Loving Motherhood as a Stay-at-Home-Mom

A friend of mine recently posted about life with her toddler, and she confessed that she wonders how some moms just seem to love everything about being a mom.

Well, I'm here to talk about that. Because I'm an expert...

...on not loving everything about being a mom, that is.

When I had my ultrasound with Stephen to find out if he was a boy or a girl, I didn't cry, and the ultrasound tech seemed seriously disturbed by it. The same thing happened with Cohen. In fact, they did a surprise 3D ultrasound with Cohen, and Christian said, "He looks like an alien!" and I laughed. The ultrasound tech may have been wondering if she should call for a social worker at that point.

I say all this because I have found that my emotions, or at least the way I express them, don't always match what I see in other young moms. We have a plethora of babies born at our church (at the time when I was pregnant with Cohen, I think there were about 11 other moms who were also pregnant!). Especially with the first-time moms, it seems like someone is always asking them if they are just so excited?about having their baby, and they respond with a beautiful glow and gush about how excited they are.

It's not that I didn't want to meet either of my boys. But with Stephen, I honestly didn't know what to expect, and Christian and I hadn't even been married for a year, so I didn't know if I should be excited or terrified. With Cohen, I did?know what to expect, and I knew that being a mom wasn't easy. So while I welcomed him into our family with open arms and tremendous affection towards him and his chubby cheeks, I wasn't screaming for joy or sobbing when I saw him for the first time.

Fast forward past the newborn stage. Now, especially when I meet people for the first time and they ask me if I stay home with my boys, and I say yes, I then feel like I'm expected to go on and on about how great it is. Don't get me wrong; I am incredibly, incredibly blessed to be in a position where I can be at home with my boys without our family suffering financially. And that's something we have as a top priority. But just as working moms may look at stay-at-home moms and see lots of free time (ha!), the grass is always greener on the other side.

I want, and I have wanted for many months, for the grass to be a bit greener on this side. And it has been a long process and a lot of "Lord, help me!" prayers in my laundry room where I sometimes sneak for a few seconds when both the boys are crying and I don't know what to do for either of them.

Motherhood, in any form, is not easy. There is no other job that I know of that requires your attention for the better part of the 24 hours in every day, and which, when you feel you've messed something up or fail at something, can make you feel tremendously guilty. These are little people, after all, and they don't always respond how we think they will, and we don't always know what to do.

It's hard. Hard with one child, hard with two, hard with six. And you know Jesus promised not just life, but life abundant. Honestly, things don't ever look too abundant around here (other than dirty clothes - seriously).

Slowly but surely, the Lord has been working on my heart and showing me that the only answer to any of my problems is the gospel.

I know. I know. It seems so easy.

But when you get to where the rubber meets the road and you took your boys to the park even though you didn't want to and two minutes after getting there your toddler goes face first down the slide and ends up with mouth and eyes full of sand and he's screaming and you wonder why you even went to the park in the first place... it takes some thinking to figure out what in the world Jesus?has to say or do about getting all that sand out of your child's mouth with only an old rusty water fountain to help.

Here's what I know. It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Free from the penalty of sin, free from the power of sin. And that means we don't live our lives in a spirit of fear, wondering what God thinks about what we're thinking. No, we lay ourselves bare before him. We confess that we don't love what we do each day and that we desperately need help. And we ask, plead, beg?for grace. And in my experience, he has never, not once, turned me down when I've asked for grace. He gives it. Every time.

Sometimes it doesn't come right away, and you think that what grace?would look like is your teething baby having some relief so you don't have to carry him around all day. But then a few days later when your toddler is sleeping, you take your baby outside on a warm February day and let him have his first taste of a fruit popsicle, and he smiles at you in his diaper and laughs at you and tries to put that whole popsicle in his mouth, and as it melts all the stickiness pools in the rolls on his belly. That, my friends, is grace. And it's always there for the taking, even if we can't always see it clearly.

And how does that fit in with loving what you do each day? Because after you have a bunch of those grace-filled moments that you wish you could take a picture of to keep forever, you start to realize that they wouldn't have been quite so sweet if the prior morning hadn't been a little bit hairy.

It's a rollercoaster, motherhood is. And the lows can sometimes be really, really low. But the highs... oh, the highs. Even when they're rare, they're worth it. And so you pray for the strength to love the lows, because you know that they will happen again, sooner or later. And after a while, the lows don't seem quite so low - or at least if they're low, they're familiar.

He got me through last time. He'll get me through again. And this time, I'll rest in the finished work of Jesus (Wouldn't we all love to say our work is finished?) and trust that all these lows and highs are adding up to make me more like Jesus. And honestly, in the grand scheme of things, the home is not such a bad place in which to be made more like Jesus. The company is good, and if at times you start crying, no one will even notice, because everybody else around has probably cried at least once in the past hour.

