny, beautiful, creative, caring and loving they are until you are blue in the face but they just can't hear you. I would like to tell you a few reasons why. For starters, you might have heard this little saying when you were young, sticks and stones can break my bones but words will never hurt me.  This saying is quite simply not true, in fact it is dead wrong.  We all know it.  We always have.  I think that the only reason that anyone ever said it was simply to try and convince ourselves that we are strong enough to ignore the hurtful things said to us.  It didn't work. The things said to us when we are young, even if they weren't outr...

This last week we were talking about the different phases and stages of our lives.  In the book You're Already Amazing by Holley Gerth she likens them to the trip taken by the Israelites coming out of Egypt.  When they were in slavery trapped in Egypt is a parallel to when we are stuck in a rut, doing something that is not beneficial for us or just outright sinning.  The second phase was setting out.  This is when we make a change to remove ourselves from those issues or problems we are stuck on.  Third is being encamped.  This phase is a difficult one in a lot of ways.  It's when we stop moving towards our goals.  This pause can also happen for a lot of reasons.  We could need time to heal from hurts we have gotten on our journey, we may be to tired to continue and need some rest or it could be that the thing we are heading towards is not attainable yet for any number of reasons.  The final phase is the promised land.  We move into...

I was just in Virginia on vacation with my mom and kids.  I don't often make it down there so every time is a learning experience for me.  That being said I thought I would share with you 5 things I learned in Virginia. How to prepare and cook a squirrel.  Commemorative shot glasses make grate gifts for kids. Dairy is not necessarily the first ingredient in half and half.  Every radio station plays the same 10 songs every hour. We get ripped off when we but ANYTHING in Canada.   I knew I should have bought a lot of Easter Peanut butter M&Ms.  I don't even know if they're sold up here.  

The theme of loneliness continues to pop up in my life right now.  In things I see, things I read and in the lives of those around me.  What I continue to discover is now much insecurity in connected with loneliness.  It seems our confidence in ourselves can hinder us from reaching out to those people we see and think, "She is so amazing, I wish I could be better friends with her!"  There can be so many different reasons we feel this way but I know for me it stems from a feeling of not being good enough for that person. There are things about myself that I don't really like and I attempt to hide them.  Sometimes I think I'm hiding really well and there is NO WAY anyone is going to spot me there.  There are other times when we are called out and we are confronted with those parts of us that we wish weren't there.  Have you ever overheard someone talking about you or had someone tell you about the bad things they have said?  I know I have and th...

When the movie Anna Karenina came out a while back I had a mild desire to see it.  However, when movies come out that are taken from novels, especially classic novels, I will usually read the book first. It sort of slipped my mind for quite a while though until I found it as a free book for my Ereader. Quite a few years ago I remember this book was one on Oprah's Book Club.  One of the first things I found myself questioning was whether or not she ever even read anything more than liner notes or coles' notes at best.  This is a long book....I mean really long.  This is coming from someone that has read the Game of Thones series (A Song of Ice and Fire).  What make this book seem so long is all the superfluous information you encounter at every turn.  I seem to recall that it was more than 10 chapters before Anna was even introduced.  Though the side story is pertinent and somewhat interesting, it can often overshadow the main storyline. What also m...

In keeping with the endeavour towards improved self esteem and confidence I have discovered one area of my life I need to work on is my tendency towards loneliness.  It is something that plagued me for as long as I remember.  It's this idea that I don't fit in, that I am an outsider and a fear that the people that really and truly get to know me would not like what they find.  Of course when I struggle with loneliness that also means that I assume I am the only one that feels this way.  I see the relationships of people around me and become jealous of the intimacy and the comfort they feel with each other and it leads me to not only feel the sting of this but to further withdraw into my own shell determining that it's too late for me to find my place in these social circles so I might as well just give up.  I can now see that this would be a self fulfilling prophesy and have attempted in a few small ways to try and break the pattern I have set in my life when sa...

Once again we are in the midst of another season of Lent.  Some of you do practice Lent and some of you don't but no matter what camp you fall into there can be something very helpful about taking time to look at how you can improve as a person.  A few years ago a wonderful woman I know took on a difficult "Lenten Fast" of giving up negative self talk.  This was a big inspiration for me.  It not only encouraged me to take my head out of the sand and actually start chipping away at my negativity towards myself, it also showed me that I am not alone in my struggle.  Here was a woman that I thought of as beautiful, kind, considerate, fun, cool and collected who could not see these same qualities in herself.  This affirmed in my head, the thought that every woman struggles with self esteem.   There was something comforting in that thought.  It was helpful to me to know that people I esteem are struggling alongside me.  Though this thought can b...

