Positively Mom Street

“I am obsessed with becoming a woman comfortable in her own skin.” - Unknown Comfortable in my own skin.  It’s a bit of a weighted concept.  Literal or rhetorical – it comes down to looking into the mirror and thinking “Wow – you go girl – all that hard work has paid off.”   I’ve always been a bit of an exercise junky – so staying fit, healthy and active has been an extremely important part of my adult life.   Vanity is a powerful motivator – being able to fit into jeans that are 10 years and at least 2 babies old always makes me smile.  However, the mental effects are so much more rewarding.  I have more energy, less stress and am generally a nicer person when I get regular exercise.  I love walking into the gym – full of crab and grump – and walking out feeling like a million bucks. So, I was completely thrilled to realize I could incorporate my love of fitness into the kind year journey!  This month I’ve been able to support 2 great ca...

“World Food Day is a day of action against hunger. On October 16, people around the world come together to declare their commitment to eradicate hunger in our lifetime. Because when it comes to hunger, the only acceptable number in the world is zero.” Did you know that October 16th is  World Food Day ? In honor of World Food Day and the upcoming holiday season, I’m really excited to bring the group a fun, easy, simple way to fight hunger. It began as the “15 can challenge” but since we are just a smidge behind schedule I’ve decided to dub our campaign “10 Cans of Conscious Kindness.” Essentially, you commit to buying an extra grocery item each week for 10 weeks and at the end donate the food stuffs to the charity of your choice. I love this for many reasons: Charity of your choice: This could be your elderly neighbor that you know lives on a fixed income, or a teenage mom at your church just starting out. It could be a single Mom in your neighborhood who struggles but is...

“Be good to yourself when, nobody else will Oh be good to yourself You’re walkin’ a high wire, caught in a cross fire Oh be good to yourself When you can’t give no more They want it all but you gotta say no” - Journey So, I’m feeling just a wee bit stressed out.  Summer is officially over and I’m cranky. This has been the wettest, coldest, grayest summer EVER and I am so over it.  Just call me  bitter (and unseasonably COLD) party of one. Then – school started.  Yep – my kiddos went back on August 18th and there is nothing weird about ringing in the school year in the middle of August.   Not at all.   My oldest entered his final year of elementary school (5th grade!!!) while my  youngest started her first year (Kindergarten) and while I was thrilled to discard my $700 a month daycare bill (whoopee) I was a bit saddened to realize she is officially a school-ager. Can you just FEEL the excitement? Hayden is totally blase and Harlyn is ready...

“I feel good.  I feel free. I feel fine just being me. I feel good today.  Oh so good today.” - Jon Batiste & The Stay Human Band It’s been a quiet week enriched with some very small, simple pleasures. Earlier in the week, I went to Walgreen’s to pick up a script and of course get some snacks for the family.  While in line, the guy in front of me didn’t have enough cash to pay for everything he had picked up.  After looking around – he said “put that back” and pointed to a Hershey chocolate bar.  Well, considering I was buying 4 chocolate bars for my family there was no way I was going to watch him put back the best of his cash out items! I quickly offered to buy the chocolate bar and he was really appreciative!  Score – chocolate for everyone and a warm, fuzzy “I did good” feeling for me! Yummy Kind Act! Fast forward a few days and I was grabbing a quick dinner at Qdoba.  I had a coupon for a free entree so I was totally excited tha...

“Don’t be yourself — be someone a little nicer.” Mignon McLaughlin, The Second Neurotic’s Notebook I really want this blog to be an uplifting, empowering place where we can all speak freely about living and sharing kindness.   But more then anything else – I want it to be a place of truth.  However, truth is not always pretty and Pollyanna.  Truth can be hard, raw and even a bit painful – but I believe that in truth there is beauty. So far, my journey has been focused on doing kind acts for others – mostly random strangers.  There is something really gratifying about helping a stranger.  In one sense it’s an ego boost (look at how kind I am!) and in another sense it’s a heart warmer (they really needed me – I did good today!) but overall it’s about making an immediate, tangible impact. However, I’ve come to realize that I don’t put anywhere near the effort into being kind to my loved ones that I put into being kind to strangers.   It’s n...