It’s a movie that is a taste of our audiovisual future. Watchers can choose what the main character does throughout the movie. My kids are crazy about the You Choose books my husband sells to schools, so I thought they might enjoy the movie. The movie is soooooo campy and B quality, it makes you laugh. But my kids are the ones who really laugh. They insist on showing all their friends the part where they make the man "cry like a little girl."
If you have kids or have a little control freak in you, you’ll probably enjoy it! For now, I am thinking about how I can make someone’s day. Care to join me?
I just got a department store ad with this subject line. I love it! When are your “Power Hours”? When do you have the most energy for accomplishing everything God has called you to do?
God Time
I use this concept to make sure I have time with God first thing in the morning. I’m not so much of a morning person, but I know if I don’t have that time in the morning, I’m unlikely to have it later on. I have also noticed that my homeschooling goes downhill after lunch just like speaking engagements do. I have watched people sleep during my after-lunch presentations many times! So I put all our most critical energy-requiring tasks in the morning and save the fun, active stuff for the afternoons.
Family Time
We can use our Power Hours for the people we love. I used to have special time with one child scheduled at 8:30 p.m. That’s when every mother wants to play Candy Land, right? Special Time became sleepy time for Mom. Now I do this early afternoon and the kids and I are both happy that it’s happening consistently.
Me Time
We can also use this concept for making time for what we love to do. I used to wait to write and scrapbook until after the kids went to bed. It almost never happened! The end of the day is not when I have my Power Hours. Now I write in the morning before the kids get up and I scrapbook in the afternoon when I’m done teaching school.
Determine when your Power Hours are. You may like to use Heatmapping for this purpose.
Then determine how you can use them for God, family, and to renew yourself.
What goes up will almost certainly come down. After I spent time with some lovely Christian ladies at a retreat in Michigan, I was flying high! When I returned home to laundry and mess and everyday life with no husband (he traveled last week), I went into a tail spin.
This picture of the Blue Angels reminds me of my concern for the air show pilots over Labor Day weekend. Our air show went off without a hitch, but another one in Seattle had a fatal crash. Flying is dangerous–even for expert pilots. And soaring Wonder Women will inevitably experience a nose dive.
So many of us experience change for a time. We’re flying and enjoying the ride. Then we hit some turbulence and suddenly we are ready to crash. What we do in these situations can mean the difference between short-lived change and true victory. Here’s the kind of turbulence we can expect and how to handle it:
1-Not spending time in the Word and prayer? Pray NOW.
When we’re happy or distracted with busyness, Bible reading and prayer are often the first habits to go. If this is you, stop reading and pray for God’s intervention right now! Ask the Super Power to get you out of bed 5 minutes early tomorrow so you can pray. Commit to praying constantly for the rest of the day. Find one Scripture to meditate on, too. Use a search engine like www.biblegateway.com or a concordance. When I did this, the Lord gave me Luke 10:40-42. I was concerning myself with the wrong things!
2-Resentment rather than thankfulness? Give thanks NOW.
Pray with thanksgiving right now for everything you’re thankful for. Then make a list of them to reflect on later. I was annoyed that I had so much work to do when I came home. I pondered my thankfulness for a home, a family, and belongings to care for and I felt better.
3-Not recalling the goal? Remember why you’re flying.
When we lose the vision, we don’t know which way is up and we can lose altitude quickly. Why are you trying to change? Have a picture, a list, or a goal statement written and posted where you can see it frequently. I reflected on the joy and freedom my schedule gives me to lift my spirits.
4-Emotional needs not being met? Meet them in positive ways.
Even though I was a psychologist who should have known better, I was shocked when I discovered that I ate from unacknowledged emotion. In other words, I KNEW people ate to deal with sadness and anxiety. I just didn’t realize I was sad and anxious! Ask yourself what you’re feeling and what you need that is driving the unwanted behavior. Then brainstorm constructive substitutes for meeting the need. When I did this, I realized I was really lonely. Instead of mindlessly surfing the Net to meet that need, I emailed a friend how I was feeling and she gave me a call.
5-Physical needs not being met? Meet them in positive ways.
When I don’t keep a regular bed time, eat good meals, and get enough exercise, I can count on feeling too exhausted to fly. If this is you, get to bed earlier tonight, make yourself a real meal, and go for a walk listening to the praise music of your choice or do any other form of exercise you love.
6-Failed to anticipate the turbulence? Be ready next time!
Think through tonight or tomorrow right now. What obstacles to change do you anticipate? What can you do right now to keep yourself in the air? While I was gone last weekend, I forgot that my house would be a mess and my laundry would be behind. I forgot that I would need a new goal to stay inspired. Even considering this preventive action has me feeling lighter!
I’m praying that what I learned during my nose dive will have you soaring.
It just isn’t fall for me unless I bake one of my apple pies. I am so in love with this recipe that I cannot tolerate less in an apple pie! In fact, I’m a little arrogant about it. My mother, a superb cook, decided to take me on in a pie contest one year. She didn’t use a recipe and I did– the recipe for Apple Crunch Pie I got from Woman’s Day magazine. The contest was officially declared a tie. That tells you how good this is!
