Now that's what I'm talkin' about!
~JS~ 🌞
#MotivationMonday
#goals #ithinkican #neversaynever #dreams #planning #motivation
Showing posts with label Self Introspection. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Self Introspection. Show all posts
Monday, October 1, 2018
Turn your Can'ts into Cans and your Dreams into Plans!
Now that's what I'm talkin' about!
~JS~ 🌞
#MotivationMonday
#goals #ithinkican #neversaynever #dreams #planning #motivation
Saturday, September 8, 2018
Diet or Health? Which are you focused on?
Are your daily choices focused on helping you DIE or HEAL? There's a difference between being "unsick" and actually being "healthy"...
One state leads toward becoming sick, while the other leads toward a vibrant, optimal life. ❤️ I choose optimum health... One healthy habit at a time! 🤩
Do you want to come along on the journey? Follow my "Healthy Habits with Jumbled Sunshine" page for ideally-daily strategies to make your life better every day!
~JS~🌞 #StrategySaturday #optimumhealth #loveyourbody #takecareofyou
Saturday, September 1, 2018
Tips for reducing stress! (According to WebMD)
I know some of these are easier said than done. But if you can work on them one at a time, you'll go a long way to helping yourself have a happier and less stressful life! 😊💯😍✌️🕊️🌞
(1)Keep a positive attitude.
(2)Accept that there are events that you cannot control. That's okay, let it go!
(3)Be assertive instead of aggressive. Assert your feelings, opinions, or beliefs instead of becoming angry, defensive, or passive.
(4)Learn and practice relaxation techniques such as meditation, yoga or tai-chi.
(5)Exercise regularly. Your body can fight stress better when it is fit.
(6)Eat healthy, well-balanced meals.
(7)Learn to manage your time more effectively. Set limits appropriately and say no to requests that would create excessive stress in your life.
(8)Make time for hobbies and interests. Get enough rest and sleep. Your body needs time to recover from stressful events.
(9)Don't rely on alcohol, drugs, or compulsive behaviors to reduce stress. Drugs and alcohol can stress your body even more.
(10)Seek out social support. Spend enough time with those you love.
(11)Seek treatment with a professional trained in stress management or biofeedback techniques to learn more healthy ways of dealing with the stress in your life.
Make each day your very best!
~JS~ 🌞
#StrategySaturday
#stressrelief #healthyhabits #makeeachdaycount
~JS~ 🌞
#StrategySaturday
#stressrelief #healthyhabits #makeeachdaycount
Sunday, August 26, 2018
Get up and Try Again!
"Never let a stumble on your road be the end of your journey." Get up and try again! 🚧🚸🛣️
~JS~🌞
#SacredSunday
#goals #journey #repentance #mercy #forgiveness
Tuesday, June 19, 2018
Focus on the Moment
Ain't it the truth though?
😂
But seriously, let's all try to remember the people around us and focus on what's truly important!
♥️ ~JS~ 
#TechTuesday
(Thanks to Peter Urmston for the laugh today!)
Tuesday, June 12, 2018
My Seven Day Social Media Fast - Podcast Episode 10 - IDP010
What I Learned When I Turned off the Chatter for a Week
It was an interesting week and I learned some interesting insights.Enjoy the podcast!
If you're more of a reading-type, a transcript of this podcast will be posted soon.
~JS~ 🌞
#TechTuesday
For more optimism and insight for your everyday living, visit www.jumbledsunshine.com!
Wednesday, May 23, 2018
Health and Wellness Journey Update: Plateau Broken!
I'm super excited today to report on my health and wellness goals! Unfortunately I'm not in a position to record a podcast today, or I'd totally be shouting this into a microphone!! 😉Suffice it to say that I think I made a breakthrough!! Aren't they the best? Sometimes it just seems like you slog away and trudge through the muck and difficulty of a challenge, and it seems impossible to overcome. But then, something happens, something changes, and suddenly you find yourself on the edge of a breakthrough. You wonder if it's the right way to go so you stew and contemplate and struggle with it (and if you're like me, you analyze it to death!) and then you decide to make the leap.
Well this week I made a big leap! And I am already seeing success, though I've barely begun. Where to begin? I suppose it's best to refer you to my last #WellnessWednesday status report if you'd like some background context. You can find that post here: First Official Wellness Wednesday Post. I wrote that in January 2018 and it's currently the middle of May 2018, so it's been awhile! I will try to catch you up a bit and then tell you what's on the horizon now.
In January I did the "no sweets for the whole month of January" until about the middle of January. Now that you're done laughing and I'm done crying (haha just kidding, I'm fine) I will just take a minute to congratulate myself for the couple weeks I did do! (Yay me! 💪💖 Go Erika!) Okay, now back to the story. So I visited my parents in January and went off of the "no sugar" thing after being there a couple of days because it was just so darn hard because I was on vacation! I did stick to my periodic fasting routine (mostly) but then I ate garbage when I wasn't fasting. So ... yeah, not the best approach, but by doing that I only gained a couple of pounds on that very long vacation.
After getting home, I got serious with my IF routine (intermittent fasting btw) by doing an eating window between 6 to 10 hours per day, on average about an eight hour window). For more details on the plan I was following, you can check out The Intermittent Fasting Podcast. I'm not going to go into detail on my exact plan because you can find it all there if you're interested. But from February until about a week ago, I basically waited to eat until about noon and then tried to eat reasonably the rest of the day, with my last meal between 6pm and 10pm. The freedom was nice because I could eat pretty much whatever I wanted during my eating window. And I think it will be a good maintenance strategy for vacations or other times when I want to indulge. BUT...
And there's the big BUT, haha. The problem is that once I got back down to my pre-2017-holiday weight, I could never break past the plateau. No matter how faithful I was to the eating windows, that scale just went up and down about 5 pounds but never went below one certain number. Grr! 😠Infuriating!!
Now to be fair, I completely know that if I had just eaten more reasonably during my eating window, I probably would have continued to lose weight. But I was just stuck on a plateau, and could never break past that spot. And I knew that I just needed to make healthier choices. But IF kind of gave me permission to not eat all that healthy when I was eating (which, like I said, can be kind of handy!) but some of that food really made me feel terrible. And I was in denial about that. When I ate healthily during my eating window (lots of veggies, moderate carbs, protein in every meal) then I felt great! But I just kept bouncing up and down about five pounds and could never get past my plateau.
Fast forward to a couple of weeks ago when a friend of mine and I were chatting in church about our health progress. She's lost 60 pounds in the last six months and it's been super inspiring to watch her progress! I thought a couple of times about asking her what she was doing, but we always had just a few minutes before and after the church meeting to chat and I was happy with what I was doing and felt like the plateau would break soon. But at the same time, I wasn't making the healthiest of choices and I knew it. And I knew that I probably needed another change.
This is how my brain works. When I start to lose enthusiasm for something, I need to change it up to make my next breakthough. A change of pace, strategy, environment, system or tools can make all the difference for my enthusiasm. Can any of you relate?
So when Nancy invited me to listen to a health information meeting at her house, I decided to go check it out. I was super impressed with her friend Kirtley who shared her own journey. It was also fun to hear Nancy's own story in more detail. They shared some of the basic principles of the health program that they used to reach and maintain their own health goals, and I enjoyed the get-together. I went home considering it for sure.
I found myself contemplating if it made sense for me to get a jump-start by trying something totally new, with the added support of a certified personal health coach who is also my friend. The idea of having someone to hold me accountable is probably what made me the most interested, honestly. I've spent a lifetime learning and studying, which has included many different health programs over the years, so I know in my mind what I need to do. The hard part is getting myself to do it! My daughter Jessica told me the other day that she heard something once about a study that found out that it doesn't necessarily matter that much which health program you use, as long as you faithfully stick to it and have a good plan for maintenance. In other words, you have to actually DO what you KNOW. Mind-blowing, right? 🙄 Simple but nearly impossible sometimes!
As I've visited with Nancy over the past week, I have been impressed with the details she asked me about, the knowledge she had, and her flexibility in working with me via video messages with the Marco Polo app. It works great because we get the face-to-face but we don't have to plan ahead to be on the phone at the same time. (Biggest problem with live video chatting.) Although for our "official health assessment meeting" we did both sit-down go back and forth for about an hour. She asked me about my current health situation, what my goals were, why I wanted to lose weight, and more things to help me really assess where I was and where I wanted to go. I felt like if I worked with her, I could really do this and finish getting down to my goal.
What makes this a new day for me? It's the accountability of having someone else know what my health goals are who will cheer me on and give me encouragement when I fall. It's just the sort of motivation I needed to get going on this again. And the best part?? For the past three days I have been "pretending" that I was already on the plan by eating six small healthy meals a day, every 2-3 hours. Oh and drinking half of my body weight in ounces. And guess what? Without even getting the foods yet or really officially starting, I BROKE MY PLATEAU!!! 😊😍👋
Full-disclosure here, I have peeked briefly at that lower number a couple of times over the past seven months, but never for more than a day. And it's so exciting because I haven't seen that number in the past couple of months, and now it's here! Even though it feels like I've barely started doing anything yet! So awesome.
I think that it's really about motivation and desire. I really want this because I want to be healthier for my kids and grandkids. About a month ago, I started having some heart palpitations, so I went to see my doctor and had a 24 hour heart monitor test. That really scared me. My mom died at age 60 from the effects of ten years' struggle with heart disease. She had her first heart attack at age 50. I am only a few years away from that! I realized the other night that if I died at the same age as my mom, I will not be around to see my sweet newborn grandson graduate from high school! In fact, I won't even see him enter high school. That is terrifying!!! I want to be around and keep being jumbled-y and sunshine-y for decades more to come. 🌞🌞🌞🌞
So anyway, it's a new day here for #WellnessWednesday!! I'm excited to have a COACH, to have ACCOUNTABILITY, and to maybe even earn some money for my efforts, thanks to also signing up for a DietBet challenge on Monday night. I am hoping to earn back some of the money I am spending on my new program! I just have to lose 4% in 4 weeks. Do you think I can do it? I KNOW I CAN. Who's with me? It's not too late to join me. Let's make this the best summer ever!!
I'd love to hear anything you have to share about your own plans and goals and challenges and breakthroughs. Accountability and friendships can make so much difference! I am so excited for all the decades ahead to keep learning and growing and enjoying my family and friends.
Have a wonderful day!
~JS~ 🌞
#WellnessWednesday
__________________________________________
ps - If you're interested in connecting with my friend Nancy, who is a Certified Health Coach, send me a note HERE and I'll give you an introduction or you can visit her website online HERE.
Where I've Been
Well this week I made a big leap! And I am already seeing success, though I've barely begun. Where to begin? I suppose it's best to refer you to my last #WellnessWednesday status report if you'd like some background context. You can find that post here: First Official Wellness Wednesday Post. I wrote that in January 2018 and it's currently the middle of May 2018, so it's been awhile! I will try to catch you up a bit and then tell you what's on the horizon now.
In January I did the "no sweets for the whole month of January" until about the middle of January. Now that you're done laughing and I'm done crying (haha just kidding, I'm fine) I will just take a minute to congratulate myself for the couple weeks I did do! (Yay me! 💪💖 Go Erika!) Okay, now back to the story. So I visited my parents in January and went off of the "no sugar" thing after being there a couple of days because it was just so darn hard because I was on vacation! I did stick to my periodic fasting routine (mostly) but then I ate garbage when I wasn't fasting. So ... yeah, not the best approach, but by doing that I only gained a couple of pounds on that very long vacation.
