January: New Year-Better You Month Series: 6 Ways to Boost Your Mood

Hello everyone and welcome back to January: New Year-Better You Month series. So just like everyone else, I get in those days where I'm not feeling good, I'm not feeling my best or I'm just in a bad mood all together.  Feeling like this is ok, as long as you are able to get yourself out of it. So here are my 6 ways that I use to help me get out of those moods and into a better one.

1)  Spending time with God/reading and inspirational blog, post or picture. I love doing this because God is amazing.  When I spend time with the Lord, I instantly feel better.  Even if you don't believe in God, then tell him why you don't believe in him, and he will answer you and listen to you.  When I talk to God, I talk to him like I'm talking to a friend.  He knows exactly what to say, and how to just lift my mood so that I can be the best version of myself I can be, and so I can bless others. And if that doesn't help, then I go online, usually pinterest and look up inspirational quotes, or blogs or pictures.  Always makes me feel so much better.

2) Reach out to a friend.  I don't do this all the time, but when I need to feel better, I try to get in touch with a friend and talk.  Whether that is silly talk or serious talk or whatever it may be...just say Hi to a friend, say I'm thinking of you.  By doing this, it will make you feel so much better and just be in a much positive mood because you were being nice and generous and thinking of others.

3) Listen to a positive video or podcast or music.  I love doing this; lately I've been listening to Joyce Meyers...if you don't know about her, look her up on Youtube, she is really good and is very relatable.  But I love listening to her and just soaking in all that she says.  Also I love music, I've been listening to a lot of Selena Gomez, and demi Lovato and some more uplifting music.  But by listening to uplifting music or a podcast, it sets your mind to a more positive state and just boosts your mood.

4) Read, drink tea or do something you love.  I love reading as well as tea and things I love.  Reading to me is really soothing and lets you be somewhere else instead of where you are at.  I love reading with some soft instrumental piano music playing and it just really makes me happy. I also love drinking tea and doing something I love...just makes me happy, and that's what we want...right :)

5) Spending time with family and friends.  Now this goes back to reaching out to a friend, but also spending time with friends and family is just amazing.  They usually know how to get you feeling happy and just thankful that you are alive and have the opportunity to spend time with them.

6) Go outside.  I love going outside, even if it's just stepping outside for 2 seconds.  Just to let the air get into your lungs and just feel good.  My favorite season is fall season because of all the leaves and the weather, but it is winter here so I just step out on my porch and just breathe in the fresh crisp winter air. I also love going outside with my son, just to spend time with him and watch him play.

Remember Happiness is a choice, not a chore or a result.  Nothing will make you happy unless you create it and choose to be happy.  It's not a chore, that you have to do, it's a decision that can change the way you look at life.

January: New Year-Better You Month Series: Understanding your mind, soul and body

Hello everyone.  Today's topic is understanding your mind, soul and body. Your mind is what you use everyday...it's part of your brain, and even when you don't want to use it, it is still being used in someway.  As you all know, emotions can affect our everyday lives.  If you wake up with a negative mindset, then your day will become negative, and your negativeness will rub off on other people and the cycle keeps going.  Have you ever meditated before or even went to a meditation class?  Well if you have, then you know that they talk alot about your mind, soul and body and how they are one.  You are your own person, but you choose your own path of life, happiness and daily living.  Meditation is an awesome thing to start doing.  It's a way for you to go deep inside your mind and just think about your day or your week or what type of year you want to have.  A great way to do this, is to put on some meditation music, or soft nature music, and just sit there on your couch, floor or wherever, close your eyes and just relax.  You will soon feel like things are going to be ok because you are relaxing your mind, soul and your body.  Your body will feel like it can finally breathe, because you are letting yourself just think and feel at peace.  When you start to understand your mind, then your soul is rejuvenated and your body is in the process of healing and feeling better.  That is why they all go together.  Sometimes all it takes is for you to just sit still for a few minutes, breathe and let your whole body relax, let your mind wonder, and let your soul be searched.  By doing this, you can often find solutions to any problems or concerns you may be facing, or you may even find healing and understanding of who you are and who you want to become.  So do some yoga, take up dance, exercise, meditate, do whatever you can do to make sure you are aware of how important your mind, soul and body are to your overall health. Remember, when you start to understand how your mind works, then you can start to rejuvenate your soul and let it be searched, and your body can start to heal, relax and become at peace.

