TCOY Lessons From My Favorite Bloggers (Sept10)

I don’t think it is a coincidence that the world becomes positively awesome and gorgeous as summer slips away and fall beckons us to join her. How can one not feel gratitude as the landscape comes alive with color and the oppressive heat gives way to crisp breezes? The urge to settle in and find joy in richer colors, grounding foods, and simpler pleasures is natural and quite hard to resist. We’d burn out living at a summer pace all year long and fall offers us a chance to breathe and reflect.

Shared by Clearly Composed (aka Emma) in a beautiful post welcoming autumn.

Relationships:
This post on redefining fidelity is a great example of why I added Simple Marriage back onto my reader. Corey definitely rocks the blog's tagline: Create a better marriage by keeping things simple.

Also on Simple Marriage, Melissa shares this nugget, "My mother-in-law said something that sticks with me: “Marriage isn’t that hard. You just have to like each other.” Ah, so simple and so true. Her other secrets to staying married in a blended family are worth a read.

Finances:
Here were some good reads this month in the world of personal finance.
Book Review: How to Debt-Proof Your Marriage
How to Enjoy Work That Makes You Miserable
Why a 0% Loan Isn't Always the Best Choice

Self Improvement and Awareness:
The items I found worthy of sharing on self improvement and awareness were numerous this month. Some could work in either category so this month I've lumped them all together. I enjoyed each one and hope you do as well.
Personal Philanthropy: Twenty Ways to Improve the World Even If You're Broke
Finding the Rhythm
Meditation, Prayer and Personal Finance
Numbers That Matter (found via Musing of a Housewife's Links and Shoutouts!)
Top Five Regrets of the Dying (found via Unclutterer's assorted links)

House & Family:
"Lately, my kitchen became a source of angst. I didn’t like being there....There’s just too much STUFF in here. It’s too crowded and frilly....No wonder I don’t like cooking. I had to do something, fast. And cheap." Lynn shared what she did to makeunder her kitchen, resulting in a place that she enjoys for $185 plus her time/labor. As I've said before, I truly believe that the members of your family are your home's most important guests.

My good virtual friend Kristianna shared some smart perspective with us for when mommy is having one of those days in ...wave 'em around like you just don't care...

Some days. We all have ‘em...It’s enough to make a grown woman want to sit on the floor and have a good fit much like a frustrated two year-old I know might when he can’t line up the magnets on his trains and has used up all his patience....Some days—those days—you have to take the good bits where you find them. They’re always there, and generally the stuff worth remembering anyway. Why worry about a few stupid dishes? Sometimes, it takes a peek through a viewfinder to realize all the good that is there, just waiting to be noticed… at least for me. Sometimes, that narrower view where I can simply zoom in on the important parts also focuses me. Sometimes, on those days, I just have to throw my hands in the air and decide to enjoy at least some of it (and then do those stupid dishes).

A blogger I recently discovered named Lysa TerKeurst inspires me nearly every single day with her wisdom and this one on when Mommy is mentally exhausted is a gem.

For as your children grow, a transition happens. You trade physical exhaustion for mental exhaustion...Y’all know I love my children with every fiber of my being. I thank God for the incredible honor of having people who call me mom...I am as confident as I can be that I have invested wisely in the nurturing of my children. I haven’t been perfect but then again none of us have. So, I’m not tired from wishing I would have done more. It’s something else....As the leash of freedom extends with each passing year, I realize how their choices are their own. And I can’t build the security of my identity as a mom on the fragility of young people’s choices. I have to build the security of my identity as a mom on prayer.

Note: I am an atheist. However, I am wise enough to see that religious lessons usually include universal lessons. So hopefully everyone reading this can do as I do; take what you need and let go of the rest.

About Suzanne from Musings of a Housewife:
Jo-Lynne interviewed Kelly the Kitchen Kop after sharing info on Kelly's online course called Real Food for Rookies. In the interview, Kelly mentions her food conversion, when she began to go back to a more traditional diet.

I am just beginning to explore this change in my life myself. I must say it is incredibly hard to go from a child/young adulthood raised on convenience/pre-packaged/drive-through foods to someone who enjoys eating whole food. Since my husband is the primary meal-maker in our home, I am trying to enlist his help so we can all makeover our eating habits. As you may know already, it's not so easy to convince hubbies to read blogs, read food labels, etc. However, he's really helped reduce the amount of carbs/starches we eat at mealtime, which has been a terrific achievement thus far.

Life Clutter from Unclutterer:
In an Ask Unclutterer post, Erin says most people who struggle with clutter fall into 8 categories. I could identify with #1, #3 and #4.

TCOY on the outside:
Have you ever felt like this? You see, hear, feel that you should be doing something. It literally bowls you over with its frequency...all at once. Well, I've been considering taking care of my face better lately, or more specifically pampering and nourishing it more, but have not gotten to the action step just yet. While compiling TCOY Lessons this month, the ones for this area have shown up in abundance. And they all relate to the same topic: taking care of ones face. Think the universe is trying to sway me or something? Yeah, me too. Think I'll finally do it already!

If you've seen more than one of thsese TCOY Lessons posts, you will already know that Sally is awesome.

Recently, she said, "for the first time in three years I am going to take a break from posting new content here at Already Pretty". During the week and a half absence that she says she took for personal reasons (turned out to be an annivesary trip to Iceland!), she reposted some of her best posts. All are worth a read and, rather than linking them all here, I've just included the announcement link above that will allow you to start reading them in the order posted.

My personal favorite was Repost: Self-Care and Self-Love and the inspiring wisdom below, most especially.

...When you put effort into your appearance, you are less likely to hide from mirrors, eat nothing but crap, and withdraw from social situations. When you put effort into your appearance, you are more likely to receive compliments - important sources of external feedback that encourage you to CONTINUE putting effort into your appearance. When you put effort into your appearance, you don't wallow, you move.

...The cycle of self-care feeding self-love creating more self-care allows you to broadcast a profile of self-respect and power. It reminds you that you can control how you feel about yourself. And that's powerful good stuff.

...You can choose your cycle. Choose up.

Bravo (and strong applause)!

In an Other sort of way, I feel the need to just share some good storytelling with you. The wife of my coworker is a writer and she recently wrote on her blog about heading back to Wisconsin to say goodbye to her grandfather. As he said to me, and I agree, "it's some of her best stuff. She's a writer, in every sense of the word."

Until next time...Take Care Of You!

Photo Credit: Iron Design

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