Category: Growth

I Woke Up Today

9/3/2013

Sequoia High Sierra Camp - Waking up to beauty!

I woke up today.
Today is my birthday.
Today is another day with no mistakes...yet.
Today's mistakes will certainly lead to tomorrow's wisdom.
I hope I wake up tomorrow to apply one, and learn from the other...again.

Today, I appreciate breathing.
Breathing leads to laughing, and I absolutely LOVE laughing!
The laughter of my kids is the best.
When they make me laugh with an inside joke, I can't believe how lucky I was to wake up.

The sunshine, fog, heat, rain and snow are all welcome when I wake up.
I woke up to sun, then walked the dogs today.
I woke up, and was thankful for the amazing man who has been waking up by my side for 30 years.
Flaws and all, I'm glad he puts up with mine too.
I'm glad I know the difference between annoying flaws and downright dangerous ones, and hope the same for you!

I woke up today, and finished my 50th year of waking up.
Here's to year 51...may I wake up to greet every day of it.

Thanks for sharing the days with me, and here's to waking up tomorrow.
See you then.

Mary Kathryn Johnson
Author ~ Entrepreneur ~ Mom

@SayBumpandTweet
Everything MommyLoves
Say Bump and Take a Left

10 Comments

05 Things I'll Do Before Turning 50. If I'm Not Dead, I'm Not Done.

6/17/2013

2 Comments

Right before chopping off 10 inches!

2013 is the culmination of my 50th year of life. All my over 50 Pixel Pals are nodding their heads saying, "Been there, Done that." Of course, they know I'm only half way through this journey, and can understand my taking stock to see what's coming around the bend.

I, like all others before me, am feeling the clock ticking faster, and am responding with trying to do more by this mid-century mark. So, here is my 05 by 50 list for your reading and laughing pleasure.

Go Skydiving
Appreciate my curves enough so that I can walk on a beach in a bathing suit without sucking in my stomach
Chop off my long hair and donate it (DONE!)
Finish one of my novels
Pay my monthly mortgage from writing

I'll keep you posted as time goes by. I have until September 2013 to do these five things!

Here's to the next 50 years!

What did you do, or will you do by the time you turn 50?

Mary Kathryn Johnson
Author ~ Entrepreneur ~ Mom

@SayBumpandTweet
Everything MommyLoves
Say Bump and Take a Left

All that is left! LOVE IT!

2 Comments

Hope Faith Courage

3/18/2013

6 Comments

Hope is wishing you could change your life.

Faith is believing you could change your life.

Courage is changing your life.

The ONLY requirement for change is Courage. All else is pavement of the path to courage.

What in your life do you have the courage to change?

Mary Kathryn Johnson
Author ~ Entrepreneur ~ Mom

@SayBumpandTweet
Everything MommyLoves
Say Bump and Take a Left

6 Comments

You

2/4/2013

6 Comments

Are you getting discouraged with your goal to lose weight or get healthy in 2013, just like every other year? Well, I have a secret that could just be the magic pill!

Ready?

This isn't a call to...follow this particular weight loss technique, and you, too, could look like me! If you looked like me, there would be two of us, and you would have to be the evil twin.

Find what is right for YOU!

How? Start by sitting down, taking a deep breath, and shutting up! That includes your thoughts, don't let them shout at you that you should be vacuuming, or fixing dinner, or writing that blogpost, or finding out what your silent toddler is up to...well, that one you better listen to. Go ahead, I'll wait.

When you sit and listen, you just might see where you need to put the most energy to make yourself a better version of yourself.

Is it what you eat?
Is it how fast you eat?
Is it how often you eat?
Is it your activity level? (or lack thereof)
Is it your activity frequency? (or lack thereof)
Is it your triggers to eat, like stress, boredom, TV watching, picking off the kids' plates, tasting while cooking?
Is it your late night snacking?
Is it that you DON'T eating breakfast?

I guarantee that if you sit quietly for a few minutes a day, and focus on just one change you want to make in your life, you will start acting toward that change. It takes 21 days of daily focus to change a habit. We have passed that date in the New Year, and will pass it again next month, and next year.

You might as well focus now for long term change, because no "diet" will help you maintain a healthy lifestyle once you lose weight. Only your daily focus will do that.

