Do you realize that if you're so busy judging people, you have no time to love them?  Thank you Mother Teresa, that was deep and yeah, we've all done it, but now is a pretty good time to stop because a lot of the time, you don't realize how much you hurt someone when you lay a judgement on them.

Someone is always going to have their opinion about how you live your life. Who knows, maybe that person with their strong opinion is on the right path - but guess what? There's not just one pathway in life and it's okay if you're knocking down trees and carving your own. Me? I'm still in the rain forest, but I've got plans.

You wanna know the secret to not letting it bother you and eat your soul? It's taken me YEARS to learn this, but I kid you not, it actually works....

At the end of every day, especially if it's been a tough one. I've cried, worried, weaved my mind into a tangled mess - because I've struggled to do the right thing. I close my eyes, bow my head and I picture the people in my life that I keep close to me. Those few people who have taken the time to sit with me over the years, I realize they know my heart has always been pure, honest and good, even when I've made mistakes. They have never once questioned my intentions, though, I'll admit perhaps sometimes my sanity. They remind me that I am worthy all by myself and whole.

And then,..(THIS IS IT, SO PAY ATTENTION)

 I forgive them and I wish them the gift of forgiveness I forgive the person that judged me or judged someone I love. I let that shit go. Now at first you might struggle with it, but I promise it gets easier.

WHY?

I finally realized, it's not about me, the person that made a judgement, it's about them. They have something that they need to release, that they haven't let go, that they need to forgive. That's their job, not yours. I wish them love & light & the ability to forgive whatever burden they may still carry within themselves.

 Go out and spread some positive energy this week. The world needs more of that.

Make your own path

DIY Chinese Fried Rice

Like the average person who tries to stretch every last penny, I browse my local supermarkets for affordable cuts of meat to feed my family. OK - I'll say it, I tend to buy meat that has solely been marked down to save a buck. I can honestly tell you we have never had anything bad happen and we save a ton shopping this way. I feel you judging me with your judgey eyes.

I happened upon boneless pork stew meat, reduced of course, so I tossed it in the cart. Call me strange, but I've never used pork stew meat for anything and had no clue how to begin to prepare it in a dish, let alone resemble a suitable meal. Hey, it was on sale - I knew I would find it's purpose later. I did what a lot of you do when the creative juices for a good meal start flowing - I googled inspiration :) FYI - You can pick another meat is pork isn't your thing

I happened upon a recipe for Chinese Fried Rice and tweaked things from there to suit my taste. My plan was to make this a meal, not a side. It's a 2-step process, but I promise well work the extra effort and totally delish.

I used the recipe below to both marinate and cook the meat at the same time, in the oven.

Marinated Oriental pork

1 pound boneless pork stew meat

1/4 cup low-sodium soy sauce

1/4 cup dark brown sugar

1/4 olive oil

1 teaspoon honey

2 cloves garlic, chopped

Preheat oven to 200 °F. Combine soy sauce, brown sugar, oil, honey & garlic in a shallow baking dish. Add in pork and toss to coat. Cover dish with foil and cook slowly in the oven until tender (about an hour). When done, set aside for Chinese Fried Rice.

Chinese Fried Rice

1 cup finely chopped onion 

1/4 cup finely chopped red pepper

2 1/2 tablespoons oil 

2 eggs, lightly beaten (you can add more) 

2 teaspoons low-sodium soy sauce 

1 pound cooked marinated oriental pork, chopped 

1/2 cup canned chopped carrot 

1/2 cup canned peas 

4 cups cold cooked rice, grains separated 

6 green onions, chopped 

2 cups bean sprouts 

1/4 cup low-sodium soy sauce (adjust to taste) 

Heat 2 tbsp oil in a pan on medium heat (I used a 12" frying pan). Add chopped onions and peppers, sautéing until onions turn a nice brown color, about 8-10 minutes. In a small bowl, mix eggs with 2 teaspoons of soy.  Add 1/2 tbsp oil to pan. Toss in egg mixture, stirring frequently until cooked. Add pork to pan, along with carrots and peas; stir-fry for 2 minutes. Add rice, green onions, and bean sprouts, tossing to mix well; stir-fry for 3 minutes. Fold in 1/4 cup of soy sauce to rice mixture; stir-fry for 1 minute more; serve.

