Moving is an exciting time for many. After buying a new home, moving day can seem like ages away, even if it’s only a month or two. It’s common to feel a bit of stress, but if you have a disability, the stress of moving can be even greater. Fortunately, with these tips from Our Special Village, you can make the process much easier and less stressful.
How to Prepare for Your First Purchase
When you’re planning to buy a home for the first time, you should first check your credit score. You have three main scores that a mortgage company might look at during the loan process. You’ll get a better interest rate with a higher credit score.
Before you start applying for mortgages, get all your paperwork in order. Lenders will ask you to send copies of important documents, and your application won’t proceed without them. Some possible paperwork they may need includes:
Two years of tax returns
Paystubs
Canceled rent checks
Always hire a reputable real estate agent. You want an experienced guide who knows all the ins and outs of buying a home and the neighborhood you’re shopping in so the process is as easy as possible throughout your home buying journey. Make sure you have someone who’s understanding and who’ll be more than willing to take your disability into consideration.
Prior to getting a mortgage, make sure you know how much you can spend each month. As a general rule, never spend more than 28% of your total income on your mortgage. You should also check into any first-time home buyer programs and any programs for the disabled, including home modification grants.
How to Find the Perfect Home
Now that you know how much you can realistically spend, you can start searching for a house. Make a list of needs and wants before you start. This will help you stay focused and on budget.
Some potential wants could be a fireplace or pool, while a need might be that the house is only one story to accommodate your disability. A house may not have all your wants and needs, so you might need to consider whether it could tick all the boxes with some minor modifications in the future.
Hiring a Moving Company
If you’re considering hiring a moving company, you should carefully compare businesses. Look for reviews online and see what previous customers are saying about the local moving companies.
Contact each company for a quote once you have a general idea of how much you’ll be transporting. Knowing this expense could save you from an unpleasant surprise. Keep in mind that you may qualify for a relocation grant due to your disability.
Packing Made Easy
You don’t have to race to pack all your stuff in a few days. Start as soon as you know you’re closing and pack little by little. Go from room to room as you pack and focus on packing one section of each room at a time. When you pack in sections and label everything, you’ll make unpacking a breeze.
Relax and Stay Focused
Utilize these tips, try to relax, and make sure you stay focused. The moving process can be stressful, especially with a disability, but it’ll be worth it in the end.
This past Thursday we celebrated Thanksgiving, one of the most beloved American holidays. It happens to be also my favorite holiday, a time to cook to my heart’s content and to get together with family and friends to share wonderful dishes together. This year however, because of the tireless work of Equal First Aid, I became painfully aware of the need to emphasize the fact that people with disabilities, in particular those who use a wheelchair, don’t have easy access to first aid if they are choking.
This year, I couldn’t avoid thinking about all those instances when a wonderful family occasion, whether it’s Thanksgiving or any other get-together, could result in unforeseen consequences. This is particularly true for people in wheelchairs. It is for this reason that the organization Equal First Aid is advocating for first aid that addresses this situation. Choking is one of those emergency situations that not only requires training, but also necessitates certain positioning that would be nearly impossible to accomplish in a few seconds if the choking victim is in a wheelchair. The Heimlich maneuver is not as easy as it may seem for some people given certain personal circumstances, or for people in wheelchairs, in the case of a choking emergency.
A few weeks ago, when I had the pleasure of meeting with the people of Equal First Aid, we discussed what can be done in our immediate community to change this reality and make sure that everyone has access to lifesaving measures. I thought that by contacting people that I knew and worked with, who wholeheartedly believe in equal opportunities for all, and making them aware of this situation, it would be easy to get this rectified.
To my surprise, I found that people are either not interested or skeptical about changing the status quo. I am not sure why, but it looks as if first aid is not a priority in people’s minds. Perhaps it’s the kind of issue that nobody wants to think about because there are no easy answers, and it is just too painful. But it doesn’t have to be!