If, after listening quietly, you find that you are just fine the way you are, then Fantastic! I bet you have more to learn in life, because you are human, by the way, and that means decidedly not perfect. There must be something you need to do to improve upon that amazing package? Internal and external change have their roots in your mind and attitude every time.

So sit and listen at least once a day. Call it whatever you want...taking a breath...me time...meditation...finding your smile...calming down so you don't spew at someone...whatever! We all need a moment, and if that moment moves us forward toward our goals,

THAT'S THE POINT!

Mary Kathryn Johnson
Author ~ Entrepreneur ~ Mom

@SayBumpandTweet
MommyLoves to Chat!
Everything MommyLoves
Say Bump and Take a Left

6 Comments

Beauty, not Pretty

9/18/2012

4 Comments

They are the pretty ones. Their makeup is flawless, hair shiny and coiffed. Their look is arranged right down to the bulging biceps or slim waist.

They are admired by the masses, and the masses monitor themselves by the pretty mirror.

Son, I know you are attracted to pretty. We all are at first. True beauty, however, goes much deeper and reveals itself through many layers.

Beauty is created through depth of experience.

Beauty sometimes blossoms in the smallest, most fragile form, and may only reveal itself in that
fleeting, delightful moment.

A colorful display is not necessary to experience the deep sweetness of beauty. We may need to close our eyes sometimes to sense it.

Cactus Flowers in Firey Furnace, Arches National Park

However, when beauty unfolds in the harshest, most difficult conditions you know it has reached it's
truest depth and strength.

To find beauty, son, tend your own garden, and the beauty will find you.

Mary Kathryn Johnson
Author ~ Entrepreneur ~ Mom

@SayBumpandTweet
MommyLoves to Chat!
Everything MommyLoves
Say Bump and Take a Left

4 Comments

Opinions are Like...

8/13/2012

4 Comments

...you fill in that statement.

Mary Kathryn Johnson
Author ~ Entrepreneur ~ Mom

@SayBumpandTweet
MommyLoves to Chat!
Everything MommyLoves
Say Bump and Take a Left

4 Comments

Dadjectives

6/14/2012

9 Comments

Shocked
Scared
Loving and Protective

Worried
Oblivious
Trying to Help

Awestruck
Fumbling
Cautious and Tentative

Overtired
Annoyed
Looking to Escape.

Learning
Adapting
Teaching and Encouraging

                                                                                   Changing
                                                                                   Responsible
                                                                                   Waiting to Play

                                                                                   Amazed
                                                                                   Relieved
                                                                                   Helping and Surprising

                                                                                   Growing
                                                                                   Admired
                                                                                   Showing the Way.

                                                                                   Older
                                                                                   Proud
                                                                                   Honored and Dignified

                                                                                   Wiser
                                                                                   Content
                                                                                   Still the Love

                                                                                   Knowing
                                                                                   Enlightened
                                                                                   Happy and Satisfied

                                                                                   Peaceful
                                                                                   Insightful
                                                                                   Offering the Dove.

Mary Kathryn Johnson
Author ~ Entrepreneur ~ Mom

@SayBumpandTweet
MommyLoves to Chat!
Everything MommyLoves
Say Bump and Take a Left

9 Comments

20 Quotes for a Rhythm Change

4/26/2012

6 Comments

Have you ever seen a friend after they had drifted out of your life years ago, and were surprised how much their life had changed, but they actually stayed the same and had not grown? Our lives change all the time, how we adapt, and change ourselves to dance to the new rhythm matters. Don't sweat it, just close your eyes, listen and teach yourself the new dance steps. Some of us change our rhythm monthly, seasonally, yearly or only once a decade (God Forbid!), but until my drum is lying in a heap of ashes in a box, I will continue to listen to my own rhythm and dance. Here are some of my favorite quotes that help me stop and listen. Join me?!

