Mother's Day Reflections
- By Lisa Soesbe
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- 11 May, 2018
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My mom, my inspiration
Since Mother's Day is on Sunday, I wanted to share a little about my mother and a few thoughts. Many people do not know this about me but I lost both of my parents suddenly when each of them were in their 50's. For each parent, I had to hire an attorney when they passed away because they did not have a valid will prepared, so if there is one thing you can do for your children, it is to get a will made. Everyone should have one, no matter how young you think you are. If you have kids, have a will. You can sign up with Legalshield
and get a free will update yearly with your membership or hire an attorney to get it done, but please get it done. It will save your family a lot of extra grief, trust me on this one. I lost my dad (age 52) when I was 24 years old on Christmas Day and my mom (age 56), a few days after my 30th birthday.
This Sunday will be the 9th Mother's Day without my mother and one month from today marks the 10th anniversary of my mom's sudden death. I still remember the call I received from my grandma, at around 3am on June 10th when my grandma told me that my mom never called her to say goodnight and she was worried. My mom never missed a call to say goodnight to her mother. They were very close. I remember saying, "I am sure she is fine, there is nothing to worry about." My grandma and mom were both worriers and I truly didn't believe that anything was wrong and that perhaps she just fell asleep and just didn't call. Well, unfortunately I was wrong. The next thing I knew I was on the phone with my grandma and a 911 dispatcher after my grandmother found my mom dead on her bathroom floor. It was unreal to me. It was bad enough my mom was dead but to think that my grandma, whose only child was my mother, would now have this image burned in her brain forever was awful. How did my grandma know that something was wrong? I believe it was her intuition. Moms just know.
This Sunday will be the 9th Mother's Day without my mother and one month from today marks the 10th anniversary of my mom's sudden death. I still remember the call I received from my grandma, at around 3am on June 10th when my grandma told me that my mom never called her to say goodnight and she was worried. My mom never missed a call to say goodnight to her mother. They were very close. I remember saying, "I am sure she is fine, there is nothing to worry about." My grandma and mom were both worriers and I truly didn't believe that anything was wrong and that perhaps she just fell asleep and just didn't call. Well, unfortunately I was wrong. The next thing I knew I was on the phone with my grandma and a 911 dispatcher after my grandmother found my mom dead on her bathroom floor. It was unreal to me. It was bad enough my mom was dead but to think that my grandma, whose only child was my mother, would now have this image burned in her brain forever was awful. How did my grandma know that something was wrong? I believe it was her intuition. Moms just know.
I was often told I was the spitting image of my mom. My daughter looks very much like me and sometimes when I look at my daughter, I can see the resemblance to my mom in some of the pictures of her when she was a baby and a child. My mom was a very kind woman who also taught me to be kind. She was a stay at home mom and stayed home with my sister and I when we were little and when she wasn't helping my dad with a restaurant, she worked as caterer and cook during the rest of her days. My father was a small business owner who was in the restaurant business. Our life revolved a lot around food. I think it was part of the Polish culture. Most of my family is from Poland and I am the first person in my family born in the United States.
Growing up, I remember my mom was always complaining that she would have heart palpitations whenever she ate wheat. This was back in the time when celiac disease was not something that people knew about. Perhaps this is what she suffered from. She believed she had a wheat allergy and I remember always asking her why she was eating it if she was allergic. I imagine it was hard to get away from it in those days. I am not sure what caused her death, but I often wonder if something she ate at the work party she was at that night could have caused her death. This is part of why I am so passionate about telling people how much our food matters. Often we look at what drug can fix us when sometimes, the damage is being done by the food that we eat.
If you are a mother, Happy Mother's Day. If you are fortunate to have a mother to celebrate with, go ahead and spoil her and thank for all that she has done for you. Many moms are overworked, underpaid, and many times don't get enough credit for the superheroes that they really are. I feel blessed everyday because my children often tell me that they love me out of the blue and that is payment enough for me. In this case, I am truly rich. There are moms who stay home, moms who work, moms who homeschool, moms who are business owners, moms who are single moms and many moms are more than one of these. If you are a mom, take some time for yourself this Mother's Day. If you have a mom, give your mom a thoughtful gift and tell her you love her and not only on Mother's Day. Give her something personalized, something handmade, something that shows that you put your heart into it. She will cherish it forever.
Growing up, I remember my mom was always complaining that she would have heart palpitations whenever she ate wheat. This was back in the time when celiac disease was not something that people knew about. Perhaps this is what she suffered from. She believed she had a wheat allergy and I remember always asking her why she was eating it if she was allergic. I imagine it was hard to get away from it in those days. I am not sure what caused her death, but I often wonder if something she ate at the work party she was at that night could have caused her death. This is part of why I am so passionate about telling people how much our food matters. Often we look at what drug can fix us when sometimes, the damage is being done by the food that we eat.
