Our World Is Crying For Change

Our world is hurting, lives are being lost

Innocence and virtue are paying the ultimate cost

Everyone is fighting, the tactics are all the same

No one accepts their part, everyone else is to blame

Our children will suffer, what will be the price

Of an ever evolving world, addicted to money, greed, and vice

Politicians are pointing fingers, people are turning up dead

You can lose your life for how you think, pray, and for things you have said

Will no one stand up for our world as it weeps

From the fear inside, all the secrets it keeps

Our world is scared of the violence, the faces of anger are strange

It is desperately crying, pleading for change.

It Is Okay

Having surgery as a busy mother is almost impossible. When you have no choice you count on your family and pray for strength. The guilt game one plays on themselves as a mother begins way before the pain of the surgery. The pain of the actual surgery is nothing compared to what we cause ourselves. The feelings of inadequacy and uselessness are unbearable. While I sit here trying to recover, this is the game I play in my head. I can’t change what had to be done. But as a mother I feel completely at fault for what I currently cannot do. As I watch my children step up to do my job, the pain sears my heart. Everyone seems upset and stressed, mad even. Is this what they feel or just my guilt overreacting.

I hope that all of you have a support system in times like these. I know it is hard and unbearable to watch your whole life from a bed. But I want you all to know, it is okay to be weak. It is okay to ask for help. They need you to get better to be the mother they need. Give yourself time to heal so you won’t have more complications.

Most of all remember they love you and IT IS OKAY.

The Journey to a Better Me

Good morning all. As I am sitting here recovery from surgery I thought I would share some thoughts with you.

The road of life is filled with ups, downs, and about a million curves. We all traverse the obstacles along the way in our own unique manner. I have watched many both glide through, as well as crash into these obstacles. This always leaves me wondering about the path my life has taken and what the future may hold. I have followed everyone else’s dreams for me. I have been led and told which way to go. I have followed my own dreams and they have led me to what I am currently doing. I have a wonderful life, get to write every day, and watch my children work towards their own happily ever after. This last path is the road for me.

I want to encourage you all to follow your dreams. Make your own path. Live for the love of living. Only by believing in yourself and listening to your heart can true happiness be achieved. Our dreams change along this path of life, but that is what makes it so great. We can have more than one dream, and realize them all. Follow you and believe in yourself.

I hope you all have a wonderful week and that you find inspiration in everything you see.

When Mom Gets Sick

Today I have decided to touch on the subject of moms getting sick. As a mother of six, I know all to well the challenges of keeping them all healthy. The daily struggle of keeping them well and making sure they have what they need. After all, that is mom’s job. But what happens when mom is the one that is sick?

This is a topic that doesn’t get discussed often. Moms don’t get sick, do they? Let me tell you we do. While most times we suffer through and go about life as usual, there are some times that just doesn’t work. As I prepare to have my fourth surgery, I see the true effects of mom being sick. Not only does it take its toll on all involved for obvious reasons. It also takes an emotional toll on mom. Not only does she have to worry about what ever ailment she is dealing with, she also deals with guilt felt for slacking on her daily duties, sadness for time she is missing with her children, anxiety about things getting done, and even depression as a result of the afore mentioned.

Though none of this can be controlled, as a mother it is our natural instinct to try. We push ourselves making sure everything is ready. We make contingency plans for our contingency plans. Then we start again, in an effort to make sure everyone is taken care of while we are incapable of carrying out our duties.

Well, I just want to say to all of the mothers out there (and fathers, grandparents, and any other role you may have), it is okay to take care of you. Take time to make sure you are good, so you can continue to work your daily miracles for years to come. Your family will be okay. Let yourself heal and worry about the rest later. Your family needs you to be okay, to make them okay.

I wish all of you health and happiness always. Take care and remember to look for inspiration in every day and inspire someone else.

When Will the Weight Issue End?

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We live in a society that is obsessed with image. Magazines idolize women who are super skinny or as is recently popular plus sized. The message that is overwhelmingly published is that of being okay with your body and your size. However, the images are either one extreme or the other. My topic for today is getting rid of the image obsession that monopolizes magazine covers and web articles. How about we just show average everyday people doing what they do? No Photoshop or airbrushed magic. Let’s teach our society that they are beautiful just the way they are. That it is okay to be imperfectly you.

I understand that to sell products idealized tactics are used. I feel a better approach would be to advertise enhancing one’s own beauty with accents. Not using this product to make oneself beautiful. Why do we need to make a person feel mediocre to get them to buy something to make them spectacular? People are spectacular and can buy products to make them feel as spectacular as they are. Let’s teach people to accentuate what they already have. Not cover up who they were born to be.