LifeVac has been producing airway clearing devices for a few years now. They are providing the answers to the tough questions we all must answer regarding equality in first aid. Airway clearing devices are very simple to use and work for EVERYONE, including those of us who have difficult applying and receiving the Heimlich maneuver. Anyone who has every operated a plunger can operate this device.
Do you want to see this device in action? Check out this video here of this family who experienced a choking emergency with their baby at a restaurant. I promise it will make you think twice about first aid. Do you want to know more about Equal First Aid and their mission? Check them out here. Do you want to have this difficult conversation about something we should all make a priority? Check out the LifeVac device right here.
Give the gift of life this holiday season! Give yourself peace of mind!
This is a sponsored post. As always, opinions are my own.
It is almost July and summer is here! It seems that this summer (2021) people are really looking to get out and do all the things that they were not able to do a year ago, at the height of the Covid -19 pandemic. I know for myself, my family, and mostly everyone I know, it was a summer when we basically all stayed home.
This year, we are starting to travel again, and I am not an exception. Tomorrow (yes, tomorrow!), my husband and I leave for California, to see family that we have not seen for over a year. It is such a treat! But with travelling comes packing, and with packing comes the realization that some of the clothes that we were waiting to have an occasion to wear for so long have stains (and perhaps odors) that we need to get rid of, and fast.
Getting ready to travel!
This year I started using enzyme cleaners and washes for my clothes and items that I care about. There is nothing better to do the job than an enzyme cleaner. Enzyme cleaners are natural and do not contain all those harsh chemicals that you typically find in other washes. This time around, as I was doing cleaning (and a lot of it) to prepare for my upcoming trip, and also to prepare to receive guests in my house, I came across clothes that had been put away a little bit too long, needed a serious wash, and some of them (like the shirt below), that were bordering on the yellow.
Rather than wash them these clothes over and over again or subject them to harsh chemicals, I used Biz Powder to treat them, and voila! Clothes look and smell clean!
I saved this lovely shirt!
If you are looking for a better way to wash, that will work with nature rather than against it, choose the one without the harsh chemicals. Biz (I used Biz Powder, but there are other products) is an excellent way to make sure that your detergent does it job by adding enzymes that treat all those pesky stains and combat odors to boot.
If you are a busy mom or dad and are looking to counteract all those messy messes that your children leave behind, then this is the cleaner for you. Go get one and try it! Let me know how you liked it!
This is a sponsored post. As always, opinions are my own.
One of my fears when I go out to work for the day is that I will have a huge stain on my clothes that I won’t be able to remove. Trust me, it has happened to me on more than one occasion. As a busy children’s therapist, I tend to eat in my car, in a tiny space, sometimes munching on something while I’m driving.
I typically hear the same complaint when I visit a home. Many moms and dads spend a lot of time doing laundry, washing their little one’s clothes only to wash them over and over again. And even though children, especially toddlers, can get into big messes, sometimes parents end up washing clothes just for a little stain!
Does this ever happen to you? It happens to me a lot. I can’t tolerate “little” stains on my clothes, and they usually end up in the laundry, even after having been worn a couple of hours. I have tried other stain pens and sticks before, even from reputable brands, but I have to say the OxiClean Stain Pen really did the trick for me when we went to Boston. It was a short trip and I only brought one pair of jeans. I love this pair of pants because they are super comfortable and fit me exactly right.
Was I surprised when I took off my pants after a restaurant visit and saw a stain there! I was planning to wear them the next day, as they are so comfortable, and we had an entire day planned, touring and visiting various sites in the city of Boston. I didn’t want to wear anything formal but I didn’t want to wear yoga pants either. This pair of jeans was perfect.
Luckily, I had my OxiClean Stain Pen! I used it to remove the stain (I basically saw it disappear in front of my eyes) and let it dry. This was late at night and by the morning my pants were absolutely clean. The stain was gone!
The OxiClean Stain Pen is always in my purse!
Today, I carry my OxiClean Stain Pen in my bag every day. It is one more tool that helps me keep my clothes clean while on the go. Are you a busy mom? Are you usually on the go? I recommend the OxiClean Stain Pen for you today!
