Love and gratitude

Well, I guess it was supposed to happen. Like Master SeeFu (spelling?) on "Uncle Panda" (my 3 year olds title for Kung Fu Panda) says, "there are no accidents".
This last week was realy hard for me. Last thursday I ended up getting sick in my lungs, and it completely drained me of my energy. One of my daycare kids ended up staying home from our house because of pink eye, and that completely stressed me out too. When things stress me out that bad, I tend to either have a burst of determination, or a huge negative lack of energy and nothing gets done. Well, with being sick I ended up not getting anything done that I normally would have to clean things up to prevent the pinkeye in my own home.
I did get better quickly though, and had a great day on my birthday (tuesday), and enjoyed yesterday as well, but I noticed my one year olds eyes looking a little pink eyeish last night. I prayed that it wouldn't turn out bad and that her eyes would be clear in the morning, but I could sense that it wouldn't turn out the way I wanted it to, so I decided I would just try to get some rest, so I would be able to deal with things the next day.
So, I woke up this morning, and her eyes had become more red, and she had a realy runny nose.
I ended up getting 5 kids, so 7 all together and it must have been to much for me. I ended up turning into a basket case, and cried for half the morning, because I just didn't know what to do!
I ended up leaving Kimmy in her crib all day. I just brought her food up to her, and changed her up there. She was o.k., but I felt terrible leaving her, and I missed having her cuteness around me. 2 of my kids were able to go home before noon, which was a huge stress reliever, and I am hoping and praying that they don't end up getting it, for thiers and their parents sake. I ended up feeling drained and depressed so I didn't do much. Then my husband got home in the evening so I made an after hours appt. for her so I could get her some antibiotics. I was hoping that knowing she wasn't so contagious would calm me down and help me get through stuff, but I must have attracted a lot of negative energy, and subconsiously needed something to happen to teach me a lesson or two on not getting overly stressed.
I was a block away from the doctors office, when a police car headed east flipped his lights on. He was stopped at a red light, and I was heading north with a green light. Everybody kept going, even when I braked a little to decide whether I should just go through or not. When everyone kept going, I decided I would just keep going, but then the lady in front of me decided to stop and I ended up hitting her. Hard! Everything happend so fast that any decision made during that time, was confusing. I got out and we both were just in shock at what happend. The police flipping its lights on at the intersection threw us both off, and even after we hit, 4 other cars kept going past us. I think the worst part is I guess my drivers liscence expired on my birthday and I still thought I had a few months left, and our new insurance card didn't get put in the van yet. I was so blessed that I didn't get cited for anything.
I hurt my foot, but it will be fine. I bent my toe back while hitting the brakes and at first I thought it was broken, but now I am sure I just spraned it a bit. My baby was just fine too, and didn't realy even cry from it. She was asleep and it woke her up, but she was soon pulling purell wipes out of a little box I had and thinking it was hilarious and had a cute little smile on her face.
I had a realy hard time feeling happy earlier today with all the stress, but I guess I learned a lesson not to stress myself so much because it just attracts negative energy and then other not so fun things happen. I am sad my van is broken and I hope we can salvage it. I love my van!! I am gratefull that life is still going on, and that peace is around me now. I know things will work out, and I feel so blessed that the police and the woman I hit weren't mean people, and they understood everything that happend. I am gratefull for the witnesses sticking around to make sure the police knew the story and circumstances. I get to call our insurance agency tomorrow and the tow truck to get the rest of it taken care of, but I know it will be o.k.
Well, I better get some sleep so I can have a happy day tomorrow and get things taken care of, so that once again our home will be filled with peace and happiness, love and gratitude. : )

Sunday-choosing a new habit to increase my spiritual well being.

I have had some sickness in my lungs, moving up into my throat and sinuses since thursday, and I kept exherting myself instead of resting. So last night, I decided I was just going to stay home from church and get some rest. Well this morning I was feeling yucky, but I took some ibuprophin and of course felt so much better that, I decided I should ateast go to the sacrament meeting. I was glad I did.
One of the speakers talked about keeping the sabbath day holy. He said that we often hear talks about what not to do on sunday, but that he wanted to focus on what to do on Sundays. He said that when we are engaged in an activity, to ask yourself, "what is it that I am learning from this activity that will help increase my spiritual well being."
Then he gave a challange for everyone to find something new to do on sundays that will help increase your spiritual well being.
When we were little my mom would have us do our S.U.S.S. (spiritually uplifting sabbath stuff)before we could do anything else after church on Sundays.
Usually it included reading our scriptures, or writing a letter, or reading from a church magazine.
When my husband and I got married, I wanted to continue the tradition. Chris and I grew up in very similar home lifes, but a few things were different of course, and one of those things were t.v. rules. I grew up with the rule of no t.v., unless it was a family activity, and no sports. He on the other hand loves sports and that was the first thing he would do when he would come home is turn on a football game or something. I on the other hand like to carry the peacefull feeling I get from our church services into the rest of the day with peace and quiet, but that is also my energy and personality type. So we came up with a compramise that we had to do our s.u.s.s before the t.v. came on.
The sad part of that whole thing is he has stuck to it, while I have horribly slacked on it. Nice huh.
I still don't care to have the t.v. on, and I am quiet and relax a lot, but the important part of actually reading my scriptures or doing something spiritually uplifting has not been practiced as much as It should be for my own growth.
So I think for my new habit, I am going to start doing my s.u.s.s. again. I don't think I have realy done anything with it since before my 3 year old was born.
We get home from church and our 1 year old goes down for a nap, but our 3 year old needs to start having some s.u.s.s. time too, so I will try to figure out a way to involve her also.
My s.u.s.s. has always included the following:
1.read something from a church book or magazine(not the scriptures)
2.personal scripture study
3.1 letter to someone
4. write in journal

