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Our job is to learn to love.

This post was originally posted at Or So She Says where I contribute once a month.

Several years ago I found myself driving downtown to drop my older brother off at the Road Home homeless shelter where he was currently “living”. He was going through a pretty rough patch of life (understatement). He stayed at the homeless shelter on and off for several years.

During one of his better periods of life (definitely relative–he wasn’t at the homeless shelter or in jail) I was talking to him about his experiences being homeless and relying on strangers to survive. His experiences taught me a lot about what life is really about and made me hyper-aware of how I treat other people, especially strangers.

There seems to be a certain stigma (judgement) placed on the homeless, the poor, the un-educated. The idea that maybe they “deserve what they get” and their choices put them where they are. That perhaps they are “less than” and maybe not worthy of some of the things life has to offer. Although sometimes it is certainly true their choices may have contributed to where they are, I think it’s important to remember how close we ALL are to being homeless, or poor, or in need of help from others.

I think sometimes we over-complicate what life is all about. If we were to boil life down to one main purpose, it would be to learn to love. To learn to love like God loves. Without reservation, without conditions, without judgement. To learn to love. To really love. And to treat each other accordingly. That’s it.

My brother said one of the worst parts of being homeless, of begging for money and food on the streets, wasn’t the hunger or the withdrawal from drugs, or the fear of being beaten up or arrested. The worst part was how people treated him. Some with disgust, some with judgment, but even worse, some acted like he didn’t even exist. They ignored him like he wasn’t even there.

One of my favorite books of all time is “Tattoos on the Heart” by Gregory Boyle. In it he says “Here is what we seek: a compassion that can stand in awe at what the poor have to carry rather than stand in judgment at how they carry it.” I think we can substitute the word “poor” with any other word as well. The poor, the homeless, the mentally ill, the addicts, our neighbor, our friend….

To stand in awe at what other people have to carry rather than stand in judgement. If there’s one thing I know, it’s that we ALL carry something. That we all have struggles. Some more visible than others. What would the world be like if we recognized one simple truth? That life is hard for EVERYone and if we stood in awe at what each other person has to carry, and learned to love like God, the world would change. Life would change.

We belong to each other. And God expects us to take care of each other. He answers prayers with other people. He relies on us to get each other back to him. We’re all on the same team here. And he put us all here together for a reason. No one person is any more important than another. God loves equally and unconditionally and he wants us ALL back. Glennon Melton said “I am confident because I believe that I am a child of God. I am humble because I believe that everyone else is too.”

To be clear, when I say God expects us to take care of each other, that doesn’t necessarily mean just giving money to the homeless or poor. Or handing out material possessions to each other. although that is part of it. I think it’s far beyond that. God simply expects us to love. To take each others hands, to walk side-by-side, and to show each other the way. And to take someone else’s hand when we we’re the ones that need to accept the help.

One of my favorite stories in “Tattoos on the Heart” is about a boy named Pedro (a gang member) who had a dream Gregory Boyle (the author) was in. Boyle says “And in this dream, Pedro and I are in this large, empty room, just the two of us. There are no lights, no illuminated exit signs, no light creeping in from under the doors. There are no windows. There is no light. He seems to know that I am there with him. A sense, really, though we do not speak. Suddenly, in this dark silence, I retrieve a flashlight from my pocket and push on it. I find the light switch in the room, on the wall, and I shine this narrow beam of light on the switch. I don’t speak. I just hold the beam steady, unwavering. Pedro says that even though no words are exchanged, he knows he is the only one who can turn this light switch on. He thanks me for happening to have a flashlight. He makes his way to the switch, following the beam with, I suppose, some trepidation. He arrives at the switch, takes a deep breath, and flips it on. The room is flooded with light….

And with a voice of astonishing discovery, he says ‘And the light….is better….than the darkness…..As if he did not previously know this to be the case.”

Boyle goes on to say “Possessing flashlights and occasionally knowing where to aim them has to be enough for us. Fortunately, none of us can save anybody. But we all find ourselves in this dark, windowless room, fumbling for grace and flashlights. You aim the light this time, and I’ll do it the next.

