A Grateful Heart: Week 1

Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.

                                                                                                                          
                                                                                     Philippians 4:6


I just love this verse. Maybe part of my love is that I know that I do worry too much about things that I shouldn't. I should go to the Lord in prayer over everything. I am the first one to ask my hubby if he prayed about something, but I need to listen to my own advice. And I really need to start focusing on thanksgiving. I want to thank the Lord for all the good that is in my life right now.

So I want to start, each Monday, sharing something that I am thankful or grateful for. And I want to invite you to share what you are grateful or thankful for too. Being grateful is an important step in being content and connecting with God.

This week I am thankful for the newest hive of bees. One day, the hubby was checking our bees and found that a swarm or something else had taken up shop in some of our empty equipment. It was a lovely surprise. It may seem like a small thing, but these honey bees give us quite a bit of hope and happiness.

Now it is your turn!

Troubles with Regrouping (Carrying in Addition)

Sometimes math can seem like a foreign language, to students and even some teachers. I have always loved math, and thought about things mathematically, but after becoming a teacher and a mom, you can see first hand, that not all brains think alike. And not all methods will work for everyone.

Here is an example from a typical day working with a student (sometimes even my older students make this error.)

      
                           67
          +      48
                105

Now, you might argue that the person could have just used a calculator, but that isn't the point here. It is good to be able to do some calculations quickly in your mind. And it is good to have number sense about how things work. We can get into why I think these things are important in another post, because instead, I would like to show you another way of thinking through this problem that might just help.

When I was in school, I was taught to "carry". These days I think they are calling it "regrouping" because you are taking a group of ones and writing as a ten. You might remember writing a little one on top of the 6 because 7 + 8 = 15 and we have 1 ten and 5 ones. This method is great and works for many people. And I am not saying you should stop using it. I still do.

                              1
                  67
          +      48
                115
What I am saying is that this method doesn't click for all minds. If you have a child or student struggling, it may help to work it out all underneath the line. So when you add 7 + 8 and get 15, you actually write 15. And then when you add the 6 and 4 you think of them as 6 tens and 4 tens or 60 and 40 to make 100. Finally, you would add these together to get 115.
                   67
          +      48
                  15
           +   100 
                115

This builds on the knowledge and understanding of place value. We want students to see what each digit stands for in the problem and make sense of the answer.

If you have a little one having some trouble adding two or three digit numbers, you might just want to give this technique a try. Let me know if it helps.

Exhaustion... Adrenal Fatigue?

     

         Photo Credit:  Eugene0126jp

One of the things I have been reading a ton about is reducing stress to live a happier life. I am pretty sure I am in the midst of completely shutting down. I think some might call it adrenal fatigue. (I am not sure that is really technically the right thing to call this, but let's roll with it as the science doesn't seem to have a proper name yet...) I don't know what I would call this. It is pure exhaustion. I don't want to get out of bed, but not because I don't want to face the day. I love life and I am excited to have another chance at it each and every day. I literally don't have energy to move or open my eyes, or even think. I have officially gone too far... I am guessing that there are those of you out there that understand.

Now I am not going to get into all the science. For one, I am not qualified to do so. And two, that is not the point here. I know that there are thyroid, pituitary and adrenal issues going on here. I know that many of my hormones are acting wonky! So let's just talk about some basics.

Some of my signs and symptoms that I can think of off the top of my head:

* Difficulty getting up
* Difficulty handling stress (And this one really stinks, because I was really good at this!)
*  Dark circles under eyes
* Weight Gain (Yet another really sucky symptom, because I eat clean and it just isn't fair that my stress is making me fat! And it is all in the midsection. Oh what fun!)
* Tingly fingers and poor circulation
* Super extreme exhaustion after exercise. (Another that I just don't understand. I used to run 12 miles a day... which probably helped get me to this situation, but anyways... I was the queen of exercise. Now I try to get rid of this belly and I feel like I am going into a coma. What the hell is happening to me....)
*Frequent urination (This with the tiredness and weight gain had me thinking I was pregnant. But oh no...)
* Dizziness.
Lower back pain. Seriously. I think I can feel my adrenal glands hurting. What is this???
* Low Blood Pressure. I have always had this, but I feel like it is worse and that my Type A, stressful nature has just been building and building and building to a final collapse.
* Craving salts and sweets.
* Moody, irritable, constant mood swings
* Body aches
* Trouble concentrating
* Feeling really overwhelmed
* Crazy hormone issues


Now here is my question to all of you out there. How do you fix it? Yes, I understand there are tons of people out there that quit jobs, went on month long vacations, just stopped doing stuff and rested. But what about those of us that this is not an option for? I can't quit my jobs. I support our family. I can't just stop cooking or doing the laundry or cleaning. And let's be honest, I cannot afford to pay someone to do these things either. It just isn't realistic. I have tried to get the kids to help out. But again, let's be honest. They can only help with so much and sometimes fighting to get them to do it isn't worth it everyday. So what do you do?

I guess for now, here is what I am trying:

1. Continuing to stay away from processed sugar and processed foods in general. This includes items with caffeine. NO matter how tired I am.

2. Making sure to get enough healthy fats. (Coconut oil, grassfed butter, avocados, etc.)

3. Using some of my supplements: B vitamins, C vitamins and my homemade magnesium oil, vitamin D, zinc, etc.

4. Saying NO to whatever I can. It is not a long list, but some things I am just saying NO. This is a hard one too. But the extra things just are not happening right now. (Whatever happened to just saying NO anyways? Who decided we had to be superstars at everything and overbook ourselves into oblivion?)

5. Finding fun. This one is also hard. But I am trying to find more ways to have a little fun. A short walk, putting my work down to giggle with the kids for  few minutes, dancing to fun music, trying new recipes, etc.