January: New Year-Better You Month Series: Making goals that will work for you

Hello everyone and welcome back to another "New Year-Better You January Month Series."  I hope you all are liking these posts so far.  Today's topic is setting goals that will work for you.

Setting or making goals can be really hard.  They may change every year depending on the significance of them, and they may not change.  Of course we all have those years where we set or make goals intending on keeping them and sticking to them, and about a month or so in, we rear off from them because life hits us with other things.  So here are some tips that I use myself to help out with making better goals I can stick to.

4 Tips on how you can achieve your goals for 2016

1) Set realistic ones
      -You always want to make sure to set goals that you can achieve; so maybe reading 500 books in a year or month is unrealistic; unless you have all the time in the world and you are an extremely fast reader.

2) Don't make them too specific
        -What I like to do is set broad goals that can be changed or modified if something comes up.  So for example, one of my goals is to read more.  Now I could do this in the morning, I could do this in the afternoon, in the evening or just when I have time.  It's not too specific, yet it is still reachable and achievable.

3)  Write you goals down and make a plan
          -If we write things down, we will most likely be doing them.  Because they are written down, we see them each day which reminds us to actually do them.  You mind holds a lot, but it also can use some refreshing sometimes, so if you write your goals down, then you are more likely to actually achieve them and do them. Also make a plan.  Once you write your goals down, then make a plan on how you are going to achieve them.  For me I write them in my planner and then I decide how I'm going to do things differently this year.  Like I'm going to try and stick to my blogging schedule, which is posting Tuesdays and Thursdays for anyone who doesn't know.  So far I have kept to that this year, and I'm striving to keep going.

4) My last tip is to never give up
         -Never give up on your goals.  They can be achieved eventually.  You will fail, or forget  or life things will get in the way, but always keep going.

That's all for today.  Check back on Thursday for a new post :)

January: New Year-Better You Month Series: 6 Benefits of Yoga

Hello everyone and welcome back to the January: New Year-Better You Month Series.  Today we will be talking about yoga.

Yoga is an exercise that I have been getting into recently.  I find that when I am stressed, or need a good, yet relaxing and calming exercise, yoga can really help lift up my mood and get the adrenaline pumping back into .  Here are 6 benefits of yoga that you may have not known.

6 Benefits to Yoga

1) Yoga can boost your immunity.
        - By doing yoga you can have a better immunity system.  For all of us who have really crappy ones, this is an exercise that you can try.  It keeps you from getting colds, or it can help you get over a cold a lot sooner.

2) Eases Migraines
        -Just like any type of exercise, just taking time to do some yoga in the form of an exerise or meditation can really ease your migraines.  It can take your mind off of the pain and put you into a mindset that is more peaceful and calming.

3) Boost Sexual Performance
       -Yoga is great if you want to become for flexible for that pleasurable time with your significant other.  Who knows they may be surprised as to what you can do and new positions that you can now try.  And then if they comment, you can say, well I've been doing some yoga :)

4)  Lowers weight
        -Yoga builds lean muscle, which improves metabolism which in turn will burn calories because of the poses you are doing.
        -If you eat healthier and more wholesome foods, you will start to see the pounds come off in a shorter time.