The slow work of God.

And you hope, and you wait, for the light–this astonishing light.”

Our job isn’t to save each other. Our job is to love each other. And to shine the flashlight for those who need it. And be willing to follow the flashlight when others hold it up for us. We’re each responsible for turning on our own light switch. But NONE of us can do it alone. We need each other. We need other’s flashlights. We belong to each other. And every single human on this earth regardless of who they are or the choices they have made is entitled to love. Love from God. And love from us.

Great blogs to follow

The truth is, I blog but I don’t read a lot of blogs. I read a LOT of books, but not many blogs. Not sure why. I guess I just haven’t found many that draw me in. But there are a few I really appreciate. And I’m always grateful when people share great sites with me, so I’m sharing some of my favorite blogs I follow (the ones I check somewhat consistently).

**Storyline Blog by Donald Miller. I pretty much love anything Donald Miller does.

**Momastery by Glennon Doyle Melton. She speaks so much truth and I agree with almost everything she writes about. And if you haven’t read her book Carry On, Warrior you must. It’s one of my favorite books I’ve ever read.

**Under the Sycamore by Ashley Ann Campbell. She is a great photographer and shares lots of photography tips. But she’s also an incredible mom and I love the way she raises her family.

**71toes by Shawni Pothier. I can’t really explain why I like this one. When I first found it I spent an hour just going through old posts and reading everything I could. I was immediately drawn to her and her family. She’s a great photographer, but she really just writes about her life.

**Becky Higgins blog by Becky Higgins. If you haven’t heard of the Project Life App yet, you should definitely check that out. It’s scrapbooking without having to scrapbook. A perfect way to get your photos into albums without the fuss. Plus Becky’s blog is full of helpful tips, tricks, and inspiration.

**Jen Hatmaker Blog. Oh my word Jen Hatmaker makes me laugh out loud all.the.time. So dang funny. I’ve read a few of her books and have plans to read the rest. Her writing is most definitely worth my time.

What are you some of YOUR favorite blogs? Do you have any you check some-what regularly? I’d love a few new ones to follow so share them in the comments!

For some amazing TED talks to watch, check this out. And here’s 4 videos that are sure to inspire.

To stick around and be a part of this blog community (it’s a great community), check out this post to stay-in-touch and get 10 photo tips that will immediately improve your phone photography!

Tandem bike ride

Summer is blowing by SO fast. We’ve been having the perfect amount of fun and maybe not quite enough sleep. I’ve been super busy with something big I have coming up which has required some really early mornings for me (I’ll share more about that a little later this month). I used to be a morning person. Then I had kids. And getting up before 8am feels like a crime. One of the books on my “to read” list is The Miracle Morning. I hope that can get me motivated to start my days a little earlier and get to bed at a decent hour.

In church this past Sunday, a friend of mine shared something that really got me thinking. About God. And about trusting God. It sounds so weird, but sometimes I have a hard time turning my life over to God even though I know he’ll do a better job. I worry where He’ll take me. That it won’t be somewhere I was planning to go. I used to really stress about whether or not I was making the RIGHT decisions, but then I read a book by Donald Miller and it changed my whole perspective on the decision making process.

This little story, or poem, or whatever you want to call it, is helping me to trust God a little more (baby steps here people–I’m working on progress) and do my best to follow His guidance. I thought I’d share it with all of you:

A Tandem Ride With God

I used to think of God as my observer, my judge, keeping track of the things I did wrong, so as to know whether I merited heaven or hell when I die. He was out there, sort of like a president. I recognized His picture when I saw it, but I didn’t really know Him.

But later on, when I met Jesus, it seemed as though life was rather like a bike, but it was a tandem bike, and I noticed that Jesus was in the back helping me pedal. I didn’t know just when it was He suggested we change, but life has not been the same since I took the back-seat to Jesus, my Lord. He makes life exciting. When I had control, I thought I knew the way. It was rather boring, but predictable. It was the shortest distance between two points.

