The Reminder

In this life you can allow a lot of things to discourage you from working on things that are important to you and I must say I myself, can easily get caught up in everyday life and get overwhelmed and deter myself from my plans.

 This past weekend I participated in an overnight ladies night inn at The Hyatt Lodge McDonald Campus with my Just 4 Wives  (Real Wives of Chicago aka RWOC) group and it was very enlightening. I was reminded by my sister friend, Alice, that my story is not unique. That there are a lot of women out there just like me that would love to hear my story; that would love to hear how hard it was for me to wake up in the morning, go through it but still persevere;that it will make women feel like they are not alone.  At that moment I made a mental promise to myself that I would try harder to not get discouraged and shut down, that I will not worry about what others think and let my fears win, but at the same time I will do what I can, and show the love that I have for myself and require that love and respect back. We're in this together Goddesses, and I can assure u that we got this! Here's to the bad and good days! Love yourself!

Capture Your Beauty

Riding in the car with my husband listening to his road rage and as he is nearly involved in an accident caused by someone else's road rage on a busy street here on the north side of Chicago I begin to feel like I was having a panic attack. Everything was moving so fast. Everything was so noisy. Everyone seemed to have permanent RBF, and I felt like I just needed to zen out for a moment. So from that moment I came up with the idea of taking advantage of the smallest piece of something that I can find that makes me smile, that makes me want to thank God for showing me this little piece of beauty for the moment. I started looking for things that was beautiful to me and it made me feel like it was God telling me a sweet and innocent secret. So here are a few of the pictures that I captured mostly while doing my morning walk. To view more "Like" my Facebook page here, or follow me on Twitter.

Take the time to appreciate God's gifts and capture your own beauty...

Giving back

For the last few years I have noticed that my oldest son has caught this "I want" aka the "give me" or "can I have" disease, and I was wrecking my brain trying to figure out how I can make him more appreciative of what he has.  I tell him all the time you have so much going for you, and there are kids in this world that don't have half as much as you have.  They don't get to go on vacations every year like you do.  They haven't been out of this state let alone out of the country like you have!  Stop I want, I wanting and can I have blah, blah, blah, but he still continues to do it.  I teach our boys that life isn't easy.  That they must work hard for what they want, believe in themselves and never give up.  We're also trying to teach them the importance of giving and not just taking, appreciating what you have because what you have can always be taken away, and there are people who don't have everything we have. So starting last year I joined him in the Honeycomb Project where he can sign up for different volunteer projects around Chicago every month, but the problem with those projects is they fill up really fast, and some months we're left without a project.

So one day, taking my morning walk on the lake I came across some tents that some homeless people set up, and ding, ding, ding!  A thought popped into my head; we should feed the homeless, make sandwiches or something and pass them out to these homeless people!

This past Monday, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr day my family and I did just that.  In spite of it being -7 degrees below zero, it was a perfect morning to do it, because it was the only morning we would all be together.  It felt so rewarding, and it was such a proud moment seeing how excited my son was to give back.  Check out the pictures below, and I urge you to give back, and teach your kids how to give back.  If you would like to help in any way by donating food, or creating your own opportunity to give let us know.  

Setting up the bags and food, Apples, Pears, Oranges,
cans of vienna sausages and Oatmeal Pies

Making Turkey/Ham & Cheese sandwiches.  Yes, our hands were clean :-)

Bags all ready!

Carefully placing the bags

Walking to the tents with bags in hand!

Thankful Thursday! (St. Patrick's Day)

This Thankful Thursday, I'm thankful that Spring is drawing near.  It's St. Patricks Day, and I'm taking the family out to dinner, and to see the Chicago River!  Today is also my Grandfather's Birthday, so I'm thankful that he's here to see another year!  Thank You!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!