Friday, July 31, 2009

Seeking Contentment

I have been extremely blessed by Lisa Notes the last two days. Lisa has listed 5 Reasons To Seek Contentment and 5 More Reasons To Seek Contentment. Contentment is the amazingly simple answer to so many issues that seem to push Christians out of God's will. Please take the time to read them!

Thursday, July 30, 2009

Getting Good Advice The First Year Homeschooling

Denver's Newbie Homeschooling Examiner, Melissa Caddell, looks at first year curricula by going trial-and-error the cheap way. She's got some good advice for new moms who might be overwhelmed by the choices and prices.

Monday, July 27, 2009

What Was I Saying?

I read this quote today in PluggedInOnline.com's newsletter:
"[Adolescents live in] an institutionalized culture of interruption, where our time and attention is being fragmented by a never-ending stream of phone calls, e-mails, instant messages, text messages and tweets." —Maggie Jackson, author of Distracted: The Erosion of Attention and the Coming Dark Age [usatoday.com, 6/23/09]

I'm not sure what's worse, this news or the dark prediction of her book title.

Sunday, July 26, 2009

Thursday, July 16, 2009

Homeschooling in Canon City

Nifty article on a family homeschooling in Canon City, Colorado. The beauty of it all is captured in this quote toward the end,
“It can affect your family. For us, our life before homeschooling was harried,” she said. “We were always rushing here and rushing there. Now, we’re still busy, of course, but we have a lot more quality of life. We’re busy, but we’re not trying to squeeze” in sports, homework and other activities.
Life is not about fitting everything in. It's about doing what's important, and not necessarily what's urgent.

Wednesday, July 15, 2009

Parents Provide the Patterns For Confronting Grief



This little, somewhat cute video is a reminder to me that kids process losses differently, but they take their cues from their parents. This child lost another fish the week before, so she knows some of the "customs" her father likely introduced, such as saying a few words over the departed. It's really interesting when the child and "mommy" switch places and she helps a somewhat detached parent say a few words over the fish, which are the same as what she said at the start of the video and quite possibly close to what the father likely said the week before.

Patterns and traditions help us process grief in the little losses as well as the big. Losing and grieving are part of life and pets are a way of introducing our kids not only to the responsibilities and emotions of caring for a pet, but also the natural loss and grief that will eventually come. When other, larger losses occur, we fall back on what we were taught by our parents and others around us who shared these small griefs. This can be a blessing, as in this little girl's life, or a curse of following a pattern of denial, avoidance and anger. In that case, it would be better for a person to be thrown into a patternless void where they are forced to find their own way of coping, in the hope of stumbling onto a friend or "life coach" who can help them find their way. Jesus said it this way:
[On the other hand,] if anyone causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to be thrown into the sea with a large millstone tied around his neck.
We can't be perfect, but as parents, we shape the future of our children by how we live our lives, in love and hate, involvement and indifference, attention and neglect, gain and loss, gratitude and grief. Giving them healthy patterns to follow is a gift of love and hope.

Wednesday, July 1, 2009

GB: Five Steps to Use Twitter as a Pain Log Tool

Guest Blogger Lisa Copen shares this idea about using Twitter

If chronic illness or pain is a part of your life, the odds are that at one point you have been requested by a physician to keep a log about your activities and pain levels, especially what led up to your pain being most intense. He may have suggested that you write down specific activities, your diet and exercise behaviors, and even your patterns of sleep.

If you have attempted to take this on and do it thoroughly, you know that it can be an overwhelming feeling to keep track of all of your activities and still maintain a sense of normal life. He can be extremely helpful, however, to you and your medical team, to have a written record of your activities, diet, etc. to help discover what is it is causing you the greatest pain. Was that extreme flare caused by a minor food allergy, the weather conditions, or that you were up all night with friends?

It is somewhat ironic that while we may find it a burdensome task to record what we are eating, who we are with, how much we slept, and how we are feeling, millions of people are doing this daily on Twitter. They write what they ate for lunch, if they have a migraine, and if they are up at 2 a.m. working. . . and they call it fun!

If you have a chronic illness, Twitter can be an amazing tool to use as a pain diary. This social networking tool has been successfully used to help people maintain logs on their diet, exercise, and even the commitment to stop smoking. Why should we not use it to keep accurate records of our chronic illness and pain levels?

Here are 5 steps to put this into place:
  1. Create an account at Twitter just for your chronic pain logs. If you already have a Twitter account, make a new one, and let it remain private. If you look under “settings” you will see the option to make your account private, meaning that you will have to approve any followers before anyone can see your Twitter account. Since this is private medical information, we recommend not approving anyone. If you are already Twittering this can seem a bit strange because you typically want to increase the number of followers.
  2. You are now ready to start writing your posts. You cannot write more than 140 characters, however, this keeps it a simple task and not too overwhelming. Feel free to use it in any way necessary, for example, submitting more than one post to describe a special circumstance. You can send posts from your cell phone, not just from the computer, so set up this option in your account to make the most of it.
  3. If you don’t know where to start, begin by posting about any major events or behaviors that are not part of your typical day, and how your body responded to them. For example, if you awake feeling horrible, ask yourself has the weather change significantly? Twitter the weather. Are you taking the same amount of medication as you typically do? Were you active or solitary yesterday? Post whatever information may be valuable to you and your medical team at any right in your treatment.
  4. Before you go to a doctor’s appointment, log on to your Twitter account and print out the posts if your doctor would like acopy. Highlight any major changes in your patterns of pain.
  5. If you already use twitter for personal or business reasons, consider using a service that will post to more than one account at a time so that you are regular tweets that share where you are and what you are doing can also post to your twitter chronic pain log without any additional effort.
The market for Twitter applications will continue to grow and there is no doubt that’s those considering medical Web 2.0 tools will come up with some fancy (and complicated) ways to record your pain levels. But for now you can have a thorough log of your chronic illness and pain levels in just minutes at no cost. You can’t beat that!

Lisa Copen is the founder of Invisible Illness Awareness Week held annually in Sept and featuring a free 5-day virtual conference w/ 20 seminars w/ 20 speakers. Follow II Week on Twitter for prizes and info. Blog about invisible illness on your site, be a featured guest blogger, meet others, read articles and lots more. Make a difference!