After getting home, I got serious with my IF routine (intermittent fasting btw) by doing an eating window between 6 to 10 hours per day, on average about an eight hour window). For more details on the plan I was following, you can check out The Intermittent Fasting Podcast. I'm not going to go into detail on my exact plan because you can find it all there if you're interested. But from February until about a week ago, I basically waited to eat until about noon and then tried to eat reasonably the rest of the day, with my last meal between 6pm and 10pm. The freedom was nice because I could eat pretty much whatever I wanted during my eating window. And I think it will be a good maintenance strategy for vacations or other times when I want to indulge. BUT...
And there's the big BUT, haha. The problem is that once I got back down to my pre-2017-holiday weight, I could never break past the plateau. No matter how faithful I was to the eating windows, that scale just went up and down about 5 pounds but never went below one certain number. Grr! 😠Infuriating!!
Now to be fair, I completely know that if I had just eaten more reasonably during my eating window, I probably would have continued to lose weight. But I was just stuck on a plateau, and could never break past that spot. And I knew that I just needed to make healthier choices. But IF kind of gave me permission to not eat all that healthy when I was eating (which, like I said, can be kind of handy!) but some of that food really made me feel terrible. And I was in denial about that. When I ate healthily during my eating window (lots of veggies, moderate carbs, protein in every meal) then I felt great! But I just kept bouncing up and down about five pounds and could never get past my plateau.
A New Day!
Fast forward to a couple of weeks ago when a friend of mine and I were chatting in church about our health progress. She's lost 60 pounds in the last six months and it's been super inspiring to watch her progress! I thought a couple of times about asking her what she was doing, but we always had just a few minutes before and after the church meeting to chat and I was happy with what I was doing and felt like the plateau would break soon. But at the same time, I wasn't making the healthiest of choices and I knew it. And I knew that I probably needed another change.
This is how my brain works. When I start to lose enthusiasm for something, I need to change it up to make my next breakthough. A change of pace, strategy, environment, system or tools can make all the difference for my enthusiasm. Can any of you relate?
So when Nancy invited me to listen to a health information meeting at her house, I decided to go check it out. I was super impressed with her friend Kirtley who shared her own journey. It was also fun to hear Nancy's own story in more detail. They shared some of the basic principles of the health program that they used to reach and maintain their own health goals, and I enjoyed the get-together. I went home considering it for sure.
I found myself contemplating if it made sense for me to get a jump-start by trying something totally new, with the added support of a certified personal health coach who is also my friend. The idea of having someone to hold me accountable is probably what made me the most interested, honestly. I've spent a lifetime learning and studying, which has included many different health programs over the years, so I know in my mind what I need to do. The hard part is getting myself to do it! My daughter Jessica told me the other day that she heard something once about a study that found out that it doesn't necessarily matter that much which health program you use, as long as you faithfully stick to it and have a good plan for maintenance. In other words, you have to actually DO what you KNOW. Mind-blowing, right? 🙄 Simple but nearly impossible sometimes!
As I've visited with Nancy over the past week, I have been impressed with the details she asked me about, the knowledge she had, and her flexibility in working with me via video messages with the Marco Polo app. It works great because we get the face-to-face but we don't have to plan ahead to be on the phone at the same time. (Biggest problem with live video chatting.) Although for our "official health assessment meeting" we did both sit-down go back and forth for about an hour. She asked me about my current health situation, what my goals were, why I wanted to lose weight, and more things to help me really assess where I was and where I wanted to go. I felt like if I worked with her, I could really do this and finish getting down to my goal.
Exciting Progress
What makes this a new day for me? It's the accountability of having someone else know what my health goals are who will cheer me on and give me encouragement when I fall. It's just the sort of motivation I needed to get going on this again. And the best part?? For the past three days I have been "pretending" that I was already on the plan by eating six small healthy meals a day, every 2-3 hours. Oh and drinking half of my body weight in ounces. And guess what? Without even getting the foods yet or really officially starting, I BROKE MY PLATEAU!!! 😊😍👋
Full-disclosure here, I have peeked briefly at that lower number a couple of times over the past seven months, but never for more than a day. And it's so exciting because I haven't seen that number in the past couple of months, and now it's here! Even though it feels like I've barely started doing anything yet! So awesome.
I think that it's really about motivation and desire. I really want this because I want to be healthier for my kids and grandkids. About a month ago, I started having some heart palpitations, so I went to see my doctor and had a 24 hour heart monitor test. That really scared me. My mom died at age 60 from the effects of ten years' struggle with heart disease. She had her first heart attack at age 50. I am only a few years away from that! I realized the other night that if I died at the same age as my mom, I will not be around to see my sweet newborn grandson graduate from high school! In fact, I won't even see him enter high school. That is terrifying!!! I want to be around and keep being jumbled-y and sunshine-y for decades more to come. 🌞🌞🌞🌞
So anyway, it's a new day here for #WellnessWednesday!! I'm excited to have a COACH, to have ACCOUNTABILITY, and to maybe even earn some money for my efforts, thanks to also signing up for a DietBet challenge on Monday night. I am hoping to earn back some of the money I am spending on my new program! I just have to lose 4% in 4 weeks. Do you think I can do it? I KNOW I CAN. Who's with me? It's not too late to join me. Let's make this the best summer ever!!
I'd love to hear anything you have to share about your own plans and goals and challenges and breakthroughs. Accountability and friendships can make so much difference! I am so excited for all the decades ahead to keep learning and growing and enjoying my family and friends.
Have a wonderful day!
~JS~ 🌞
#WellnessWednesday
__________________________________________
ps - If you're interested in connecting with my friend Nancy, who is a Certified Health Coach, send me a note HERE and I'll give you an introduction or you can visit her website online HERE.
Monday, May 21, 2018
What One Habit Could Change Your Life? IDP008
Mini-Workshop Guided Brainstorming Session
Join me on today's podcast for a guided brainstorming session to discover what one thing you could do to make a huge impact on your life starting now!
~JS~ 🌞
#MotivationMonday
--
Music Credit: Caeli by Kai Engel
Songs played in podcast: daedalus, modum and periculum
Thursday, April 26, 2018
Introduction to the Jumbled Sunshine Podcast - IDP000 - Transcription & Show Notes
The following is a transcript of my first podcast! I recorded it several weeks ago, so these posts are getting all out of order, but you gotta start somewhere and just keep putting one foot in front of the other, right?
Being my first podcast recording and all, it honestly starts out kinda awkward! But then I get going and it's gets better. So don't give up on it after the first few minutes! 😛 I explain what the plan is for the podcast and where I'm going with my whole Jumbled Sunshine online experiment. I think I even said a few valuable things in there! ;) So if you like podcasts, here's an opportunity to check out my new one! It's kind of an experiment and we'll see how it goes.
Here's the audio of the podcast episode if you want to download it, pull it into your podcast app, or listen online:
Have a wonderful #ThankfulThursday and be sure to show those around you how much you appreciate having them in your lives!
~JS~ 🌞
---
Hey everybody, Jumbled Sunshine here! How are you doing today? I hope you're having a wonderful day. If everything goes the way I plan, this may be the first official podcast that I've ever recorded. But I am just getting started, so it's probably gonna be a little bit awkward.
I'm not the kind of person who has trouble talking about things. In fact, I have to be careful to not talk too much when I am in social circles, and make sure that I stop, and I listen, and I let other people share as well. So talking is not the issue. It's more thinking and pausing and saying, "Um," actually. And "actually" and "so" and "anyway." Those would be the big ones! So I apologize ahead of time for any of those that happen.
This is sort of a little experiment, because I have been really working hard on my Jumbled Sunshine business for the last couple of months. I am trying to get it back off the ground because if you go back and look at my blog posts since 2013, I think? When I started it? No, 2013 ... anyway, I started it a long time ago. Like 2010 or earlier. [Correction: I started www.jumbledsunshine.com in 2012, however I had been doing other blog and website projects on and off since the late 90's, so we'll just leave it at that!]
You will see that there were some years when I only wrote one post for the whole year, yikes! And that's because I was trying to decide what I was doing with it. But lately I've been posting a lot, and I have kind of started to get into a rhythm that I really love that I am hoping will help me to really get some good content and interesting information out there for people like me. If you want to know what my personality is, just keep on listening, or you can go have a look at my blog, www.jumbledsunshine.com. But you will get to know me here, and I hope that I will get to know you.
Anyway, the reason I am starting this today is because for the past while I have been doing these themed posts every day. Well, I decided I'm gonna call it nearly every day. Because ideally, I am blogging or posting or at least mentioning something about one of the themes every day. But I realize that with my personality, that may not be totally realistic. So I'm gonna call it ideally-daily, or something like that, I don't know. I'll probably change it a couple times!
But recently, most days, I have been either blogging, posting, tweeting, instagramming, steemit-ing, and I can't think of what the other social media things are at the moment, but I have been posting online about a different theme every day. My current themes are #MotivationMonday, #TechTuesday, #WellnessWednesday, #ThankfulThursday, #FamilyFriday, #StrategySaturday and #SacredSunday. And lately I've been doing that.
One of the ways that I have been brainstorming for ideas of what to post is by just free-talking to my phone into a little app I use called Easy Voice Recorder Pro on Android. I have been free-talking into it, and then I take what I said and I transcribe it, and then I kind of edit it up and make it into a post. And then I shorten it for all the different social media outlets, and I put it out there.
And so the irony was not lost on me that since I have become obsessed with podcasting lately, that I should just be recording these for a podcast, instead of only for my personal self. But you know, I didn't want to start a podcast until I had my theme music and all my cover photos and the perfect title, and had my notes, and my strategy and my plan. And if you relate to this, you will probably enjoy my podcast haha.
I didn't want to start because of a couple things. One is, I was afraid that I would stop posting and recording, and that has been an issue, as you can see if you look over my blog for the past decade. But I want to point out to myself at the moment and to you for your own struggles and challenges, that I didn't stop! Because guess what? Here I am. It's 2018 and I am not only posting most days, but I am starting a podcast. And I have been just working on it a little bit at a time, every day.
And so what my blog is about, I guess I'll go into a lot more detail in the future. I'll do that later. But what it's basically about is to, I guess in the words of Dori from Finding Nemo, "Just keep swimming." You need to just keep putting one foot in front of the other, and moving forward, and congratulating yourself on your small wins and big wins, and recognizing those wins. And seeing the good in life around you, not just looking for the negative and the depressing and the sad.
I recognize that motivational speaking and memes are necessarily going to solve your problems if you are dealing with a clinical depression, or anxiety and things like that. And I will just put out there right now that I have dealt with some of those issues myself on and off throughout my life, so I do get it. I know, of course I don't get your situation totally because nobody does except for you. But I get the idea. I have had my own struggles, as we all do, and I realize that it is not something that's just gonna be fixed by posting happy things or whatever.
However, I have also found that no matter how low I've gone in my life, just making myself look for the positive and try to do those things that they say will make you feel better, even if they're not making me feel better, those things have helped a little bit and helped me to keep going when it was tough.So yeah, I wasn't going to go into details about what the blog is about, but that's kind of a really general thing.
The other half of it is Jumbled. What does jumbled mean? So that was kind of the Sunshine side. The jumbled side, you've probably already figured out by just listening to the first couple minutes of this. But I have a ton of interests. Everything is interesting to me. I'm one of those people that can really relate to the "squirrel" thing! And I just love learning and experimenting, and trying, and doing, and creating, and sharing, and listening, and learning, and I could go on and on and on and on, about everything.