But when He took the lead, He knew delightful long cuts, up mountains, and through rocky places and at break-through speeds; it was all I could do to hang on! Even though it often looked like madness, He said, “Pedal!” I was worried and anxious and asked, “Where are you taking me?” He laughed and didn’t answer and I started to learn to trust. I forgot my boring life and entered into adventure. And when I’d say, “I’m scared”, He’d lean back and touch my hand.

He took me to people with gifts that I needed, gifts of healing, acceptance and joy. They gave me their gifts to take on my journey, our journey, my Lord’s and mine. And we were off again. He said, “Give the gifts away; they’re extra baggage, too much weight.” So I did, to the people we met, and I found in giving I received, and still our burden was light.

I did not trust Him, at first, in control of my life. I thought He’d wreck it, but He knows bike secrets, knows how to make it bend to take sharp corners, jump to clear high rocks, fly to short and scary passages. And I am learning to shut up and pedal in the strangest places, and I’m beginning to enjoy the view and the cool breeze on my face with my delightful constant companion, Jesus.

And when I’m sure I just can’t do any more, He just smiles and says… “Pedal.”

(Author unknown)

My advice to myself–be okay to take the back seat. Trust. And just keep pedaling.

Sparkler photos. With your phone!!!

This time of year is easily one of my favorites. Summer, hotness, playing all day, crashing at night, and doing it over the next day. And the 4th of July is one of my favorite holidays. Last year I played around with my dSLR camera and took some photos of sparklers. Because sparkler photos are just fun. And I thought about doing a quick little tutorial on how to do that with a dSLR, but then I realized you can take sparkler photos with your PHONE! And you don’t have to understand how to do manual settings on a camera. I was actually doubtful you could really do it, but then I made my husband go out front at midnight and light sparkler after sparkler after sparkler (which he super loved doing) and sure enough, I took sparkler photos with my phone!!

(Oh hey, you can hover over this photo (or any photo on the blog) and Pin it for future reference–you know, so you can remember how to do this on the next firework holiday in your state.)

So. How to take photos of sparklers with your phone.

For the record, ALL of the photos I’m sharing in this post are straight-out-of-the-camera. I didn’t edit anything. Just to show what it looks like coming directly out of the camera without any work after.

First things first, you need an app to do this. And you’ll probably want to get the longer lasting sparklers. If you just have regular sparklers, they burn out real quick and it’s harder to get many photos. Whyyyy are sparklers so hard to light??

Also, you can’t take sparkler photos with the native camera in the phone. This is what it looks like if you just try to take a photo of a sparkler in the dark:

Pretty bad. Because you can’t manually set the camera on your phone, the shutter doesn’t stay open long enough to record the light from the sparkler.

I downloaded the Slow Shutter Cam app for my iPhone 6 plus. It’s worth the 99 cents if you want to be able to take the sparkler photos using just your phone. When you open the app, you click on the icon in the lower corner (right corner in this photo) and choose “light trail”. Adjust the “shutter speed” to around 15 seconds so you have plenty of time to capture the light.

The next step is to get your camera steady on something. I don’t have a tripod for my “phablet” (as my husband affectionately calls it) yet, but if you have a tripod for your phone, use it. If not, make sure you rest your phone on something so it’s not moving at all. I took a small table outside and set the phone on that to keep it steady while I held the sides. This step is crucial. If you try to just hold the phone without stabilizing it, you’ll move to much and the photo will be blurry.

Touch on the screen where the sparkler is (you’ll have to do this after the sparkler is already lit so the camera can focus on the sparkler area). The blue box with yellow circle in the middle will appear. That’s how you set your focus.

Now just push the camera icon to start the photo. Once you push it, the camera icon will turn to a “stop” button (dark square in the gray circle) as in the photo below.

