Ink Be Gone

My Baby A is an active toddler and that is saying the LEAST.  Just today he managed to empty a bottle of water on the ground and then within a few seconds threw a can of Coke across the tile, making it explode onto the walls, floors, rug and me. I t was a great night.  I know what you’re thinking, “wow, do you ever watch your child?”  The answer is yes, he does these things as I am watching him.  The problem is that I can’t get to him fast enough to stop it.

So I never know what to expect.  The other day, he found a pen and decided to write on our wood table. I called my mom and she found this little trick on the Internet.  IT WORKED! Here is the recipe.

What you need:

1. Baking Soda
2. Water
3. Pledge (optional)

What you do:

1. Mix some soda and water into a paste
2. Then, take a little bit on a soft rag and rub it on the area. S lowly but surely, it will come off.
3. After I got it off, I cleaned the table and then sprayed it with Pledge Wood Oil Cleaner to give it the polished look. 

IT WORKED - Rejoicing in the Present

Guest Blog: Enviroment of Peace

Courtney with Women Living Well is starting a "Making your Home a Haven" Fall Challenge. This is the first week and it was very convicting. Due to some health reasons, I have been quite hard to live with. We need peace in our family and I know I starts with me. Thank you Courtney for this challenge...

 

Edith Shaeffer says:

“We are an environment, each one of us.

We are an environment for the other people with whom we live, the people with whom we work, the people with whom we communicate…our conversations, attitudes, behavior, response or lack of response, hardness or compassion, our love or selfishness, joy or dullness, concern for others or self pity – all these things make a difference to the people who have to live in our environment.

 

Enthusiasm and excitement infect other people: expectancy that God can intervene and do something in this moment of history and doing something practical to show that expectancy in prayer, affects the attitudes of other people.”

 

Have you ever considered that you are an environment?

 

What type of environment are you?

 

Do you lay in bed, with clothes in a heap on your floor, sighing and moaning about all the work that has to be done in your day or are you cheery in the morning, welcoming your children to the breakfast table, praying with them as they enter their day, tidying up morning dishes without complaint…

 

Life is certainly not all butterflies and roses…but because we are Christians – we are to reflect Christ in our environment.  And the only way we can reflect Christ and his peace is by going to him and asking for it.

 

Seeking it.

 

Pursuing it.

 

It won’t happen by accident.

Here is this week’s challenge:

Go buy an extra large candle and light it everyday in your home. I will be starting mine in the morning but if you work – you can start yours at dinner time and let it burn until you go to bed. Do what makes sense for your family. I will be placing mine in the kitchen – the main hub of my home.

Each time the candle catches your eye, say a prayer for peace in your home.

Philippians 4: 6,7 says: “Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. ⁷ And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”
 

Prayer brings peace.

I love vaccuum cleaner lines on freshly vaccuumed carpet.  I love the sound of the dishwasher running at the end of the day – signaling the kitchen is clean and closed.  I love warm towels fresh out of the dryer.  I love the way the house is sparkling clean ALL at once right before guests arrive.  And I love a flickering candle on my kitchen counter.

 

I simply enjoy these gifts in life.

 

But…

They are momentary.

Soon the kids will come running into the room and wrestle around and the vaccuum cleaner lines will be gone. The dishwasher will stop running and need emptied – that’s not so fun! The towels – they’ll be cold and wet soon. And most likely, left laying on the floor somewhere. After the guests leave, the house will need cleaned all over again.

 

It’s the cycle of life.

 

But my candle.

 

My candle just keeps on burning.  Morning, noon and night it serves me.  It serves me with a flickering warm light, a pleasant scent, and a reminder to pray for peace in my home.

 

I remember long ago when I first started daily lighting my kitchen candle.  The kids came down for breakfast and asked -

 

“Who’s coming over today mommy?“

 

“No one“, I answered.

 

“Then why is there a candle lit in the kitchen?” they asked.

 

“For us!” 

 

I light the candle for us - to bless my own family.

Let’s make our homes feel more like a warm hug than a cold shoulder for all those who find refuge under our roof.

Light a candle and begin praying over your home every time the glimmer of the candle catches your eye.  Pray for peace.  Peace with each other and peace within your soul.

Thank you all so much for your accountability. I appreciate you joining me on this journey!  To see the list of upcoming challenges and giveaways -> click here.

 

**Chime In: Have you begun to light your candle?  Did your family ask “what’s up with the candle?” What scent is your candle?  And have you found a deal on candles?  Share it!

