Category Archives: Books

Giveaway time!!!

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These two products have been monumental in some of my personal development and growth towards contentment and peace with the daily chaos of our lives. I would love to share them with my readers as I really appreciate you tagging along on this journey with me and all of the supportive comments and love you have blessed me with throughout this past year. Please see the end of this post for details on how to enter.The Fringe Hours by Jessica Turner (and accompanying journal) will help you transform your thinking from “I don’t have time for that!!!” into “I can use my time more wisely” with amazing insights and challenging questions. It’s my favorite gift to give to all the hard-working mamas in my life and I hope you will appreciate it as well!

Most of you know how much essential oils have transformed our families’ lives in the past year (sorry for all the oil posts and pictures). Not only with giving me the ability to create our own cleaning products, but also to impact our emotional health and well-being. These emotional aromatherapy oils are my favorite to put into rollerballs (as you see here) and to add to our home diffusers for boosts throughout the day. I am excited to give this set away to a lucky reader who could also benefit from using them!

To enter, please follow my new IG account called ROOTEDWELL (click link, then “follow”) for nuggets of knowledge and inspiration on building your own family’s wellness. Then leave a comment either on the blog post or on Facebook suggesting a topic you would like to read about on the blog sometime in the next few months OR what’s been your fave post so far.  Any and ALL suggestions and feedback welcome. This Friday, Aug. 19th, my little Wonders will pick out names and I will send you your goodies ASAP!

Again, thank you for reading throughout this past year….although your feedback is not the primary reason I am keeping up the blog, I do appreciate the support and engagement that it has brought about in our family’s rollercoaster of a journey.

A few things I’m loving right now….

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It’s been a busy couple of weeks with our big Oregon Coast adventure and then WSU volleyball camp so no blogging for me. But here are a few things invading my mind and making me happy right now….This picture literally makes me swoon with my love for my little wonders and the great big beach/world around them they get to discover. I am excited to get it printed big like and display it in our house somewhere….any suggestions?
My brain and I have been battling quite a bit this summer….insecurities, judgements, and comparisons are running wild up in there and I am finding this book is helping me rewrite a few stories that need to be revised for the good of myself and my family. I’m only a few chapters in and feel the impact already. Love personal development reads in the summer…..I can read a few pages and let them simmer in my brain and heart for a bit before moving on.
“Oh your team goes to WSU team camp? What a coincidence since you went there and all….” SOOOOOO not a coincidence. I love everything about WSU and Pullman (even the drive) and really get excited about showing my high school girls around. My heart swells as I enter the town, shop for new crimson and grey gear, and walk around the campus (my calves swell too but from all the hills…..small price to pay). Go Cougs (just in case my Husky friends are reading)!
As many coaches do, I love a good quote and passing it along to others. I also love Instagram…..Word Swag is a fun app that takes cool background pictures and swishes your fonts around until you find a combination that you like. It’s great for both short labels and words on photos AND longer quotes or passages.

I love watching the powerful women of the show, Open Concept and am also insanely jealous of how easy it looks to create literally my dream furniture and decor. Following their IG is full of inspiration – definitely worth a follow!

Some other honorable mentions:
– Missy Elliot pandora station (Ludacris, Usher, and Nelly show up a lot – perfect workout/cleaning/driving music)
– High School Musicals on repeat in our house this summer
– planning for some fun essential oils classes with my peeps in August before the craziness of volleyball starts
– how hard my volleyball girls are working in the off-season
– secret plans for a killer warm up playlist for this season

Coming up on the blog this week – my year “blog-a-versary” and what I’ve learned/loved/hated about it so far.

on my “to-read” list this summer….