My husband and I don't really fight.  That however, is not to say we don't have arguments and disagreements.  We just disagree in a different way.  My family was rather loud and boisterous and I made a conscious decision not yell, not to insult and not to lash out.  I also was most attracted to someone who was calm, cool and collected.  Someone that was easygoing and didn't sweat the small stuff.  I then thought,  in the early years of marriage that since we didn't fight in that way that everything was fine.  This isn't true.  We have had some very difficult times.  Times when I didn't think we would make it work.  These times have taught me some extremely important lessons that I think you might benefit from too. 1.  Bottling up your problems doesn't make them go away.  When I was a kid and my brother would bug me my parents would say, "If you just ignore him he'll go away."  I have even told this to my own daughte...

Around here Caramel is it!  My daughter seems to have quite refined tastes for a 6 year old and her favorite sugary flavour is also a quite popular one in the culinary world.  Salted Caramel.  Lately every time she gets to pick out a treat at the dollar store it is either Rolos or those little plastic wrapped square caramels.  My son veers towards chocolate but he follows along right behind his sister and picks those little chocolate wrapped caramel bundles called Rolo and if ever I am in the grocery store and see Rolo ice cream I tend to pick up a tub since it is a favorite of the husband. As a bit of a side note about Rolo ice cream, have you notice how it hardly has any Rolos in it anymore?  When it first came out it was loaded with them but now, even though it says right on the tub "Jam-Packed" there are hardly any in it at all.  Who are they convincing?  I am certainly not fooled.  Maybe I should complain. Anyway, in short caramel is a bi...

This whole insomnia thing is not working for me.  I keep waking up early, I remember a LOT of dreams (don't ask me why I was dating Chad Kroeger, sliding down laundry shoots or trying to get my brother to hide me in my own house), taking a long time to fall asleep and waking up numerous times per night.  Some nights are slightly better than others and I have noticed a marginal difference with taking the vitamins my pharmacist recommended to tide me over but I really am looking quite forward to my doctors appointment on Wednesday.  I am very hopeful that he will be able to re prescribe my former insomnia medication because really, enough is enough. Though I am quite good, if I do say so myself, at still being functional and acting like there is nothing the matter the truth is it's getting to me.  When I don't sleep enough I start to get overly emotional.  I already cry quite readily so it's really something to behold during these times.  I am ...

Last week was an interesting one for me.  I've been having a lot of trouble sleeping again and had close to 2 weeks of very poor sleep with frequent waking.  Wednesday I felt like a zombie and, as I frequently remember during these insomnia "flare ups", keeping someone awake is used as a form of torture.  I think this stint of sleeplessness was started off by a pinched nerve in my shoulder/neck that was painful enough to keep me from sleep for a few days.  After I was finally able to get that dealt with it had become a trend.  The last few nights I have gotten better sleep but it still hasn't been ideal and I am looking forward to my Dr. appointment this week where I will hopefully be able to get a prescription for my old (and super awesome) sleeping pills.  It strikes me as quite ironic that I don't ever sleep through a full night where as my brother falls into some sort of comatose sleep of the dead that is very difficult to wake him from.  I don't k...

Yesterday must have been a very musical day.  I had so many people on my FB feed talking about music and I was one of them.  It almost seems like I am discovering music again and that is thanks to a Christmas gift.  You see, the way we play music is changing.  We have been big CD collectors and have been somewhat resistant to the change over to digital music.  The problem with that was my only way of playing music in my kitchen/living room was through our DVD player.  That meant switching sources on the TV so the kids were unable to watch TV.  Since my main music listening time would be while making meals that was also a time when I would try to occupy the kids with the TV.  End result being I haven't been listening to a hole lot of music for a while so a few months ago my husband rigged up some old computer speakers and an ipod so that I could play a little something.  The only problem with that is the ipod always seemed to be dead and I had...

There is something amazing and magical about music.  It has the power to somehow with words and sounds express an emotion far better when put together than either one can do on their own.  Listening to a song that touches your heart can do so many things.  It can change your mood, making you either happy when you are sad, sad when you are happy or enhancing the feelings you experience at the moment.  Songs can remind you of a moment in time, a relationship you have or even express what you are feeling far better than you could.  I must confess I'm a lyrics girl.  I love the poetry in a good song.  I love the way the voice can melodiously add power to those words.  I love a song I can sing along to and really get behind.  My husband however, is a music guy.  He plays bass and guitar, he has a far better grasp on the music side of songs than I and in a lot of cases he doesn't really "hear" the lyrics.  It is through our relationship...