Our True Colors

Our True Colors

Wednesday, March 8, 2017

1/365; A Day for Women

International Women's Day. For many women, and even more men, is just another ordinary day. For some, women's day is an annoyance with what they see as whiny women who make themselves out to be so underprivileged, when they're really not, and who think they are better than men. And then there's the others, those so-called whiny women and the women they advocate for, who celebrate this day with marches, meetings, lunch with a girlfriend, gifts, and in so many other ways. All these little acts of advocacy surmount to one global push forward towards gender equality, towards a world that values women as much as men for what they bring to the table. One of the greatest effects of this one day is to make the whole world pause, just for a moment, and give a nod to all women past and present who have withstood hardship because of their gender.
Someone asked me today what I suggested they do on women's day, that would be different than any other day. I gave some quick response to pamper the women in their life (this evoked some sexual remarks) and I left it at that. But it has made me reflect. What could someone do that is different on this day? For me, my husband and I wore our shirts with "This is what a feminist looks like" and I made a little shout out on social media to my women and all women. But, I thought, did that really change anything? Did I really make a difference in the fight for gender equality? Maybe. Perhaps I gave some validation and raised awareness. But what more could people do? Well here's 18 practical ways to make a difference for women on Women's day:
1. Compliment. Compliment. Compliment. Give them left and right. Give one to that female bus driver. Give one to the women who serves your food. Give one to your female coworker. And of course to your closest female family members and friends. Don't just compliment on looks. While that is kind and well recieved, today is not about what women look like, it's about all the other wonderful things that they are. Give them sincere, specific, detailed comliments. Let them know what a difference they are making.
2. Write a note or card to a woman you admire. Your mom would love to recieve a heart-felt note expressing your gratitude and appreciation for her. A text to your aunt or your neice would make their day. Indeed, any woman you know would love it.
3. Do a service for a woman. You know those chores that your lady seems to always take upon herself? Do them for her and insist that she go take some times for herself. And if your really close, women LOVE massages.
4. Participate in a march or event for women's rights. Almost every major city has a women's march on Women's day, and often there are other major events for women that day as well. Do a google search to find information for your area. If you can't find an event, then host one!
5. Volunteer at a women's center.
6. Donate to a women's organization. If you don't already have an organization that you love, Google grassroots women's organizations in your area or donate to one of the following: The American association of University Women, The Association of Women's Rights in Development, League of Women Voters
7. Donate items to a women's shelter. Most shelters will take clothing donations, hygene products, educational supplies, and houshold items.
8. Make a post on social media advocating for women and girls. Raise awareness!
10. Support a woman's business. Help women get further in entreprenueral endeavors by supporting their businesses!
11. Have a talk, formal or informal, with your sons or boys in your care about respect for girls. These conversations should be ongoing from the time boys are very young. Point out the contributions of their mothers and sisters and other girls, correct them when they disrespect, teach them about body boundries and respecting others wishes about their body, talk about all the rights women have had to fight for and are still fighting for. Movies, whether misrepresenting women, or really doing women justice, are always good opportunities to talk about these things.
12. Have a talk, formal or informal, with your daughters or girls, about the potential they have. Teach them to stand up for themselves. Teach them to critique societal norms about women. Again, these should be ongoing conversations and movies are great opportunities for these discussions.
13. Learn about a female hero and share the story with someone else.
14. Do an art project in honor of women or a women's issue. So much creativity here.
15. Host an event to discuss women's issues. This could be anything from a lunch with the girls (and boys who are interested) to a support group for victims of sexual assault.
16. Give a gift to a female friend in honor of their femininty. I love bath stuff. and make up. and Games. and Camping stuff. In case you wanted some ideas ;-)
17. Fundraise for a women's organization. This is one of the most impactful things you can do! How much love gets spread when you organize a fundraiser and all the people who help and all the people who donate get the feel goods, ON TOP of all the good that the money will do!
18. Do something to publicly display or point out to others the great sacrifices and tremendous acheivements of the women in your culture. This is a particularly good idea for those that live in places where women's expression is oppressed and feminism is disdained.


Please comment with any other suggestions you have for how to make a difference for women! Also, please share pictures and stories of what YOU did for women on women's day!

Friday, January 6, 2017

A Toast, To Continual Progress

At year's end and year's beginning, I love to celebrate the achievements and progress of the past year and make lists and lists for the new one.

So first, a celebration! Major achievement of 2016: I gave birth to a beautiful baby girl, Maggie Grace, and pretty much had a dream birth with no pain interventions, in which the gender was a surprise, and we had a fun little birthday party for her with my two older kids, and several other loved ones. Other achievements: I did some awesome traveling. Went to Banff, Jasper (for the first time), Glacier, Yellowstone, Dinosaur museum in Drumheller AB, Writing on Stone, AB, Greenville, TN, and up to West Virginia, to Zion NP a couple times, Bryce, and of course MACHU PECCHU in PERU!!!! I went on my first trip out of the US or Canada! We also finished updating our basement in 2016. Wayne built some beautiful wainscotting, we did some nice paint and got some really nice carpet in. I love it! And professionally, I've been able to start tutoring students in math. It's been fun, refreshing, validating, and has helped us earn a little extra cash. There have been other great things from 2016, but that sums up the things that come most to mind.
Now we look to 2017. Some curmudgeon people think that there is no special change from righting a couple of different numbers for a signature date; nothing that should warrant more effort than what one could do on any day of the year. But I say, take advantage of every new beginning you can. On a daily basis, yes. Even on an hour to hour or minute to minute basis when you feel the urge. We should be continually striving for progress. But everyone needs road marks to take time to reflect and I find the beginning of a new year to be a refreshing opportunity.