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With my full schedule during the school year, I often don’t MAKE the time to read. And I LOVE reading so each summer, I try to fill my reading bucket back up by cramming in multiple books that have been on my list for far too long. Here is what I have lined up this Summer for books related to personal and professional development. I also love weekly visits to the library to grab some light fiction reads and encourage my littles to keep reading over the summer. Have you read any of these? I am most looking forward to reading “Essentialism” as I have heard it mentioned over and over again in different podcasts that I listen to on my daily walks.The following picture is brought to you by my daughter’s first school fundraiser that she was VERY excited to participate in and earn prizes from. To earn some prizes, hubby and I subscribed to a few different magazines to bridge the gap. And here they are, all piled up and untouched….ready for long drives in the car, camping trips, and a few lazy days on our new porch soaking up the sun. Even though I can read the content online, I still really love bookmarking pages, ripping them out and saving them for future uses, and a physical copy in my hand. Currently, I am reading In Style, Traditional Home, Health, Oprah Magazine, Family Fun, and Better Homes and Gardens.If you saw my Instagram post from a few nights ago, I also just discovered Happinez and Project Calm (from the makers of Mollie Makes) that I really like too. Happy summer reading everyone!!!

The choice of “busy”

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I love this quote and all that it implies. I get asked the question of “how do have time for ALL of that?” often. And while I don’t mind answering it, I find it funny that I don’t actually FEEL all that busy at all. Or at least I don’t feel busy in a negative way – I feel FULL because my family and I are blessed to have so many things to participate in on a daily or weekly basis. I strongly that I am in control of my time, including that of my family and my children. I get to choose what I do with my downtime and I also get to choose how many activities and extra-curriculars my kiddos participate in which severely impacts our nightly and weekend routines. I also believe that some of my “busy” activities are pieces of my self-care like this very blog, scrapbooking, essential oil madness, and extra coaching duties. My “bucket of energy” truly gets filled back up when I partake in these things and thus I can put my whole self into my work and my roles as mother and wife. Even right now, I am writing this post, catching up on the Bachelorette, and texting a few friends about some ailments that oils might help with and I don’t feel busy – I just love fitting all of this into my life when I CHOOSE to.

What I know for sure is that weekends is a time for restoration and downtime for us all. I try not to over-commit to events and I always make sure we are home in between events so that we can participate in a team nap OR just release the energy that being out in public entails for my little wonders. This sometimes means I say no or I don’t plan as many social events but the pay-off mentally and emotionally is so worth it. I also know that when I do make invites to social events or classes, they are extended with the same grace and intentions I hope others extend to me. Come if you can….absolutely no judgement or hard feelings if you can’t!

My other trick to staying engaged and choosing my time is to always keep my cell phone on silent. By doing so, I get to choose when I engage with text messages from others and/or social media, versus getting constant dings and rings when notifications pop up. And although this makes some people frustrated when I can’t text back right away (my Mom thinks she’s sneaky when she asks “if I got her last text” just to shame me from not texting her back….I’m on to you Mom).

I think that our culture can “glorify” this busy-ness with many parents responding with “we’re so busy” as a badge or pride and accomplishment which can then pressure others into filling up every free hour with activities to measure up. And while that might be great and wonderful for their family, it doesn’t work for me or my kiddos and thus I have CHOSEN a different schedule. And that means being particular about what we let our wonders commit to AND inserting passion projects and hobby time into the schedule for my husband and I to keep us fresh as well.

If you’re interested in some reading around this topic for some management inspiration, I would highly recommend the following reads:
The Fringe Hours by Jessica Turner
Less: Accomplishing More by Doing Less by Marc Lesser

 

 

A Year of Bests photo project – finally!

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One sunny afternoon after our friend Annie’s amazing wedding, us 5 soulmates concocted a crazy idea to document the following year together. We each would be responsible for taking pictures one week out of the month and then we would have a crazy fun book filled with our memories the following May 4th!Although we had a few mishaps during the year of documenting, the girls did amazing capturing and sharing pictures from their unique, but amazing lives. We lived in three different cities, added three new kids to the mix, and had multiple fun events all together to include throughout the book. I used the Project Life App on my Ipad to create the pages and then simply uploaded them onto empty photo pages in Shutterfly. It was super easy to do (although the addition of WonderGirl and WonderBoy in my house definitely slowed down my progress quite a bit – kids will do that to even an avid scrapper).
I absolutely loved seeing how our 5 lives intertwined at points (birthday parties/showers) and then showed drastic differences in other weeks. And all in all, I only made one typo and typed 2015 even though technically, that Halloween was 2013 (I’ll make a sticker for that bests – no worries!) – 58 pages and only one mistake that I’ve found so far….pretty good!My favorite pages to complete were the ending page with that fabulous quote from Dawson’s Creek and the teaser on the back cover (sound familiar? I tried to emulate a little Real World intro along with it). Shout out to things only kids from the 90’s would know and care about!
  Many people continue to be amazed that I remain such good friends with my ladies from high school (elementary school to get technical but who’s counting), but it is one of the amazing pieces of my life that I am constantly grateful for. When you have friends that have literally been through the worst (overalls with one strap….really?) and best parts of your life ALONGSIDE you for years and years, it leaves so much room for nothing but pure joy and celebration in each other, no judgement, and lots of silly stories that NO one besides your group cares about (sorry husbands). I hope this book adequately honors this friendship and I can’t wait to look back on it in 10, 20, 30 years to come! Perhaps it might even become a tradition we do every so many years – wouldn’t that be a fun collection to build for the coffee table/bookshelf?!?!