5)  Better Health
      -Helps prevent many of the common health issues, like osteoporosis, which studies have shown that yoga not only prevents it if you don't have it, but can also stop it if you already do have it, it can help people who have cancer, when they have to go through chemotherapy,  and all sorts of health issues.  So do some yoga :)

6) Improves Outlook on Life
       -Overall yoga can and will improve your outlook on life.  You will be able to do poses that you never thought you could do before, which will give you the confidence to try anything new, and you will see your body change, by getting stronger, more flexible, lower weight if that is your issue and more muscle.


So over all, yoga is great for your mind, soul and body and will help you just improve your entire health.  Go ahead and try doing some yoga and see how you feel afterwords.  :)

More info:

http://bembu.com/benefits-of-yoga

https://www.canva.com/

    -This is how I make my images.

JANUARY: New Year-Better You Month: 6 TIPS ON HOW TO DESTRESS

Hello everyone and welcome to another year of blogging! I can't believe it's the year 2016 but it is and this year on my blog I would like to start something a little bit different. I'm going to try something out which will be: each month will be a different topic and the whole month will deal within that topic. This month is of course January so it's going to be JANUARY: NEW YEAR: BETTER YOU. All the posts of January will deal with ways to improve yourself including your mind, soul and body, because they are all in one and they go hand in hand.  So here is the first post; I hope you like it.


6  Helpful Tips that can help to relieve stress:

      1) Drink Tea
            -Tea is amazing.  It's great when you need to calm yourself, or you just need to be warm.  Now I personally love hot tea when I need to destress, but you can have cold tea as well.  
      2) Exercise
             -We all know that exercise is great for destressing.  It gives you endorphins, which help stimulate the brain, forcing you to focus on the exercise activity instead of whatever you were stressing about. It's basically meditation in motion.  Some people love to run, some do yoga like me, some do other exercises, but all exercises can help relieve stress.
     3) Read
            -Reading is great for relieving stress. I love to read, because I can get into a book that I love and get to know the characters and the background, and soon enough, I have forgotten why I was stressed in the first place.
     4) Take a bath or a shower
     5) Journal or write things down
             -I love doing this.  It really helps to get you to focus on why you are so stressed out, whether it be from bills, or work life or whatever.  It clears out your head and lets you just brain dump so to speak.
     6) Music


Hope you all loved the tips and found them useful.  Let me know in the comments if you do any of these currently,have your own stress reliever tips or which one(s) are your favorite. :)
            

2016 Goals

So here we are at another year.  I'm going to share my 2016 goals...because I like that word better than resolutions, but before I do, I want to just talk to you guys about some things that are going to start happening.  So let's jump into it shall we?

*Obviously you can see that I am back on blogger.  I like blogger better, I do still have my wordpress blog just incase I want to go back to it, but for now, and for this year, I want to use blogger.  I started with blogger and I really liked it.  I only went to wordpress because I wanted to try it and see if I could do everything I wanted to do, and I ended up going back to blogger anyway.  Now I know that a lot of people are like...blogger is horrible, it's not for if you want to be successful, but I just like it way better so here I am.
*Now since I have switched back, I have also updated this blog so that all my posts from the other blog are on here now. 
*There is an about page...that talks about how the site will be going this year and also how I came up with it, so be sure to check it out.
*This year I really want to make this blog more of an inspirational blog.  Now I am a mother and a wife but I've realized that inspiration is amazing. As mother and wives, sometimes we feel just horrible...or sad or just not inspired.  When I see an inspirational quote, verse, blog anything, I just feel so much better, and that's what I want this blog to feel like as we venture into this year. I want you all to be inspired, feel at peace and to know that this world isn't all bad.  We all need a little inspiration now and again.  So now that I have told you what my plan is for this year, let's get into my goals for this year.

So I don't normally do this, but as we all know, each year we all try to make New Year Resolutions and we don't always keep them.  But for me, I like to set goals, because I can set them and work towards them all year.  So here they are:

My 2016 GOALS:

1. Wake up earlier than I normally do.

-Normally I wake up when my son wakes up, which is around 11am-noon. But I really want to try and wake up earlier.  One way that I have done this is by getting my alarm, typing in a morning message: mine says Rise and Shine :) and getting up to soft music.  I feel that by doing that, it will help me when it comes to waking up.  I currently have my alarm set for 8:30 am which I'm hoping will work well this year.