And I want ... well okay, so when I came up with the idea of Jumbled Sunshine, it was one of those things, you can go look on my blog if you want for a post called "Are You Jumbled Too?" And I can't tell you what year it is, but I will put it in the show notes because I guess if I'm doing a podcast, I need to have show notes, don't I?
When I first came up with the idea, it was because I woke up in the middle of the night and was just like, "Boom. Okay, I need to stop fighting who I am, and celebrate who I am." Rather than trying to fix all of the things around me using other people's systems and kind of looking for that perfect system, I need to just celebrate who I am, accept that I'm probably gonna try systems and read books and do things in my life that I'm gonna then completely quit and abandon. And that's fine! It doesn't matter.
Why? Because everything we do in our lives gives us wisdom. It gives us experience. It gives us fun in some cases! Everything we're doing ... you hear, "Life is a journey, not a destination." It's not just a cliché, it's true. Every single thing you do, every single day, everything you read, everything you try, is all part of the experience of what your life is.
So instead of looking for that end destination, and trying to find the perfect system that, "I will do every day from now on, all the way until the end of time," I need to just say to myself, "Hey, what did I learn from trying that system? What did I like about that system? What didn't work about that system? And why did I quit doing it?" And then acknowledge that for whatever reason, I'm moving on, and I want to try something new. And I can archive that into my experiential archive of the things that I've learned over my life.
I hope that makes sense! If it does, then this podcast is for you! Because ... I don't know where I was going with that, and that's the other part of jumbled, haha. So I think you've probably got an idea of what jumbled is. It is about enjoying and celebrating who you are, what your interests are, what's around you, and finding the joy and the positiveness in life. And recognizing that you don't have time to do all of them, all the time, in your life. And so just enjoy the jumbled sunshine of your life. That's what it's about.
I didn't even originally intend to call myself Jumbled Sunshine, it was just the blog was gonna be Jumbled Sunshine. But then over time, people would be like, "Oh, Jumbled Sunshine, that's a good name for you." Haha. "That describes you perfectly!" or whatever. And I'm like, "Oh, okay." So my actual name is Erika Ward, and I live in Utah. And I grew up in the MidWest. And that is enough background information, I probably shouldn't have even gone there. But the point is that my real name is Erika, but I will refer to myself sometimes as Jumbled Sunshine, because it's just kind of become a habit, I guess!
Anyway, so I guess this is my first official podcast, and I just want to tell you what the plan is. The plan is that when I do my ideally-daily brain dumps to figure out what I'm gonna post about that day, or what I'm gonna focus on for that day, I'm going to record it into my little Easy Voice Recorder Pro app with my nice headset and microphone that I bought because I wanted to do podcasting. And I'm gonna record it in there, and then I'm going to post that.
At least right now, it will not have any frills. I don't have music, I don't have sponsors (of course because, you know, it's the first one). I don't even totally have a plan, except that ideally-daily, I will post about my themes. Motivation Monday, Tech Tuesday, Wellness Wednesday, Thankful Thursday, Family Friday, Strategy Saturday and Sacred Sunday.
Now, let me make very clear, which you may be wondering, especially in today's world, with the Sacred Sunday on the end there. This is not a religious podcast. I am a religious person, but I will be posting things that I believe are universal principles. They may refer to God or Jesus because that's is where my belief stems from. But Sacred Sunday will be about taking a special day to reflect, and to do whatever it is you do to prepare yourself for the upcoming week.
But I will try as best as I can to, at the very least, retweet something or post somebody else's post on my Facebook page, which by the way, you can find me at twitter.com/jumbledsunshine or Facebook.com/jumbledsunshine. I will try to at least put something out there. So if you really want to get a daily thing from me (even though I realize that's ideal and possibly won't happen totally), you will want to probably be following me on at least Facebook, as well as listening to this.
I do have a YouTube channel which I haven't posted on for awhile, but I'm hoping that I feel really motivated, and I've actually gotten dressed up, I will also video myself doing this little brain dump so that I can post it as a video. But those days where I'm not in pajamas with wet hair, like I am today haha, may be few and far between. So I may or may not always have a video up.
So I guess what I'm saying is that if you want the whole experience, you'll need to follow me on all my different social media channels, and I will put those in the show notes. But I am being diverted, as usually happens. So Strategy Saturday, yeah. My strategy for getting back on topic is to notice that I'm off, and to get right back on!
So Family Fridays. I am a mother of seven children. I have been married to my spouse since 1991, you can do the math. And I feel very blessed, I've got young adults, I have a couple teenagers left at home. I have one little, cute, two-week-old grandson, who's the son of my oldest son and his wife. And so that's where I'm at, at this point in my life in 2018.
I think I've probably learned a couple of things about families, so I might post things about parenting, appreciating your family, things like that. Things that have to do with family. Just pretty much, if it has to do with family, it can go on Family Friday.
As well as, family history! Because I am a little bit of a family history nut, although I am very jumbled in my application and dipping into my interest on that. So that comes and goes. But it's one of those interests that I don't think will ever go away for me. So I will also be talking a little bit about genealogy, family history, things like that. That's Family Friday.
Thankful Thursday is about being thankful for what you have in your life. Sometimes it will just be a little quick gratitude post, or a beautiful picture of a sunset like I posted last week. Oh my gosh, I woke up and I was just like, "Oh my gosh! I need to take a picture!" I take so many pictures of sunrises ... it was a sunrise, not a sunset ... I take so many pictures of sunrises and sunsets where I live, it's just insane. It is unbelievable, I'll tell you.
Anyway, Thankful Thursday will also have a little bit to do with giving back to show your gratitude for what you have. It's gonna be about looking for the good around you, and then finding ways to give back. My husband works for an international charity and we have been involved in international charity work for awhile now. I don't want to try to even come up with a date, because I couldn't tell you, but that's a whole other story that actually, I believe is out there on my blog also, of that career change and how we made the decision to get involved in international charity work. [Here's the link from my husband's blog: http://www.lonnyward.com/p/our-journey.html]
Anyway, so sometimes it will talk about some of the projects he's doing, or maybe even encourage you to donate a little bit to either the charity that we are involved with, or other worthy charities, or wherever you want. So Thankful Thursday is about being thankful and giving back.
Wellness Wednesday. I've been on a journey, my whole life, as most of you probably have been, to try and be healthy. I'd better not go into a bunch of detail, because this is gonna get too long. But Wellness Wednesday will talk about things that have to do with health and wellness. Originally it was gonna be #WeightLossWednesday because I am currently in the middle of a weight loss journey. I have already lost somewhere around 25 pounds and my total goal is 50, so I'm about halfway there.
And I'll just talk about things that have to do with health and wellness. Sometimes it will have to do with weight loss. Sometimes it will be an update on my personal journey. Sometimes it will be sharing things like, tips about things that help you to be well, or taking care of yourself. So that's what Wellness Wednesday will be about.
Tech Tuesday. Okay, so I'm a little bit of a technology geek. I mean, I'm not like ... just from the dates and things I've told you, that I'm not a young Millennial that knows current things necessarily all the time about technology. Although I do have quite a few of my children who are at that age, and so I really do know about a lot of the brand new things going on. But Tech Tuesday is really more about how we can use technology to make our life better.
Sometimes it will have to do with things that, ways that I am using technology to do things, like perhaps my podcast setup right now. Or ways that I'm using spreadsheets to organize things, or the way I made job charts for my family, using technology, when they were young, and things like that. So sometimes it might be a review about a new phone that I get, or whatever. It's just, you know, stuff that has to do with technology. So that'll be Tech Tuesday.
Motivation Monday is just all about being motivated. I came up with motivation Monday because I need to be motivated on Mondays myself, haha, and I figure most people need to be motivated that Monday. So that's what I'm going to talk about time management, things that are inspirational and get you up off your chair and things that make you want to move forward and just positive motivating stuff. So yeah, that's what motivation Monday is.
So that is the line up, and that's what I'm going to be doing. Ideally this will be daily, but I am going to promise you right now that it won't be absolutely every day, especially the podcast part. But I will try as hard as I can every day, unless I'm taking like a vacation or some kind of a hiatus, to move forward and do this and bring you along with me.
So I think it's gonna be really fun I hope that you are interested in some of those topics. I will say that I came up with those hashtags, even though as I've been posting about them I realized that a lot of other people use some of those hash tags as well. But I really did think, "Okay what are my interests and how can I make them fit the days of the week?" because that just seemed like a framework that I could work with. So I did come up with those ideas on my own but then a couple of them were tweaked by, for instance, changing Weight Loss Wednesday to Wellness Wednesday because I saw somebody else had it and I was like, "Oh, that's so much better."
So I'm not claiming to own the hash tags or be the creators of them, but I did kind of come up with those ideas because they fit my interests and I hope they fit yours. I'm gonna go ahead and end. I'm gonna try to make these always be, well I was gonna say less than fifteen minutes, but I just looked at my timer and it's twenty two! They will not go over half an hour if I have to stop in the middle and divide it in two, because I know that really long podcasts can sometimes be, well, too long.
So this is where we're at. This is my introduction post, and I just wanted to kind of put it out there and and say what I'm planning to do. I will hopefully be transcribing these to then use as online posts sometimes. I don't know, we'll just kind of see how it goes because it's a lot of work to post every day, which sounds silly but, you know, to compose something meaningful every day. So we'll see how it goes.
But I hope you stick with me, and probably if you're listening to this, it's because I actually have done it for awhile and I have a few out there, and people have started listening! So... yay! If it didn't succeed, probably nobody will ever listen to it, except maybe my future descendants haha. And they'll be like, "Oh, sweet Granny, she sure was trying!"
Anyway, I will stop rambling and end this. I hope you have a wonderful day! This is Jumbled Sunshine and I will talk to you again soon. Bye bye!
Being my first podcast recording and all, it honestly starts out kinda awkward! But then I get going and it's gets better. So don't give up on it after the first few minutes! 😛 I explain what the plan is for the podcast and where I'm going with my whole Jumbled Sunshine online experiment. I think I even said a few valuable things in there! ;) So if you like podcasts, here's an opportunity to check out my new one! It's kind of an experiment and we'll see how it goes.
Here's the audio of the podcast episode if you want to download it, pull it into your podcast app, or listen online:
Have a wonderful #ThankfulThursday and be sure to show those around you how much you appreciate having them in your lives!
~JS~ 🌞
---
Transcript: Introduction to the Jumbled Sunshine Podcast - IDP000
Hey everybody, Jumbled Sunshine here! How are you doing today? I hope you're having a wonderful day. If everything goes the way I plan, this may be the first official podcast that I've ever recorded. But I am just getting started, so it's probably gonna be a little bit awkward.
I'm not the kind of person who has trouble talking about things. In fact, I have to be careful to not talk too much when I am in social circles, and make sure that I stop, and I listen, and I let other people share as well. So talking is not the issue. It's more thinking and pausing and saying, "Um," actually. And "actually" and "so" and "anyway." Those would be the big ones! So I apologize ahead of time for any of those that happen.
Jumbled Sunshine Online - Where I've Been
You will see that there were some years when I only wrote one post for the whole year, yikes! And that's because I was trying to decide what I was doing with it. But lately I've been posting a lot, and I have kind of started to get into a rhythm that I really love that I am hoping will help me to really get some good content and interesting information out there for people like me. If you want to know what my personality is, just keep on listening, or you can go have a look at my blog, www.jumbledsunshine.com. But you will get to know me here, and I hope that I will get to know you.
