A Life Lesson Found In Candy Crush

Many of you already know, and quite possibly play, the 'Candy Crush Saga' App on your phone, ipad, ipod, Facebook, or what-have-you. For those who aren't as savvy on such things, it's a silly yet addictive game one can download and play while on Facebook, or their cell phone, or ipad or whatever device you play apps on. I have had the game on my cell phone for awhile, and played it now and again. Until recently, when I found myself stuck on level 23 for several days. Once I passed it, let me tell you...it was ON. I was determined to not let that happen again! Such a waste of time on a silly game. Such frustration and irritation at a technological device.

 

Fast forward to about a week ago and I started playing again. I had tried playing on Facebook as well, but found it difficult to take in the size of the game pieces after learning it on my cell phone (to me it was like reading a book in large print, I just couldn't handle how big everything was compared to what I was use to!!). I didn't connect my cell game to my Facebook account and game, but started noticing how on FB you can have friends help you when you're stuck. Novel concept, getting help! Well I was stuck on my cell phone on Level 35 for too long, only a few days but that equates to many a round of trying to clear the level.  I was also having once of those weeks where I was finding myself awake around 2-3am every morning, either awoken by a child climbing in my bed or by some random noise, and having a hard time falling back to sleep. As I've been sleeping so much better since doing AdvoCare products, this was highly annoying!! When all else failed, I turned on my cell phone and played a little Candy Crush. Well, Monday and Tuesday of this week were pretty whirlwind days in our new AdvoCare adventure; good things happening with the team we are part of, huge things actually, and very exciting to be a part of! Momentum is huge right now, lots of people are discovering the power of the products and jumping on the boat to be part of impacting lives and promoting health and family.

 

Trust me, this will all tie together, I promise...

 

So I'm lying in bed, wide awake, my thoughts all over the place, trying to figure out how/when we can get Doug home full-time so he can work the AdvoCare business while I work my job and we can manage kindergarten and keeping up with the house and the kids and still manage to pay the bills and...you get the idea, thoughts were not turning off, Joel had fallen back to sleep but the sleep was eluding me, and now I realized Doug was awake too, probably with the same thoughts as mine running through his head! He sees the bright light of my cell phone and asks why, I told him "I am GOING to beat this Candy Crush level! I just HAVE to!!" and on the third try, I did it! I beat Level 35 and it felt like a victory, very similar to the victory I had felt earlier that day when I signed up my first Advisor under us in AdvoCare. Success! Well guess what...the only way to go any further in Candy Crush after that level was to have other people help me, I was stuck again unless I connected to my Facebook account and asked 3 people to help me board the boat and move on. Hmmm. I laughed, told Doug, "well if that isn't a metaphor for where my life is at right now!! I finally beat that level but I can't get any further on my own!", turned off my phone and went to sleep.

 

And there you have it people, my 3am revelation of why the Candy Crush Saga game app is a metaphor for life...because you CANNOT get further in the game without the help of others, much as you CANNOT get further in your life without the help of others. You can try, and you will succeed to a point, but eventually you will find yourself stuck, with the only way to keep moving forward being to ask for help.

 

Once again, I am so thankful that I asked for help! I am so thankful for my friend who continued to offer me help, knowing that the time would come when I got to the point where I simply could not go on as I was without asking for help, and there she was when I asked. And she answered. And she offered me help, and hope, and a place on her boat to get me across to the next point of my life. She offered me a way to get from Level 35 to Level 36, and from there she has helped me power through to levels beyond where I thought I would get in 90 days!! God is doing some amazing things right now and I am so glad I reached out, asked for, and accepted the help.

 

If you are stuck right now, unable to get to the next level on your own, feeling lost or hopeless, feeling tired and unhealthy, please, take it from my experience...ask for and accept some help.  For me, help came in the form of AdvoCare, the power of their products providing me with energy, mental focus, and improved health. But above and beyond those products, help came to me in the form of hope, friendship and support.  It came to me in the form of an answer Doug and I had been seeking for well over a year; how to get Doug home from the retail world before our daughter starts kindergarten. It came to me in the form of a sense of peace, a sense from God that He has it under control and I just need to trust Him.

 

I am humbled that others are now following Doug and I on our AdvoCare journey; that we have brought hope and health to people who were seeking something, much as we were, or that didn't even know they were lacking something until we Sparked them and presented them with this amazing energy! For us, AdvoCare is about our #1 priority - family. It is an avenue that has enabled us to have more energy and patience for our children, and we are excited to have others joining us on the path. It's a huge responsibility, but one we accept gratefully because we know that AdvoCare works...it works to bring you good health and energy, it works to help you achieve your financial goals, it works to open you up to meeting new people who are looking for the same things as you, and who are focused on family as a priority. It just works, and if you are interested in the hows and whys, please take some time to visit www.motiveeight.me/dougandellen to learn more. If you aren't interested, that's cool too, I promise we aren't going to force the products on you. But we are going to talk about them, because they have become an integral part of our life, and because, quite honestly, we feel freaking amazing and healthy and we want you to feel that awesome too!!