"If you're in a bad situation, don't worry it'll change. If you're in a good situation, don't worry it'll change." — John A. Simone, Sr.
"Do not follow where the path may lead. Go, instead, where there is no path and leave a trail." — Ralph Waldo Emerson
“When there is nothing left to lose, we find the true self-the self that is whole, the self that is enough, the self that no longer looks to others for definition, or completion, or anything but companionship on the journey. — Elizabeth Lesser
"Courage doesn't always roar. Sometimes courage is the quite voice at the end of the day saying, 'I will try again tomorrow.'" — Mary Anne Radmacher
“At the center of your being you have the answer; you know who you are and you know what you want.” — Lao Tzu
"Let him who would move the world, first move himself." – Socrates
"Life is not measured by the number of breathes we take, but by the moments that take our breath away." — Maya Angelou
"Turn your wounds into wisdom." — Oprah Winfrey
"Great achievement is usually born of great sacrifice, and is never the result of selfishness." — Napoleon Hill
"I can be changed by what happens to me. But I refuse to be reduced by it." — Maya Angelou
"If you can find a path with no obstacles, it probably doesn't lead anywhere." — Frank A. Clark
"Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional." — M. Kathleen Casey
“I shut my eyes in order to see.” – Paul Gauguin
"The trouble with most of us is that we would rather be ruined by praise than saved by criticism." — Norman Vincent Peale
"If you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change." — Wayne Dyer
"There are two primary choices in life: to accept conditions as they exist, or accept the responsibility for changing them." — Denis Waitley
"Compassion brings us to a stop, and for a moment we rise above ourselves." — Mason Cooley
"The first time someone shows you who they are, believe them." — Maya Angelou
"The way to love anything is to realize that it might be lost." — G.K. Chesterton
"All the advice in the world will never help you until you help yourself." — Fred Van Amburgh

What rhythm makes you dance right now? I'm dancing to "Rumor has it" by Adele right after I hit 'publish'! I can't help it - that beat gets me every time.

Mary Kathryn Johnson
Author ~ Entrepreneur ~ Mom

@SayBumpandTweet
MommyLoves to Chat!
Everything MommyLoves
Say Bump and Take a Left

6 Comments

Parent Virtuoso

4/23/2012

2 Comments

My 10 year old Riley, like all kids, takes injustice very seriously. I was talking to him about a recent injustice he observed (okay, I had contradicted myself, and he caught me...what of it?!) and I brought in the "Babies don't come with an owner's manual" quote. The puzzled expression on his face prompted the following discussion:

Mom - "Well, babies don't come with instructions as to how to raise them. Parents can only draw on their own childhood and the way they were raised, and read books by other parents who have raised their children, but even that isn't perfect, because every new baby is unique."

Riley - "Huh?"

Mom - Raising children isn't like building legos - at least you have an instruction booklet that tells you how to build your legos. I don't have anything like that! And, even having big brother first doesn't make me a parent who automatically knows how to raise you - you are different from Evan."

Riley - "So, it's like when I go to the lego box, and just build something from my imagination without any instructions?"

Mom - "Yes! Don't you start building sometimes, and attach a piece that just doesn't feel right, then take it off and try another piece that fits better?"

Riley - "Yeah, lots of times! And, most of the time I don't know what I'm building except that it is something that flies or is a creature, so I just make it up as I go along and see what it becomes."

Mom - "That's exactly like being a parent, only with living things that have their own ideas of what they want to become, and say 'I don't want that piece there, I want it here!'"

Riley - "Oh, that must be hard."

Mom - (Sigh...I feel better now)

As a consequence of this conversation, I have a new motto for parenting:

Having a child automatically makes one a good parent just as having Legos automatically makes one an Engineer!

Or...having a stove automatically makes one a Chef!
Or...having a keyboard automatically makes one a Writer!
Or...having a piano automatically makes one a Virtuoso!

Take your pick...

Mary Kathryn Johnson
Author ~ Entrepreneur ~ Mom

@SayBumpandTweet
MommyLoves to Chat!
Everything MommyLoves
Say Bump and Take a Left

2 Comments

Michelangelo Mama

2/3/2012

5 Comments

I can empathize with Michelangelo.

So what if I'm 500 years too late. When he looked at a hard edged, raw piece of marble, he not only saw the strength and beauty it could become, but he also artfully worked with the strengths and weaknesses of the stone. He was said to believe that every stone had within it a beautiful sculpture, and the work of the artist was simply to chip away all the extra stone to reveal the treasure within.