Walk with the King,

Guest Blog: How being a midwife helped me be a better physician

I stumbled upon this blog post the other day and I had to share. As many of you know, I am very PRO-Midwifery. So thanks to Aviva Romm for this insight - Rejoicing in the Present

I have many professional titles and roles: physician, midwife, herbalist, author, teacher.  Of these, being a midwife most informs and enhances all of what I do and who I am.
Midwife literally means “with woman.” But it also means, “to bring forth.” Midwives listen, coach, cheerlead, care, reassure, support, and speak truth. At my best, I am a midwife in all contexts – not just to the women I serve, but to my partner, my children, my friends, my patients. At my best I bring forth their best – their strength, confidence, and belief that they can do it. And as a midwife I am able to be patient about whether this happens quietly or with loud screaming! At my best I am deeply present and listen closely to what the people in my life are telling me. And I listen to the unsaid, as well.


When I graduated from medical school at Yale I was given an award as the most promising primary care physician in my state for that year. This was not a result of what I learned during my medical education. Being a midwife for 20 plus years prior to medical training imbued in me the art of caring that should accompany doctoring but too often doesn’t. As a physician I care for my patients with the compassion, deep presence, and heart of a midwife, whether they are giving birth or being treated for pneumonia, whether they are trying to nurse their newborn for the first time, or have suffered a stroke, leukemia, or are in their last days of their life. And because the demonstration of presence and compassion is more rare than common amongst physicians, it was noticed.

It is my understanding and internalization of the midwifery model of care, which places a partnership model and a patient-centered model first and which treats the body as wise and self-healing rather than as a machine that requires repair that makes me the physician I am. It is being a midwife that informs the care in the health care I provide to all of my patients. And it is this true caring that inspires me to do what it best for my patients, and to truly know who they are as people, not diseases.

I not only midwife my patients, but their families at their hospital bedsides and in clinic rooms. I care just as I would for an anxious expectant father or other children at a birth. I bring the whole family in.

One evening a young woman came into the hospital in imminent labor with a 28-week pregnancy. It was the mother’s own birthday. She’d been out to dinner with her family to celebrate when her water broke and she began having back-to-back contractions. She arrived at the hospital “feeling pressure” and was found to be 9 cm dilated – nearly complete and ready to push. The baby was coming fast, and given it’s small size, didn’t even need full dilatation to emerge. We were in a small community hospital unequipped for the care of a severely premature baby, so it was quite a chaotic scene – trying to stall an imminent birth and arrange medical transport for the about-to-be newborn.
Obstetricians, nurses, and neonatal care specialists were frenetically running in and out of the room and the woman’s family had been brusquely asked to wait in the hallway outside of the delivery room. There were so many harried care providers in the room that my assistance at the birth was superfluous. So instead, I turned my attention to the laboring woman’s very scared family – her parents, sister, and best friend, explaining in detail what was going on, and what would happen – that mom was fine, baby would be born any minute and would be resuscitated as needed, and transported to a higher level care hospital. Mom could go with baby, and they could accompany her. I apologized for the chaos, and reassured them that I would keep them apprised. For the next 30 minutes, I did exactly this, stepping in and out of the room periodically to provide reassuring updates.
After baby was born (he was healthy and ultimately did quite well) and safely transferred to a larger facility, and the family was getting ready to leave, the sister came up to me. Unbeknownst to me, she was a hospice physician at a major hospital. She told me that what I had done was the most compassionate care she’d seen, and she wanted to commend me to the hospital. I thanked her and told her this would not be necessary. Isn’t this what midwives do? Care for the whole family?
To be a midwife requires one to step outside of the confines of self and selfishness. To be awake and present and loving and creative and generous and trans-personally connected even when we would rather be in the comfort of our own beds, deep in our own private dreams. It requires one to become truly present with those in our care. Being a midwife allows us to go deeper into the primal relationship of being human than any other experience – other than perhaps hospice, which comes close, and being a mother, of course.

It means letting the fears, dreads, concerns, worries of another wash over you and allows you to take all of these and spin them into a neat ball of confidence, courage, and grace that you hand back to the woman – and remind her that this was hers all along. And it is having a strong enough sense of self that we take no credit for the success of those we’ve midwifed – we are happy to be the invisible wind beneath their wings.