Still some people poo poo on new years resolutions simply because so many are broken so soon, which just leads to discouragement. How many times will a person commit to losing ten pounds before they just give up forever? While I support making measurable, strict goals as many times as it takes or as long a person has the will, I have decided to make goals that, while specific, will be counted as successful if I make any sort of progress from the previous year. I don't want to be harsh with myself, heaven knows I don't need any more guilt or self punishing thoughts, and so I am choosing "no guilt." I will strive for progress for the sake of my own happiness, but I will not let the goals themselves make me unhappy if I fail at them at times.

The reason I'm writing my goals in a post is first, to get it all written down and saved, because that's the best start to any serious goal. And second, to hold myself to some degree of accountability knowing that some people may read this. I commit to writing at least two times during the year to give an honest update on my progress.

My goals:
Health:
Me and my family need more vegetables in our lives. While I could choose many ways to improve my eating habits, I am not ready to give up chowing candy and downing cold cans of Dr. Pepper. I take too much comfort in sugar. However, I think I can really embrace more vegetables in my diet. So I am making a rule of thumb to always fill up two thirds of my dinner plate with vegetables. Each dinner that I prepare will include two vegetable dishes. So far this week I've only prepped three solid dinners (it's only Thursday) and I've made delicious baked cauliflower, African spiced carrots, salad, Mediterranean lima beans, more salad, and an Indian flavored mish mash of garbanzo beans, ham and cabbage. I'm looking forward to baked sweet potato fries, breaded zucchini fries, grilled asparagus, broccoli with cheese sauce, and so much more. I can't wait to fill my recipe box with wonderful vegetable recipes, scrumptious ones and simple-to-make ones.

My second health goal has to do with exercise. I'll be honest, I hate most forms of exercise. I like to believe that I'm not alone in this and that only people off their rocker really enjoy going to the gym every day or taking a daily jog, like taking a daily needle to the butt... that lasts 30 minutes. I believe that the key to a healthy life, besides torturing yourself with running, is finding a form of exercise that you enjoy (most people have one or two) and making it a priority. Believe it or not, there are exercises that I love. I LOVE to dance. I love to water ski. I kinda like to weight lift. I like to bicycle. And I LOVE to hike. Perhaps I will take up a dance class soon, and I hope that I find opportunities to water ski, weight lift and bicycle this year, but my goal for the next 52 weeks is to get in some good hiking. I'd like to go out once a week if I can. It will be hard to do with three kids at home; hard to get away or else hard take them with me. But I am going to make an effort anyway.

Spirituality:
I have been trying to make a habit of scripture reading for years and years. I can remember the spirit telling me multiple times that I needed to read my scriptures habitually. One time was a year or so after my mom died and I was riding on the back of Wayne's motorcycle, coming home from his sister's house. I was feeling particularly sore from missing my mom and crying and praying. Then it hit me pretty hard, almost as a scolding, that I could find healing in scripture study and that I had been ignoring God's promptings to read my scriptures regularly. That was a particularly poignant feeling from the spirit, but it wasn't the only time I've felt God's will for me to read my scriptures daily. And yet even after all these times, I still haven't made it a habit and I still have to put it on my new years list. And so it is. I am happy to say, on the one hand, that this past year, I have read scriptures more habitually than ever before in my life, as pitiful as it was. This coming year, I hope to raise the anti even more and make scripture reading a priority in my life. Today is January 5th, and so far I can check off 5 days in a row so that's something.

Personal Development:
I'm learning Spanish. Duolingo is my tool to learn it, and I am trying to make a habit of doing two little lessons on it every day, right after I read my scriptures ;-) I've recruited my husband to learn it with me and hopefully I will be brave enough to try and hold some conversations with him and others I know that are either learning or are fluent in Spanish. My little kindergartner son is in a dual Spanish immersion program which helps to make it a whole family goal.

I need to be a better mother to my little Mollyanne and not only help her get prepared for kindergarten, but spend more time with her doing a variety of activities. I am making plans for at-home preschool activities that we can do on a daily basis. Hopefully I can get prepared for each coming week on Saturdays, but on days that I don't have plan or preparations, I will try to do at least one little learning activity in which I give her my full attention. Maybe that just sounds like bad parenting to you expert mothers out there who spend all their time being perfect parents, but this is going to require big efforts for me.

Cleaning habits. ugh. I've never been very keen on cleaning, and the more children I have, the harder it gets, the more tired I am. But there is a marked difference in attitude in our home when the house is mostly clean compared to when it's a wreck (the usual). It affects my husband's attitude especially, which largely affects my attitude, which affects my children's attitudes. And aside from my husband, I feel much more stressed and discouraged when my house feels out of control. It leaves me no time for other ambitions or leisure time with my family. So I am working (I realize it may be a long fight) to create habits and methods for making my housework a non issue. I want to stop having to be embarrassed when visitors show up unexpectedly, and I want to stop feeling like a bad wife, stop feeling stressed about having enough time get my house in order, etc... I just want to be able to stay on top of the housework; have the dishes done at the end of everyday, the floors, table and counters clear, and my clothing all put away. If anyone has any lifesaving cleaning hacks they want to share with my, I am all ears.

Last but not definitely not the least, is that I will found a charity organization this year. My sister and I are already on our way to doing so. #penfriends

I know this is a lot to bite off and chew, but as I said earlier, I will count myself successful if I have made ANY progress towards each of these goals by the end of the year. I am not looking to punish myself for failure, but to celebrate myself for any progress. And I am excited to be using my new planner that I got for my birthday in November! It sounds geeky, but it's everything I've ever wanted in a planner and more! If you're the type who likes to write out your goals, lists, and schedule, look up the law of attraction planner. It will change your life. Seriously. Also get some frixion pens from Amazon. Another game changer.

View From Red Canyon

View From Red Canyon
There's no place like MY home.