Anyway, the reason I am starting this today is because for the past while I have been doing these themed posts every day. Well, I decided I'm gonna call it nearly every day. Because ideally, I am blogging or posting or at least mentioning something about one of the themes every day. But I realize that with my personality, that may not be totally realistic. So I'm gonna call it ideally-daily, or something like that, I don't know. I'll probably change it a couple times!
But recently, most days, I have been either blogging, posting, tweeting, instagramming, steemit-ing, and I can't think of what the other social media things are at the moment, but I have been posting online about a different theme every day. My current themes are #MotivationMonday, #TechTuesday, #WellnessWednesday, #ThankfulThursday, #FamilyFriday, #StrategySaturday and #SacredSunday. And lately I've been doing that.
Podcasting Possibilities
And so the irony was not lost on me that since I have become obsessed with podcasting lately, that I should just be recording these for a podcast, instead of only for my personal self. But you know, I didn't want to start a podcast until I had my theme music and all my cover photos and the perfect title, and had my notes, and my strategy and my plan. And if you relate to this, you will probably enjoy my podcast haha.
I didn't want to start because of a couple things. One is, I was afraid that I would stop posting and recording, and that has been an issue, as you can see if you look over my blog for the past decade. But I want to point out to myself at the moment and to you for your own struggles and challenges, that I didn't stop! Because guess what? Here I am. It's 2018 and I am not only posting most days, but I am starting a podcast. And I have been just working on it a little bit at a time, every day.
What is Jumbled Sunshine All About?
And so what my blog is about, I guess I'll go into a lot more detail in the future. I'll do that later. But what it's basically about is to, I guess in the words of Dori from Finding Nemo, "Just keep swimming." You need to just keep putting one foot in front of the other, and moving forward, and congratulating yourself on your small wins and big wins, and recognizing those wins. And seeing the good in life around you, not just looking for the negative and the depressing and the sad.I recognize that motivational speaking and memes are necessarily going to solve your problems if you are dealing with a clinical depression, or anxiety and things like that. And I will just put out there right now that I have dealt with some of those issues myself on and off throughout my life, so I do get it. I know, of course I don't get your situation totally because nobody does except for you. But I get the idea. I have had my own struggles, as we all do, and I realize that it is not something that's just gonna be fixed by posting happy things or whatever.
However, I have also found that no matter how low I've gone in my life, just making myself look for the positive and try to do those things that they say will make you feel better, even if they're not making me feel better, those things have helped a little bit and helped me to keep going when it was tough.So yeah, I wasn't going to go into details about what the blog is about, but that's kind of a really general thing.
The other half of it is Jumbled. What does jumbled mean? So that was kind of the Sunshine side. The jumbled side, you've probably already figured out by just listening to the first couple minutes of this. But I have a ton of interests. Everything is interesting to me. I'm one of those people that can really relate to the "squirrel" thing! And I just love learning and experimenting, and trying, and doing, and creating, and sharing, and listening, and learning, and I could go on and on and on and on, about everything.
And I want ... well okay, so when I came up with the idea of Jumbled Sunshine, it was one of those things, you can go look on my blog if you want for a post called "Are You Jumbled Too?" And I can't tell you what year it is, but I will put it in the show notes because I guess if I'm doing a podcast, I need to have show notes, don't I?
When I first came up with the idea, it was because I woke up in the middle of the night and was just like, "Boom. Okay, I need to stop fighting who I am, and celebrate who I am." Rather than trying to fix all of the things around me using other people's systems and kind of looking for that perfect system, I need to just celebrate who I am, accept that I'm probably gonna try systems and read books and do things in my life that I'm gonna then completely quit and abandon. And that's fine! It doesn't matter.
Why? Because everything we do in our lives gives us wisdom. It gives us experience. It gives us fun in some cases! Everything we're doing ... you hear, "Life is a journey, not a destination." It's not just a cliché, it's true. Every single thing you do, every single day, everything you read, everything you try, is all part of the experience of what your life is.
So instead of looking for that end destination, and trying to find the perfect system that, "I will do every day from now on, all the way until the end of time," I need to just say to myself, "Hey, what did I learn from trying that system? What did I like about that system? What didn't work about that system? And why did I quit doing it?" And then acknowledge that for whatever reason, I'm moving on, and I want to try something new. And I can archive that into my experiential archive of the things that I've learned over my life.
I hope that makes sense! If it does, then this podcast is for you! Because ... I don't know where I was going with that, and that's the other part of jumbled, haha. So I think you've probably got an idea of what jumbled is. It is about enjoying and celebrating who you are, what your interests are, what's around you, and finding the joy and the positiveness in life. And recognizing that you don't have time to do all of them, all the time, in your life. And so just enjoy the jumbled sunshine of your life. That's what it's about.
I didn't even originally intend to call myself Jumbled Sunshine, it was just the blog was gonna be Jumbled Sunshine. But then over time, people would be like, "Oh, Jumbled Sunshine, that's a good name for you." Haha. "That describes you perfectly!" or whatever. And I'm like, "Oh, okay." So my actual name is Erika Ward, and I live in Utah. And I grew up in the MidWest. And that is enough background information, I probably shouldn't have even gone there. But the point is that my real name is Erika, but I will refer to myself sometimes as Jumbled Sunshine, because it's just kind of become a habit, I guess!
What's the Plan from Here?
Anyway, so I guess this is my first official podcast, and I just want to tell you what the plan is. The plan is that when I do my ideally-daily brain dumps to figure out what I'm gonna post about that day, or what I'm gonna focus on for that day, I'm going to record it into my little Easy Voice Recorder Pro app with my nice headset and microphone that I bought because I wanted to do podcasting. And I'm gonna record it in there, and then I'm going to post that.
At least right now, it will not have any frills. I don't have music, I don't have sponsors (of course because, you know, it's the first one). I don't even totally have a plan, except that ideally-daily, I will post about my themes. Motivation Monday, Tech Tuesday, Wellness Wednesday, Thankful Thursday, Family Friday, Strategy Saturday and Sacred Sunday.
Sacred Sunday
Now, let me make very clear, which you may be wondering, especially in today's world, with the Sacred Sunday on the end there. This is not a religious podcast. I am a religious person, but I will be posting things that I believe are universal principles. They may refer to God or Jesus because that's is where my belief stems from. But Sacred Sunday will be about taking a special day to reflect, and to do whatever it is you do to prepare yourself for the upcoming week.
Strategy Saturday
I guess I'll just work backwards from there. Strategy Saturday will be, at least for now, until I change it [I don't have plans to change this, so I'm not sure why I said that!] will be about strategies for making your life better. It may also have some things about online business. It may have some things about, you know, just anything that to me seems like a strategy, will probably end up on Strategy Saturday. I will also say that #StrategySaturday is probably gonna be one of the hardest ones for me to be consistent on because, you know, it's Saturday! And so I apologize ahead of time if the ideally-daily leaves out #StrategySaturday sometimes.
But I will try as best as I can to, at the very least, retweet something or post somebody else's post on my Facebook page, which by the way, you can find me at twitter.com/jumbledsunshine or Facebook.com/jumbledsunshine. I will try to at least put something out there. So if you really want to get a daily thing from me (even though I realize that's ideal and possibly won't happen totally), you will want to probably be following me on at least Facebook, as well as listening to this.
I do have a YouTube channel which I haven't posted on for awhile, but I'm hoping that I feel really motivated, and I've actually gotten dressed up, I will also video myself doing this little brain dump so that I can post it as a video. But those days where I'm not in pajamas with wet hair, like I am today haha, may be few and far between. So I may or may not always have a video up.
So I guess what I'm saying is that if you want the whole experience, you'll need to follow me on all my different social media channels, and I will put those in the show notes. But I am being diverted, as usually happens. So Strategy Saturday, yeah. My strategy for getting back on topic is to notice that I'm off, and to get right back on!
Family Friday
So Family Fridays. I am a mother of seven children. I have been married to my spouse since 1991, you can do the math. And I feel very blessed, I've got young adults, I have a couple teenagers left at home. I have one little, cute, two-week-old grandson, who's the son of my oldest son and his wife. And so that's where I'm at, at this point in my life in 2018.
I think I've probably learned a couple of things about families, so I might post things about parenting, appreciating your family, things like that. Things that have to do with family. Just pretty much, if it has to do with family, it can go on Family Friday.
As well as, family history! Because I am a little bit of a family history nut, although I am very jumbled in my application and dipping into my interest on that. So that comes and goes. But it's one of those interests that I don't think will ever go away for me. So I will also be talking a little bit about genealogy, family history, things like that. That's Family Friday.
Thankful Thursday
Thankful Thursday is about being thankful for what you have in your life. Sometimes it will just be a little quick gratitude post, or a beautiful picture of a sunset like I posted last week. Oh my gosh, I woke up and I was just like, "Oh my gosh! I need to take a picture!" I take so many pictures of sunrises ... it was a sunrise, not a sunset ... I take so many pictures of sunrises and sunsets where I live, it's just insane. It is unbelievable, I'll tell you.
Anyway, Thankful Thursday will also have a little bit to do with giving back to show your gratitude for what you have. It's gonna be about looking for the good around you, and then finding ways to give back. My husband works for an international charity and we have been involved in international charity work for awhile now. I don't want to try to even come up with a date, because I couldn't tell you, but that's a whole other story that actually, I believe is out there on my blog also, of that career change and how we made the decision to get involved in international charity work. [Here's the link from my husband's blog: http://www.lonnyward.com/p/our-journey.html]
Anyway, so sometimes it will talk about some of the projects he's doing, or maybe even encourage you to donate a little bit to either the charity that we are involved with, or other worthy charities, or wherever you want. So Thankful Thursday is about being thankful and giving back.
Wellness Wednesday
Wellness Wednesday. I've been on a journey, my whole life, as most of you probably have been, to try and be healthy. I'd better not go into a bunch of detail, because this is gonna get too long. But Wellness Wednesday will talk about things that have to do with health and wellness. Originally it was gonna be #WeightLossWednesday because I am currently in the middle of a weight loss journey. I have already lost somewhere around 25 pounds and my total goal is 50, so I'm about halfway there.
And I'll just talk about things that have to do with health and wellness. Sometimes it will have to do with weight loss. Sometimes it will be an update on my personal journey. Sometimes it will be sharing things like, tips about things that help you to be well, or taking care of yourself. So that's what Wellness Wednesday will be about.
Tech Tuesday
Tech Tuesday. Okay, so I'm a little bit of a technology geek. I mean, I'm not like ... just from the dates and things I've told you, that I'm not a young Millennial that knows current things necessarily all the time about technology. Although I do have quite a few of my children who are at that age, and so I really do know about a lot of the brand new things going on. But Tech Tuesday is really more about how we can use technology to make our life better.
Sometimes it will have to do with things that, ways that I am using technology to do things, like perhaps my podcast setup right now. Or ways that I'm using spreadsheets to organize things, or the way I made job charts for my family, using technology, when they were young, and things like that. So sometimes it might be a review about a new phone that I get, or whatever. It's just, you know, stuff that has to do with technology. So that'll be Tech Tuesday.
Motivation Monday
Motivation Monday is just all about being motivated. I came up with motivation Monday because I need to be motivated on Mondays myself, haha, and I figure most people need to be motivated that Monday. So that's what I'm going to talk about time management, things that are inspirational and get you up off your chair and things that make you want to move forward and just positive motivating stuff. So yeah, that's what motivation Monday is.