2.   Do more Yoga/ a workout routine

-Lately I've been waking up in the morning, brushing my teeth, and doing some yoga.  Yoga is very relaxing, it's good for your body and it's just a great way to wake up in the morning and start your day. If you don't like yoga, then just do a simple work out routine.  My yoga routine is usually about 10 minutes, in the morning that way I can relax and enjoy my morning before my son wakes up.

3.   Read more

- I love to read and I've missed it. So this year, my goal is to read more.  Whether that is fictional, non fictional, etc...just read more.  Again reading is relaxing and it just puts you in a different mood every time.

4.  Read and study my bible more.

-I just bought this journaling bible and I love it.  But one of my goals is to actually use my bible this year, and dig deep into God's word.  One way I have been doing this is by doing it before I go to bed.  I can put my son to bed, get a cup of tea and just relax with my journaling bible and pens. Hopefully if I do this, then I will write some devotional posts up on this blog that goes along with what I was studying.

5.  Be in the moment and take time for only me

- I talk about this a lot on my blog, but I really just want to work on being in the moment, not worrying about what is going to happen tomorrow or next week, and just take time to get to know myself and be me. Alot of the time we worry about things, that sometimes are out of our control, so this year I want to just try and be in the moment and get to know myself better.

6.   And last...I want to focus on family and friends.

  -Family and friends are really important, and I don't want to neglect that part of my life.  So this year I really want to try and make more of an effort to talk to them more, spend time with them, encourage them, and just be the woman God wants me to be towards others.

So those are my goals for this year...that I will be working towards all year.  What are your goals?  Do you set New Year Resolutions or goals?  Share in the comments below.  Also let me know if you like the set up of this blog, since this is  the one I will be using for now on.  Have a great day :)

A letter to Elizabeth from Mary(Mother of Jesus)

So this was supposed to be for Christmas, but we moved, and we were with family, so I’m putting it up now.    Hope you enjoy it.

So this week I've been just thinking about Christmas and about Mary.  Mary is the mother of Jesus.  If any of you don't know about how Jesus was born, it talks about it in Luke chapter 2, however since this is a letter to Elizabeth, you need to read from Chapter 1 all the way through chapter 2.  It's a beautiful story and it was a story I've been thinking a lot about.  Now just some info...Elizabeth was Mary's cousin, who they never saw that often.  Elizabeth and Mary were very close, so I took the liberty to see if I could feel, what Mary felt, that night when she had baby Jesus.  Now Mary was probably around 14 when she had the baby, and I'm 25  now and I have a little boy, so it makes it even more special and meaningful.  Writing this I can still feel something amazing. I am Mary in this letter and I'm writing to my cousin Elizabeth; so here it is...hope you all like it and feel something too.  This is also on my blog too which I will also post.                                                                                                                                                                                              January 13, 30 B.C.

My Dearest Elizabeth,

How I’ve longed to write to you for a while, but never seem to have the time until now.  I’ve missed you so much and it’s been hard to be so far away from you.  Besides, Joseph, there’s not that many people that I feel comfortable talking to…so it can get pretty lonely at times.  How are you and Zechariah?  How is adorable little John doing?  I bet Zechariah is loving father hood.  Looking at John when he was a newborn, I know he’s going to grow up to be handsome and strong like his papa.  As he gets older, you will sure have your hands full, with him being so full of energy and all; it will keep you young I’m sure.

