Self Esteem

Information from the University of Texas at Austin
The Counseling and Mental Health Center
Healthy Self-Esteem
Childhood experiences that lead to healthy self-esteem include-
being praised
being listened to
being spoken to respectfully
getting attention and hugs
experiencing success in sports or school
having trustworthy friends

Low Self-Esteem
Childhood experiences that lead to low self-esteem include-
being harshly criticized
being yelled at, or beaten
being ignored, ridiculed or teased
being expected to be "perfect" all the time
experiencing failures in sports or school
People with low self-esteem were often given messages that failed experiences (losing a game, getting a poor grade, etc.) were failures of their whole self.

http://www.utexas.edu/student/cmhc/booklets/selfesteem/selfest.html#anchor963911

Step 3: Get Help from Others
Getting help from others is often the most important step a person can take to improve his or her self-esteem, but it can also be the most difficult. People with low self-esteem often don't ask for help because they feel they don't deserve it. But since low self-esteem is often caused by how other people treated you in the past, you may need the help of other people in the present to challenge the critical messages that come from negative past experiences. Here are some ways to get help from others:

Ask for Support from Friends

Ask friends to tell you what they like about you or think you do well.
Ask someone who cares about you to just listen to you "vent" for a little while without trying to "fix" things.
Ask for a hug.
Ask someone who loves you to remind you that they do.

new week

Well it is a brand new week. Hopefully all will go well this week.
Organizational purchases made yesterday:
Hanging folders, regular file folders, half sheet envelopes, and 2008-2009 small date book.

Easter Egg Hunt

Dear Baby Michael and Baby Kathleen,
We had a fabulous day today. I wish you both were there to celebrate LIFE with us!

Love,
Mommy

Spring is just around the corner

Wouldn't it be nice to put everything out for a yard sale and it all just be wisked away. Why have a yard sale when you can just donate and take a tax deduction? In reality you will only get about $6 off for every $100 of stuff overall but it eliminates all the extra work. We just have too much stuff. Which makes things impossible to find but also impossible to know where to begin. There is not one area of our house that does not need improving.

I feel that I am just going from event to event and holiday to holiday and trying to cram in more and more stuff into the same square footage of house.

I guess it is time to do some spring cleaning!

Kitchen Challenge

Awesome video from Organized Everyday on her before kitchen.
Video takes less than 5 minutes to watch.
http://organizedeveryday.blogspot.com/2008/03/organizing-roundup-in-kitchen-before.html.

new look

In case anyone notices the new look I was mainly trying to change the size of the font. I was looking at this blog late at night and the type looked way too small.
Have a great day!

How to Save for a future expense

We have three large expenses that we are saving for each year.
1 and 2) two tuitions each year
3) pool membership
4) we should also be saving for gymnastics since that is about $900 during the school year

We have a separate savings account that we make automatic payments to on a weekly basis. If we did this manually there is the chance for user error, I forget to make the transfer or the funds are already spent.
Currently we transfer $90 per week to the savings account. Starting in 2009, this will change to $120 per week.

The trick here is that we are using current paychecks to make these future payments without having to dip into any additional savings.