That's the Plan!
So that is the line up, and that's what I'm going to be doing. Ideally this will be daily, but I am going to promise you right now that it won't be absolutely every day, especially the podcast part. But I will try as hard as I can every day, unless I'm taking like a vacation or some kind of a hiatus, to move forward and do this and bring you along with me.
So I think it's gonna be really fun I hope that you are interested in some of those topics. I will say that I came up with those hashtags, even though as I've been posting about them I realized that a lot of other people use some of those hash tags as well. But I really did think, "Okay what are my interests and how can I make them fit the days of the week?" because that just seemed like a framework that I could work with. So I did come up with those ideas on my own but then a couple of them were tweaked by, for instance, changing Weight Loss Wednesday to Wellness Wednesday because I saw somebody else had it and I was like, "Oh, that's so much better."
So I'm not claiming to own the hash tags or be the creators of them, but I did kind of come up with those ideas because they fit my interests and I hope they fit yours. I'm gonna go ahead and end. I'm gonna try to make these always be, well I was gonna say less than fifteen minutes, but I just looked at my timer and it's twenty two! They will not go over half an hour if I have to stop in the middle and divide it in two, because I know that really long podcasts can sometimes be, well, too long.
So this is where we're at. This is my introduction post, and I just wanted to kind of put it out there and and say what I'm planning to do. I will hopefully be transcribing these to then use as online posts sometimes. I don't know, we'll just kind of see how it goes because it's a lot of work to post every day, which sounds silly but, you know, to compose something meaningful every day. So we'll see how it goes.
But I hope you stick with me, and probably if you're listening to this, it's because I actually have done it for awhile and I have a few out there, and people have started listening! So... yay! If it didn't succeed, probably nobody will ever listen to it, except maybe my future descendants haha. And they'll be like, "Oh, sweet Granny, she sure was trying!"
Anyway, I will stop rambling and end this. I hope you have a wonderful day! This is Jumbled Sunshine and I will talk to you again soon. Bye bye!
Sunday, April 8, 2018
Becoming Your Best Self
“God cares a lot more about who we are, and who we are becoming, than about who we once were.”
— Dale G. Renlund
#SacredSunday
#hope #chaseyourdreams #setgoals #createyourself #selfdevelopment #selfimprovement #inspiration #motivationalquotes
Saturday, March 31, 2018
Strategy for a Happy Life
Here is today's #StrategySaturday post, a reminder to look for happiness in whatever life brings. Reprinted with permission from: https://happinessisajourney.com
~JS~
~JS~
*****
Happiness is a Journey, by Crystal Boyd
We convince ourselves that life will be better after we get married, have a baby, then another. Then we’re frustrated that the kids aren’t old enough and we’ll be more content when they are. After that, we’re frustrated that we have teenagers to deal with. We’ll certainly be happy when they’re out of that stage.
We tell ourselves that our life will be complete when our spouse gets his or her act together, when we get a nicer car, are able to go on a nice vacation, when we retire.
The truth is, there’s no better time to be happy than right now. If not now, when?
Your life will always be filled with challenges. It’s best to admit this to yourself and decide to be happy anyway.
One of my favorite quotes comes from Alfred D. Souza. He said, “For a long time it had seemed to me that life was about to begin – real life. But there was always some obstacle in the way, something to be gotten through first, some unfinished business, time still to be served, or a debt to be paid. Then life would begin. At last it dawned on me that these obstacles were my life.”
This perspective has helped me to see that there is no way to happiness. Happiness is the way. So, treasure every moment that you have and treasure it more because you shared it with someone special, special enough to spend your time with…and remember that time waits for no one.
So, stop waiting until you finish school, until you go back to school, until you lose ten pounds, until you gain ten pounds, until you have kids, until your kids leave the house, until you start work, until you retire, until you get married, until you get divorced, until Friday night, until Sunday morning, until you get a new car or home, until your car or home is paid off, until spring, until summer, until fall, until winter, until you’re off welfare, until the first or fifteenth, until your song comes on, until you’ve had a drink, until you’ve sobered up, until you die, until you’re born again to decide that there is no better time than right now to be happy.
Happiness is a journey, not a destination.
 |
| *My youngest son holding my first grandson.* |
Wednesday, March 28, 2018
First Official Wellness Wednesday Video (Transcript)
This blog post is a (slightly edited) transcript from a video that I filmed in January 2018 as an introduction to what I was planning to call “Weight Loss Wednesday” which has now been updated to #WellnessWednesday. So it’s a little bit behind where I’m at now in my weight loss journey, but it has some good background information about my health history and methods that I’ve been using over the past year.
I'll be uploading the video to YouTube by the end of the day today and then I'll add the link to the bottom of this post. So without further ado, here’s the transcript of the video. Enjoy!!
* * * * *
Hey there everyone! Jumbled Sunshine here! I am going to do my first official Weight Loss Wednesday video right now. I just wanted to share with you a little bit of my weight loss journey so far, and kind of where I'm at, what I've done to get here, and where I’m going.
Background
Growing up I did not have a weight problem. I was a fairly small-sized person, I guess. I wasn't like Skinny Minnie, but I was just kind of an average kid growing up. In High school I started thinking I was really fat (you know as everybody probably thinks when they're in High School!) so for a while there I worked pretty hard to exercise and to try and stay at a decent weight. I probably even took it a little bit too far, as many of you may have been down that kind of a road before. But by the time I got through to college, I started being a little smarter about things, and I just pretty much did okay. I was just kind of an average weight, not super skinny, but not heavy.
It wasn't really until I started having my kids that, you know, I would gain weight, have a baby, then I'd lose most of it, but maybe not all. After my second baby, I was like, "Okay, if I gain 10 pounds with every baby, I'm in trouble!" So I worked really hard at it, and I remember after my third child was born, being super excited to be able to put my wedding dress back on. So that was like pretty awesome. I'm like, "I've had three babies and I'm wearing my wedding dress!" You know, I just remember that felt like a pretty awesome achievement! 💒
Anyway, I worked pretty hard on staying on shape throughout the years as my other children were born. But then, after my sixth baby was born, I started having some other health issues, and it just really started to take a toll on me, and I didn't have a lot of energy. Then, when I went through my seventh pregnancy, which was my last, that's when I just put on the weight and I didn't ever lose it. Not only did I not lose it, but I put on more weight after the baby was born.
So just for the last decade (baby number 7 is 13 now!) I've been just like heavier than I really feel like is good for me, and I've been wanting to make a change. I've done some things here and there, and I'd lose a little bit of weight, and then maybe maintain for awhile and then regain it. You know, just kind of that up-down that I'm sure some of you are familiar with!
Time for a Change!
In the meantime, a lot of my health problems had resolved for the most part, and I wasn’t having near the problems that I had had for awhile, so I decided that it was time to really buckle down and work on my health and weight loss.
So starting on April 20th of 2017, that was the day that I put my weight down on a chart and started charting it, and started following some plans to try and make a difference. My goal was to lose 50 pounds total.
Trim Healthy Mama
I started doing Trim Healthy Mama, which many of you might be familiar with. And that was kind of my main way that I lost probably the first 15 pounds. If you're not familiar with Trim Healthy Mama, you can look at their website: TrimHealthyMama.com. They've got some great stuff. There's a little bit of a learning curve, but once you start figuring it out, it's really a plan that can be a lifetime plan I think. At least for me, I was able to learn how to be in pretty much any situation, and stay pretty close to on-plan. I customized it for myself, as anyone should, and I saw really good results with that. Like I said, I lost about my first 18 pounds with that program.
Periodic Fasting (AKA Intermittent Fasting)
Then I kind of hit a plateau, and nothing was happening, and I got thinking, "Okay, I need to do something a little bit different now." So that's when I decided to try some periodic fasting. So with that, what you do, at least the way [I was doing it in January] is that you fast for 14 hours and then you eat for 10 hours. So out of every 24 hour day, you're only eating 10 hours of it. (The resources I initially used actually suggested that men fast 16 hours and then follow with eight hours of eating.)
It sounds like it would be really hard, but really what it kind of came down to for me was cutting off my eating after a certain time in the evening, and then just counting 14 hours forward, and not eating until that time the next morning. I would kind of start to get hungry toward the end of that 14 hour period, but not bad. And it really kind of jump-started me, and I was able to go past the 25 pound loss, which was super exciting!
2017 Results
I got all the way to 27 pounds lost, which was a little more than half of my goal of 50 pound weight loss. So to recap, mostly I did Trim Healthy Mama, then I started doing some periodic fasting, but I would still eat pretty Trim Healthy Mama-ish during my actual eating hours. And that's pretty much what I did through most of 2017. That's not super specific, but I can go into more details on other Weight Loss Wednesdays.
I hadn't really done a lot with exercise, I mostly just adapted my eating. During this time, I was still recuperating from the shoulder surgery that I had on February 28, 2018, so the exercise I did do was mostly just my shoulder physical therapy exercises. This weight loss journey was over a period of about seven months, from April 2017 to November 2017. I think I did it wisely, where I'd drop a few pounds, and then I'd maintain for awhile, and I'd drop a few pounds, maintain for awhile, and so on.
Holiday Blues
Things went really well until the holidays came. In November and December of 2017, my eating habits were pretty sketchy, so I did gain some of my weight back. I was mostly off-plan over the holidays, although I did do pretty well with the periodic fasting, but then as soon as I was eating, I ate terrible for all my eating hours. And then I would fast again, and then I would eat terrible. I probably would have gained more weight back if it weren’t for the periodic fasting. I mean, I only gained about four pounds over the holidays, which isn't too bad for being pretty off-plan for nearly two months.
January 2018 Progress Update
So right now [as of January 2018] I am at about 23 pounds down from where I started. No biggie, I'm gonna get right back on the wagon! I wanted to let you know what I'm doing right now, currently. What I decided to do, starting January 2nd (because January 1st was still kind of a holiday around my house) I thought to myself, "Okay, I gotta get some motivation to get back into this." So starting January 2nd, I'm doing one rule: no treats, no sweets for the whole month of January.
I'm also doing some periodic fasting, so I'll usually stop eating maybe like 8:00 at night, and then I'll go to like 10:00 in the morning before I eat. I'll go into it in another video, because I know that you think, "Well, isn't it better to not eat in the evenings, and then to eat breakfast?" Because you always hear eating breakfast is important. But actually some of the research I did actually kind of showed the opposite. And it was sort of interesting, and it's been really successful for me. Like I said, I was able to lose an additional 10 pounds doing that periodic fasting, even when I wasn't eating perfectly in the other 10 hours of the day.
January 2018 Goals
Anyway, so going forward in January, my current goal is basically just don't eat sugar. I mean, there might be a little bit of sugar in stuff. I'm not gonna be like crazy hyper-vigilant about it. But I'm not gonna be eating candy, and cookies, and ice cream and all this stuff that's been dropped off at my house for the whole month of December! So none of that.
Basically, the idea in my head is that if it could be a Trim Healthy Mama “S Meal”, then it's good to go. So just no sweets. I'm not gonna necessarily be trying to be super vigilant yet on the Trim Healthy Mama stuff, because I kind of need to do it one step at a time. But that's my plan, and I'll be able to get back on track here.