If you are a mother, Happy Mother's Day. If you are fortunate to have a mother to celebrate with, go ahead and spoil her and thank for all that she has done for you. Many moms are overworked, underpaid, and many times don't get enough credit for the superheroes that they really are. I feel blessed everyday because my children often tell me that they love me out of the blue and that is payment enough for me. In this case, I am truly rich. There are moms who stay home, moms who work, moms who homeschool, moms who are business owners, moms who are single moms and many moms are more than one of these. If you are a mom, take some time for yourself this Mother's Day. If you have a mom, give your mom a thoughtful gift and tell her you love her and not only on Mother's Day. Give her something personalized, something handmade, something that shows that you put your heart into it. She will cherish it forever.
Have you ever bribed your children with sweet treats to get them to do something? Let’s face it, we have all done this before. I’ll be the first one to say I have done this until I realized why I should stop the cycle.
In schools, sporting clubs, and other activities where children are involved, people reward children with candy and other unhealthy snacks. There are even popular lesson plans used in schools that include using M&M’s or Skittles; after the children use the treats for their lesson, they get to eat them as their reward. In American society, this has now become the norm. Go to the barbershop and Johnny gets a treat because he sat so nicely for his haircut. Go to dance class and little Mary gets a piece of candy at the end of class. Go to the bank and Joey gets a lollipop for being a good boy in the bank. It goes on and on. The people that assume that this is okay think, “What’s the big deal?”. This may even be you! I will tell you why this is such a big deal. This is affecting our children both physically and emotionally.
In schools, sporting clubs, and other activities where children are involved, people reward children with candy and other unhealthy snacks. There are even popular lesson plans used in schools that include using M&M’s or Skittles; after the children use the treats for their lesson, they get to eat them as their reward. In American society, this has now become the norm. Go to the barbershop and Johnny gets a treat because he sat so nicely for his haircut. Go to dance class and little Mary gets a piece of candy at the end of class. Go to the bank and Joey gets a lollipop for being a good boy in the bank. It goes on and on. The people that assume that this is okay think, “What’s the big deal?”. This may even be you! I will tell you why this is such a big deal. This is affecting our children both physically and emotionally.
If there is one thing I am good at, it is stretching a dollar. This is one reason I love getting gift cards for gifts. I know that I am great at getting as much out of that gift card that I can by shopping myself. It is like a game for me to see how much stuff I can get with a gift card paired with sales and coupons. Call me weird but it saves me money! I do the same thing when it comes to purchasing groceries. I have standards when it comes to the food I am eating and feeding my family. Food is one of the most important things that you buy and what kind of food you are buying matters in terms of your health. So while I would much rather to be able to purchase good food than sport a luxury purse or designer clothing, I still like to stretch my food dollars as much as possible. If I told you that you can actually get cash back for eating healthy, would you believe me?
I want to share a little hack I discovered a long time ago that I use a lot and pretty much for any online shopping. Have you ever heard of Ebates ? If you are not a member, you are going to want to click on the word Ebates anywhere in this post and sign up today because it will save you lots of money on anything you buy and if you use the referral link, once you sign up and spend $25 or more, you will get $10. If you are not a member you have nothing to lose because it costs you nothing. Do you shop online at all? Chances are your favorite retailer is on Ebates and you will get paid for your normal shopping routine just by signing into Ebates first and then going to your favorite site. Some examples of stores I am talking about are Target, Walmart, Kohl's and even Amazon! You simply must check this out.
Now, let me tell you about how I get cash back for eating healthy. My hack is to log in to Ebates and then shop the sales on Vitacost.com. Vitacost is an online health and wellness store with over 45,000 products. They also tend to have the best prices on most things. This gives me great savings because I can buy stuff like organic coconut milk, raw nuts, soy free chocolate chips, nut butters, and gluten-free flours as well as personal care items like deodorant, shampoo and conditioner from Vitacost when it is on sale and if I am buying through Ebates I will normally get at least 3% cash back from Vitacost. They also offer free 2-day shipping on orders over $49 so I usually order stuff that I will need for the month in one order so that I can save on shipping as well.
I want to share a little hack I discovered a long time ago that I use a lot and pretty much for any online shopping. Have you ever heard of Ebates ? If you are not a member, you are going to want to click on the word Ebates anywhere in this post and sign up today because it will save you lots of money on anything you buy and if you use the referral link, once you sign up and spend $25 or more, you will get $10. If you are not a member you have nothing to lose because it costs you nothing. Do you shop online at all? Chances are your favorite retailer is on Ebates and you will get paid for your normal shopping routine just by signing into Ebates first and then going to your favorite site. Some examples of stores I am talking about are Target, Walmart, Kohl's and even Amazon! You simply must check this out.
Now, let me tell you about how I get cash back for eating healthy. My hack is to log in to Ebates and then shop the sales on Vitacost.com. Vitacost is an online health and wellness store with over 45,000 products. They also tend to have the best prices on most things. This gives me great savings because I can buy stuff like organic coconut milk, raw nuts, soy free chocolate chips, nut butters, and gluten-free flours as well as personal care items like deodorant, shampoo and conditioner from Vitacost when it is on sale and if I am buying through Ebates I will normally get at least 3% cash back from Vitacost. They also offer free 2-day shipping on orders over $49 so I usually order stuff that I will need for the month in one order so that I can save on shipping as well.
How we prevented a potentially bad situation by paying close attention
In the words of Ellen Degeneres, "Be Kind to One Another"