This is one of the cool parts. You can start and stop the photo for the entire 15 seconds (or whatever seconds your shutter speed is set on) and it all stays as one photo. So when you’re writing a word, you can do one letter at a time by starting the camera, stopping it and then starting it again. For example, in this photo of XOX, I started the camera while he went down on the “X”, then stopped the camera, then started it again after he had raised his hand to go down again. Then once the first “X” was done, I stopped the camera, he moved over a little, then I started the camera and he did the “O”. Then I stopped the camera and we did the same thing for the last “X”. So the photo ends up looking like this:

Instead of like this:

See the light trail on the right side of both “X’s” when he raises his hand to do the other line in the “X”? If you stop and start the camera, you can get rid of that line that shouldn’t be there on the “X’s”.

The stopping and starting feature was one of my favorite parts about the app. Really cool feature and allows for a lot of creativity and experimenting.

Once you’re done with the photo, you hit the “stop” button (you don’t have to wait for the full “shutter exposure” time to run out). Then choose “save” and it will save the photo to your camera roll. After you save the photo, choose “clear” and this box will pop up:

Choose “clear capture” and then you can start with your next photo.

It’s all really simple to use and I was amazed the phone was able to take pretty good photos of sparklers!

A sampling of some of the photos we took in the quick midnight shoot in the front yard where I really just wanted to see if the phone was actually capable of doing this (I’m still surprised it worked). And again, all of these photos are straight-out-of-the-camera. I didn’t do any sort of editing on the backend.

If you try to write words, remember the person writing them has to do the letters backwards so it looks right to the camera. This takes some skill and practice. And the words are a little blurry because I wasn’t holding the camera steady enough. A tripod or something really stable is KEY in getting the photo in focus.

The longer you leave the shutter open (set the seconds higher on the “shutter speed” settings), the more light it collects. I let this photo go for about 3 seconds which is why there’s a lot of light in the middle. And the sparkler was really close to the camera.

And this is when I told Mike to lay down on his bike and write the word “dream” in cursive (he was on his back with his head by me and his arm in the air so he could spell the word without having to do it backwards). The shoot ended right after this. Can’t imagine why (he really is such a good sport).

I’m looking forward to playing around with this on the 4th of July with the kids sparklers. Although I plan to get some fun photos that day, my main goal is to get everyone through the day with no broken bones and no burns. I call that a success.

Since we’re on the topic of fireworks, for all my Utah county readers, there’s a new firework company in town I recently found out about. When I was a kid, I remember begging my dad to get more and more (and more) fireworks. I LOVED sitting around as a family and lighting fireworks (except for the time one of them went under my grandpa’s car and I was sure it was going to explode–I’m still traumatized by it). The more the better. I have many fond memories of the fourth of July in our little cul-de-sac. So I appreciate people who work to make this possible for other families. This new company is kind of different and I love the concept behind it. It’s called Provo Fireworks and it’s based entirely online. No firework tent. No physical location to go buy fireworks. You do all the shopping online, pick out what you want, then pick it up in Provo, OR if you live in Utah county, they’ll deliver the fireworks to you for $5. On their site it says they’ll also deliver “further north and south.”

The great part about doing this online (I think this is SO smart) is the videos they have of the different fireworks. So you can see what they actually look like when they go off. Last year we bought one of those medium-sized packages of fireworks at some grocery store and it was expensive. Most of the fireworks were lame-o (that’s a real word). I would have rather had less fireworks with each firework being “worth it” instead of a bunch of dumb ones. On this site, you can see what the fireworks are AND watch a video of what the firework looks like when it goes off so you know if it’s worth it or not. Love this idea. And if you get one that doesn’t work (a dud), you can get a refund.

Also, the firework prices are better than you can get anywhere else I’ve seen. The man who started it is super passionate about his fireworks and is working hard to make it more affordable and fun for family’s to be able to do their own fireworks.

If you’re planning to get fireworks this year for your family and you live in Utah, I definitely recommend checking them out.

Hope everyone has an awesome Fourth of July!

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Summer bucket list and a chore chart that works.

I’m already getting panicky about summer being over. I’m a love my kids being home for the summer kind of mom. I don’t like getting up early, waking kids up, getting lunches ready, scrambling to get out of the door, carpool, homework…. I sorta like freedom. And hot days. And playing all day until the kids are so exhausted they crash into bed.