So that's my updated progress. If you have any questions about specifics, let me know! I'll put some links below that link to some of these sources that I've talked about, and where I learned what I learned about the Trim Healthy Mama and the Periodic Fasting.
So anyway, I hope you have a wonderful day. Thanks for joining me for Weight Loss Wednesday and I will talk to you again soon!
~JS~ 🌞
#WellnessWednesday
___________________________________________________________
[JS here on 5/23/18: Apparently I never uploaded this video to YouTube!! 🙄 Unfortunately, I'm noticing this oversight on a day when I'm not in the right place to find and upload the old video, so just wanted you to know that I'll try to add it soon! Let me know if you're one of the people waiting on it and I'll move it to the top of my very long to-do list. Otherwise it may be awhile. 😉]
 |
| Image Credit: www.crazyfitmama.com |
I'll be uploading the video to YouTube by the end of the day today and then I'll add the link to the bottom of this post. So without further ado, here’s the transcript of the video. Enjoy!!
* * * * *
Hey there everyone! Jumbled Sunshine here! I am going to do my first official Weight Loss Wednesday video right now. I just wanted to share with you a little bit of my weight loss journey so far, and kind of where I'm at, what I've done to get here, and where I’m going.
Background
Growing up I did not have a weight problem. I was a fairly small-sized person, I guess. I wasn't like Skinny Minnie, but I was just kind of an average kid growing up. In High school I started thinking I was really fat (you know as everybody probably thinks when they're in High School!) so for a while there I worked pretty hard to exercise and to try and stay at a decent weight. I probably even took it a little bit too far, as many of you may have been down that kind of a road before. But by the time I got through to college, I started being a little smarter about things, and I just pretty much did okay. I was just kind of an average weight, not super skinny, but not heavy.
It wasn't really until I started having my kids that, you know, I would gain weight, have a baby, then I'd lose most of it, but maybe not all. After my second baby, I was like, "Okay, if I gain 10 pounds with every baby, I'm in trouble!" So I worked really hard at it, and I remember after my third child was born, being super excited to be able to put my wedding dress back on. So that was like pretty awesome. I'm like, "I've had three babies and I'm wearing my wedding dress!" You know, I just remember that felt like a pretty awesome achievement! 💒
Anyway, I worked pretty hard on staying on shape throughout the years as my other children were born. But then, after my sixth baby was born, I started having some other health issues, and it just really started to take a toll on me, and I didn't have a lot of energy. Then, when I went through my seventh pregnancy, which was my last, that's when I just put on the weight and I didn't ever lose it. Not only did I not lose it, but I put on more weight after the baby was born.
So just for the last decade (baby number 7 is 13 now!) I've been just like heavier than I really feel like is good for me, and I've been wanting to make a change. I've done some things here and there, and I'd lose a little bit of weight, and then maybe maintain for awhile and then regain it. You know, just kind of that up-down that I'm sure some of you are familiar with!
Time for a Change!
In the meantime, a lot of my health problems had resolved for the most part, and I wasn’t having near the problems that I had had for awhile, so I decided that it was time to really buckle down and work on my health and weight loss.
So starting on April 20th of 2017, that was the day that I put my weight down on a chart and started charting it, and started following some plans to try and make a difference. My goal was to lose 50 pounds total.
Trim Healthy Mama
I started doing Trim Healthy Mama, which many of you might be familiar with. And that was kind of my main way that I lost probably the first 15 pounds. If you're not familiar with Trim Healthy Mama, you can look at their website: TrimHealthyMama.com. They've got some great stuff. There's a little bit of a learning curve, but once you start figuring it out, it's really a plan that can be a lifetime plan I think. At least for me, I was able to learn how to be in pretty much any situation, and stay pretty close to on-plan. I customized it for myself, as anyone should, and I saw really good results with that. Like I said, I lost about my first 18 pounds with that program.
Periodic Fasting (AKA Intermittent Fasting)
Then I kind of hit a plateau, and nothing was happening, and I got thinking, "Okay, I need to do something a little bit different now." So that's when I decided to try some periodic fasting. So with that, what you do, at least the way [I was doing it in January] is that you fast for 14 hours and then you eat for 10 hours. So out of every 24 hour day, you're only eating 10 hours of it. (The resources I initially used actually suggested that men fast 16 hours and then follow with eight hours of eating.)
It sounds like it would be really hard, but really what it kind of came down to for me was cutting off my eating after a certain time in the evening, and then just counting 14 hours forward, and not eating until that time the next morning. I would kind of start to get hungry toward the end of that 14 hour period, but not bad. And it really kind of jump-started me, and I was able to go past the 25 pound loss, which was super exciting!
2017 Results
I got all the way to 27 pounds lost, which was a little more than half of my goal of 50 pound weight loss. So to recap, mostly I did Trim Healthy Mama, then I started doing some periodic fasting, but I would still eat pretty Trim Healthy Mama-ish during my actual eating hours. And that's pretty much what I did through most of 2017. That's not super specific, but I can go into more details on other Weight Loss Wednesdays.
I hadn't really done a lot with exercise, I mostly just adapted my eating. During this time, I was still recuperating from the shoulder surgery that I had on February 28, 2018, so the exercise I did do was mostly just my shoulder physical therapy exercises. This weight loss journey was over a period of about seven months, from April 2017 to November 2017. I think I did it wisely, where I'd drop a few pounds, and then I'd maintain for awhile, and I'd drop a few pounds, maintain for awhile, and so on.
Holiday Blues
Things went really well until the holidays came. In November and December of 2017, my eating habits were pretty sketchy, so I did gain some of my weight back. I was mostly off-plan over the holidays, although I did do pretty well with the periodic fasting, but then as soon as I was eating, I ate terrible for all my eating hours. And then I would fast again, and then I would eat terrible. I probably would have gained more weight back if it weren’t for the periodic fasting. I mean, I only gained about four pounds over the holidays, which isn't too bad for being pretty off-plan for nearly two months.
January 2018 Progress Update
So right now [as of January 2018] I am at about 23 pounds down from where I started. No biggie, I'm gonna get right back on the wagon! I wanted to let you know what I'm doing right now, currently. What I decided to do, starting January 2nd (because January 1st was still kind of a holiday around my house) I thought to myself, "Okay, I gotta get some motivation to get back into this." So starting January 2nd, I'm doing one rule: no treats, no sweets for the whole month of January.
I'm also doing some periodic fasting, so I'll usually stop eating maybe like 8:00 at night, and then I'll go to like 10:00 in the morning before I eat. I'll go into it in another video, because I know that you think, "Well, isn't it better to not eat in the evenings, and then to eat breakfast?" Because you always hear eating breakfast is important. But actually some of the research I did actually kind of showed the opposite. And it was sort of interesting, and it's been really successful for me. Like I said, I was able to lose an additional 10 pounds doing that periodic fasting, even when I wasn't eating perfectly in the other 10 hours of the day.
January 2018 Goals
Anyway, so going forward in January, my current goal is basically just don't eat sugar. I mean, there might be a little bit of sugar in stuff. I'm not gonna be like crazy hyper-vigilant about it. But I'm not gonna be eating candy, and cookies, and ice cream and all this stuff that's been dropped off at my house for the whole month of December! So none of that.
Basically, the idea in my head is that if it could be a Trim Healthy Mama “S Meal”, then it's good to go. So just no sweets. I'm not gonna necessarily be trying to be super vigilant yet on the Trim Healthy Mama stuff, because I kind of need to do it one step at a time. But that's my plan, and I'll be able to get back on track here.
So that's my updated progress. If you have any questions about specifics, let me know! I'll put some links below that link to some of these sources that I've talked about, and where I learned what I learned about the Trim Healthy Mama and the Periodic Fasting.
So anyway, I hope you have a wonderful day. Thanks for joining me for Weight Loss Wednesday and I will talk to you again soon!
~JS~ 🌞
#WellnessWednesday
___________________________________________________________
[JS here on 5/23/18: Apparently I never uploaded this video to YouTube!! 🙄 Unfortunately, I'm noticing this oversight on a day when I'm not in the right place to find and upload the old video, so just wanted you to know that I'll try to add it soon! Let me know if you're one of the people waiting on it and I'll move it to the top of my very long to-do list. Otherwise it may be awhile. 😉]
Friday, March 16, 2018
What We Have Here is a Failure to Communicate!
This meme made me laugh!! 😂
Okay so we all know that this picture is exaggerating... but it's true that husbands and wives need to realize that their brains may process things differently! In my personal experience, I've found that my husband will focus on one idea at a time and I'll be bouncing all over, making connections, seeing a big grand picture in my mind. And it's so exciting! (so I go on...) "And this! And that! And the other!!"
But then I suddenly realize that he hasn't said anything for awhile and stop to ask him what he thinks. Turns out that he had formulated a response for the first thing I brought up and was waiting to say that, but it was now irrelevant because I have gone through ten more subjects since then. 🤣 So at this point he has ten different possible responses, and he's trying to decide which one to comment on. (silence... thinking... silence...)
In my excited enthusiasm (and lack of patience) I see his hesitancy as not having a response at all, so I start up again to fill the void... and leave him in the dust again! And the cycle repeats. Or at some point I may stop and be like, "How come you're not interested? This is exciting!!" But the poor man is just trying to keep up with the topic changes!!
It's a process! But it's worth it to take the time to learn how your spouse communicates and help him understand how you communicate, and then work hard on improving your interactions. Mostly it just takes understanding, love and patience. 💖
What can you do to better understand your spouse today?
Make it a priority for #FamilyFriday!
~JS~ 🌞
 |
| [Photo credit: www.facebook.com/MyHusbandIsMyBestFriend] |
But then I suddenly realize that he hasn't said anything for awhile and stop to ask him what he thinks. Turns out that he had formulated a response for the first thing I brought up and was waiting to say that, but it was now irrelevant because I have gone through ten more subjects since then. 🤣 So at this point he has ten different possible responses, and he's trying to decide which one to comment on. (silence... thinking... silence...)
In my excited enthusiasm (and lack of patience) I see his hesitancy as not having a response at all, so I start up again to fill the void... and leave him in the dust again! And the cycle repeats. Or at some point I may stop and be like, "How come you're not interested? This is exciting!!" But the poor man is just trying to keep up with the topic changes!!
As Jed Clampett once said on the Beverly Hillbillies, "What we have here is a failure to communicate!!" (This is one of my husband's favorite quotes. For context, just watch this funny video clip from 1:00 to 2:30. )
When communicating with my husband, no matter how enthusiastic I am, if I want him to participate in the conversation, I have had to learn to slow down and WAIT (and even count to ten in my head!) and patiently give him time to comment, one subject at a time. (It's so hard!!!) But it's amazing how much better we communicate when I do this! And he has had to learn to comment OUT LOUD, not just in his head haha. 🤔
It's a process! But it's worth it to take the time to learn how your spouse communicates and help him understand how you communicate, and then work hard on improving your interactions. Mostly it just takes understanding, love and patience. 💖
What can you do to better understand your spouse today?
Make it a priority for #FamilyFriday!
~JS~ 🌞
Wednesday, February 11, 2015
A Tribute to My Mom (The Original "Jumbled Sunshine") On Her Special Day
Well, I started out this morning with a giant SIGH. Why? Because today is the anniversary of Mom's birthday. If she had not succumbed to the effects of heart disease, she would have turned 68 years old today. Instead, we lost her on November 5th, 2007, when she was only 60... So sad. :(
As I think about how much technology has developed over the past 7 and a half years, I often think about how much Mom would have LOVED to be a part of it! She was so tech-savvy for her age all through the 80's, 90's and 2000's, and she was such a social person and so intrigued with learning information, that she would be just really enjoying where social media and blogging has led us during the past decade.