Before I give you the recipe, let me explain a few things. If you like apple pie and apple crisp, you’ll love this recipe. The recipe calls for store-bought refrigerated crust–another reason I love it. But if you’re like my mom and prefer to make your own, have at it! There’s simply no reason to make one pie, when you can just as easily make two, so the recipe is already doubled for you. The kids helped me make this. They love using my apple peeler and Pampered Chef stand for it. As I was helping them peel, I remembered my dad peeling apples for hours so mom could put them in the freezer to bake with later. This pie is full of meaning! We’re eating the first pie with Grandpa tonight, but the second goes to our sweeter-than-pie friend, Pastor Blake, who is doing so well. When I asked Deb if he liked apple pie, he said, “Bring it on!” If he can see this, I hope drooling isn’t bad for your heart!
To keep your crust from burning, you can get a pie crust protector like this one from Amazon You can also make your own like I did by cutting the bottom out of a foil pie pan. Now here’s the recipe!
SERVES: 16
2 refrigerated pie crusts
CRUMB TOPPING
1 c. + 4 T. flour
1 c. packed light brown sugar
2/3 c. granulated sugar
2 t. ground cinnamon
2 sticks (1 c.) cold butter or margarine (not spread), cut in small pieces
FILLING
14 med. to lg. apples (about 6.5 lb) such as Granny Smith, Pippins or Greenings
2T. lemon juice
1 c. granulated sugar
6 T. flour
1 tsp. ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp. nutmeg
1. Have ready two 9-in pie plates and a cookie sheet (or two). Place oven rack in lowest position in oven. Heat oven to 450 F.
2. Line pie plate with pie crust according to package directions. Flute or crimp edge.
3. CRUMB TOPPING: Mix flour, sugars & cinnamon in a medium bowl. Cut in butter (or use fingertips) until mixture forms moist, coarse crumbs that clump together easily.
4: FILLING: Peel, halve & core apples. Cut in 1/8-in. thick slices (may use food processor to slice). Put into a large bowl. Toss with lemon juice to coat. Mix remaining ingredients in a small bowl. Sprinkle over apple slices; toss to coat.
5. Layer apple slices in pie shell, mounding them higher in center. pat topping evenly over apples to form a top crust.
6. Place pie on cookie sheet to catch drips. Bake 15 mins. Reduce oven temperature to 350F and bake 45 mins. longer or until a skewer meets some resistance when center of pie is pierced (apples will continue to cook after removed from oven) and topping is golden brown. If topping is browning too quickly, drape a piece of foil over pie. Cool pie completely on wire rack before serving.
I’ve heard from many women for whom Wonder Woman has become a powerful object lesson. If you’re like me, you might like some Wonder Woman items around to remind you to keep your suit on! The www.wonderwomanmuseum.com site is a fairly exhaustive list of all-things Wonder Woman. I’ve asked the webmaster to include my book and this blog. We’ll see!
The www.flyingpirate.com website has the most WW merchandise of any site I’ve checked. I have a "Wonder Woman On Board" bumper sticker that isn’t available there, but the shopping is good! Amazon and Ebay are good options, too. The www.hallmark.com website has a great Christmas ornament. Happy shopping!
If you have children, the best thing you can do for them and for your housework management, is to assign them chores. But if you’re short the six helpers I have, you can still benefit from the two approaches to chore management I use.
By far and away, my favorite chore management program is Managers of Their Chores at www.titus2.com. The Maxwells are homeschoolers, but designed a chore system that can be used by anyone, including a distracted single! The book is key because it provides the motivation we all need to create, implement, and oversee a chore system. The system itself uses clip-on badge holders that hold numbered cards listing one chore each. Their chore website allows one to create neatly printed cards and picture cards for preschoolers. If you or a child is easily distracted, wearing the chore list and moving chores back in the pack as they are completed is the solution! The only downfall to the system is the fee. But I believe the program is well worth it. I laminated the cards for my little ones. The unlaminated cards were quickly water damaged. Managers of Their Chores works best if you and the kids keep the same chores for six months to a year. If you don’t change your routine, you may find you no longer need the chore pack to keep you on track.
I recently found a free chore managing system on the excellent website www.organizedhome.com. Check it out for great no-nonsense tips. www.chorebusters.net is a FREE system for generating chore lists. Chorebusters can schedule chores for one person, but the real advantage of the program is it rotates less-desirable chores among family members. You can specify workload for each person. For example, I assigned my 3yo a 25% workload. You can also indicate which people can be assigned a particular chore. You can have lists emailed or you can print them directly. You can even print cleaning assignments by room! I spent the time inputting all my chores into the system and the kids are enjoying a little change of pace. The advantage again is it is FREE! The disadvantages are there are no pictures for preschoolers and I can’t seem to figure out how to print only a.m. chores or only p.m. chores. It may just be that I missed that option. One plus for us has been that I’ve put all my chores into the rotation, too, as a reminder to teach my kids how to do them. If I were to become seriously ill, it would be wonderful to know that all the housekeeping chores could be completed! They probably wouldn’t be, but I’m talking theoretically…
If neither of these approaches work for you and you have children, I’ve also enjoyed the peg board approach at www.familytools.com. Check it out! Chores don’t have to be so much of a chore.
I’m a Christian psychologist turned homeschooling mother of six. My life can be a little crazy, so I look for sanity-saving ideas to use and share. I hope you’ll read my About page to learn more.
