Goals – courage is in the leap

Do you ever feel like you just aren’t enough?

Don’t do enough, can’t give enough?

Everyone around you seems to do the best they can and you come up short, again.

In your tone of voice, your work, your estimation of yourself, your weight, your style, your smarts, your ability to save money, to raise your kids to be free-spirited yet educated…on and on.

Friend, can I lead you where my heart just went?

Let’s ask ourselves some questions:

Is this an unusual season?
Is it a tougher than usual season?
Are you in the midst of what feels like a huge learning curve?

And some more questions:

Are you getting the water intake you need, like how about in this moment?
Are you able to take 10 minutes to do something de-stressing?
Can you just breathe in and then breathe out in this moment?

There…so glad you joined me for that. 🙂

Is it maybe your own estimation that is causing you to be so tough on your own self?

This post is prompted by a realization I just had.

So, this is my second year of having two children. And continuing to work full-time. And since March, the two days a week I used to escape to the office turned into fully working from home. The weekly couple of mornings of childcare for my older child turned into having him home every day. The baby stopped needing naps in the mornings, and with all of the upheaval, the older one stopped taking naps altogether.

It’s been such a huge learning curve. I’ve had seasons like this in the past, where the amount of responsibility required of me for that season is just more than I can handle. And though there are some things I can drop, the minimum requirement feels many times like too much.

Anyway, I looked at my time off for the year and get this, friends. It actually makes me want to cry.

I only took one half day off for a personal day plus two more for a sisters’ long weekend. For the entire year.

I barely took that off.

I have had two children at home with me from March until September and worked full-time.

This means I’ve worked through their ups and downs and needs. And given myself to their needs while still making sure to catch up on work late into the night, after getting up early to do it.

This means, that because I’m already at home, even when I’ve been sick, I’ve just adjusted my hours instead of taking time off.

I had this thought, “girl, what is your problem?!”

I guess I would just think, I want to save my time off in case we get to travel in the summer.

And then, I’ll just wait until it’s closer to the end of the year, so I can look at those days off and have hope.

(I’ve used up my days off for the year early in the year before and it was so tough mentally!)

So now it’s OCTOBER.

Girl, take a day off.

Take.a.personal.day.

Haha, anyway, friend I hope you have days off. I know not everyone does. I am so very blessed. And yes, I’m privileged, I really, truly am.

And I’m here to remind you that so many breaths of fresh air are here for us after we go take the walks, or take that personal day, or just stare out the window and dream a second while drinking a yummy drink.

I pray you get that recharge time soon. Let me know if you feel comfortable, your thoughts and something you do to recharge below.

Xoxo,

2019- Year in Review

2019 will always be the year I had my baby girl.

She came to us “late” but early this year in February.

Such a sweet gift and perfect addition to our family.

I just finished playing with my son, laying beside each other laughing inside his tent.

There’s nothing that fills my heart so much as quality time with my little family.

And my larger fam. My heart is so full from a recent trip to Pennsylvania where I experienced the love of so many aunts, uncles, cousins, step-cousins and my immediate family as well all stayed together in our parents’ home.

My heart is also freshly grateful at the reminder of the brevity of life.

My heart grieves the brevity of this life and it also grows and stretches up into the hope and surety of my faith.

Eternal life.

Perfection of beauty.

Togetherness with God and all those who choose His love and just to simply believe.

He has saved us from our sins.

Sin= the ugly in each of us that separates us from God.

God= pure light & complete forgiveness.

Exchanging ashes for beauty.

I loved this year. Yet, it was really, profoundly hard.

I’m insanely proud of myself for how I handled really tough circumstances and challenging mindsets this year.

I didn’t always feel like I was winning, but I was.

And hey! Not only did I find a workout groove from 37-41 weeks pregnant in the beginning of the year, I was able to punch out 87 workouts from July on.

I’m proud of that and also just so grateful I can move my body.

I may be the heaviest this year that I’ve ever been by a lot, but I’ve learned that’s not a determining factor of beauty.

That comes from within and shines outward. And curvy isn’t ugly.

Dear One of my soul,

Thank You for life. For my husband who is the friend of my heart & life forever and the best person all around. For my teeny lady who is completely delightful and so beautiful & funny. For my son who taught and is teaching me the fun it is to be a mama and just how tightly love can weave its way into my heart for another human.