This is a sponsored post. Opinions, as always, are my own.
Is it just me or does it feel like “not enough” when you wash your vegetables? I typically let water run on them, make sure that I check for any places where any dirt can hide, let them dry, pat them dry, cook them thoroughly to make sure that I didn’t miss anything.
But if the past year taught us anything is that we can’t be too careful when it comes to washing surfaces, which many times includes food. A few years ago, I worked with someone who was extremely sick from eating vegetables without properly washing them. He was in the hospital for a few days until the doctors could figure out what was wrong with him. It turns out, he got sick from bacteria which, they thought, could have come from not properly washing food.
This was a few years ago, long before the age of Covid, and this situation helped me realize how important it is to keep our fruits and veggies clean. I wash even those packages that claim “pre-washed” or “ready to eat.” The issue here is not the washing, but what do we wash with? I would typically just use water, as I said before, let the water run and do what it’s supposed to do. But is this enough?
Enter Arm & Hammer Fruit and Vegetable Wash: This is how your vegetables and fruits get washed properly. I would not use anything but water on my food as I do not want to contaminate my food with harmful chemicals. The Arm & Hammer Fruit and Vegetable Wash contains natural products that help eliminate pesticides, wax, and the pesky dirt that lives in your vegetables.
With this product, you can see the difference as soon as you wash your fruits and vegetables. It is really that simple. What about the taste? You may ask. I can assure you there is no taste residue. Your fruits and vegetables will taste perfectly fine, better even, once you are done cleaning them with the Arm & Hammer Fruit & Vegetable Wash.
If you are looking to upgrade your washing technique when it comes to your produce, then you have to try this product. It will put your mind at ease, making sure that you and your family, especially your little ones, are safe from unwanted pesticides and other chemicals.
This post is part of the Biz Kids ‘N Pets sponsored program. I received compensation as a thank you for my participation. This post reflects my personal opinion about the product provided by the sponsors.
You probably know that in my life as a special needs consultant I constantly get questions about many different aspects of parenting and especially regarding special needs parenting. Some of those questions can be quite complex but some of them are actually quite mundane, so to speak.
One of the issues that we normally talk about is how to teach children independent skills and keep them clean, or the house clean, or their clothes clean, at the same time! I’m sure that most of you already know the answer to that: Trying to do both at the same time is nearly impossible. So what do I recommend as a specialist? Let your child experiment with independent tasks and find a good way to clean the mess. There is just no other way around it!
Of course, I try to find ways to minimize the mess, using adaptive utensils, wearing a smock, or even trying to find cleaning products that will help parents deal with the mess so that I can get to the business of promoting children’s independence. I typically recommend products and use different tips that I have learned along the way to help parents clean the mess that we leave behind.
Enter Biz and Kids ‘N Pets. I jumped at the opportunity to be able to try them myself. Like many other people, at the pandemic’s outset, we adopted a puppy from a local shelter. He is a very active Australian cattle dog that needs a lot of activity and attention. He is also prone to messes! For months (since he was adopted basically, in March), we had been looking for a product that would help us get rid of some of the stains that still remained even after the constant washing.
My beloved puppy Ozzie.
See those blankets? We are constantly washing them, but we are not always successful removing the stains. We used Biz to treat the stains, and here are the results (before and after pictures below).
BeforeAfter
What a difference! My husband also tried the Kids ‘N Pets to pretreat other stains, with similar results. These products are designed with the enzymes that are needed to remove a wide variety of stains. As they say, they don’t cut any corners with their products. These products are quality products!
So now, I have a new recommendation for the parents I work with: You can trust the effectiveness of Biz and Kids ‘N Pets. I am happy that I found this product and will continue to use it whenever needed (which is pretty often!).
If you want to find out more about these products, visit their websites here and here.
This post contains affiliate links. This means that at no cost to you, we may get a commission when you click a link.
Everything about baby sleep can seem frighteningly high-stakes at 3 A.M. in the morning.
