Guest Post: The Red Hot Life

I'm continuing my series of guest posts this month to let you meet some of my favorite bloggers. For March, in honor of her birthday month, I want you to meet my friend Liz Taylor (not that Liz Taylor).  Unlike the other bloggers who have posted here, Liz is not part of the Arkansas Women Bloggers group (although I'm sure she would be if she lived here!)  I actually knew Liz IRL before she even had a blog.  That's "in real life," mom.  Liz and I used to work together and she is a fellow mom of twins, so that right there is reason enough to love her.  Please check out her blog Live A Red Hot Life and show her some love!

****       ****  

The Red Hot Life
By: Liz Cerami Taylor

There's nothing quite like a birthday to help you take stock of your life.

In 2010, I turned 40. To mark that milestone, I did something I'd been wanting to do since I was 11: I signed up to meet Rick Springfield, my first love. It was amazing, and he was as cool in person as I thought he would be. The photo of us together can be described in one word: bliss. Well, that's how I would describe how I felt at the time. He might remember it differently.

That day was really more than just a "girl meets her favorite rock star" moment. It was an epiphany. I had spent the five years leading up to it devoted to the needs of my family (like Rhonda, I'm a mom of twins) and to my job. I rarely took time for myself. I believe with all my heart that self-care is essential to surviving in this life, but I had been doing a lousy job of it. On that day, I did something for myself and it felt great.

Over the next year, I did a lot of soul searching and it became clear to me that I wasn't happy. I began a quest for a "Red Hot Life" -- one where I felt truly alive. Because if I wasn’t happy and full of life, how could I be the person I needed and wanted to be for those who depended on me? Sure, some people do it, but to me that’s not really living.

I decided that I needed to make some pretty big changes in my life. So I did. And I did them pretty much all at once -- I'm crazy like that. In 2012, I reluctantly ended a marriage that was not working, and I left my job of 18 years and found a new job that allowed me to move back to my home state with my kids to be closer (but not too close) to my family.

It's been about a year and a half since I made those changes, and I'd be lying to you if I said it was easy. I made a list last year, My 2013 Red Hot List, of things I needed to do to overcome some of the challenges I faced in my new life. I haven’t completed it yet, but I'm making progress.

People have told me how "brave" and "courageous" I am to start over. I think what they mean is "you're nuts," but I appreciate the support nonetheless. I have tried to use my experience to help inspire others by blogging about my story. My posts are infrequent because life is hectic, so when Rhonda graciously asked me to be a guest blogger here, I wasn't sure if I really qualified! But I am very grateful for the opportunity to encourage others, so thanks Rhonda!

It has been four years since the day that started off my journey to a Red Hot Life. In fact, I turned 44 earlier this month. A few days before my birthday, I asked my friends on Facebook to describe me. I wanted to see if their perceptions matched with my reality these days. They used words like "smart," "in love with Rick Springfield," "funny," and "successful." One word that was missing? Happy. But that's OK. Because the only person who really knows if I am happy is me, and that answer varies by the day. That's just the way life is. I know that I'm on the right path, and I plan to stay on it and see where it leads.

 

 

 

Liz is a working mother of three boys, including fraternal twins, who lives in Virginia. Read about her pursuit of a Red Hot Life and her love of Rick Springfield at Live A Red Hot Life.

 

Say Hello to My Friend Paige

I started the year off by deciding to share a little piece of my bloggy friends on my blog each month.  Last month Fawn shared a great idea about Technology Tickets to help monitor your children's screen time.  For February, I'm proud to introduce Paige from Approaching Joy.   I met Paige the year I attended my first Arkansas Women Bloggers conference and have enjoyed getting to know her since.  What first attracted me to her blog was her eye for everything artistic:  photography, design and fashion--everything that I am a miserable failure at.  She has such a warm light about her, for real, that's what she reminds me of...like a little Tinkerbell.  I've asked her to guest post today, so here's Paige!

***   ***   ***   ***   ***

 

 

Hi my name’s Paige and I have memory problems. While not diagnosable (thank goodness) it’s always been something I have had to work with. For example, the time I forgot / misplaced my lovely (i.e. expensive) DSLR camera which I blogged about here .  

 

When Rhonda asked me to guest post for her I said, “Sure!”…and then promptly forgot. After she reminded me I sat astonished. She has three kids, a full time job, can simultaneously make biscuits –That, dear friends, is talent and skill and memory that I simply do not have.  However, it was her reminder that made me wonder, “What would I do if I WERE in her situation?” My answer: Rely even more heavily on technology. Calendar reminders are currently my life saver but what if I had even more things to juggle? Enter the web-based app “If This, Then That”.