*This will serve 4 adults as a meal or about 8 as a side dish.

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When It's All Said & Done

To Be Loved Like Flowers

Honesty without Tact Is Cruelty #DoYouNeedToBeRight

I stumbled across this quote months ago and it’s one of those things that I’ve read before, but finally, something inside me was ready to receive the message. This happens to me ALL.THE.TIME. Mostly because I know I feel something but I don’t know how I want to express it, so I go on a journey to see if anyone in the world can relate and well, Pinterest is so useful for that.

I tried to find the specific origin of that quote and while it’s been worded in various ways, it seems to me the closest thing I could find was this:

“Truth without love is brutality, and love without truth is hypocrisy.”
― Warren W. Wiersbe

While the longer quote was by an American pastor, I don’t think you have to be in any way religious to get the basics of this very important message. Let me quickly break the key words down.

Truth -  a fact or belief that is accepted as true

Love - an intense feeling of deep affection

Brutality - great cruelty (behavior that causes pain or suffering)

Hypocrisy - the practice of claiming to have moral standards or beliefs to which one's own behavior does not conform

Tact - skill in dealing with difficult or delicate situations with sensitivity

I’ve based my moral scale for years on being honest. I thought that because I was telling the truth, to whomever I was talking to, I had the right to say what I way saying because it was true. Surely if what one is speaking is absolutely, without a doubt, indeed factually based– that made ME right and if I’m right, that made the other person wrong and in turn - I WIN!!! Winning is the goal isn’t it?

Off and on for years, I’ve spent many an argument with my husband, thinking I had the right to say how I felt about something without thought or tact (see definition of tact above because I lacked it). He’d told me for years I had no filter and surely, to me, that felt like a compliment, because I was the one willing to be brutally honest. In the back of my mind, I kept wondering why things weren’t getting better in our relationship. If you discuss a problem, point out everything that is wrong, that is all also TRUE and say “let’s fix this”, you’d think -simple solution, problem solved!!! My way IS right, because my way was based on honesty. Isn't that cute?

But did I win, was anything really ever solved? The answer was no and I don’t know why it took me so long to realize that the issues we were fighting over kept repeating because of my approach. I kept thinking to myself, “I am explaining the same problems over and over again and getting no results” and then I read the quote….

“Honesty without Tact Is Cruelty”

What does that even mean? No one wins if you deliver a message, no matter how open and honest you intend it, especially if you package it with hostility and use it as a weapon of mass destruction at the expense of another’s self-esteem. If you are trying to solve problems you can’t, at any time, point out faults, no matter how true they may be and expect the person you are trying to reach to hear and understand your heart’s intent when you are flat out being mean. That’s where I had being going wrong and oh my goodness; you don’t know how hard it is for me to admit that.

It was then that I realized, for the longest time, my need to be right, far outweighed my need to be kind. What I was saying during any given argument or discussion -as true as it may be, when I spoke, I did so without an ounce of love, respect, humility or thought to what I was saying or how it might be hurtful for my husband to hear. By the time I would finish whatever it was I had to get off my chest, he had already reached a point that he was emotionally cutting me off. Instead of having a discussion that was being productive and useful, I was setting up an unwelcoming environment that created a great divide - me vs. him - right vs. wrong. What I was saying, no matter how well intended, truthful or right I thought I was, I delivered it out of my mouth loaded with cruelty. When you hurt people, you push them away and that’s no way to have a healthy, productive relationship.