Make one tiny mistake in his or her training and your child’s development will be seriously affected: he’ll either end up waking in the night well into his high school years, or worse, develop anxiety, depression, or mood swings.
And with every sleep expert offering slightly different advice on the ideal timing and method for sleep training you may be unsure about who to believe, how to proceed, or which sleep training method you should follow.
That’s where this article fits in – I’m going to help you separate sleep fact from sleep fiction by zeroing in on 6 science-backed strategies that have been proven to promote healthy sleep habits in babies and young children.
Strategy #1 – Learn to Spot Your Child’s Sleep Cues
Like the rest of us, your child has a sleep window of opportunity, a period of time when he is tired, but not too tired.
If that window closes before you have a chance to tuck your child into bed, his body will start releasing chemicals to fight the fatigue and it will be much more difficult for you to get him to go to sleep. So how can you tell if your baby is getting sleepy? It’s not as if your one-month-old can tell you what he needs. Here are some sleep cues that your baby is ready to start winding down for a nap or for bedtime:
Your baby is calmer and less active – this is the most obvious cue that your baby is tired and you need to act accordingly.
Your baby may be less tuned-in to his surroundings – his eyes may be less focused and his eyelids may be drooping.
Your baby may be quieter – if your baby tends to babble up a storm during his more social times of the day, you may notice that the chatter dwindles off as he starts to get sleepy.
Your baby may nurse more slowly – instead of sucking away vigorously, your baby will tend to nurse more slowly as he gets sleepy. In fact, if he’s sleepy enough, he may even fall asleep mid-meal.
Your baby may start yawning – if your baby does this, well, that’s a not-so-subtle sign that he’s one sleepy baby.
When your baby is very young, you should start his wind-down routine within one to two hours of the time when he first woke up.
If you miss his initial sleep cues and start to notice signs of overtiredness – for instance, fussiness, irritability, and eye-rubbing, simply note how long your baby was up this time around and then plan to initiate the wind-down routine about 20 minutes earlier the next time he wakes up. (The great thing about parenting a newborn is that you get lots of opportunities to practice picking up on those sleep cues—like about six or seven times a day!)
Learning to read your baby’s own unique sleep cues is the first step to a more rested and more content baby.
Here’s something else you need to know about babies’ sleep cues, something that can toss you a major curve ball if you’re caught off guard:
Babies tend to go through an extra-fussy period when they reach the six-week mark. The amount of crying that babies do in a day tends to increase noticeably when babies are around six weeks of age.
You aren’t doing anything wrong and there isn’t anything wrong with your baby. It’s just a temporary stage that babies go through.
If your child becomes overtired, your child is likely to behave in one or more of the following ways (results may vary, depending on his age and personality):
• Your child will get a sudden burst of energy at the very time when you think she should be running on empty.
• You’ll start seeing “wired” and hyperactive behavior, even if such behavior is totally out of character for your child at other times of the day.
• Your toddler or preschooler will become uncooperative or argumentative.
• Your child will be whiny or clingy or she’ll just generally fall apart because she simply can’t cope with the lack of sleep any longer.
You will probably find that your child has his or her own unique response to being overtired. Some children start to look pale. Some young babies start rooting around for a breast and will latch on to anything within rooting distance, including your face or your arm! When nothing seems to be wrong (he’s fed and clean), but he’s just whining about everything and wants to be held all day, he’s overtired and needs help to get to sleep.
Learning to read your baby’s own unique sleep cues is the first step to a more rested and happier baby.
Strategy #2 – Teach Your Baby to Distinguish between Night and Day
Because our circadian rhythm (our internal time clock) operates on a 24-hour and 10-minute to 24 hour and 20-minute cycle (everyone’s body clock ticks along at a slightly different rhythm) and all of our rhythms are slightly out of sync with the 24-hour clock on which the planet operates, we have to reset our internal clocks each and every day – otherwise, we’d slowly but surely stay up later and sleep in later each day until we had our cycles way out of whack.
Daylight is one of the mechanisms that regulate our biological cycles.