Ask for grace. Take it. And remember there is always, always more.

Source: http://chelseykcrouch.blogspot.com/2012/03/loving-motherhood-as-stay-at-home-mom.html

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Rescuers try to keep fire from 2nd depot in Congo (AP)

[unable to retrieve full-text content]AP - International experts fought Monday to prevent a fire from reaching a second arms depot and exploding more munitions, a day after a blaze set off blasts so violent they flattened buildings, killing hundreds and trapping countless others under debris.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/africa/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120305/ap_on_re_af/af_republic_of_congo_explosions

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Libyan stock exchange says to re-open on March 15 (Reuters)

[unable to retrieve full-text content]Reuters - Libya's stock exchange is to re-open on March 15, just over a year after the country's conflict forced it to close down, the head of the bourse said on Sunday.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/stocks/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20120304/wl_nm/us_libya_stockmarket

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Juice,Cakes And Food Recipes: Apple Grape Drink Recipes

Apple Grape Drink Recipes

Click Here For Other Recipes

Ingredients

• 6 cups apple juice, chilled
• 3 cups white grape juice, chilled
• 1 (12 ounce) can frozen lemonade concentrate, thawed
• 1 liter club soda, chilled

First Directions

1. In a large container, combine the juices and lemonade concentrate; mix well. Stir in club soda. Serve immediately.

Source: http://juiceinmyhome.blogspot.com/2012/03/apple-grape-drink-recipes.html

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Top 10 Abundance Tips | Embrace News

Living an excellent own life is about a great deal not just having more than enough income. Just to be actually flourishing, you?ll want to improve your whole head-arranged from lack to prosperity. You need to generate a emotional and mental transfer and begin located your lifestyle with a far more abounding level ? in every areas!

Below are my best strategies for executing that:

Prosperity Word of advice 1 ? Do What We Love

When in paying time executing items you really like, you instantly really feel more happy. Once you really feel more happy, you discharge more positive the vibrations, and bring in what you want far more quickly! Start investing more time executing what you really like. This tends to contain spare-time activities along with moving to some more fulfilling job.

Prosperity Word of advice 2 ? Validate You Have Greater Than Enough

The far more your core mindset is lack, the harder lack you are going to experience in your lifetime. Change this all-around by continuously re-inifocing, Half inchI usually have ample income for all I need.Half inch Greater firmly you can come to believe this, the harder your bodily atmosphere will transfer to match your anticipations.

Prosperity Word of advice 3 ? Take Action

Action is not always vital so that you can bring in prosperity into your life, nonetheless it guaranteed doesn?t hurt. Tend not to remain all-around waiting for your state to change ? get out there and switch them! Getting even just one tiny action when it comes to what you look for can often lead to a flood of prospects and synchronicities that get all choosing download photoscape a more beneficial track. At least, acting can improve your self esteem consequently really feel far more in command of your state.

Prosperity Word of advice 4 Thankfulness and Appreciation

An appreciation and head-arranged creates all appear better. You don?t only really feel far more abounding, your very discuss the features of your life will naturally attract more things to be pleased about. Make it a day-to-day pattern to comprehend the great items that take place ? perhaps the tiny points. Greater you are doing, the harder you can find good stuff coursing into your life like by magic.

Prosperity Word of advice 5 ? Really like, Really like, Love

Love is one of the best, transformational makes. It might mend by far the most uncomfortable scenarios, alter lack into prosperity, and motivate beneficial difference in both the giver and recipient. Training coursing inner thoughts of serious desire for all people and all in your lifetime. Really like your blessings, your family and friends, the complicated individuals you come across every day, and in some cases your health issues and limitations. Once you appreciate them, you mend and alter them into legitimate solace.

Prosperity Word of advice 6 ? Boost Your Do it yourself-Worth

Your thinking have everything regarding what you experience daily. Unless you believe you are entitled to prosperity, you are going to consistently press it aside! Start enhancing your do it yourself-well worth and assert continuously that you simply deserve to be happy, healthy and balanced and well-off. When someone will try to offer a variety of or supplement, admit it with thanks! utorrent Greater you are doing this, the harder you are going to open up yourself to the solace the universe wishes to send out towards you as well.

Prosperity Word of advice 7 ? Make Bedroom for More

If each nook and cranny of your life is loaded with mess and disharmony, you don?t have any ROOM for affluence ahead in! Among the list of best ways to get prosperity coursing far more efficiently through your health is to get rid of a space for doing it. Get rid of bodily mess and release uncomfortable over emotional trouble and wavering concerns. Clear your bodily, faith based, over emotional and personal extramarital liasons, watching how readily they may be modified from dull to vibrant.

