Supports

Now, the above title could mean any number of things, but today I am speaking about supports that come from family and friends.

I have many people who I consider my parents. There are of course my biological parents, then I have mom and dad number 2 and my surrogate dad as well. On top of all of this I toss in many other adults who have served as parent and grand-parent type figures in my life. Now, I have reasons for all of these supports in my life but recently a few people have commented on the fact that I have so many "parents" so I wanted to explore that a little here.

I'm sure many of us have heard the phrase "it takes a village to raise a child" which implies the concept that there are many influences on a child. This is a concept that I completely ascribe to. I was and am incredibly blessed by the individuals in my life who have invested time in my life. They have been there for me through everything and I know that they will continue to be there for me no matter what else happens.

If there are children in your life - related, or not - I hope you take the time to be an influence to them. You never know what you can teach them or help them with that others can't. Also, don't hesitate to become as close as family to them because blood related or not, extra family who simply loves them never, ever goes amiss. It is often the supports in our lives that help keep us on the straight and narrow when otherwise it seems like all hope has failed.

Lunch, who knew it was so hard

I have not blogged in a very long time and I'm not sure that this is the start of more blogging or a one off thing...I do know that consistency is important in blogging so the previous was probably a bad admittance. Ah well, honesty at least is a good thing.

What prompted this blog has been a bad week for lunches...seriously.

I have recently been focusing on bringing my lunches to work. This was prompted by all the usual reasons - health, finances, quality of food, lack of other options and so on. This is also not the first time that I have attempted this and depending on how it goes it may not be the last.

Now for some people, bringing their lunch to work has always been easy and will always be easy but I know that I am not alone as an individual who struggles with this mid-day meal. The challenges start with something as basic as what to have and spread out from there.

With this particular attempt at bringing lunches I have worked on doing my research. I have checked into good lunch ideas, I am using a meal plan so that lunches aren't a last minute decision and I have even researched different ways to pack and prepare lunch so that it's good and not soggy or anything like that. I make sure that my meal plan is for all my meals so that I know what leftovers I will or won't have and all that jazz.

This really feels like a foolproof plan doesn't it? Except it seems to be nowhere near foolproof as I have discovered. I don't know, maybe it's just me but things still happen - some days I don't want to eat what I have packed, others I end up stuck in meetings and don't get to eat til mid afternoon if at all and today my lunch was held hostage along with my car as it was getting some unexpected repairs that had it taking longer than usual. These are the traps that still make lunch the most challenging meal of the day.

So what do we do? What do we build into our plans to help with moments like these?

I know I have snacks at my desk that are healthier and easy, I really try to stick to eating what I brought and not giving into the temptation of eating out but I'm interested to hear what others may do to help deal with the lunch issue.

Easter

"Most people don't realize that Easter is as an important a time for the church as Christmas!" That was the statement given to me on Easter Sunday afternoon as I prepared to officiate over a funeral. It's quite the day for a funeral and yet the family still needed it done and so I performed this unique privilege on what is normally a day of great celebration.

Of course it was still a celebration day. Nothing and no one can supersede the fact that we were remembering the resurrection of our Lord and King. I mentioned in the service that we have an advantage - we've read the end of the book, we know how it's all going to end and this should only add to our level of celebration; not only on Easter but every single day of our faith. So, I hope we all recognized the importance of Easter and I hope we continue to recognize every day.

Time Management

I don't post on time management very often as there are a lot resources out there on it anyway but this one issue has cropped up fairly often to people in my life lately so I figured I'd drop this little tidbit down.

However long you think something is going to take you.....ADD MORE TIME!!!

You know the phrase our eyes are bigger than our stomachs? Well the same philosophy can be attributed to our thoughts on how long it takes to do something. When I used to do presentations on organization and the like I would always talk about to do lists to keep you on track but then I would say this: After you write up your to do list for the day - take two items off.

For some reason we think that we will never be interrupted, that every task will go smoothly and quickly and that the ones involving other people - well they must be on the same schedule as us right? NO

Things take longer, interruptions happen, our attention wanders and sometimes we need to wait for a call back or a response to an e-mail. So, plan more time everybody, prioritize appropriately and then you won't feel like you never get anything done the way you intend to.

Faith in Humanity

So, I tend to be pretty negative and cynical. Some would call it realism, regardless of what title you give it, it is not very cheerful. However, about 4 years ago I started to really focus on being more positive about all circumstances. The phrase I used was and is "but on the positive side...". Now at first I really struggled to remember to say it but I persevered and discovered that it has stopped being a phrase I have to remember but has simply become part of my regular speech pattern.

Despite it being a part of my regular speech pattern I still often think of the negative first and the positive second so I guess we know what my next step is in becoming more positive. However, even though I think of the negative first I am often so impressed by the every day goodness of people.

As I watch people come together to support families with illness or death, or see support that comes so freely for people in need I am so impressed with the sight of basic goodness in people. I know many who subscribe to the beliefs of William Goulding in the Lord of the Flies, that we will all descend into anarchy without guidance, yet often I think that while we are all depraved there is hope for us as long as the love of God is around in the world. Goulding did not really take that into aspect of the world into his book.

So, on the positive side, God is still at work in the world and he shows it in many ways. Lets all allow ourselves to be impressed by the goodness of humanity, and have renewed faith in humanity this week to try and erase some of the negativity that's kicking around.

Being a redhead

To be clear I am writing the below post strictly from my own opinion and point of view.

I read a newspaper article recently about...redheaded bullying. As I had no idea that this existed and am a natural redhead I was quite curious as to the nature of this article. It turns out that the article was honestly about people being bullied due to the colour of their hair. In all honesty, I'm not sure that this supposed bullying is any different than the other stereotyping of hair colour types but because redheads or "gingers" are so much more rare it has been allowed to be brought to our attention above and beyond the other colours. For that matter, the fact that this is an issue when there are other more concerning mistreatment issues in our world is an issue for me. Lets stop identifying types of bullying and just stop bullying in general.

I'm a redhead and yeah, I've been made fun of it for it but ya know...I bet most people who have just about any colour of hair have had jokes made at their expense too or any other appearance based issue and a bunch of other reasons too. Instead of retaliating I just move on (although the comments about having no soul because of being a redhead stung a bit) and laugh it off. It doesn't matter what colour my hair is or that I have glasses or am short. All that matters is that I am who God made me and I can roll with that. I don't mind being teased too much for being fiery like redheads are supposed to be but I hope that no one ever means it to hurt me or others but if they do...well I'll go with Matthew 5:38-42 and just maybe we'll have to stop saying we're attacking for any reason but sin in our world and can get on with no longer attacking.

Seems a bit silly to write on something like this but I just keep thinking about that article.

New Years Resolutions

So, New Years resolutions are a big thing of course. Loads of people still make them, although, I bet a lot of people deny that they make them. I have made resolutions in the past and will probably do so again. I didn't make any firm resolutions this year although always in the back of my head is that this will be the year that I finally successfully manage to make the change to a healthy lifestyle. The only thing I really want to do though is to be a faithful follower of Christ and live out his call on my life in ways that are pleasing to him.

It's not much in some ways but it's everything in others. It also isn't a New Years resolution for me but is something that I try to do every single day. However, it wouldn't hurt if I was finally successful at eating better and exercised more regularly. But if I'm only going to succeed at one of those...well you know which one.

Are you willing to admit to making a New Years resolution?