Being exposed to darkness at night and daylight first thing in the morning regulates the body’s production of melatonin, a hormone that keeps our bodies’ internal clock in sync to that we feel sleepy and alert at the appropriate times.
By exposing your baby to daylight shortly after he wakes up in the morning and keeping his environment brightly lit during his waking hours, you will help his circadian rhythm to cue him to feel sleepy at the right times.
Moreover, he’ll start to associate darkness with sleep time and bright light with wake-up time – you’ll find that it works best to take advantage of sunlight (as opposed to artificial light) whenever possible.
Studies have shown that exposing your baby to daylight between noon and 4:00 P.M. will increase the odds of your baby getting a good night’s sleep.
Strategy #3 – Let Your Baby Practise Falling Asleep on His Own
Some sleep experts recommend that you put your baby to bed in a sleepy-but-awake state whenever possible from the newborn stage onwards so that he can practice some self-soothing behaviors.
Others say that you should give your baby at least one opportunity to try to fall asleep on his own each day.
Lastly, some others say that there’s no point even bothering to work on these skills until your baby reaches that three-to-four month mark (when your baby’s sleep-wake rhythm begins to mature so that some sleep learning can begin to take place).
Sleep experts claim that the sleep-association clock starts ticking at around six weeks. They claim that this is the point at which your baby begins to really tune into his environment as he’s falling asleep.
So if he gets used to falling asleep in your arms while your rock him and sing to him, he will want you to rock him and sing to him when he wakes up in the middle of the night – that’s the only way he knows on how to fall asleep.
This is because he has developed a sleep association that involves you – you have become a walking, talking sleep aid.
Some parents decide that it makes sense to take a middle-of-the-road approach to sleep associations during the early weeks and months of their baby’s life – they decide to make getting sleep the priority for themselves and their babies and to take advantage of any opportunities to start helping their babies to develop healthy sleep habits.
Regardless of when you start paying attention to the types of sleep associations your baby may be developing, at some point you will want to consider whether your baby could be starting to associate any of the following habits or behaviors with the process of falling asleep:
Falling asleep during bottle-feeding
Being rocked to sleep
Having you rub or pat his back, sing a lullaby, or otherwise play an active role in helping your baby to fall asleep
Having you in the room until your baby falls asleep
Relying on a pacifier
Here’s something important to keep in mind, particularly since we tend to fall into an all-or-nothing trap when we’re dealing with the subject of sleep.
You can reduce the strength of any particular sleep association by making sure it is only present some of the time when your baby is falling asleep.
If, for example, you nurse your baby to sleep some of the time, rock your baby to sleep some of the time, and try to put your baby to bed just some of the time when he’s sleep but awake, he’ll have a hard time getting hooked on any sleep association.
Sleep experts stress that the feeding-sleep association tends to be particularly powerful, so if you can encourage your baby to fall asleep without always needing to be fed to sleep, your baby will have an easier time learning how to soothe himself to sleep when he gets a little older.
Most babies are ready to start practicing these skills around the three- to the four-month mark.
Strategy #4 – Make Daytime Sleep a Priority: Children Who Nap Sleep Better
Scientific research has shown that babies who nap during the day sleep better and longer at nighttime. While you might think that skipping babies’ daytime naps might make it easier to get them off to bed at evening, babies typically end up being so overtired that they have a very difficult time settling down at bedtime and they don’t sleep particularly well at night.
And rather than sleeping in so that they can catch up on the sleep they didn’t get the day before, they tend to start the next day too early and they have a difficult time settling down for their naps, as well.
Simply put, it is important to make your child’s daytime sleep a priority, just as you make a point of ensuring that he receives nutritious meals and snacks on a regular basis – your child needs nutritious sleep snacks during the day in addition to his main nighttime sleep meal in order to be at his very best.
In addition, babies, toddlers, and preschoolers who nap are generally in a better mood and have an improved attention span as compared to their age-mates who don’t nap.