This project/idea could totally work with a family or any group that cares about each other – maybe everyone even just documents the same day each month and you put them all together in a book? You could make it as simple or complicated as you feel comfortable with!

Summer Book Report

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My summer months are full of library holds, navigating due dates and a long list of book suggestions as this is one of the only seasons I have time or energy to read. I love reading alongside our kiddos to model what reading for enjoyment can look like. One of my favorite activities we did this summer was called “bedtime reading marathon” where my little wonders (13 and 7 y.o.) got to stay up as late as they wanted but ONLY IF they read the whole time alongside me. It was a fun way to connect and show the calming effects of reading before bed or anytime it may be needed for an escape.

Here are a few reviews of the books I read this summer (click on books for links):IMG_2701-0.png

Me Before You by JoJo Moyes
I saw this book all over blog book reviews and instagram so I thought I would make it my first summer read. It was a great quick read with captivating characters. I loved the give and take of the two main characters but the plot was a bit predictable. Overall, a good summer/beach read.

We Are Called to Rise by Laura McBride
LOOOOOVVEEDDD this book. Many different characters and their twisty, complicated stories coming together after a tramautic event. I saw this at the suggestions table at our library and snatched it up quickly. The psychologist in me really enjoyed “diagnosing” the characters or dreaming about what they needed to heal but the way that the author wove everything together was magic

Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel
This book took me a while to get into. Set in the future after a huge flu wipes out the human population USUALLY isn’t my cup of tea. I kept chugging through and then just wanted to finish but I still wasn’t pleased with the ending. It was hard for me to see the connections between all the characters and decades of relationships. Interesting concept but missed the mark with me.

Less by Mark Lesser (ironic author’s name yes?)
I had heard about this book from The Lively Show podcast (one of my favorites) about simplifying our time, being more intentional about what we do, and saying no. These principles seem so basic yet in practice, are so hard. As I head into a new school year where I plan/hope on creating a more mindful school environment with our students and our staff, I got a lot of excellent nuggets of knowledge from this book that I had to write down in my planner. I wanted to write them down to look back at, think on, and let “marinate” in my mind to put into practice. I highly recommend this book to any stressed out, overworked mamas or anyone looking to shift their mindset from the glorified “too busy” to an “intentional” schedule. I could devote many blog posts to this (and probably will) so I will leave my review at this – READ IT!

The Royal We by Heather Cocks and Jessica Morgan
I am in the middle of this very LONG book and will say that I am somewhat engaged in the story. The Royal family does intrigue me but I am not obsessed enough to see the comparisons in this story. I do enjoy the romantic plot line and learning about English culture so that piece is fun for me and I will read this one to end my summer as a light and enjoyable book. I enjoy that it takes place in real time and that the co-authors title the sections of the book by year (heading into the current 2015 year). This episode of the The Lively Show sparked my interest as the two authors spoke about their writing process, which I found interesting enough to check out the book from my local library.

My “on-deck” books include Anchored, Big Magic, and Rising Strong. I sense a theme of inspiration and empowerment in those three titles – perhaps a subconscious message of what I may be needing here in the next couple of months as our foster to adopt journey coasts/creeks along.

What are you reading this summer? What should I add to my requests at the library?

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