Well so much has happened since we last saw each other.  Joseph and I have been so blessed.  I don’t even know where to begin.  However, not knowing when I will see you again or for that matter, write to you again, I will start from the beginning and tell you everything that has happened. Shortly after I left your home, Joseph got a message stating that we need to go to Bethlehem for the Census and Tax.  Oh how I dreaded that trip because it was long and I was pregnant.  We had to travel by donkey, which was hard on my belly; however we didn’t have a choice.  I walked when I could and when I got tired, I rode the donkey.  However the donkey got tired too and the trip went by so slow.  Joseph, the kind man that he is, never once complained, even though his facial expressions gave him away every time.  It’s funny how when you have been with someone for so long, you know when they are tired or even not telling you how they are feeling or what is on their mind.  He was really tired and it took us a long time to get to the Bethlehem from Nazareth. By the time we arrived, all the rooms at the inns were full.  All Joseph and I wanted to do was to just find a place and rest; was that so much to ask for?  But inn after inn, slammed door after slammed door, we began to lose hope and faith.  Oh Elizabeth, I just couldn’t stop crying.  I was so uncomfortable being pregnant and afraid that we would never find a place and I would have to have my baby in the dusty road.  Poor Joseph was exhausted too.  I think he was worried and a little annoyed but for the sake of me, he tried to hide it.  Finally, Joseph came across an inn that had a stable and talked the owner into letting us stay there.  The owner gave us things to keep warm, but he was not really nice.  The stable was nasty and really uncomfortable with the straw everywhere, but it was shelter which we needed. With the animals being there, they kept the place really warm and from that night, that became our home.  Who would have thought of me being in a stable?  It was so weird and strange for me, and as a wife, so not ok, but I was grateful for what we had.

I will never forget that place because I ended up having the baby right there, the day after we arrived.  I’m so glad I was with you when you had John. I learned so much from your mid wife; which helped me when I had my baby.  The pain was unbearable and it felt like it took for hours, but then I saw him…our beautiful baby boy, which we name…Jesus.  Joseph was a mess throughout the entire labor process, but when the baby came out; you could tell from his face, he was just so happy to be a new papa.  Elizabeth, baby Jesus is so beautiful.  Since we didn’t have a real bed for him, we put him in a manger.  He has curly black hair, and bright wonderful eyes just like your little John.  I’m sure they will be the best of friends.  His hands are big so I know he will be a great carpenter just like his father. Tears filled our eyes, as we held our brand new baby boy.  I just can’t describe him or the feeling we felt when we held him for the first time; though I’m sure you can imagine, you having little John not too long ago.  I never want harm to come to him, and I want him to live a long and happy life.

When the town’s people heard about our baby, they all came to see him.  People came from all over and brought gifts and cute things for the baby.  Joseph and I were so surprised as to the love of the people.  We’ve never felt more honored to have been blessed with such a beautiful baby boy.  Last night some shepherds came to see him, and we shared the stable with them for the night.  They were so kind and generous and amazed as to how wonderful he was.  The women came and checked on him; they said he looked good and healthy and gave us some skins to keep him warm, some milk to feed him, and some food for us.  We told stories and sang songs.  It was nice making friends since we were so far from home and what we knew to be familiar. It was hard being far from you and Joseph’s family.  We are going to have to leave the country tomorrow morning.  Some important men were in town last night watching the stars.  They said that King Harold has sent out a decree that all Jewish newborn babies are to be killed.  When I heard this, I thought, he must be afraid of us, for him to do such a horrible thing.  So we are leaving as soon as we are able to travel.  The men gave us gold, frankincense and myrrh for the travel, since we have no money because of the trip. I am so grateful for the help that we have received.  I don’t know what we would have done if all those kind people didn’t help at all.  Joseph says we should try and get to Egypt and stay there until we hear that it is ok for us to return home.  Take care of your son and your family too Elizabeth.  I can’t wait for the day when we can be together again.  Our little boys can play, the guys can talk and we can go for walks and talk like we always do.  I will keep you in my thoughts and prayers as I ask you do the same for us.  Til we meet or write again…

Love always,

Mary