 

And now, it's time for getting the kids to bed and then maybe playing a bit of Candy Crush!

 

 

 

 

On My Marriage

Today marks our 11 year wedding anniversary. Yay us!! As today is a Saturday, and May 18, 2002 when we married was also a Saturday, I find myself reflecting on the day more than I have in previous years. I remember it well, and am happy to say it was a beautiful, sunny day in Oregon, not at all like today with it's dreary rain! We just watched our wedding video with the kids, after having a very relaxing movie and dinner date without the kids. I must give a huge "thank you" shout-out to my friend (who also happens to be one of my awesome accounting employees) for giving us a Christmas gift of childcare and a movie gift card (that sadly it took us 5 months to use!). That combined with an Olive Garden gift card I received for Admins Day from my managers at work made for a most wonderful and inexpensive Anniversary date!

 

In my reflections of the past 11 years of marriage, I find myself thinking not only on all that has happened in those years, but also on all the exciting things to come over the next 11 years!  Watching the video reinforces the change that happens in a decade - our wedding vocalist is now my sister-in-law; our junior bridesmaid niece graduated from college today; junior bridesmaid baby sister is an adult now who may very well have found her future husband; maid of honor sister is now married herself and a mommy; Lectors (my brother and sis-in-law) had 1 child then and now have 5; all 4 of our grandmas that were there to watch us get married now watch over us from heaven; a good friend of Doug's who is on the video decorating our truck is also now resting peacefully in heaven; my precious Godmother who celebrated the day with us is now a breast cancer survivor; one of my dear Aunts who came in from Cali to share in our joy is now fighting breast cancer; there are those who were in our wedding party that are not an active part of our lives these days, although they will always hold a very special place in our hearts and memories; there are guests who have themselves gotten married, or divorced, or become parents; then co-worker friends who watched us marry are no longer co-workers but there are new co-worker friends in their places; we ourselves have welcomed 2 beautiful children into our world. There has most definitely been a host of happiness, heartache, joy, sadness, promise, letdown, growth and change that has happened to everyone who took part in our wedding day 11 years ago. That is life...happiness, joy, promise, new beginnings, right alonside heartache, sadness, letdowns...CHANGE and GROWTH. These things are inevitable, and they are exciting, and they are challenging. And if you are able to maintain one very important thing, you will get through all the changes, all the growth, the good, the bad, the happy times, the sad times...HOPE.  Hope will get you through all of it; hope in yourself, hope in your future, hope in those who walk the journey of life with you, hope in the Lord and His plan for your life, HOPE.  Hope is what has me so excited to see the next 11 years of life with my husband unfold.

 

Thank you, Doug, for being by my side since May 18, 2002; during my changes, my growth; in my exciting moments and my difficult moments, through job changes, through pregnancies and a C-section; through weird medical tests (24 Hour Urine test anyone?! Gastric Emptying Scan that starts with eating radioactive cornflakes?!) to try and figure out my gut problems; through sluggish mornings, unproductive afternoons and lazy evenings. Through all the good and all the bad, you've stuck with me and I with you. We have had 11 years of blessings, far more good times than bad, and we are on track for 11 more years of continued blessings. God is good, He has given us hope, He has provided us a vision for our family, He has put some amazing people in our path to learn from and share with, and we will achieve what we want because we will not lose hope, and we will work together to be the best parents, and partners, we can be. And it is my hope that other couples like us, busy parents of young children feeling overworked and underappreciated yet blessed, happy and knowing they have so much to offer the world, will connect with us and learn from us and teach us, as we all partake in the journey of life together, making each other stronger, making families stronger, keeping God at the center of it all.

 

Hope. May you seek it, may you have it, may you not lose it. This is my heart's hope for anyone reading this.

 



Critter Craziness

There is a lot of serious stuff on my mind right now, so I decided a light-hearted blog was necessary. Something to know about me, I am not a fan of animals. I have nothing against those who love their pets, in fact I think there are many people who make wonderful pet parents, and I recognize that God created dogs and cats and the like for a purpose, and that the purpose may just be companionship for humans. Regardless of any of that, though, I have never had a pet, never wanted a pet, never been a big fan of being around other people's pets.

 

So you can imagine my surprise when I received a text from my husband at 9:42pm last Friday night that stated, "What the heck, I think there is a cat in the house". I had just pulled my car into the garage after a late grocery shopping trip, the house was dark which I took as a good sign that Joel had gone to bed, then I receive that text, to which I immediately replied (from inside my car inside our garage), "What?!!". Doug's response was "Get in here." So I told Gracie to stay in the car please, and I came in the house to find Joel sleeping on Doug on the couch, the hockey game on TV, and Doug telling me to please go check out the bedrooms for a cat. WE DON'T HAVE A CAT!! I asked him what in the world he was talking about, he said that Joel had left the screen door open earlier and for a while he'd been hearing a bell but thought it was the hockey game, until he saw something streak past the kitchen and he realized it was a cat. A cat with a bell around its neck, wandering through our house for who knows how long! Yikes! I tentatively walked down the darkened hallway,and sure enough...there was the tinkling sound of a cat's bell as it scampered somewhere in one of our bedrooms. Geesh.