Ancient cultures had the perfect idea of beauty. Perfection was not a necessity as many of their sculptures show. Both men and women had flaws. Both were an average weight with full stomachs. Not excessively over or underweight. Just normal. For example, the Roman sculpture of Julius Caesar shows a strong man with muscles but still a stomach. His face is marred with wrinkles which are natural and thus make the sculpture magnificent. Today these same sculptures would be retouched to remove the wrinkles and make the muscle slender and toned.

This brings up another obsession of modern times, Photoshop. If you see a picture of a person on any media platform you have to question, is that really what they look like? Photographs used to be taken to capture memories in time. Now they are taken to enhance and change them so they can be the perfect image of who one has been taught to believe they should be. I think it is high time we did away with these image manipulations. Teach people that they are beautiful, and they won’t need to airbrush their wrinkles away. Teach them that size only matters if you are unhealthy, not in deciding whether you are beautiful or not.

I have a crazy theory that if we teach our children to eat right and to love themselves no matter what, we could get rid of all this self-hate and image obsession. Who knows, if we teach every child that they are beautiful no matter the shape of their body, the color of their skin, the amount of acne on their face, or any other outside influence, that they are beautiful and amazing for who they are, maybe just maybe they will listen. After all, they certainly listen when we tell them that it is okay to be themselves and show them pictures of anorexic models with airbrushed perfection. Gee, I wonder how our society ended up so obsessed with how they look. I think it is time this changed.

I challenge each of you to take this task to heart. Teach your children, loved ones, brothers, sisters, spouses, and anyone you know, that they are beautiful just the way they are. If we spread the love maybe it could become contagious and we could infect the world with good vibes and the love of oneself.

Until next time remember you are beautiful, you inspire me and I hope I can inspire you.

Remembering The Heroes

Today is a day in American history most of us will never forget. We can all remember where we were when the first plane hit and what we were doing when the first tower fell.

I know I remember arriving at work and seeing the news and the faces of my co-workers. I also remember the feeling of helplessness driving back home. The tears that flowed as we watched neighbors nervously waiting to see if their loved ones were okay.

Today I pay tribute to all those who lost their lives, all those who risked their lives to save the survivors, and all of the family members not only left behind but also those who spent those hours waiting to know. All of these people are heroes to me. Each year we honor the survivors, the lost, and the rescue workers. I think we should honor each person who was touched by this horrific attack.

I truly hope that we can all find peace with the events of this day. I am saddened that this is now a chapter in my child’s history book. I hope that she may be able to live to see these acts of hatred cease. May we all.

So to all of you whether a survivor, rescuer, lost one, and others who suffered on this day, you are all heroes to me. You will never be forgotten. May your stories serve as an example of what our country can become. May peace prevail not only in our country but around the world.

Inspiring the Future

The words “children are the future of our world,” resonate daily across the globe. When we see good statistics on school grades, the census is that we are educating our future well. What happens when grades are low, or youth delinquency is on a rise? Does this mean that we are creating a future, where these will be the trends? Maybe, this just means we need to find a way to inspire the youth of today, to see an inspirational future.

With 5 children, ranging in age from 2 to 24, boys and girls, I see a varied spectrum of interests for each. While one is all about sports and vampire books, this bores others. The same is true for most children, very view have the exact same interests. They will have similarities, but seldom the same. Thus, each child requires an individual perspective and approach to keep them engaged. As parents, we become familiar with the ever changing likes and dislikes of our children. Using this knowledge, we strive to find what we can do as a family, that will satisfy everyone’s desires and keep their attention peaked. Let’s be honest, we are all looking for something they will all agree on, to avoid a meltdown in the middle of a family weekend. What if there was a way to achieve exactly that?

In the search for peace in my house, I have decided the only way to achieve it, is to inspire my children to achieve it. Each of my children have an interest in games and baseball/softball. Working with this base to form the foundation for group activities will give me at least 20 minutes of agreement. Next comes individual interests. Each week another interest can be added to family activities, with the understanding that, they do not have to like said activity, they just have to explore it. Like, trying a bite of new foods, before deciding they are disgusting. For example, 2 of my children love Harry Potter, 2 others were not interested. So, one weekend, that was what we watched. Everyone had to sit and watch part of the movie, then after awhile, if still uninterested, they could do something else. Turns out, they all enjoyed the movies, and mom got to sit and watch a couple hours of tv with minimal frustration. A win, win situation.

Thus, if we want our future to be an inspirational one, we need to teach our children to make it that way. Negativity and conflict, breed more of the same. So too, positivity and peace, breed the same. If we give choices, with a try first approach, we can breed this positivity and peace. Thereby, setting the stage for a positive future. Teaching our children to make good choices is excellent, inspiring them to try new things and make educated choices, is even better.

So what will we inspire today? I personally am set out to inspire love, peace, and educated choices.

Mary