30 Days of Truth..Ready or Not, Here it Comes!

     I recently had an opportunity to really reflect on my life and gain closure on some matters that went too long unaddressed so I was searching for a way to explain my progress when I came across a blog post entitled, "30 Days of Truth." What an intriguing title, eh? So after looking it over I decided I would take the challenge and do it on my own blog. Though some of these subjects seem like they will take me very close to the edge of emotional composure, I believe it might be a healthy way to release myself from many feelings as I strive to push a little farther out of the cocoon. I hope some of you will join me and challenge yourselves to teeter closer to the edge. These posts may not come in succession but I will complete all 30, I promise! 


Day 01:  Someone who made your life hell, or treated you like shit-what it did to your life.
Day 02:  Something tragic that happened to you but made your life better. Day 03 : Something you love about yourself.
Day 04 : Something you have to forgive yourself for.
Day 05:  Someone you didn’t want to let go, but just drifted.
Day 06:  Someone you need to let go, or wish you didn’t know.
Day 07 : Something you have to forgive someone for.
Day 08 : Something you hope to do in your life.
Day 09 : Something you hope you never have to do.
Day 10 : Someone who has made your life worth living for.
Day 11 : Something people seem to compliment you the most on.
Day 12 : Something you never get compliments on.
Day 13 : A band or artist that has gotten you through some tough ass days.
Day 14 : A hero that has let you down.
Day 15 : Something or someone you couldn’t live without, because you’ve tried living without it.
Day 16 : Where you see yourself in 5 years.
Day 17 : A book you’ve read that changed your views on something.
Day 18 : Your views on gay marriage.
Day 19 : If you weren't who you are who would you be?(A different path your life could've taken)
Day 20 : Your best and worst Childhood memory.
Day 21 : Someplace you want to visit the most in the world.
Day 22 : Something you wish you hadn’t done in your life.
Day 23 : Something you wish you had done in your life.
Day 24 : Make a playlist to someone, and explain why you chose all the songs. 
 Day 25 : The reason you believe you’re still alive today.
Day 26 : Have you ever thought about giving up on life? If so, when and why?
Day 27 : What’s the best thing going for you right now?
Day 28 : What motivates you in life?
Day 29 : Something you hope to change about yourself. And why.
Day 30 : A letter to yourself, tell yourself EVERYTHING you love about yourself

Let the scavenger hunt begin! The first clue is up!

As promised.. we are having an online/virtual scavenger hunt over the next few weeks to raise awareness about Cystic Fibrosis (and hopefully lead into our fundraisers) leading up to the 3 walks our team is participating in this year. (St Petersburg, FL, Atlanta, GA and Clarksville, TN). I will post questions and clues here and on Facebook; each correct response will get you an entry into the weekly prize drawings. On February 14th we will hold the grand finale drawing with the big prize pack worth almost 100$. Every person that submitted a correct response throughout the hunt will be entered into the grand prize drawing. Good luck and have fun!!
 
Question/clue #1. Each day it is critical to the health of a person with Cystic Fibrosis that they diligently follow the 4 most common therapies to help prevent complications from CF. What are the 4 things most patients do every single day? DO NOT post your reply here! Email your response to onmybutterflyjourney@gmail.com or message it to me here privately. EACH correct response to the coming questions gets you 1 entry into the drawings. Friday's drawing is a beauty gift pack with Yes to Carrots bubble bath, Aura Cacia Foam Bath and Yes to Carrots Organic Lip Balm. the 2nd and 3rd winners will each receive their choice of a Yes to Carrots Lip Balm or Hard Candy Nail Polish. Clue: This site is a great source: www.cff.org

Upcycling and Recycling for Fun (& learning!)

     Lately I've been really trying to make a more concerted effort to reduce our family's waste. Part of my effort has included finding new ways to repurpose or "upcycle" things that we would normally throw away. As anyone who has ever been on Pinterest knows, the possibilities are endless but can also be a bit overwhelming. I found myself completely overwhelmed when I was searching for ways to upcycle packaging so I decided to take the advice of everyone's favorite purple dinosaur and "Just Imagine!"