This is exactly how I see parenting, only in the case of our children, the sculpture chips away at itself, and we parents only help guide the chisel and mallet.

Time, practice and artistic sensitivity, I am told, make a master sculptor. These are the same skills I need to become a Master Parent.

I only have 18 short years to help sculpt my two sons, and I do not have innumerable slabs of raw, hard edged youths on which to practice. My only assets when that pink, messy newborn was placed in my awestruck embrace are the time and practice I have taken in sculpting myself, and a loving parent's sensitivity.

Since each child is just as unique as each piece of marble (or diamond if you really think about it), parenting one child is completely different from parenting another. So, to be a good parent, I really need to understand myself first. My sculpture of myself will ultimately determine my ability to help sculpt my children. A recent experience with my youngest helped me fully appreciate how 'chiseled' I actually am (pun absolutely intended).

My nine year old was having issues with a friend at school. This friend happened to be a girl. This girl and my son have been friends and had 'play dates' since they were both four. Last year, they both entered 4th Grade, and everything started changing. My little man came home angry and depressed quite often, and when I asked him what was wrong, he would say, "I can't believe (this girl) isn't nice anymore!" When I asked why he thought she wasn't nice, he would just say, "She's hanging out with mean people, and saying mean things" and I couldn't get him to go further than name some girls who I knew were 'gossipy' and then recite some of their gossip - you know the type. Since my son and this girl didn't usually hang out together at school anymore - 4th Grade girls and boys usually don't mix - I knew he had to be observing her group of school friends from a distance, and picking up on things that weren't immediately obvious. After a few days of this same conversation about this girl, I realized this wasn't just his typical dramatic tendency, and I had to delve a little deeper.

The next time we played out this scene, I asked my son, "What is (this girl) doing exactly that shows you she is mean?" He immediately went on a tirade about how she was ignoring him, and hanging out with a 'mean boy' at school. She called this mean boy her 'boyfriend'! "How could she be a nice girl when she calls this mean boy her boyfriend?" he screamed, his eyes glistening.

I mentally took out my sculpting tools, and asked my beautiful, brown-eyed boy, "Are you sad because this girl doesn't call you her boyfriend?" The floodgates opened, and he buried his face in my neck. I held back my own tears as tightly as I held him, and when he calmed down a bit, I helped my son handle his first rejected crush. Over the next several days, I helped him find not only the confidence to stay true to his own character, but also the knowledge that this confidence will draw others with a similar character to him like a Paleontologist is drawn to the dirt. (Just ask him anything about dinosaurs!) Now, about a year later, he and this girl are close again, and he can more easily weather the female pre-pubescent mood swings that have begun.

I could not have acquired these specific parenting skills without first becoming a Master Self Sculptor. My book, Say Bump and Take a Left depicts the lessons I learned when I broke both my legs while I was 8 months pregnant with my youngest, and how these lessons helped me birth a baby and two businesses. I learned not to give in to my anger and depression at having casts on both legs up to the knee, an almost full-term bump and the care of a toddler, since I also had the support of a walker, a bedside commode and an amazingly patient husband. In other words...I, and only I am in control of how I feel and act about the situations I encounter in this journey through life. My broken legs while pregnant journey helped chip away that last chunk of my own strengths vs. weaknesses insecurity, and the resulting book takes the reader on this 'road less traveled' with lots of laughter and a few tears.

Because my children are made of skin and not marble, I'm sure I will sometimes chip away in the wrong place, or hit the mallet a little too hard on occasion, but I know the overall sculpture will not be ruined. These little chips in their marble will simply provided a place on which they will be able to perfect themselves as adults (either with or without the help of therapy). 18 years are certainly not long enough to create a perfect human masterpiece...they will have to do some of the work!

What more can we as parents ask for than to help our children acquire as 'chiseled' a psyche as David's physique?

Mary Kathryn Johnson
Author ~ Entrpreneur ~ Mom

5 Comments

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I Woke Up Today

05 Things I'll Do Before Turning 50. If I'm Not Dead, I'm Not Done.

Hope Faith Courage

You

Beauty, not Pretty

Beauty is created through depth of experience.

Opinions are Like...

Dadjectives

20 Quotes for a Rhythm Change

Parent Virtuoso

Michelangelo Mama

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