Taking Positive Steps
Posted: October 19, 2010 Filed under: aqua aerobics, computer, cooking, Costochondritis, friends, gym, knitting, Prayer, Wii, working Leave a comment »I’m back at work tomorrow and still feeling a bit fragile. However I’ve done my first group fitness class in years this afternoon – aqua aerobics and lived to tell the tale so it doesn’t appear that I am going to break any time soon.
I saw my wonderful GP yesterday expected her to to be buried under a mountain of paper work from both hospitals. She had heard from neither! After some discussion and pushing on my poor sore chest I was diagnosed with Costochondritis - Tietze’s Syndrome which is described below:
Plans for a New Year
Posted: December 31, 2009 Filed under: Anthony, Faith, Family, Food, health, home making, organising, Parenting, Prayer, relief teaching, routines, sleeping, teaching, Weight Watchers, working 3 Comments »They are fairly simple but involve a lot of work and the common thread running through them all is “getting back on track”. I’ve had my time out from the workplace and from just about everything else so this is the year to step up and t
ake action in the following areas:
- Weight Loss – I won’t divulge how many kgs there are to lose but there are several. This is the year to get serious about diet and exercise.
- Family – This family needs to work together, play together and pray together.
- Home – I have the necessary skills and this is the year to put them into action.
- Career – Teaching is in my blood and I need to get back to it!
New Year’s Day has been a slow one for us. I’m taking the boys to see Fantastic Mr Fox this afternoon.
Living with Negativity Part 1
Posted: December 8, 2009 Filed under: Faith, Living with Negativity, Prayer Leave a comment »All of us have someone in our lives that is less than positive and quite often it is someone we have to live with and deal with on a day to day basis. I’ve been thinking about how I deal with people who are negative recently and I’ve worked on this series of posts to outline my ways of managing life with a negative person. I’m certainly no expert on relationships or personal development of anything else but in this series I’m just going to share what has worked for me and if it helps someone else that’s an added bonus.
1. Pray for them
The negative person might be the last person you want to pray for but I find that if there is absolutely nothing I can do to change the person’s attitude in the short term then it is of some small comfort to me to pray for them. At least then I am doing something positive and I can meditate on the ways of improving the situations. The negative people in my life are the first ones in my prayers each night because they are my biggest challenges. It really does give me peace when perhaps it hasn’t been a good day or any other strategies I have employed haven’t worked. It can always be placed before God.
Your Will Be Done
Posted: November 25, 2009 Filed under: blessings, Faith, Family, Prayer 4 Comments »I was asked today about where I was on my faith journey. I’ll confess that I didn’t answer the question very well at the time and as a result have had it ticking away at the back of my mind ever since. When I was a youngster I believed what I was told to believe and prayed or tried to pray in the way that I was told. Somehow or other I was always too busy and active to linger in bed and say a morning offering. As a young adult I questioned a lot of things about my faith but I continued to practice as a catholic. My faith was one thing in my life I could depend upon. It was around this time that I started to pray for things to happen. I wanted a job. I wanted a job in another place. I wanted a husband. And oh how I wanted babies! The whole Conception/Pregnancy saga was the greatest test of my faith so far and I daresay it was the same for my husband although he doesn’t talk about it. Once Eric, then Daniel were here I would pray for God to make me a good mother and a good teacher, to help me do the best I could in all my jobs.
However life doesn’t go to plan and really the events surrounding the birth of Eric and then Daniel were just the start of life not going to plan. I didn’t plan on having a premie baby, not being able to breastfeed, having post natal depression or returning to work in term 4 to teach Year 7! I didn’t plan on a baby with severe reflux and even more post natal depression. I wasn’t intending on continuing to suffer from anxiety and depression in varying degrees until the present day. I certainly wasn’t going to have burnout in 2007 or decide to give up my job in 2009.
But all of those things were in God’s plan for me. They have made me the person I am today and I wouldn’t change any of them. What I would change and have changed to a certain extent is my acceptance of these things. I start to pray and start asking God for things and then I stop and wonder what God’s plan for me is in all of this. Then I start to pray again and this time it is simply for the strength to handle whatever life will throw at me. I trust that God will only send me things that I can handle or learn to handle and this trust has given me great peace. The phrase “Your will be done” as spoken by Jesus in the garden at Gethsemane constantly springs to mind. God is going to continue to challenge me with events in my life but I can handle anything because if my faith in Him. I don’t need to endlessly petition him for what I want. He will give me what I need.
The Beginning of a Journey
Posted: October 6, 2009 Filed under: Eric, Parenting, Prayer, Sacraments 1 Comment »
I haven’t got much today because I was cursed with a migraine once again so most of the day wasa write-off. Tonight A and I attended the first parent meeting for the Parish Sacramental Program. Eric will make his first Reconciliation in November this year and then receive his first Communion and Confirmation on June 6 next year. And so it begins. Tonight was a lot of information about upcoming meetings and some things to do with our children to get them more acclimatised to the Church, Prayer and Sacraments. We have been very slack with attending Mass and we really need to improve in that area. Luckily there are two really good Masses we can attend in the school parish so that is encouraging. The program leader advised making it more of an occasion by going out for coffee afterwards or going to visit friends etc. She also discussed many ideas for bringing prayer into the home – something we are sorely in need of. So this will be another project for me in the coming weeks. I’ll leave you with the parent’s prayer that we shared tonight because I think it applies to all parents, teachers and people who havea role in the lives of children.
Heavenly Father, make me a better parent. Teach me to understand my children, to listen patiently to what they have to say, and to answer all their questions kindly. Keep me from interrupting or contradicting them. Make me as courteous to them as I would have them be to me. May I never laugh at their mistakes, or resort to ridicule when they displease me. Bless me with the confidence to grant them all their reasonable requests and the courage to deny them privileges I know will do them harm. May I not rob them of the opportunity to think, to choose and to make decisions for themselves. Make me fair and just and kind. And fit me, O Lord, to be loved and respected and imitated by my children Cary C. Myers