      I've come up with ideas that 1) solve an existing problem or 2) fill an existing need in our home and don't generate a ton of NEW waste in the process of creation. The end result thus far is that our home is more organized than ever, the little ones and I have spent some real quality time together creating and dreaming up our projects and we've realized as a family how little we TRULY need to be HAPPY! A sort of bonus feature has been the opportunity for me to see my children develop higher self esteem as they dream up uses for things, create a plan, follow thru and get to proudly stand back in the end and see (and enjoy) the fruits of their labor. I notice them becoming more confident and dreaming up bigger ideas almost daily! I plan to share a lot of our creations with you but today we were making a new 'kit' of upcycled items for a friend and it made me think I should share our little project. I hope you have as much fun as we do with it!

Educational Games with infant, toddler and preschool little ones!

What you need:

A few cleaned yogurt cups (we used a pack of Stonyfield Farm's Yo' Baby yogurt)

A cleaned container with a lid (we used a Talenti Gelato container)

Multiple baby food (or adult!) pouch tops in a variety of colors (we had tons of Happy Family and Revolution Foods/Plum Organics tops on hand) 

* For safety purposes you will need to snip the remaining little "threads" off the bottom of the tops. We used a few Sprout baby food tops and they do not leave plastic "threads" behind so they're another great option.*

 Upcycled/Repurposed Yogurt cups, Gelato container and Baby food pouch tops

      After cleaning everything, decorate them to your liking. We now have several Talenti Containers we've repurposed and some have been painted while others we cut out pictures and modge podged them to the container. In the photo above you can see we painted the Talenti container orange. 

     For the yogurt cups, if you use Stonyfield you will find that the labels easily come off to reveal a plain white cup that can quickly and easily be painted or decorated but removing the label does make the cup a bit less "sturdy" so you may want to stick/stack 2 cups together (they fit inside of each other if you just press down hard enough without the labels on). 

*Side tip- The Stonyfield cups are GREAT for building "blocks" too! *

**The set you see above in the collage is white because it is actually part of our "bowling" set (stack or layout the "pins" (yogurt cups) in the proper form and use the pouch tops or other items as "bowling balls." Our older sons found they like "flicking" the tops at the stacked lids better than rolling them.  

    We paint the outside of the cups in primary colors to use for teaching the baby her colors in a variety of ways. One way is I will line up, say, 3 cups of different colors and 3 tops of the same color, point to each item and say the name of the item and its color to her, then hide the tops under the cups and ask her to get me a specific one. Such as, "Where is the purple cup with the yellow top in it?" In this example I would have a red, purple and yellow cup and they would all have yellow tops under them. We progressed to this stage from having 2 solid white cups and 2 different colored tops underneath. We also use a set of different colored wooden shapes with numbers on them  that go to a Melissa and Doug clock set. 

Lia during her "Courage" Vest treatment playing with cups & tops

      The possibilities really are endless! You can cut out numbers from cardboard packages and color them the same or different colors (think: hide several red 4's under different colored cups or different colored 4's under the same colored cups, or different numbers under different colored cups, different colored numbers under cups colored the same but numbered differently on top,etc) You could also use different shapes in the same manner as above. One of Lia's favorite games (and our 6 yr old's) is to play "Memory" with the cups and a variety of items. I usually start off small with 4 cups/2 pairs of items and we move up to 12, 16 or 20 cups. (for babies/toddlers you can make it easier/help reenforce the color learning by placing matching pairs under cups of the same color and using basic, similar items like colored pom pom balls or the tops) For older children use a variety of different items with different shapes, colors and textures and have them classify them into groups after they've found all the matches. 

Double Bonus: Vest time goes by fast!

"Dump and Fill" is another fun game for babies!