Although, when I think about it very much, I realize that the technology where she is now has got to be SO incredible! I don't know if it's technology or just some incredible celestial power of awesomeness, but I guess what we're doing here on earth must pale in comparison. But still, from my perspective here, I would sure love to have enjoyed posting to her on Facebook, reading all the blogs she likely would have started, chatting with her through texts, and seeing all the fun interesting things she would share every day online.
Sigh.
Here's a great picture of Mom near the end of her life. The bright colors in the kite shop represent her so well. She was truly the original Jumbled Sunshine - I am just a shadow of her bright and vivacious personality. She is truly the wind beneath my wings.
Funny, I'm listening to Pandora while I'm typing this, and right after I started the post, a song came up that has poignant lyrics considering the occasion. It's supposed to be about a breakup, but since I was thinking about Mom when it came on, the lyrics took on a new meaning. Here they are:
"Walk Right Back" by the Everly Brothers:
I want you to tell me why you walked out on me
I'm so lonesome everyday
I want you to know that since you walked out on me
Nothin' seems to be the same old way
Think about the love that burns within my heart for you
The good times we had before you went away, oh me
Walk right back to me this minute,
Bring your love to me, don't send it,
I'm so lonesome everyday
I want you to tell me why you walked out on me
I'm so lonesome everyday
I want you to know that since you walked out on me
Nothin' seems to be the same old way
Think about the love that burns within my heart for you
The good times we had before you went away, oh me
Walk right back to me this minute
Bring your love to me, don't send it
I'm so lonesome everyday...
Love you Mom! I am so lonesome without you. Thanks so much for giving me life and a loving home in which to be born and grow up. Though our home life wasn't always perfect (whose is?), I have extremely wonderful and affectionate memories of all the time I spent with you and Dad and Eric, Muffy, George, and Ruben. My favorite times were those occasions when we did fun things together as a family - going fishing, ice skating, roller skating, sledding, watching TV together as a family on the weekends, and going on Sunday drives in the countryside.
I even fondly remember working and weeding in the garden together (though I complained incessantly at the time!) and then gathering our bounteous harvest and prepping it together as a family. I remember snapping green beans (and eating them raw!) and canning tomato sauce for Dad's famous spaghetti. The raw tomatoes always gave me a rash on my hand while we worked, haha, so I could find a convenient way to get out of the work when I was tired of it. :)
One of the most adventurous times was when I came home from school only to find that you had knocked down a wall with a sledgehammer (haha!), and we all had to chip in to help you and Dad rebuild the room layout according to your newly designed plans. :) There was always a fun building project going on at our house, so I learned to love the smell of sawdust when I was a child, and that fresh smell still makes me nostalgic to this day.
I loved to see your mind work as you'd pick out new paint colors, fabrics and furniture to redecorate our home according to the latest trend. I still love perusing decorating materials, furniture stores, and antique shops, and I think of you every time I do.
As I think about how much technology has developed over the past 7 and a half years, I often think about how much Mom would have LOVED to be a part of it! She was so tech-savvy for her age all through the 80's, 90's and 2000's, and she was such a social person and so intrigued with learning information, that she would be just really enjoying where social media and blogging has led us during the past decade.
Although, when I think about it very much, I realize that the technology where she is now has got to be SO incredible! I don't know if it's technology or just some incredible celestial power of awesomeness, but I guess what we're doing here on earth must pale in comparison. But still, from my perspective here, I would sure love to have enjoyed posting to her on Facebook, reading all the blogs she likely would have started, chatting with her through texts, and seeing all the fun interesting things she would share every day online.
Sigh.
Here's a great picture of Mom near the end of her life. The bright colors in the kite shop represent her so well. She was truly the original Jumbled Sunshine - I am just a shadow of her bright and vivacious personality. She is truly the wind beneath my wings.
 |
| Bonnie McCroby Wuensche - The Original "Jumbled Sunshine" (1947 - 2007) |
"Walk Right Back" by the Everly Brothers:
I want you to tell me why you walked out on me
I'm so lonesome everyday
I want you to know that since you walked out on me
Nothin' seems to be the same old way
Think about the love that burns within my heart for you
The good times we had before you went away, oh me
Walk right back to me this minute,
Bring your love to me, don't send it,
I'm so lonesome everyday
I want you to tell me why you walked out on me
I'm so lonesome everyday
I want you to know that since you walked out on me
Nothin' seems to be the same old way
Think about the love that burns within my heart for you
The good times we had before you went away, oh me
Walk right back to me this minute
Bring your love to me, don't send it
I'm so lonesome everyday...
Love you Mom! I am so lonesome without you. Thanks so much for giving me life and a loving home in which to be born and grow up. Though our home life wasn't always perfect (whose is?), I have extremely wonderful and affectionate memories of all the time I spent with you and Dad and Eric, Muffy, George, and Ruben. My favorite times were those occasions when we did fun things together as a family - going fishing, ice skating, roller skating, sledding, watching TV together as a family on the weekends, and going on Sunday drives in the countryside.
 |
| Our cute little family in 1976. L to R, back to front: Jay, Bonnie, Maureen (Muffy), George, Erika (me) and Eric. |
One of the most adventurous times was when I came home from school only to find that you had knocked down a wall with a sledgehammer (haha!), and we all had to chip in to help you and Dad rebuild the room layout according to your newly designed plans. :) There was always a fun building project going on at our house, so I learned to love the smell of sawdust when I was a child, and that fresh smell still makes me nostalgic to this day.
I loved to see your mind work as you'd pick out new paint colors, fabrics and furniture to redecorate our home according to the latest trend. I still love perusing decorating materials, furniture stores, and antique shops, and I think of you every time I do.
Monday, March 3, 2014
Blog Spotlight: DIY Confessions & A New Journal Idea
This morning I read a post on the Flylady mailing list about a recipe for homemade bathtub cleaner posted on a blog called "DIY Confessions." I went to www.diyconfessions.com, anxious to see what other fun household tips they had. I was surprised to see that the current post on the home page was not about housekeeping at all. It's title read: "Seven Tips to Eliminate Postpartum Depression."
This caught my attention for a couple of reasons. First, because I have been feeling kind of blue the last few weeks. Second, because I am no stranger to the whole "baby blues" thing, after having given birth to 7 children in 13 years! Though my youngest is now 9 years old, and baby blues are far behind me, I have friends who may be dealing with postpartum issues.
So - I started reading.
The very first tip caught my eye because I think it's such a great idea, whether you're dealing with actual depression, or if you're just wanting a really great way to end each day with some positive closure. Although, I have a confession of my own: Being the jumbled person that I am, I haven't actually read the rest of the tips in the article because I got so excited about sharing the first one with all of you - my jumbled friends - that I came over here to start writing and never finishing reading the post! hahaha... oh well! It's a really good tip, so I'm sure the rest are great too! ;) Here it is....
Keep a journal.
Simple, right? But how can that help? Here's a bit of what blogger Ceara said about it: "This was actually the most effective tool I used! I would just write these three questions out before bed and answer them:
This caught my attention for a couple of reasons. First, because I have been feeling kind of blue the last few weeks. Second, because I am no stranger to the whole "baby blues" thing, after having given birth to 7 children in 13 years! Though my youngest is now 9 years old, and baby blues are far behind me, I have friends who may be dealing with postpartum issues.
So - I started reading.
The very first tip caught my eye because I think it's such a great idea, whether you're dealing with actual depression, or if you're just wanting a really great way to end each day with some positive closure. Although, I have a confession of my own: Being the jumbled person that I am, I haven't actually read the rest of the tips in the article because I got so excited about sharing the first one with all of you - my jumbled friends - that I came over here to start writing and never finishing reading the post! hahaha... oh well! It's a really good tip, so I'm sure the rest are great too! ;) Here it is....
Keep a journal.
Simple, right? But how can that help? Here's a bit of what blogger Ceara said about it: "This was actually the most effective tool I used! I would just write these three questions out before bed and answer them:
- What was the high point of my day?
- What was the low point of my day?
- What am I looking forward to tomorrow?
- I eventually started added a verse as well that I found encouraging.
 |
| Here's a picture of one of Ceara's actual journal entries. |
Wow - this is SO SIMPLE and yet SO PROFOUND! Writing in a journal can really be a great way to get your feelings on paper and give some closure to each day. In fact, my husband Lonny told me once that he doesn't sleep as well if he hasn't written in his journal, because it gets rid of all of that stuff that's bouncing around in his head, and gets it out on paper so he can rest.
I love the four points that Ceara suggests including in your journal entry each day. Instead of being overwhelmed by trying to catalog everything that happened that day, you can just write a few simple things to get an overall view. Being able to think back on the day and identify something great that happened as well as something tough that happened helps you to take a step back from your life and see it from a different perspective. And listing what you are looking forward to tomorrow? What a great way to give yourself a reason to get out of bed the next morning!
I've been keeping a journal fairly regularly on and off since I was a teenager, and I've been working at getting my habit back "on" since 2014 started. My goal has been to write just 5 sentences every night, no matter how tired I am. I did really well in January (don't we all?) and then dropped off a bit in February. So - March is a new month, and I'm going to use this idea to get myself motivated to write more often again. Tonight I'm going to write about my high point, my low point, and what I'm looking forward to tomorrow. PLUS - a scripture verse - love those!!
How about you? You may want to give the journal thing a try!
If you'd like to read the full post and learn about Ceara's other six suggestions for eliminating post-partum depression (which I haven't read yet, lol!), visit DIY Confessions for yourself at www.DIYconfessions.com. You'll also find "tutorials for DIY projects, crafting, thrifted finds, delicious recipes, the joys of motherhood, tips & tricks and green cleaning."
Thanks for reading, and have a marvelous day!
~JS~
I love the four points that Ceara suggests including in your journal entry each day. Instead of being overwhelmed by trying to catalog everything that happened that day, you can just write a few simple things to get an overall view. Being able to think back on the day and identify something great that happened as well as something tough that happened helps you to take a step back from your life and see it from a different perspective. And listing what you are looking forward to tomorrow? What a great way to give yourself a reason to get out of bed the next morning!
I've been keeping a journal fairly regularly on and off since I was a teenager, and I've been working at getting my habit back "on" since 2014 started. My goal has been to write just 5 sentences every night, no matter how tired I am. I did really well in January (don't we all?) and then dropped off a bit in February. So - March is a new month, and I'm going to use this idea to get myself motivated to write more often again. Tonight I'm going to write about my high point, my low point, and what I'm looking forward to tomorrow. PLUS - a scripture verse - love those!!
How about you? You may want to give the journal thing a try!
If you'd like to read the full post and learn about Ceara's other six suggestions for eliminating post-partum depression (which I haven't read yet, lol!), visit DIY Confessions for yourself at www.DIYconfessions.com. You'll also find "tutorials for DIY projects, crafting, thrifted finds, delicious recipes, the joys of motherhood, tips & tricks and green cleaning."
Thanks for reading, and have a marvelous day!
~JS~
Thursday, January 23, 2014
Book Spotlight: The Power of Full Engagment
Just in case you haven't noticed. . . I have a teeny tiny bit of a problem with consistency. I keep telling myself that it's okay because, after all, this blog is called "Jumbled Sunshine" for a reason, right?!? And that excuse is true to some extent. . . . it leaves me free to write whenever and whatever I want and not "ruin" the theme of the blog, because it's for busy, jumbled people like me, right?!