Prosperity Word of advice 8 ? Change Your Opinions, Change Your Life

Besides very poor do it yourself-well worth, you might have other restricting thinking that prevent you from your affluence you are entitled to. For instance, would you believe you will need to bust your tail to take delivery of big money? Would you assume that abundant persons are vulgar and insensitive? Would you assume that having big money would have been a stress? Learn to analyze and question your thinking about affluence ? and change things that control you. This is an continuing procedure that can adjust your lifestyle in strong means.

Prosperity Word of advice 9 ? Start Your Great quantity Radar

You?ve in all probability heard it stated that whichever your core mindset is swells. Affluence isn?t different! Enter into the habit of smoking of searching for degrees of prosperity on the go. If you find yourself buying, temporarily stop to notice the prosperity rampacked from store cabinets. Each of all those items online games started which has a straightforward strategy in someone?s head and came to be in bodily style! Take a trip on your community farmer?s market place and brilliant for the prosperity of create offered. Each of them was started which has a tiny seeds rooted in the earth and developed until eventually it progressed right delicious fruit or vegetable. Take some time every day to mirror to the prosperity the simple truth is everywhere, and you will then attract more of computer (of any type) into your life.

Prosperity Word of advice 10 ? Favorably Abundant

Positive ideas and thoughts will instantly attract more beneficial instances into your life, which includes affluence! Detrimental contemplating is simply a practice of going through the much less favorable issues with each problem. But each unfavorable problem has a minumum of one beneficial reward. Greater you can train your mind to discover the solace and grow accessible to chance, the harder solace and opportunities you?ll see! Start a new beneficial contemplating pattern nowadays watching the way makes over you right magnets for all very good.

There a wide range of more different options to seduce better affluence into your life, but these suggestions offer a straightforward supply of started.

Abraham Lincoln after said, Half inchMost people are as satisfied as they constitute their brains to generally be.Half inch Exactly the same element can be said about affluence.

Make a decision to generally be as flourishing as you want to generally be . . . along with your thought of fact will have no alternative but to observe your wishes.

Source: http://www.embracenews.com/news/top-10-abundance-tips/

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Portable Marketing - The Planet Moved Portable at Short term ...

Removed Cellular

The earth is not ?going mobile ?, it?s already gone!

You can find more than 4.6 billion cellphones in the earth today one each for 67% of the world?s people. This is about four times the amount of computer and laptop computers. More than 50% of web research world-wide was executed from mobile phones in 2010 (T.Ahonen Consulting). SMS Txt messaging is the most widely used data software on earth today ? undoubtedly!

Many people simply won?t go anywhere without their mobile phone. A missing credit card is documented within 1 day but a lost mobile phone is noted within thirty minutes (VISA 2009).

What does this mean for Australian corporations? Firstly it indicates understanding the effects and options of the leadbolt apps cellular phone and cellular advertising is vital today. For instance any business that?s a website needs to make sure it is appropriate for cellular research. About 10 ? 15% of all internet queries in Australia today are done via mobile phones. Beyond that this means that a cell phone communications approach needs to be accepted and applied, now.

Many Australian customers and clients are already utilizing their cellphones to discover companies, to a method of remaining informed about their favourite places and manufacturers search for items, to buy things, and as.

The velocity at which these improvements took place, particularly the mobile internet checking in the last two years and use of smart phones, has left several, several Australian corporations in its wake. There?s a basic understanding that the cell phone is strategically important and reveals new options, however the problem is: ?What does it mean for me and how can I begin to use it to gain my business?

Mobile Marketing: Where to start?

As marketing the first thing to find out about cellular advertising is to not contemplate it. A far better explanation is mobile involvement. This is not only semantics, it is important when considering how to incorporate the mobile phone into today?s communication strategy to think differently.

The term ?transmission? indicates having a direct conversation together with your customer. Advertising has traditionally used the broadcast model: tell your information to as many people as possible and expect that it?ll be relevant to a few. That product is rapidly becoming less appropriate to many consumers and surely less powerful in today?s crowded and diffused marketing setting.

The chance exists currently via portable systems to have a direct one-to-one relationship with every individual client in a way that?s never been possible before and at a price that has never been possible before.

Most of us know that you can find today more cellphones in Australia than you will find people. We understand that no-one leaves home without getting their cellular phone and and private ?space that it is seen as a individual.

It?s not required to ?market? to buyers via their telephone, by ?participating? using them instead the results and rewards could be well beyond so what can be achieved through every other advertising. It is important to remember that that should be respected and the client has given permission to participate immediately with them in their personal place.

Your clients have granted you permission to contact them via their cellular phone since they wish to hear from you. They would like to understand what is happening along with your model and solutions. They don?t desire to be ?offered to? because they are already ?bought. They?re faithful, involved consumers looking to be kept informed.