I had been pretending to be a multi-tasking, problem-solver, a go-getter, but I was being a one-sided hypocrite and nagging, chronic complainer. Yes, I was honest, and that can be quite an honorable value to have, but I was lacking the most important traits to go along with it. Patience, kindness, compassion, forgiveness, gratitude, love and tolerance, these values, when COMBINED with honesty can transform relationship problems into improved partnerships. I was going to have to stop making every fight into a competition.

I sat on this quote for a bit, I let it simmer and really looked deeply into myself at this point and realized I can apply this quote in nearly every aspect of my life, in every relationship that I have. Issues may still rise up here and there, but I can tell you things started getting way easier for me, when I took the time to mull over what I wanted to communicate, before I let it just spill out.

I started questioning myself before I would speak, especially on important matters. Was what I about to say not only true, was is kind? Could I present it in a loving way? Would I be willing to listen to the response with tolerance and patience even if the answer wasn’t what I wanted to hear? Could I be forgiving? Above all, could I sacrifice my NEED to be right because I valued my husband more than my ego? 

#Love

The Ugly House and #CuttingCords

Last year the hubby and I basically started our lives over AGAIN, from scratch. We had spent the past seven years moving, 5 times. Being in our mid-forties with 4 grown kids, I'm sure people assumed we'd be great at this "adulting" trend by now, but let's be honest....this whole grown-up thing is way harder than I imagined and sometimes life just hits you square in the kisser. We reached a point where all of our kids were going to be out on their own and it was just going to be us "empty nesters".

My husband was finally able to return to work in February 2016 after a 4-year hiatus for medical issues. I, in the meantime, worked diligently to clean up my credit so that with his income and my credit we could afford to buy a home of our own, without anyone's help, financially or otherwise. That hard work eventually paid off!!! We were able to purchase a 1980 mobile home in a decent community. You gotta start somewhere right?

I should have taken lots of before pictures, but honestly, even though we were proud because we accomplished something we had set out to do, we were tremendously embarrassed because we knew what we just invested in needed a severe interior make-over. Inside the layout was open, but everything was hideous to the naked eye. The floors were bare plywood, walls needed holes to be patched and everything from floor to ceiling needed paint, some poor soul had spray foamed around the bright yellow bath-tub and mismatched, poorly cut surround, cabinets were missing trim and outdated (really everything was outdated). We bought an ugly house.

Moving day came, so the friends and family that helped us move in, kept smiles on their faces, but some made comments like "You've got your work cut out for you" & "I bet this wouldn't have passed inspection". No, no it wouldn't have....we couldn't afford an inspection, we weren't in a financial place to negotiate work, we had been given 30 to vacate our rental because our previous landlord was letting the house be foreclosed on. We didn't have time, money or negotiating power but what my husband and I shared equally was a shared goal to reach a place in our lives of stability and that was going to be enough.

We knew that even though the mobile home was built in the 80's, the roof had been taken care of, the exterior was freshly painted, there weren't any bug problems, no mold, the plywood floors - they had just been laid. The lot was the largest in the park, with a long driveway and a carport with a large attached shed. We had a private back yard, a great screened in porch. The structure was solid, we knew the interior was ugly, but with hard work and a little love, we could bring it to life and make it our home. Our first night, in our ugly little home, I took a hot shower to wash off the day and cringed while trying not to touch the tub surround. Ugh...at least I knew where to start.

Flash forward to now - TODAY, it's been 8 months since we took the plunge. During the process, I've rung up $3000.00 in credit card debt so that we could turn our dreadful interior into a welcoming, calming environment for the two of us to relax & unwind in. I've put sweat, at times a little blood, a whole lot of tears and even more love into making this a home, than one can imagine and it's all been worth it - every penny. Oh and I'm not afraid to take a bath anymore.

We didn't pay anyone to do anything in our house, it was all DIY-style, from painting to installing backsplashes to laying laminate flooring. If we didn't know how to do it, we asked someone how to do it and if they didn't know, well - Google and YouTube became my best friends. There are still things to be done and some things I could do better. Yes, we live in a "trailer park", though to me, it's a good one with decent hard-working people. I feel proud when someone comes to my home now and they totally are amazed because they don't expect someone that lives in a mobile home to actually have pride in it. (You should read my post on judgement, remember? It's not about YOU!)