For my mom, who has weathered many storms with me and we always come forth stronger, more whole and more in love with each other with better tools on how to keep growing together. And my dear daddy who is the most amazing man I know before I met the most amazing man I know who is my husband. ❤

For my sister, who journeys with me through many things of heart & body and who also shows me how beautiful a life can be in many seasons of the soul.

For my older bro, who is not only fierce, but is someone to deeply love, easy to love and so deep and wonderful.

For my younger bro and his cats. 🙂

For my dear grandma and all the beauty she has grown on earth and the deep faith she has passed on to each of us.

For my dear grandma-in-law who is such a joyful person and loving generous Christian.

For my in-laws who have become even more deeply family and are a lot of fun for us all to be around and also oh so generous of heart.

For my coworkers who make life wonderful and help me to grow and be better.

For all who I love and who have loved me and mine.

XOXO,

Why People Think MLMs are BAD for Women

What a title, eh?

Nope, I’m not Canadian!

My passion for (true) feminism is what led me to write this article.

MLMS have a stigma, to say the least.

I’ve never paid too much attention to stigmas, especially when it comes to something I have solidly thought through, talked through with a few close people to get advice and ultimately is beneficial to my family.

One of these things is being a part of not one, but two multi-level marketing companies.

Why I love them: A community of people stand together and build their individual LLCs with the help of other small business owners, under a branch of a larger company that backs them. What could be better than that?

Well, small businesses mean dealing with people. And sometimes people can be a bit wild. Pushing for sales, overusing their relationship base. I think a lot of MLMs could benefit from asking their people to take business courses or having a requirement to that end.

The Stigma of MLMS and Why they are BAD for Women.

Oh my! I can’t believe that in this century people are not only writing this stuff; they are believing it.

Goodbye feminine power.

Goodbye equality.

Respect.

Ethics.

Sure, there is probably a woman out there who has no idea how to navigate relationships, is pushy and selling to people, seeing them as a number.

There is a probably a woman out there who is putting more money into the products than she is making a profit off of them.

But you don’t see articles slamming small business owners who are women in the same way.

You see, women can be naturally relational. So can men. Building up a network from some of those relationships is normal when a person goes into business. Historically, local businesses survive off of this network.

MLMs build communities. Most build the character of a person, encouraging personal growth and good leadership skills and that’s the sign of a good businessperson.

Yeah, the private messages on social media platforms that are random and don’t make sense are annoying.

Yeah, it would be better if people were more direct and didn’t come off as using your high school relationship status as another person to use and manipulate into their pyramid scheme.

But women are smart.

Women are good leaders.

(Men are smart and men are good leaders, but they aren’t usually being slammed like this).

So when you see a woman “hustling” don’t assume they are lazy, blind, incompetent and wasting their livelihoods.

Maybe they truly are successful.

Maybe on top of having a college degree, they have found something they love and decided to go for living a dream instead of what is expected.

Maybe they have a passion to help people’s lives be better. More beautiful (by selling makeup), having better health (by selling any number of health products), or more fit (by selling fitness stuff).

We should support these women if we want to, because they are small business owners.

If you have another thought on this topic and it doesn’t include an ancient mindset on the respectability of women, share below.

Thanks,

Goals for a Healthier Life

Hello, courageous friends!

Today’s post is about my goals this next year for a healthier life.

I’ve spent the past 2 weeks with all of 3 of my siblings and parents. Many times, our topic of conversation has centered around nutrition and cutting out sugar.

We’ve talked about how it helps us emotionally, mentally & physically be our best selves.

Another topic that I have felt strongly about is how to get my family on a real budget, a doable budget and one that we feel good about.

Anyway, here are my 5 Goals for a Healthier Life:

1. Learn how to eat whole, unprocessed foods again. Begin to replace refined sugar with fruit & then come up with a plan to eat 3 meals a day (4 meals while pregnant) & 1 healthy snack each day.
2. Come up with meal plans and grocery shop with a list again to help us stick with our budget goals.
3. Look at each of our long and short term financial goals and make sure our budgets for each are in line again. I find that during hard stretches of life (1st trimester sickness) and/or summer vacation type times, the budget can get a little out of whack!
4. Keep up with friends who bring me life, who have expressed that the feeling is mutual. Start a mom’s group for support & friendship.
5. Keep practicing self care and sharing it gracefully with others. Please visit this post on a friend’s blog for more about this!

Screen Shot 2018-08-13 at 2.23.35 PM.png

One last note- I was thrilled to find that this book is coming out tomorrow! You can purchase through my link to Amazon here.

Here’s to your health (and mine)!

Xoxo,

Ailene