From our home to yours, we are wishing all fathers, dads, step-dads, and grandpas a Happy Father's Day! You are all so vitally important in your children's lives, and we take this day to salute you! All of the love, guidance, protection, prayer, hard work and sacrifices that you make for your family are always loved and appreciated!
Want to take a moment and give a special shout out to my husband and my dad. Two of the most supportive and wonderful dads ever! I love you both more than words could ever express! You both show strength, determination, love and support, create laughter and memories for our families to cherish. I love that our children have such strong men in their lives to look up to as role models, love how they always run with open arms to their dad and papa when they come home, and love that our children are so unconditionally loved by them both! I thank God every day that He has blessed us with both of you. I could not have had a better father to raise my sister and I, or a better husband to love and raise our children with! We are one big, happy, crazy, blended family! <3 <3 <3 Thank you to all soldiers past, present and future. For your sacrifice, bravery and compassion. Your loyalty to our country knows no bounds. For those serving out of country, may you be safe and return home soon.
Thank you to the families of our soldiers for your sacrifice of missed moments and memories. For your sleepless nights and worry. You too are brave. For the ones that didn't return, may your ultimate sacrifice always be honored. My simple thank you will never be enough, but I thank you anyways. To all of the moms of the world... Wishing you all a beautiful and happy Mother's Day! We truly have the best 'job' ever! I could not have said it any better! I love that we have a special day to focus awareness on living greener, with less impact and lower carbon footprints on our world, but in reality - it's a lifestyle. Just like healthy living, working out, etc it takes commitment! That's why every day is Earth Day! Thankfully we live within walking distance to several parks, our community library, the grocery store, the movie store - just about everything we need is within walking range! This morning I needed to get some groceries for the rest of our week, so I loaded up our youngest in the jogger and jogged to the store, purchased our groceries and jogged back. Now, not only did I not use our gas-fueled truck but I also got in some quick cardio - two birds with one stone! Go me! But this is a normal thing for us, we will take our bikes to go to the park and the library - anything to not only be healthier to our environment, but also get in some exercise for our family! We also are very serious about the 3 R's in our house: Reduce, Reuse and Recycle. I make conscious efforts to buy things that are either reusable, or if not reusable at least it's recyclable. In all honesty, our recycle can which is larger than our trash can, is always full every week since we recycle everything that possibly can be recycled. I've even switched to two "trash" cans in our home, one large one for recycle and one regular for the trash. On top of that, I do like to save scraps, peelings, egg shells, etc for our compost pile. I like to add it to the pile, give it a spin and when it's broken down enough, I use that on our flower beds. Recently, we've switched to Green Mountain energy as our electric provider. Not only is this a little better priced that our previous electricity provider, but on top of that it provides majority of the energy from renewable resources - upwards of 70%!! That's amazing to me! Also, we like to keep the temp in our home set at 80 degrees in the summer. That sounds incredibly warm, but when you run the fans, you would never even tell what the temp is. Believe it or not, running the fans 24/7 is lower electricity cost than running your A/C constantly to keep it at a lower temperature. Below is an infographic with some other ideas of ways to make a positive impact on our planet, daily, weekly, monthly and yearly! © Cruzin' Thru | 2014
This is the day that Jesus overcame death and rose to Heaven! Beyond grateful for his sacrifice, that we may have eternal life with our Father in Heaven. Wishing you all a blessed and happy Easter from our family to yours! In honor of St. Patrick's Day, here is an old Irish blessing for you! And this one was too cute not to share! Oh, happy Monday... I really dislike starting out Mondays dealing with difficult people. I don't like dealing with difficult people at all, but it is almost a daily, constant thing in my life due to some of the people in my life that I just can't get rid of or that I have to deal with for my kids' sake.
It's times like these, when I'm having to deal with them, where I can feel negativity creep into my soul and my heart, where the devil wants me to just give in... where I could easily wallow and become this negative, ugly person... I mean, wouldn't it feel good to be the 'victim'? To totally give up, to cry and whine and carry-on in this mode of self-depreciation? But what good does that do? NONE, nada, zip, zilch! This poor attitude can seriously damage your mental health, your inner peace, heck - even your physical health. So punch the devil in the face and push aside all negative doubts and thoughts!!! I have difficult days, or rather days dealing with difficult people, but my choice is always to try and take the higher road, to think positive. I have my motivational mantras (check out my board on pinterest, links below), but I also really rely on my faith to get me through hard days and/or dealing with difficult people. I pray for my inner peace, for my acceptace of difficult people, for my ability to work with them no matter what. I pray that God would enlighten these people to think of others beyond just their limited scope. Many times I feel that these people walk through their day with blinders on, seeing what they want to see, hearing what they want to hear. I pray that God would take off those blinders, would open their eyes, their ears, their heart, their mind to the true reality of things. I pray for calm, integrity, respect between individuals - even if I'm not on the receiving end, I still pray those things for people. I pray that parents can put aside their own selfish motives to allow children to grow, prosper and flourish while creating new memories and relationships. Children need to be able to explore their world, not to be hindered because a parent is afraid. I pray that God would instill in these parents a sense of peace and calm to be able to allow your children to explore, to know that God will watch over your children and keep them safe. I pray for peace, I pray for a lot of things for the difficult people in my life, because honestly, I feel that they need it most, and could use as many prayers as possible. But I also pray for myself, to have the courage to deal with them, to let go of whatever slights they commit against me. I am a child of God, and I am not perfect. I try to see people as He would want me to see them, to treat them as He would want me to treat them. I find that I am often reciting the Serenity Prayer which really helps LOL! I do all of this for my health, for my well-being. Prayer is a powerful thing!! What are some of your favorite passages or mantras that help you? I would love to hear your suggestions! © Cruzin' Thru | 2014 And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.
1 Corinthians 13:13 |
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