 

If This, Then That (IFTTT) is a useful tool that I discovered when handling Social Media for a brand new nonprofit back in the summer.  It is set up to run an action for things that you want automated.

 

Example: Rhonda has cute kids. See exhibit A- Her Instagram feed.  Let’s say Rhonda wanted to make a picture book will all the cute things her cute kids do during Spring Break. To help this process along she would go to ifttt.com and set up the following equation, or recipes, as they’re called on the site-

 

IF THIS happens: @mamabramell posts an Instagram picture with the hashtag #BramellFamilyVacation

 

THEN do THAT: Save those pictures to a dropbox folder

 

By doing this she saves herself the extra hour it would take combing through her photos after vacation. The fact that she doesn’t have to waste the mental energy on this extra step? Priceless. Cool feature: If people choose to make their recipes public then you can search through them to see what automations may make your life a bit easier. So go check it out and then come back and let Rhonda know what recipe you’re most likely to use to save time. Check out my favorite recipe here: Paige’s Favorite IFTTT recipe.

 

 

 

 

Paige is a relatively recent addition to the Northwest Arkansas community where she currently works for a nonprofit. She loves taking photos that Rhonda declares "artsy" but she has no idea of how to best use the photography skills other than to overwhelm her friends instagram feed. If your Instagram feed needs to be overwhelmed follow her here .

 

Guest Post: Monitoring Your Kids' Tech Time

I'm starting something new on my blog today.  My plan is to introduce you to one of my favorite blogs (and blogger friends) once a month. I'm going to ask my buddies to contribute a post here and provide a link to direct you to their blogs.  First up is my friend Fawn, who shares a very practical and easy way that she monitors her children's tech time.  I hope you'll also check out her blog and add her to your blog list, if she's not there already. --Rhonda 

DIY Technology Tickets
 

Tablets, hand held games, TV, smart phones, xbox, and so on.  Kids love technology. Sometimes a little too much.  Inspired by this Pinterest pin, I decided to start using technology tickets at our house to make sure that we weren’t overdoing it with our screen time. 

 

 

Our system works like this:

•  Each technology ticket is worth 30 minutes of any kind of technology use.
•  Each child gets a total of 8 tickets to use each week (4 hours worth).
•  It is their choice of when to use them, but if they run out they’re done for the week.
•  If two children are playing a video game together or watching the same TV show, they both pay.
•  Parental discretion gives us the right to deny access to the technology when  needed.
• We generally don’t make them pay for things like family movie night or if they are up and moving around with an active Kinect video game. 

You can set your own rules and guidelines – this is just what works for us.

 

Now, our technology tickets are not as pretty as the example I saw on Pinterest, but getting my kids involved in creating the tickets helped them understand how the system would work, and also (surprisingly) got them excited about it.

Here’s how we made our technology tickets:
 

Materials:

·         Index cards (or other cardstock paper)

·         Paint pens (markers or crayons would work fine too)

·         Scrapbooking Scissors – the kind that cut different patterns

·         A hole punch – we used a large circle punch so the tickets would fit on our coat hooks, but you can use whatever size you like.

Steps:

 

1.       Trim the short sides of each index card with the scrapbooking scissors to make it look like a ticket.

 

 

2.  Punch a hole in the top of each ticket.

3.       Have your child write their name on the bottom of each ticket.

4.       Label each ticket with “Technology Ticket”

 

5.       Find a “home” for them where the kids can easily see how many tickets they have available to them.  Our technology tickets hang in our backpack command center .

6.       You may want to have the kids make a few extra tickets in case their tickets get lost or torn.

7.       I also made REWARD tickets. The kids know they can earn these for doing something extra nice or for outstanding behavior.

The Finished Product:

 

This system not only keeps the kids in check, it keeps me in check too. It also taught some interesting lessons in budgeting and kindness.  I was amazed when my preschooler started keeping track of how many tickets he had left, would ask me how many days were left in the week, and often opted for a non-screen activity based on his tickets to days remaining ratio. One day when he was out of tickets, his sister used her tickets to pay his way to a TV show so that they could both watch together.  I hope this little tool will pave the way to more peaceful technology use at your house too.

 

Fawn Rechkemmer writes about motherhood, being green, health and fitness, travel, and other things that make her go, “hmm…” on her blog, Instead of the Dishes.