Midwives, in our professional roles, truly see everything life has to offer. We see sorrow, joy, triumph, suffering, loss, and ecstasy, and we see women work so hard it makes our own teeth clench just to watch. We see birth, death, and everything in between. I have comforted women in the hours of a miscarriage, through news of a late pregnancy loss, when an older child in the family is dying of brain cancer, when the story of their child, drowned in a pool accident years before resurfaces at the time of birth, when tormenting memories of child abuse, long buried, resurface in pregnancy, when a husband’s on-going extramarital affair becomes known weeks before a woman herself is about to give birth to same husband’s baby. And we know the intense resilience of the human spirit. We see people go on. And this is a powerful gift in our own “going on.”

We go to homes where there is not a clean surface in site and accept that cup of tea and drink it, regardless. We suspend judgment. We clean the house, wash the dishes, throw in a load of laundry.  Sometimes we do deeper cleaning too — of the heart, the mind, the soul.

We know that the woman’s story is all important to her pregnancy and birth experience and outcome. Unlike many physicians who generally tend only to the physical, we go deeper into the lives of our families, and are witness to aspects of the human experience that few know, in the intimacy of this process that is pregnancy and birth process. We translate this into all of our relationships. And we know when to suspend “being the midwife.”

I am so pleased to see midwives coming into popular cultural consciousness with deserved respect – midwife Ina May Gaskin winning the Right Livelihood Award, midwife Robin Lim being recognized for her work in Bali with a CNN award, Call the Midwife, the popular BBC series being aired by PBS and receiving popular acclaim. This world needs midwives – to care for women in childbirth – and to care. I would love to hear stories about your experiences with a midwife.
Love,
Aviva

It's a date

My husband and I are very blessed with everything God has given us.  Being in the ministry, God provides for all our needs.  I'm super blessed that the income my husband earns covers our bills; but there are not always extras, so dates have to be creative. Here are some cute FREE date ideas:

1. Star Gazing
1. Take some blankets a few drinks and go on hike. Then when you have reached that beautiful spot, spread the blankets and sit down and enjoy the stars 
2. OR grab a blanket and climb on your roof. :-) The stars are beautiful up there
2. Game Night  

1. Grab some card games or your favorite board game and enjoy some fun together.
3. Free Entertainment 
1. OUTDOOR CONCERTS: Take a stroll downtown or to a local strip mall. Check around for street performers (especially on the weekends)
2. OPEN Mic: Some coffee houses have poetry reading, stand-up comedy and so on
3. ART SHOW: Many city's have free art displays
4. For Pet lovers
1. Take your dog/s to a dog park and enjoy time, while you watch your little one frolic
2. Browse the area pound or pet shop and give some animals your love
3. Volunteer at a pet shelter
5. Be a kid again
1. Go to the park and swing. Enjoy being together.
6. For the athletic couple
1. Grab some tennis rackets and head to the tennis courts
2. For that matter, you can enjoy basketball, soccer or catch. You just need the equipment
3. Go on a bike ride.
4. Play frisbee
5. Go fly a kite (you can buy these at the dollar store)
7. Movie Night
1. Make some popcorn and enjoy cuddling up with your hubby on the couch
8. Beach
1. Go to the beach. Check it out ahead of time, but some beaches are free
2. Take a walk, have a stone-skipping contest...
9. Free Zoo Days
1. Most zoo's offer a few free days through out the year
10. Attend a Farmer Market
1. See what is growing in the area. Check out the locals
11. Go for a test drive
1. Go check out your dream car and give it a spin.
12. Winter Dates
1. Go sledding, skiing or snowboarding
2. Afterwards you can warm up with some hot chocolate or coffee
13. Photo Shoot
1. Enjoy a fun night of taking pictures of each other and together. You can make up lots of crazy backgrounds and costumes
14. YARD SALE
1. One man's trash is another man's treasure. Try to find a cheap treasure and then take it home and redo it for your house. 

Do you have any ideas? Comment below and add your ideas. - Rejoicing in the present

Guest Blog: How to Win Giveaways

I thought this blog post was quite interesting. I haven't every won anything online or through a blog but MAYBE after this, I will. :-) This is from barefoothippiegirl. - Rejoicing in the Present 

Ps. I now that I have shared the secret, I'm sure I never will win again. :-) 

How to Win a Giveaway

I can't say I'm an expert, but since I started entering blog giveaways last summer I've won:

a Cradle Rock cd

Neesee's Dress

Deibel 8x10 photograph

a book that changed my life 

5 Caroline G necklaces-in white, navy, purple, coral, and red

A Scoggins Noggins handmade knit hat

A random candle holder

Plus, a Starbucks gift card

a Target gift card

AND ad space on multiple blogs. Not bad...