Here's where I get to my point. So, curiously enough, a lot of people think my hubby and I have really green grass now and by saying that, I mean it in the most sarcastic way possible. To the outside world things look amazing! We drive a nice car, we have nice furnishings, we eat good food, our house looks nice on the outside (and finally, on the inside). This must mean we have mastered that whole "adulting" thing right? No, just no. We still have bills to pay, like any other normal, average person. Remember, those pesky renovations....yeah, time to pay up and that means time to crack down.

Now I consider myself the "Budget Coordinator of the Household", it's a cute little title that makes me feel special, but with it, comes great responsibility. Basically I pay the bills - see doesn't sound so fancy now does it? I set up a little spreadsheet and wrote down every bill that's due each month. I quickly realized hubs and I had to give up certain extras that a lot of people take for granted. I needed a plan.

1. I went back to couponing again. This time on a much smaller scale, being that it was just the two of us, and I only buy things we actually use and need. I also started using cash back apps any time I can. 
2. Next step was ditching our cell phone carrier. We shopped plans with other companies that would better suit our budget and literally cut our bill in HALF immediately and sacrificed nothing in the process. Not service, not data, we lucked out. 
3. Now up on the list, I called every single one of my credit card companies and negotiated my APR rates (yes, you can actually do that, I Googled articles and simple followed their steps). It worked on over half my cards. One eliminated my annual fee, others cut my APR rates in half for a promotional amount of time and another even gave me a credit for finance charges I already paid.
4. Here's the BIG one - NO VACATIONS....are you still reading this....I just wanted to make sure you guys are still paying attention, I've already basically told you we're in debt, ain't nobody got time or money for a vacation! Back to business 
5. I called the electric company and put our account on budget mode. This is basically when they take the past 12 months of your bill and average it out, so each month, you can roughly expect to pay a "set" amount, avoiding extreme highs. This one is especially helpful because we live in Florida and right now it's super hot, making my air conditioner work over-time. Knowing how much to set aside in my monthly budget ahead of time made me feel happy.
6. Last but not least......our entertainment expenses. Bwahahahaha - In case you're wondering, for us, that simple means TV/Internet and guess what? The cable HAD TO GO. The area where we live is locked in with only one option and the company knew that, so we had no negotiating power once again and the rates they offered were laughable. I honesty didn't think I could do it. I knew we couldn't afford to keep it, so I started looking for back-up options because there are just some shows I wasn't willing to give up watching live I LOVE THOSE ZOMBIES.....and hubby, yeah - he's "THAT SPORTS GUY". Now there are all kinds of options to watch movies and shows that have already aired, but what we wanted, we wanted LIVE and we wanted it cheap. That's when I found these guys...... 

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So I clipped my cable cord and no, I don't miss it at all. I never watched 96% of the channels I was paying for anyway. I no longer have to worry about haggling promotional rates when my bill comes in and it's twice the price of the previous month because my contract expired and I had no warning, also renting cable boxes SUCK. I can have live entertainment at a fair cost, that fits my budget and lifestyle needs.

So here we are, at the end of today's tale. I've shared a little more of me with you today, all of it true (yes I tossed in an ad, but I do actually use Sling TV and a girl has to run a blog somehow). I hope some of the tips I wrote help you, if anything, perhaps you can at least relate? Your grass is just as green as mine, it may just need a little water! We're in debt up to our eyeballs, but we're trying to be a little smarter about our finances by taking responsibility. We use every spare dime we saved, by using those little tricks and hammer extra payments on the cards so within a year, we can be credit debt-free. Bonus, we're no longer living above our means and for the first time, in a long while, hubs and I feel stability in our lives and we created it by ourselves.

Gratitude

Resilience

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