So that is my inspiration for myself today, is to focus more on my spiritual growth. I feel that if you are not spiritually happy, its hard to be happy in anything else too.

Choosing to be healthy

o.k., I went to an awsome class on Saturday given by our lovely Karey! I loved the whole class, but one part that realy stuck out for me, and possibly because the gethealthy club is a part of my everyday life, was a part that they taught about eating, drinking, and rest, and exercise being essential to keep your energy vibrations high, and of course owning your own power(thats a very important one).I realy believe that, giving yourself the adequate amounts of each of those is so important. When I was on my salad diet, I think a lot of the reason why I felt so good, and lost the amount of weight that I did, was because I raised my energy and belief levels in all of those areas. I told myself I was going to do the diet and prove that it works, and by saying that I realy think I created a high energy for myself and it wouldn't have worked at all if I didn't believe it was going to work. When I started to quit the diet, I didn't eat horribly afterward, but I didn't lose any weight afterward either, nor did I gain anything. I was eating very healthy before, and had a balanced level of when I ate and what I ate, I was exercising everyday, I was drinking lots of water, and I am not sure about the resting part, but I don't remember feeling tired during that time of my life either. So Karey, I think among other things your class gave me, I realy needed to hear that part to get me going on a higher vibration of loving myself and my body and what it can do, and what I can do for it.They mentioned that eating a balanced meal every 3 hours and no longer in between will help maintain your blood sugar levels to help keep your energies high. They also talked about the importance of water, and how without it "you are living for death", so live for life and give your body lots of water!Rest, is something I have struggled with in the last little while, but Chris and I are working on changing it for both of us. We have both committed to sticking to an evening schedule that we prepared. Our work days are over at 5:30 pm. 6:00-A healthy balanced meal for dinner together as a family 6:30- Get ready for bed... Everybody's bath and Jammies, and brush teeth, set things out for tomorrow. As soon as we are done doing that we get to watch American Idol, or a show that is on between 7:00 pm and 7: 507:50- Read scriptures and prayers, and tuck in kidlets into bed.8:00- Chris and Julia time to wind down, with relaxing and watching a t.v. show, or playing on the computer, our free time to do what we want.9:00- Animals in and house lights retired on the main floor9:15-Chris and I talk time. I find that often when I try to talk to Chris about important things, he tends to get distracted and isn't listening contently, so I have set aside this time for us to address important issues, that we want eachothers full attention on. 9:30- personal reading, meditating, praying, winding down time10:00- lights out. I have asked Chris to commit to keeping this schedule on the weekends also for a few weeks ateast to get a good start on it.I have to say this "It is going to be easy!" It is easy to keep my house clean, It is easy to eat a healthy balanced meal every 3 hours, it is easy to drink lots of water during each day, it is easy to be at a healthy weight, it is easy to feel peace in my home, it is easy to exercise everyday, it is easy to get the rest I need, it is easy to choose healthy things to eat, and it is easy to be healthy! If I say its hard, then it will be hard, If I say its easy, it will be easy!Also, it will work! One more thing I thought of over the weekend. When I was experiencing my recent slump of overall energy, I found that I kept telling myself that "I need chocolate, or I need the buttery popcorn my mom was enjoying so I can enjoy it too!hehe or I need ice cream.I almost told myself this morning that I needed a snack. Instead I am choosing to tell myself that I don't need comfort foods. I can say "I am choosing to eat some chocolate", or "I am choosing to eat some buttery popcorn", but I don't want to tell myself that I "need" those things, because I realy don't need them! I just enjoy them! Or I can I don't need chocolate, and avoid it all together.What I do need is food and water that will support the healthy body that I have been given, and I enjoy those things too! yay! Well, now you know what my brain has been thinking about constantly since saturday! hehe
I love you all the way you are!
May you have a happy, healthy choosing to be healthy, and enjoyfull of energy day!!
Julia