Strategy #5 – Know When Your Baby No Longer Needs to Be Fed At Night
Your baby may continue to wake up in the night out of habit even when he’s outgrown the need for a middle-of-the-night feeding.
If your baby is going without that nighttime feeding some of the time or doesn’t seem particularly interested in nursing once he gets up in the night, it might be time to eliminate that nighttime feeding and use non-food methods to soothe him back to sleep.
Eventually, of course, you’ll want to encourage him to assume responsibility for soothing himself to sleep, but the first hurdle is to work on breaking that powerful food-sleep association.
With some children, it happens quickly. With other children, it’s a much slower process.
Once you break that association, he may stop waking as often in the night and may be ready to start working on acquiring some self-soothing skills.
Strategy #6 – Remain as Calm and Relaxed as Possible about the Sleep Issue
If you are frustrated and angry when you deal with your child in the night, your child will inevitably pick up your vibes, even if you’re trying hard to hide your feelings.
Accepting the fact that some babies take a little longer to learn the sleep ropes and feeling confident that you can solve your child’s sleep problems will make it easier to cope with the middle-of-the-night sleep interruptions.
Scientific studies have shown that parents who have realistic expectations about parenthood and who feel confident in their own abilities to handle parenting difficulties find it easier to handle sleep challenges.
This post may contain affiliate links. At no additional cost to you, I may earn a commission to help keep this site running.
When I first read about The Long Blink, I became really interested because I thought this book would illustrate what I, as many other family members and advocates for families of individuals with disabilities, have always been saying: That a “disability” can be acquired by anyone, at any time, and can change a life in a moment. The Long Blink surpassed my expectations. This is the story of a family, the Slattery family, and for Ed Slattery and his family, it only took a blink of an eye, a long blink that would change his and his children’s lives forever.
Ed Slattery could not have imagined that a phone call in August of 2010 would turn his life upside down. The voice on the other line was telling him to get there immediately: His family had been in an accident. He would later learn that while both his children had been severely injured by this accident, it was his younger son’s prognosis that was very worrisome. He would also learn that his wife, the love of his life, Susan Slattery, had died in this accident.
I wish I had enough space to talk about the many reasons why I think this book should be read by the entire world, but since this is not possible, I will try to illustrate in just a few points why I think this book is an absolute must-have for anyone who wishes to understand our community:
Life can change in an instant: Anything can happen to anyone, at any time. For the Slattery family, it was Matthew who from one moment to the next, went from a normally-developing young boy, to battling for his life, to making heart-wrenching efforts to be able to hold objects with his right hand.
Special Needs need Special Attention: Even though well-meaning people may have the best intentions at heart, and may think they can define what our community needs, it is only our community that can and should be an active participant in decision making. For Ed Slattery, it was building a new home so that Matthew can fully participate in daily living. For me, it was being able to get a gate pass to accompany my brother to the gate when he flies. I can’t say enough how frustrating and depressing it was for me to have to work in places where I was told what “script” to follow when dealing with families in our community. Once, I was reprimanded for giving a parent options. This practice is humiliating, demoralizing, and just plainly wrong. In his journey, Ed Slattery discovers how important it is to adapt to his son’s new life and how much growth can result from this adaptation.
Our Community is Inspiring: Matthew not only inspired and moved his father, Ed, to a whole-new life, but he also changed the lives of so many people around him. It is easy to see how learning about Matthew and the Slattery family was a transforming experience for Brian Kuebler, the journalist and author of this book. He was sent to report on this accident first but never lost sight of this family’s experience. The result was this brilliantly written book and the message of hope and solidarity that it inspires.
Change is Difficult: As members of this community, we tend to understand firsthand how we got here and what changes need to be made so that others do not have to suffer. The community at-large, however, may have a much more difficult time absorbing this knowledge. Since the accident that changed his son’s life, Ed Slattery has been a tireless advocate for trucking safety regulations, as it was a truck driver who dozed off on the road and killed his wife. As frustrating as this has been for him, he has yet to see the full results of his arduous work.