      If you spend just a few minutes each day with this game the pay off will be huge! Lia is 15 months old and now accurately picks the colors, numbers and letters out of the cups in up to a 12 cup lineup with different items under each! She has a 20+ word vocabulary of clear words and many that we know what she's saying but aren't quite intelligible to outsiders yet and she is advanced in many other areas of development. As a mom, that all makes me quite proud but really, the cuddles, giggles and smiles I get when we play these games together are what REALLY make it worth it! 

    The "feel good" factor extends to knowing that we've helped reduce our waste, saved money (by not buying a toy or toys for this purpose) and reduced our exposure to cheaply made toxic toys or potential exposure to high levels of lead on store bought painted items. (My older children like to write, "Made in the USA" on everything they make :-)  )

    So give it a go and rack up your own precious giggles and cuddles!

What you resist shall persist...until today

     I made the decision to remove "fight" from my life. It just seems to have crept its way into every area of my life and when I stopped to think about it, I don't WANT to spent my life "fighting".... I want to spent it LIVING and LOVING. So today is my official "Freedom from fighting" day. I know that this word did not creep in all unassisted. My thoughts became my words and my words became my actions...then my actions became my habits and soon enough what was a little thought became my reality. So today I give thanks for my free will and the power I have to choose consciously and create my life with deliberate intent. Today I stop fighting forever.

   I will no longer "fight" Cystic Fibrosis..but don't worry- it is because I know that Natalia is perfect and whole and to use such a word as "fight" means I need to battle something. I can not reconcile in my mind how I can trust in God and the universe 100%, have full faith that every moment is as it should be, but then continue to use words such as "fight." Natalia is perfectly created in divine likeness. I choose to focus my attention on the incredible health Natalia enjoys.

   In the same regard, I will no longer "fight" any of the labels I have been given such as Lupus, RSD, fibromyalgia, psoriasis, Hashimoto's, etc,etc. 

   No more do I need to "fight" with companies or people about correcting balances, payment records, academic reports, IEP plans, financial matters, academic needs, maintenance issues or any other matter. I hold the knowing that life is easy and what I put out I will receive back. 

  The end has come for me of "fighting" my husband or his habits, my children and their "resistance" or even the pets and their "disobedience." I know that such things are just a reflection of my prior expectation to fight. I know that my husband is exactly as he should be and everyday he becomes more aware of the power of his intent. He is better than the best father, husband, son and brother I could ever imagine for us. Our children are deeply bonded with us and each other and experience fulfilling relationships that empower them to express their divine lights. Our pets are blessed additions to our family that provide warmth, comfort and unconditional love. Our family looks forward eagerly to the peaceful walk we enjoy nightly with our sweet dog. 

   The truth is, the universe has more than enough of everything to go around and we enjoy such abundant blessings in our lives as individuals and a family that I can't even remember why I ever thought I needed such a word to lean on so frequently. "Fighting" is futile...especially when you're "fighting" yourself. 

 So, stop and think for a minute- is there a word or phrase you find yourself saying frequently? Does it add to your life and your mission? Does it get you closer or farther from your goals? If you stop and think objectively, does that word or phrase reflect the person you desire to be or is it the person you've become? If so, just get rid of it! You are an amazing being of light. You are powerful and capable of creating the life you desire. You are created in divine likeness and abundance & prosperity are your birth right. 

  Pay attention to your words for a few days and then see if a simply change to your vocabulary brings a beautiful shift in your life too ♥.

Even an end has a start

Welcome!

Its been a few years since I've had an active blog so I intend to let this one unfold organically. I haven't defined it yet because if I was forced to I'd likely say "Stuff I've learned, need to learn, want to help others learn and even some I can't quite seem to learn." Since that really doesn't say much, I will leave the "labeling" for later- and by then hopefully it won't be necessary. So join me on this portion of my metamorphosis, there may be good, bad, ugly and truly  breathtaking moments- but its all part of the journey.

"Just when the caterpillar thought the world was over, it became a butterfly..." ~Proverb