SRKindredSpirits

If you wish to bless someones life in someway -give them an experience, a memory or a consumable item, but please don't be offended by someones lifestyle choice to not want things to add clutter to their lives....  Here are some ideas: Take them out to eat Gift cards to restaurants, a favorite store, a gas card, or music download Give them the gift of clean water for a year A membership to the zoo, gym, garden club, Shaklee , etc. Buy them lessons/classes - florist class, music lesson, dance lessons, pottery or art class Make them some yummy food - most people love homemade goodies Put together a fruit basket Box of chocolates - who doesn't love chocolate?!?! Gift certificate to a massage therapist, hair appointment, or a nail salon  Give them a Get Clean Kit to get chemicals out of their home and help them live better. Energizing tea or snack bars make a great gift. Lotion or bath salts (make sure the person you're gifting too ac

Little did I know, back in January, when I booked our anniversary getaway trip, just how much we would need the quiet, peaceful, relaxation that a getaway brings. With our oldest daughter graduating this spring , me having 3 surgeries this year, my son having emergency brain surgery and a 5 week hospital stay, another surgery and around the clock infusions at home, and a trip to take our oldest to visit a college in Missouri... needless to say, I was more than ready for an overnight getaway date with my man.... I think the last time we had an actual date away from home was in March... that's over 7 months ago. I don't think we've ever went that long in between dates, but it feels good to know that when life had a turn for the worse, our marriage was strong, even without alone time. We booked our getaway with Getaway Cabins in Hocking hills Ohio and rented Cabin 36.... 'Ever After' was a beautiful, clean, private, and romantic cabin.... however

Continued from  Getting Healthy - Part 1 .... ..... So, last year, hubby and I really started searching for options. We knew that to make a lifestyle change as big as I needed - I would need the best tools to help me succeed. In October 2016, I attended a health seminar and started meeting with a dietitian monthly. Over the next few months, I continued meeting with my dietitian, but with Thanksgiving and Christmas we didn't do awholelotta changing. I did manage to lose 10 lb. through - the monthly visits with the dietitian helped to keep me accountable. We decided to start 2017 out fresh with a lifestyle change, not just for me but for our whole family! Well, that was the plan.... life had other ideas.  You see, I have multiple autoimmune disorders. The last couple months I had been seeing a different specialist for other ongoing health problems. That Doctor set a surgery date for March. The surgery, although it was out patient, set me back quite a bit. During this

Getting rid of stuff -  Round 2 - Year 3 This year, we signed up for Joshua Becker's Uncluttered Course .  And although we have read most of his books and have gotten rid of so much stuff in our first round .... we still had stuff that needed to go. Here's some of it... 5 explorer loads full to goodwill 1 trailer load of junk to the garbage dump 1 trailer load of scrap metal (I forgot to take a photo) Multiple items sold on Craigslist and online sites totaling over $4,000 And... We had over $200 of returns that we took back to Menards for in store credit Let me say again... we are not pack rat people. It amazes me that we have so much to get rid off... if we haven't used it, don't need it, don't like it, or it has no purpose; out it goes. With a family of 5 living in the country on a hobby farm with animals, splitting our own firewood, homeschooling, and, having a business from home... there is a lot of e

Somehow life always pushes 'moms' needs into the closet..... the door gets shut, life gets busy, and then years later, mom realizes she doesn't know who she is anymore.  Well, that is my story. Looking back, I was just a baby when my first baby was born....and I became a mom.  I was 17 when I got pregnant.... I had just finished high school and had not even thought about what I wanted to do with my life.... I was living on my own, in a one bedroom efficiency apartment. My goal in life was short term - pay the rent, keep gas in my car, and food in the fridge. I never really wanted to be a mom - it just happened. And after marriage, step kids, divorce , and a second marriage, I went on to have two more kids...... Our oldest daughter had a lot of health problems requiring lots of tests, doctors appointments, lab work and children hospitals over a five year period ( you can read more about it here). Our second child is special needs and has many learning disa

Let me preface this by saying- my hubby and I are research geeks. We research a subject until there is nothing left of it.... dead. Never to rise again..... which sometimes can be a good thing, and other times, lets just say, not so much. That's when after I had major surgery (that I had researched for over a year)..... I was completely taken by surprise. I mean, I knew that there would be pain and that I'd need someone to help me, but I honestly never expected it to be this hard, this painful, and this much fatigue. With that said, I did have an emergency second surgery 12 hours later due to internal bleeding and I'm sure that is partly to blame for some of it. The Doctors said having the emergency surgery really set me back.  I was supposed to come home with a pain pump, but they had to remove it during the second surgery.  Anytime, some one has as much internal bleeding as I did, it causes excruciating pain. I also lost so much blood, that I had to have multip

I knew my son, QW had not been feeling well.... he had been complaining of headaches that last week, but I didn't really think too much about them, figuring, it would pass. Then he started having a fever - not super high, but enough for me to worry. After a few days, he wasn't eating.... We knew something was wrong. I took him to the med express center. They ran a throat culture, and tested him for the flu and strep - all came back negative, but they said that sometimes the strep test can be wrong, so they sent us home with antibiotics saying it was probably strep.  The next two days, QW kept getting worse. I finally took him to the Emergency Room on Sunday, May 28th. They did blood tests and took a CT scan and said that he had acute sinusitis (a bad sinus infection that was deep in the air pockets of his face) and sent us home with a stronger antibiotic. Memorial Day, May 29th, QW seemed better - he ate lunch and walked outside.... we thought he was feeling