 

My remedy to this odd situation was to take the sleeping Joel from Doug, and sit on the couch while Doug went cat hunting. It was alarmingly quiet after he turned the hall lights on, no more cat bell, and it took him a bit of time to track the darn thing down, hiding under our bed. Once we knew Joel's room was in the clear, I put him to bed, then watched helplessly as Doug tried to coax the darn cat out from under the bed. It took a bit of nudging, but finally the black and white uncollared-but-belled kitty bolted from under the bed and went back out the screen door. Good grief!

 

Another critter adventure to add to the book for us. It can go in there along with the almost-dead-but-still-moving squirrel falling into the fireplace in our townhouse; the raccoons stalking us in the hot tub on a Sunriver trip; the skunk eating our food the first time we went camping together; the neighbor's cat spraying our screen door, repeatedly; the decomposed opposum rotting under our front porch; the dead mouse hiding somewhere in the walls of our front closet; the rather large raccoon and opposum we trapped in our backyard last year; the slugs we found on our kitchen and playroom floor this spring. Goodness gracious, it's no wonder I am not a fan of animals!

 

Time Debt

There have been half a dozen blog posts composed in my head over the past ten days, but now that I have some time to sit and write one out on the computer, the words are not flowing. So rather than write about any of those things that have floated through my mind recently, I'm going to share what is on my heart right now. Time, and the lack of it, and how fast it goes by, and how in the heck to slow it down!!

 

I have learned in recent weeks that most of society is in financial debt...be it student loans, credit cards, auto loans, the list goes on. I feel very fortunate that Doug and I are not in this boat; we do have a mortgage, and one small truck payment that will be done later this year, but other than that we don't carry long-term debt. What a blessing! I feel for those drowning in financial debt, especially those student loans...those sound awful, with high interest rates and how difficult it can be to find a well-paying job that puts the degree to use (if one even managed to finish school, seems a lot of people never finish because they can't take on more debt so then they have those loans to pay off but no degree to help get a great job!). But while we are not in debt financially, we are definitely feeling the time debt these days.

 

Time Debt. Perhaps a new phrase for you to contemplate. As a girl who lives primarily in the present moment, getting things done now and not worrying too terribly much about what needs to get done later, being in time debt is something I've been in denial about for a long time (no pun intended!!). But the truth is, my time management stinks, and has for several years now. I often use the working mother thing as an excuse, but really, it's more that I have a tendency to take on more than I can honestly handle, therefore mucking up my time management and causing me to forget things and ending up feeling so overwhelmed by what needs to be done that I can't actually get anything done! Know the feeling? But it's so hard to not commit to things that I know I can do, and do well, and help others along the way! My true passion is to help people realize their best selves, to promote positivity, to encourage self-confidence, to get others to see past the petty things in life that hold so many hostage from so much. We are so often so consumed with all the "things" that we allow life to pass us by even more quickly, and we miss out on so much along the way. And I strive to not be this way, but I fear that I wind up taking on too much and end up missing out even while trying to hard not to.

 

And that last sentence shows that my mind is so full of "things" right now, that I can't quite type the words fast enough! I have learned that some of what I take on is simply in my mind, things I can't not think about and can't get out of my head even though they don't need to be there. My quest to 'simplify' my life is about letting go of those thoughts just as much as letting go of material things around me. What good does it do me to hold grudges, retain bitterness, even to give a single moment of my day to a person or thing that most definitely doesn't give me any thought?! But as a girl who believes strongly in fairness and justice, my mind can quickly be overtaken by all the "wrongs" of the world around me. The people I've crossed paths with who take advantage or have entitlement; the people on the news who are entirely selfish but then get media coverage because of acting upon that selfishness; the actions of celebrities that prove they are actually some of the lowest people in society even though they are recognized as elite; the list really goes on and one, endlessly. The devil can be found spreading his negativity everywhere, and so often we give in to that without even realizing it. We forget that this world is only our temporary home, and the Lord has a great place of peace waiting for us in heaven; but He also has a lot of work for us believers to do on His behalf while we are living in this temporary place.

 

So I'm taking a stand, right here and right now. I'm laying to rest past bitternesses, I'm removing myself from situations that don't help me to be a better person, I'm going to use my time as if each day were the last one I had in this temporary home, because really...it could be. I hope not; I hope I have many many years to promote positivity and help others see the goodness of God, but I'm only guaranteed this one moment that I'm living this instant. I'm no longer going to allow the negative thoughts, the grudges, the badness around me to reside in my mind and take up my precious time.

 

Speaking of time, my kids are needing some of mine right now, so I'm going to go outside and play with them; I'm going to enjoy the sound of their laughter and the feel of the sun. I'm going to metaphorically dig a hole and bury the mental thoughts that no longer have a place in my life. I'm going to plant some flowers, put out some seeds for the birds, and use the bad stuff to fertilize the good stuff so that I can produce a garden of happiness for my little family, and hopefully for all those who cross my path from here on out.

 

If you are suffering from time debt, I encourage you to follow me on this path.