This goes to the center of what?s different about participating with customers and consumers via the cellular phone: you know that they curently have a relationship with your organization and that by providing you their cell number they have mentioned ?I am serious and want to hear from you. I am trusting you. If this is the situation, and considering that it?s seven times simpler to offer to an active customer than to a fresh one? it is time to begin speaking.

Most Australian business people and marketing managers, when expected, say they wish to start using cellular advertising, but many do not know how or where you should start.

The simplest way to ?put a bottom in the water? is through the use of SMS. It is rapid, simple, economical, very effective and generally accepted. It is possible to stay in contact with a consumer every month for less than $2 annually using SMS. That means placing your brand in their hand, and in their mind, on a monthly basis for a few dollars. Your benefit will be extremely important if just their actions is affected by one those messages once during the year then. The ROI from SMS proposal is been shown to be well above any form of advertising.

The major use of the cell phone is no more for voice calls, it?s for texting. In Australia we send, normally, five SMS messages per person every day. It is recognized and very widely used. SMS messages are fast, easy to ?consume ?, individual, quick and not uncomfortable.

Most of us have right now encountered acquiring an SMS visit note or a indication for a bill that requires to be settled. These are personal ? they relate specially to me ? helpful and relevant and as such we?re very happy to obtain them. When thinking about portable communications with your clients using the same policies will ensure that SMS messages are accepted and seen as delivering enhanced customer support.

A simple ?Thanks for purchasing from us yesterday. If you have any questions about your purchase please contact us on? can have a powerful effect on your customers: increasing their commitment, replicate buy and suggestion to people. Do not imagine that you should type this out every time on your own phone and deliver it by hand there are systems available today that will do this instantly.

Portable Websites

Every SMS communication can also incorporate an advertisers active link to a mobile website. More than 60% of phones in Australia currently are internet permitted and approximately 10-15% of web queries are today from cell phones, up from near zero a couple of years ago. Within yet another 1 ? 2 years these quantities should have again developed dramatically.

The straightforward SMS meaning now becomes the starting point for deeper consumer engagement and much broader. The portable website can incorporate information regarding new items, campaigns, games, or contain videos and images. Conversely you can require feedback, demand a review to be finished, or supply a and contact details map your area.

Mobile internet isn?t used in as desktop web the same way. Over 50% of mobile search today is utilized by individuals planning to either contact or locate a company they already know: they are not doing ?research ?, they only want to find you. So the portable website needs to have contact particulars and ?Click to Find? and ?Click to Call? buttons conspicuously exhibited.

This also shows that the best way to get visitors to come back regularly to a portable internet site to see updated information is by delivering them a regular SMS with a link to the site.

Things to observe

Among the most often asked issues regarding Mobile Marketing is: ?How usually should I SMS my customers? The right response is of course: ?It depends. Interacting too frequently or not usually enough may equally be terrible.

For many firms sending a message each week is OK. hearing will not be minded by prospects about this If you have something new to say every week then. The overarching principal however applies that all messages should be engaging, valuable, appropriate and applicable.

On the other hand too rare interaction will look like the relationship isn?t important, that messages are only directed ?when you need anything ?, for instance when yet another Sale is on. For many companies a concept once each month is appreciated and well acknowledged by clients.

The first time a business uses cellular marketing it?s very important because of their customers to understand that they are in management of what occurs on their particular cell phone. Tell them how to opt-out. Be apparent that receiving the communications isn?t charging hardly any money and they can easily opt-out of receiving them whenever you want. This applies your client in the driver?s seat and they?re more prone to remain happily ?opted-in.

It?s also a qualification underneath the Australian SPAM legislation that individuals will need to have opted-in to receive communications from a enterprise and be able to easily opt-out of any electronic communications. It?s vital that you verify that they are SPAM Act agreeable in all regions If you are using among the SMS Marketing companies.

When to begin

There is no question that participating along with your clients more frequently is a great thing to do and that using the mobile phone is a good way to do it. It?s affordable, personal and widely acknowledged. It enhances commitment, customer service, repeat sales and the main point here.

Therefore, whether we call it cellular marketing or portable engagement one thing is certain: ? since the world is not going mobile..every enterprise should as an essential part of their interaction method consider the mobile phone in 2011. it?s already removed.

Creator of this article: Gladi E. Fetzko

Tags: ad network, advertising network, mobile ad network

Source: http://www.shortterminvestmentstrategy.com/portable-marketing-the-planet-moved-portable/

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China COFCO eyes Hong Kong for property unit IPO: exec (Reuters)

[unable to retrieve full-text content]Reuters - China's top grain trader, COFCO Group , will seek to list its commercial property unit in Hong Kong, its chairman told Reuters on Saturday, without clarifying the timing or scale of the offering.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/asia/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20120303/bs_nm/us_china_npc_cofco

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