Yes. . . er . . . No. . . er. . . Well, kind of.
Honestly, I think I'm just kidding myself to think that it's okay to let MONTHS go by without posting. Don't you think? I mean, the whole point of this blog is to support those of you out there who are also "jumbled" to one extent or another. And how in the world can I support you if I don't put anything on here?!?!?
Um, yeah. . . that's a bit of an issue.
SO - I need to let go of my perfectionism and stop waiting for "enough time" to do a post "right" and just write a post! I like that phrase: Don't wait to do it just right — just WRITE!
SO - I'm back! And I have some unfinished business to take care of from previous posts, which I am bound and determined to finish! But first things first. . .
Yes. . . er . . . No. . . er. . . Well, kind of.
Honestly, I think I'm just kidding myself to think that it's okay to let MONTHS go by without posting. Don't you think? I mean, the whole point of this blog is to support those of you out there who are also "jumbled" to one extent or another. And how in the world can I support you if I don't put anything on here?!?!?
Um, yeah. . . that's a bit of an issue.
SO - I need to let go of my perfectionism and stop waiting for "enough time" to do a post "right" and just write a post! I like that phrase: Don't wait to do it just right — just WRITE!
SO - I'm back! And I have some unfinished business to take care of from previous posts, which I am bound and determined to finish! But first things first. . .
Today's Book Spotlight
Tuesday, October 15, 2013
If You Could Not Fail
I came across this quote today, and it struck me quite profoundly. "What great thing would you attempt if you knew you could not fail?"
How often do you quit something because you lose enthusiasm, or because it gets too hard? If you really knew that you could not fail at something really important to you, would you be more persistent? Doesn't it make sense that if you are persistent with your goals, there is a lot more chance that you will succeed at them?
This is a key concept for the jumbled mind and jumbled life. Sometimes we give up or get discouraged with ourselves because we cannot see the future to know how it will pay off. But if you could see how the future would change because of your persistent work, wouldn't you be more likely to put in the time and keep going?
Just think about it for awhile.
I'd love to hear your thoughts and ideas! Post your comment here or email me at: jumbledsunshine@gmail.com. Have a wonderful day! ~ JS ~
Wednesday, August 7, 2013
Best Blog Post Award: "To Moms of One or Two Children" by Sarah Short
This woman has such a gift with words. . . what a perfect answer for those who wonder how to get through it all when they are struggling as a new parent! I wish I had been able to think of something this clever to say when I was asked "How do you do it all?" by other mothers again and again as I was raising my crew! :)
My short-and-true-but-not-nearly-as-helpful answer was: "I just. . . do it. . . I don't have any other choice!" :)
My comment on her post:
Sarah, Thank you for your beautiful post!
I have seven wonderful and amazing children who are growing up right before my eyes, so I've "been there, done that." When #6 was born and my oldest was only 10, I thought, "What in the world have I done? This is crazy!! We. Are. Completely. Insane." But just like you said, I grew into it, and God helped me through. And I even found room in my heart for one more.
Today, my oldest is 21 and my youngest is 8 and it is a completely different world. Not an overwhelming, bone-numbing physical strain like before, but a fierce emotional time with teenagers finding their way, and young adults trying to learn how to make it on their own. I am so grateful to the women in my life who were such amazing, supportive examples.
You are so right that it is important to find YOUR OWN WAY as a parent and not worry about what other people think. When I discovered that, and truly began to live it, that's when true peace came and overwhelming happiness in whatever stage of parenting I was in.
My short-and-true-but-not-nearly-as-helpful answer was: "I just. . . do it. . . I don't have any other choice!" :)
Read Sarah's answer to this frequently asked question by clicking on the title below:
by Sarah Short, author of
www.shortstopblog.com
Sarah, Thank you for your beautiful post!
I have seven wonderful and amazing children who are growing up right before my eyes, so I've "been there, done that." When #6 was born and my oldest was only 10, I thought, "What in the world have I done? This is crazy!! We. Are. Completely. Insane." But just like you said, I grew into it, and God helped me through. And I even found room in my heart for one more.
Today, my oldest is 21 and my youngest is 8 and it is a completely different world. Not an overwhelming, bone-numbing physical strain like before, but a fierce emotional time with teenagers finding their way, and young adults trying to learn how to make it on their own. I am so grateful to the women in my life who were such amazing, supportive examples.
You are so right that it is important to find YOUR OWN WAY as a parent and not worry about what other people think. When I discovered that, and truly began to live it, that's when true peace came and overwhelming happiness in whatever stage of parenting I was in.
Friday, June 28, 2013
Resurrect the Sunshine Within!
Okay, so I really don't have any time to write, but I'm going to do it really quickly anyway. Wow, that's awful grammar. But the the whole point of the way I write on here is to sound the way I would if I were talking to you, so don't edit me!! (Can't help that part - I've been socializing with a bunch of writers lately and I know they will all be going crazy when they read this. But enjoy it anyway and don't complain!!)
Wow, I sound like I'm grouchy today, which I'm not. . .
ANYWAY - so I'm going to write because if I don't, I'll probably not get to it until next week. Why? Because tonight is NEBO RELAY FOR LIFE! Yay! So excited to get out there to the track and walk all night! Why? Because all these people come who really care about someone who is fighting cancer or who has lost their battle. And we all come together to CELEBRATE - REMEMBER - FIGHT BACK! It's a very humbling experience and you leave there feeling so grateful for what health you have, and for all the people in your life who you care about. There's nothing like a life crisis to help things fall into perspective.
So I will be a zombie tomorrow, and possibly all weekend, so I need to write now or I won't write at all for awhile. My life has been SO crazy! I can't even begin to say how crazy, but it seems like that phrase is starting to become a "normal" phrase for me, which is really scary. But there's nothing to do about it except go on. . . put one foot in front of the other and smile and keep going!
Speaking of, the thing that prompted me to write was a really great little video that my sister-in-law shared on her Facebook page. It's from a website called tryhappy.org and it's called "Choose Happiness". Sorry, you'll have to watch a brief commercial first. But it's worth it!
Nice, huh? I think that website will offer some really valuable insights for many people. It reminded me of why I started jumbledsunshine.com. To help people. To reach out and be myself, without fear or worry, and help others to love and accept themselves, too. No matter your personality, talents, trials, or how you fit into this world, the most important person you need to love and care for is your own self.
I'm not talking about selfishness here, I'm talking about love for who you are, who God knows you are, and gratitude for living. Quite simply - learning to be happy no matter what!
Notice I didn't say "being happy", I said "learning to be happy." There's a difference.
I have been very happy for most of my life, and especially jubilant for the past six months or so, but that wasn't the case last summer and fall, due to a whole host of issues, mainly some kind of chemical imbalance that took forever to figure out and fix. So I really do understand where people are coming from who struggle with anxiety or depression.
I know what you're thinking - wait - Jumbled SUNSHINE struggled with anxiety and depression?!?
I know - it doesn't seem to make sense, does it? Sounds like an oxymoron! But yes, I've struggled on and off with it occasionally throughout my life. Except I didn't know it! I've always been an extremely happy person, a very social person, a very "bubby" person, you might say. But there have been times in my life when circumstances totally overwhelming have thrown me for a loop.
Most of the time, it was just some small, short moodiness, or a bout of post-partum blues, or something like that. But last summer & fall it was full blown anxiety and panic and depression. When you sincerely can't think of a good reason to get out of bed and do anything. . . that's when you start to realize that there's something wrong.
Wow, I sound like I'm grouchy today, which I'm not. . .
ANYWAY - so I'm going to write because if I don't, I'll probably not get to it until next week. Why? Because tonight is NEBO RELAY FOR LIFE! Yay! So excited to get out there to the track and walk all night! Why? Because all these people come who really care about someone who is fighting cancer or who has lost their battle. And we all come together to CELEBRATE - REMEMBER - FIGHT BACK! It's a very humbling experience and you leave there feeling so grateful for what health you have, and for all the people in your life who you care about. There's nothing like a life crisis to help things fall into perspective.
So I will be a zombie tomorrow, and possibly all weekend, so I need to write now or I won't write at all for awhile. My life has been SO crazy! I can't even begin to say how crazy, but it seems like that phrase is starting to become a "normal" phrase for me, which is really scary. But there's nothing to do about it except go on. . . put one foot in front of the other and smile and keep going!
Speaking of, the thing that prompted me to write was a really great little video that my sister-in-law shared on her Facebook page. It's from a website called tryhappy.org and it's called "Choose Happiness". Sorry, you'll have to watch a brief commercial first. But it's worth it!
I'm not talking about selfishness here, I'm talking about love for who you are, who God knows you are, and gratitude for living. Quite simply - learning to be happy no matter what!
Learning To Be Happy
Notice I didn't say "being happy", I said "learning to be happy." There's a difference.
I have been very happy for most of my life, and especially jubilant for the past six months or so, but that wasn't the case last summer and fall, due to a whole host of issues, mainly some kind of chemical imbalance that took forever to figure out and fix. So I really do understand where people are coming from who struggle with anxiety or depression.
I know what you're thinking - wait - Jumbled SUNSHINE struggled with anxiety and depression?!?
I know - it doesn't seem to make sense, does it? Sounds like an oxymoron! But yes, I've struggled on and off with it occasionally throughout my life. Except I didn't know it! I've always been an extremely happy person, a very social person, a very "bubby" person, you might say. But there have been times in my life when circumstances totally overwhelming have thrown me for a loop.
Most of the time, it was just some small, short moodiness, or a bout of post-partum blues, or something like that. But last summer & fall it was full blown anxiety and panic and depression. When you sincerely can't think of a good reason to get out of bed and do anything. . . that's when you start to realize that there's something wrong.
Saturday, June 8, 2013
A Beautiful Birthday at the Gardens
Yesterday we had the most wonderful day! Both my husband's birthday and mine are this week, so we thought it would be fun to spend the day doing something we've been planning for a long time, but have never made the time to do. So, we enjoyed a beautiful tour of the Thanksgiving Point Gardens.
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| Beautiful wooden archways at the Rose Garden. |
The first thing you notice when you visit the gardens is the beautiful, peaceful atmosphere. Everything is done to perfection - from thoughtfully planted flowers, shrubs and trees, to strategically placed benches in the shade, to rest stops with bathroom facilities, water and vending snacks. But overall, the most poignant feature of this beautiful place was the peace.
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| Inside the Secret Garden |
We hardly saw a soul during the 4 or 5 hours we spent there, with an occasional group passing us or visible across a large expanse of lawn. This is probably because we were not there during a festival or special event, and the 55 acres is so expansive, and the walkways and trees planted so well, that we felt like we had the entire place to ourselves.
We went on a Friday morning, June 7th, and arrived there about 11am. I was a little worried about the heat, because it was going to be 90 degrees by mid-day yesterday. However, there were so many trees and bushes providing shade, that my worries proved to be unfounded. We carried a water bottle with us, which I would highly recommend. There are drinking fountains here and there along the way where you can fill them up, as well as a few stops with vending machines stocked with ice cold drinks.
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Entrance to the Secret Garden - just like the movie!
We even saw a red-breasted bird hopping around, just like the one that helps Mary find the secret door!
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| The beautiful white stone fountain pool is the centerpiece of the Secret Garden. |
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| I loved the little details like this gorgeous rock-hewn bench. |
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