6. Getting outside more. This is a hard one as the bugs are everywhere trying to eat me, but I am trying. I have been trying to get outside even to work, but sadly this doesn't work all the time.

7. Having a thankful and grateful heart. More to come on this.

Here are some things I seriously need to work on:

1. Eating regularly. Yep, I'm that person with the extra weight that doesn't even eat. I forget in the midst of homeschooling and working 80,000 hours.

2. Getting 8 - 10 hours of sleep. Well, I got to bed around 4 am last night... So yeah.... Not sure when this one will get better. I don't know how to earn enough to pay the bills during regular hours.

3. And I need to stop all the negative self talk. That is another biggy. It is hard when you want everything to be perfect and it just isn't. It is hard when you are trying your best and still gaining weight and losing energy. But this is a big one that only I can change.

How are you doing? Have you suffered from adrenal fatigue or just pure exhaustion? What things helped you? What do you still have to work on?

More Giveaways you can actually use...

I know, I know. I say this all the time. I love giveaways, especially when I win or when someone I know and love wins.

Here are some of my favorites that I thought you might like.

Like going to yoga class, but can't seem to get out of the house or make the specific times? You can win a year of streaming free yoga classes here.

There is another workout system giveaway here. It is called Fe Fit and I think it includes a 90 day workout.

Win a free camera here. These cameras actually look nice too. I always use my phone and it just doesn't take nice pictures. We are saving for a camera, but somehow the money always ends up going to diapers or grass fed beef...

And there is another giveaway for a pretty cool camera here too. It looks like this giveaway is good internationally as well.

Enter to win some Kouzini spices and olive oil. When I was on the sight, there were under 400 entries!

The Homegrown Paleo Cookbook is being given away here. You will have to join the mailing list to enter.

There is a cookbook and other paleo ingredients being given away on this blog as well. The ingredients and the cookbook look delicious.

If you shop at Kohl's, you can put your name in the hat for one of two $50 giftcards. Just go here.

And be sure to enter for a $50 Amazon Giftcard here. This one expires in 3 days, so hurry!

I will add more as I find them. And be sure to share if you won. Good luck!

Lining Up the Decimals... It Just Doesn't Add Up

My daughter and I have been talking a lot about math. Maybe that is because I love math, maybe it is because we home school, maybe it is because math is applicable to so many topics.... Whatever the reason may be, we have found our way to decimals.

We have begun talking about the tenths and hundredths place, we have  looked at how these decimals would appear as fractions, compared and ordered. So when I found my daughter counting up the change in her piggy bank, I figured this was the perfect time to introduce some adding.

We have a huge chalk board. I wrote the problem 0.34 + 0.15 and asked her to add. She quickly got 0.49, but it wasn't so easy for her to explain to me how she got it. She gave me the typical student response, "I just added." So then I wrote the problem 0.7 + 0.24 on the board and asked her to use any method she wanted to add them together. Again, she quickly added them together and got..... 0.31!

Seeing her answer and knowing what she had done, I found this to be a great time to go back to that piggy bank. We broke down the problem like this:

                0.7           +           0.24
             7 tenths      +      2 tenths + 4 hundredths
             7 dimes      +      2 dimes + 4 pennies

Why did we do this? Well, just simply telling students to "line up the decimal points" doesn't work because they don't understand why they are lining them up and sometimes, they don't even understand what that really means. Trust me, I saw it year after year in middle school and I even see it now with my adult students.

So first we broke it up by place value. And this might have been enough to get the point across. Now my daughter could see we have 9 tenths and 4 hundredths or 94 hundredths or 0.94 or 94/100 or 47/50.... (We like practicing writing numbers in different forms!!)
I took it another step to bring it back to the money so that she had something she could picture in her mind to help it make even more sense. Once we were done discussing, she was able to write the problem correctly, lining up the place values. But she didn't do this because I simply told her to; she did it because it now made sense. She even intuitively filled in a zero after the seven to make it 0.70 + 0.24. Time will tell if she will continue to remember how to add decimals together, but I think we are off to a good start.

Next up, throwing in some whole numbers (dollars) to see if she can figure out where they will go in the whole adding process and of course, some subtraction!

What math are you doing these days? Does math naturally appear in your every day?

The Quest for the Cures... A DocuSeries on Cancer

Life has been a little stressful, and I haven't had time to post like I would have liked. However, I wanted to be sure to share this quickly for those that might need it.

 

There is an interesting Docu Series on Cancer showing for free right now. I have not watched these all yet. In fact, I am just now watching the first episode, but it might be interesting for some of you out there.

The link to the first episode can be found here. Each episode airs for about 24 hours or so and then the next one is available. And you can find out more here as well.

Let me know what you think.

Worry, Stress and His Word

Worry does not empty tomorrow of its sorrow. It empties today of its strength.- Corrie Ten Boom

It seems that life has thrown me some recent curve balls, like it often does. And I will be the first to admit that I worry and stress way too much. And then I came across this quote that said something about worrying being the sin that Christians commit the most. Which got me thinking about how I really do need to be putting my trust in God. I am really really really far from perfect, and I have a tough time trusting and not worrying. And it is quite possibly the silliest thing I could do. Yes, life has been hard. Yes, sometimes times are difficult. And yes, sometimes things do not end the way I planned or without heartbreak, but I have always made it through and I will make it through this too.

Knowing that so many others are stressed and worrying, I wanted to share some of the versus that are helping me to keep going.



Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.

Matthew 6:34

And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful.

Colossians 3:15

 

 Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me.

Psalm 23:4

 

Cast your cares on the LORD and he will sustain you; he will never let the righteous be shaken.

 

Psalm 55:22

 

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