Reading this book was a very personal journey for me. It often reminded me of my family, growing
up, the challenges and obstacles that we faced.
I’m thankful that because of our advocacy over the years, life has
become a bit more manageable for families today. Reading about the Slattery family leaves me
full of admiration not only for Ed and his family, but also for the incredible
families out there whom I’ve worked with, and who deal with these issues, day
in and day out.
It also deepens my already gigantic admiration for my
parents, because it is only through their love that I learned to love our very
special village.
This post contains affiliate links. It does not cost you an extra penny, but it helps keep the site going. Thanks!
When I first picked up a copy of this book I expected it to be descriptive of what I have been observing lately: Households where the mom is in charge of everything, in other words, the phenomenon that Dr. Thomas Phelan calls “Manager Mom.” However, I was very pleased to find out that this book includes not only a description of what the phenomenon is, in detail, but also offers many examples and suggestions on dealing with this situation at home.
What is a Manager Mom? In short, it is a mom that does it all: The childcare, the cleaning, the food preparation (which includes buying and cleaning up afterwards), the laundry, the appointments, the after-school activities….You get the picture. How did this happen? How is it that moms are the ones who bear the burden of everything household related? Dr. Phelan refers to the original bond between mother and baby as well as the strong message that has been passed down from generation to generation, from mom to mom, as the culprits for this type of behavior.
In fact, Dr. Phelan calls the strong identification with “mom
duties” as Mommy ID, and explains how moms tend to feel a strong sense of guilt
when their perceived “responsibilities’ are not taken care of (by them!). This concept was quite enlightening to me as
I often hear moms tell me that if they don’t do it all, things don’t get done “right.”
If you feel this way, then this book is for you. If your family falls in what most people call
“traditional,” mom takes care of all the
responsibilities in the house, whether she works outside the home or not, and
dad works outside the home but does not contribute to household duties, then
this book describes you. If you are
tired of living like this, and would like more “me” time or you are a dad or a
partner who would like to be able to make decisions and share the burden of
responsibility, then this book is for you.
You will find many actual examples of couples that have
moved from what seemed to be the tiring routine of the house to a schema that
works for everyone! It is possible!
To pick up a copy of this book, please click here.
We All Benefit When Work is Shared!
As always, if you have any comments or questions, please
drop me a note.
This post may contain affiliate links. At no cost to you, I may get a commission if you click a link and make a purchase.
When I first saw this book’s title, Listful Living, I immediately thought “a book about making lists. I’m in!” I was captivated. After all, who couldn’t be better organized? More efficient? As a new entrepreneur, I value efficient use of time, and completion of tasks in a timely manner. I also recognize that as I approach the 6-month mark as an entrepreneur, my responsibilities have only grown, but my 24-hour day has remained the same: Still 24 hours!
Little did I know that Listful Living was much more comprehensive than that. If you think that you will be making “to-do lists,” please note that this is not what Listful Living is about. This book is about taking a realistic look at your life, evaluating it by being able to set your priorities, from top to bottom, and envisioning where you want to be a year from now. This book is about action.
In fact, Listful Living has pages and pages of “homework” to help you visualize what’s already in your mind. Putting it on paper is a kind of agreement with yourself, and it really helps to pinpoint where you are, where you want to be, and the way to get there. It sounds like work, but it will only save you time, energy, and will allow you to make your priorities a reality.
Listful Living by Paula Rizzo
As I read, I felt strongly connected to the author’s experiences, Paula Rizzo, as she described having visualized a better future for herself, realizing this future, and then having to step back to make room for her life and her priorities. Sometimes, it takes a door closing to realize that the window was opened all along. In Paula Rizzo’s case, it was a real health scare that landed her in bed for weeks. In my case, it was the professional realization that if I stayed where I was, things would never change. I had to produce the change myself. I had to BE that change.
Listful Living is the perfect gift for yourself, for busy moms and dads, for working parents, entrepreneurs, or simply anyone who wishes to improve their lives by being realistic, simplistic, and looking to a better, more fulfilling future.
