Pulling a functional family out of my hat.

The meaning of my blog Healthy Happy Mom 40, is because I am working hard to fully be connected to myself. I will be 40 years old in two years and I want a hot bod, financial, physical and personal freedom, a happy family, healthy children, and a passionate relationship. I am working towards achieving these things. I want to feel like I look in pictures, vibrant, alive, together. I have realized that spending all day with my daughters is helping me to achieve this inner utopia. Since they are watching me and I am watching them 24/7 we are each other's sounding boards for what is and isn't working in our family. We are honoring what we think works and we've coined the phrase "do over's" when we discover something that doesn't work, like yelling, screaming, impolite speaking, rudeness etc. Basically we try to repeat the things that make us feel good and discard the things that leave ill feelings behind. This is much easier said than done, but it does give me a starting point for achieving my bliss filled existence, and a moral compass for them to follow in the direction of a functional family. Functional Family, is the key phrase, we needed! Our goal is to stay and remain a functional family. This isn't a magic trick it's just good old fashioned love and respect. With this in mind, I will find the motivation to workout at least three times this week, hot body here I come!

Little Ladies Big Momma

I spoke with my grandmother this morning, and finally told her that we decided to homeschool. Shock and horror! She was mortified, beside herself, "those girls need to be in school", she screamed! So I had to break it down for her. I am very fortunate to be able to stay home and educate the girls. She thinks I have them locked in a dungeon and I am teaching them how to weave their own clothes. I had to politely explain that my number one goal in life is to be happy and have peace of mind. I do everything with a sense of joy Wake up people, welcome to the new earth, where entrepreneurs can carve out a dream existence of their own design.

The girls changed the school uniform to high fashion choices. We also decided that they could pick our their dream career and start now. Sutchat wants to be a popular mean girl, and Sassy decided to be a fashion designer. We went out on the town, pretending that they were already successful business women. We snapped shots that fit, their career choices and they each learned how to behave properly in a meeting. If I focus on maintaining an authentic connection with them and my own life, we seem to grow. A good online friend forwarded a new homeschool resource to me for Black families. Excellent! I am slagging behind on language development, I really need to invest a few thousand in more Rosetta Stone kits.

I have realized that when you do the right thing for you and the right thing for your family the reward is great. I have also come to understand that not all choices are right for all people. As a matriarch and a woman, I have to be unafraid to make choices that are right for the type of life and legacy I want to have and leave for our children. Here's to individuality.

A Connection to Family, Environment, and Earth

When I told my close friends that I was homeschooling, they remarked that they need their off time during the day, that it was their "me" time. I work to find pockets during the day for alone time, but the time I spend with my daughters IS "me" time. The better title would be "we" time. I look at it like this. I could be stuck in an office somewhere separated from them for the whole day, as so many hard working mom's are. I am so grateful for this experience. Now we can leisurely approach our day together. I can now find more time for little projects around the house that are excellent teaching tools for school. One of those projects is turning the Oakland backyard into an Oasis for playing and having fun. This week we used horticulture to study science. There are so many living things in a backyard. We worked on creating habitats for all of the creatures that like to eat from our garden, and we studied the food chain. Together the girls and I solved a problem we had been having for a year with our garden. Cat Poop!

We learned that cats do not eat and go to the bathroom in the same place. So we took some leftover salmon skin (from the delicious dinner we cooked with fresh herbs from the garden) and strategically placed it around the outskirts of the garden to maintain friendly contact wit the cats, but only to eat from our garden, not poop in it. Tremendous results. Homeschooling has given us a connection to one another, our environment, and the earth. We are truly fortunate to have this time together.