Based on this impressive list, you'd probably think I entered a ton of giveaways and that I do every possible entry option. Or that I'm extremely lucky. Or that I have a strategy that works.

Or all of the above.

Except, I really don't enter that many giveaways. But, I do have a strategy.

Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. But, I'd say I've done pretty well.

And, I'm all about telling secrets, that are meant to be shared. So here are my winning secrets...

1. Pick the social media sites you want to follow as a win option. Personally, I always follow on Twitter and Pinterest. 

Since I follow on Twitter I still get to see new blog posts and shop offerings, and I have often started following a blog regularly because of clicking to it over and over from Twitter. And I make it a point to go through Twitter everyday, at least once or twice, scanning all the tweets of the past hour or two. This allows me to interact with the people I follow, making friends. Not just following for a giveaway.

And, generally, by following someone new on Pinterest, my horizons get opened to pins that I wouldn't normally pick for myself. Win-win.

2. Do the check out the shop/leave a comment option. It is fun to see what people are making. How do you know you even want to win a product from their shop if you don't know what they are offering?

3. On the multiple giver-giveaways, I make sure I click all the entires of the people I already follow on various social media. It is a free entry, though sometimes it is a forgotten one.

4. Enter the low number entry giveaways. Statistically speaking, in the giveaways with less entries, your chances of winning are higher. Math-you knew it would help you someday...

5. Only spend time entering the giveaways you want to enter. Not all giveaways are created equal. Nor do all contain things you really want. So, if you really don't want a month's supply of natural vitamins, don't enter that giveaway.

What I don't do:

I don't follow on Instagram-I'm not on Instagram. 

And I generally don't do FB follow options either. FB follow options are illegal. It is breaking FB rules. 

I don't follow blogs because that can get really overwhelming. (I heard of someone following 1000s of blogs. Really?) I think you can find good blogs this way, but I think there are other ways to find good blogs too.

I don't usually tweet about the giveaway for extra entries. 

And I never cheat. 

I have heard of bloggers and shop owners running giveaways, picking a winner, checking the winner's winning entry, and finding that they actually didn't do the winning option. Sometimes they have to pick  number after number before they find someone honest. This is bad, people. Bad! I won't follow a blog, or FB, or Instagram, or tweet for extra entries, and neither will I lie, and say I have. Cheating does not get you ahead in the long run. Remember that.

Off my soap box...

Sometimes I win, sometimes I lose, sometimes I sing the Blues...

What have you won in a giveaway? What are your tips?

SORRY!!!!!

Hey Friends,

I'm back! I had a rough week between putting my back out and an infection. So, I've had no energy or time to share on this blog. I hope you will forgive my absence and no explanation. This blog is definitely "an extra" in my life but I sincerely enjoy it. Please pray for me as I continue to recover, I hope I won't disappear again, but if I do, you must know I will be back soon! - Rejoicing!

Teen Activity: Photo Scavenger Hunt

Here is a great idea for a birthday party, family activity or teen activity.  My husband and I work with children and teens at our church so we have lots of random ideas.  This is always a favorite with the kids.  All you need is a little creativity and craziness.

What you need:

• Different teams (depending on how many kids you have)
• Camera
• 1 adult leader per team (also must drive)
• Kids
• List of things they must do
• A time limit

What you do:

• The point of this game is to earn the most points by taking pictures of you doing crazy things.
• Each team gets about 1 ½ hours to run around town taking pictures of whatever is on your list.
• Different pictures are worth different amounts of points

This can be A LOT of fun and a bit crazy.

Ideas for your List:

• (Team) Spell out your team leaders name (300 Points)
• 1 person standing on their head (100 Points per person)
• A group of trees that spell, W, V, T (100 points per letter)
• Holding up a police officer  (700 points)
• (Team) Making Snow Angels in a store (400)
• (Team) Swinging at a local park (200)
• (Team) Silly Faces in a Mirror (300)
• Jumping in the air (300)
• Standing on top of a car (300)
• Spell out YMCA in front of the YMCA

(Team = The whole team must be in the picture except for the leader)

BONUS TEAM COMPETITION:

• Picture of a person with the longest hair (500)
• Weirdest Picture (500)
• Funniest Picture (500)
• Farthest Distance you had to go to get the picture (500)
• How could you do that? Picture (500)
• Ugliest Animal Picture (500)

These are just a few ideas... if you have some other suggestions, please feel free to leave your ideas in the comments below. - Rejoicing in the Present