It’s usually about this time every summer that I start to panic and wonder how summer is almost over even though we still have lots of time left.

I’m also finding this summer how difficult it is to find time for business/blogging stuff. But I’d like to assure my faithful followers I’m still here. And I have lots of things in the works. Some big projects. Some FUN projects. And some in-depth blog posts I’ve been working on. I’m not dwindling. Just trying to figure out how to play all day and still have the energy to get things up on the blog at night. 🙂 So stick with me!

Just wanted to pop in real quick and share a few things about our summers. Each summer we brainstorm together as a family and make a summer bucket list. I’m liberal with what I let the kids put on there (Chucky Cheese–help me), but a bit more conservative about what we actually do. We do our best to finish as many activities as possible. June’s almost over and we never planted a garden. That probably won’t happen this year. Good thing my dad plants about 40 tomato plants (and no, I’m not exaggerating). We’ll just steal some of his produce this year I guess.

This year I used the Project Life App to create our bucket list. I just did it on my phone while the kids were sitting there throwing out ideas. Then at the end of the summer I can just slip the page into our yearly photo album.

2015-06-22_0001

Despite my love for freedom in the summer, I still need some sort of schedule and routine to tame the chaos. And summer around here definitely doesn’t mean no chores. There are a few big things I focus on with parenting my kids. One of them is kindness. The other is learning to work hard. Chores are a non-negotiable around here and I don’t feel one bit bad about that. We work hard, but we also play hard.

There aren’t many things that drive me more crazy than having to nag my kids (and kids who whine–gah). After trying allllll sorts of things (mostly systems that required far too much work on my part–magnets, stickers, random rewards, nagging), I finally found a chore system that works really well for us (right now at least) with very little nagging on my part. I first heard about this type of system in this book: The Entitlement Trap: How to Rescue Your Child with a New Family System of Choosing, Earning, and Ownership. I highly, highly recommend this book! You can also read a little more about the system here (on the blog of the authors daughter).

We’ve tweaked the system we learned from this book a bit to fit our family but the concept is the same. Our oldest child is currently 10 and our youngest is 3. Our 10 yr old and 8 yr old have the same amount of chores. We’re just starting to work our 5 yr old into the system. I don’t start too young on the kids with chores. If they’re too little it’s painful to try and get them to do stuff (in my opinion). Our 3 yr old is supposed to help clean up the messes he makes, but most of the time that doesn’t happen. As he gets a little older our expectations will get a little higher. And the chores and expectations for all the kids will change as they continue to get older.

The key to getting a chore system to work is figuring out your kids “currency” (beyond just money). Our older girls are highly motivated by getting to play with their friends. So the rule around here is no friends until chores done (they can’t watch TV or play on electronics either, but those aren’t a huge temptation around here for some reason). They know if they want to play, they have to have ALL their chores done for that day. This is one of the very few things I’m consistent about in my parenting (I’m terrible at being consistent, but not with the “no friends before chores” rule).

Each kid has a “zone” they have to keep clean each day which we alternate between the two kids old enough. They also have various other chores that rotate between the kids (well, between just our girls right now since they’re the only ones old enough)

We pay our kids each week for their chores. I know there is some debate with parents about whether kids should get paid for chores at home. We like this system and it works for us but I realize it’s a personal decision for each family. Right now we pay the girls $5 per week. And they put 10% in savings, pay 10% to tithing, and the remainder goes in their spending fund (I’m always curious what other people pay which is why I’m sharing). We just started the 5 year old on chores. He’ll probably get $2 a week. According to this system, the amount kids are paid is dependent on how much you expect them to buy for themselves. The hardest part about this is remembering to get cash to pay them each week. They’re pretty good at reminding me.

This is what one of their chore charts looks like. We can write their various activities on each day from week-to-week. And there are extra slots on each day to fill in random chores that come up when we need them done. Some weeks I need them to help out more than others. Generally they’re pretty good about it. If they stay focused, their chores don’t take more than 20-30 minutes (if you don’t count their 20 minutes of reading which I don’t consider a chore–cause you know, reading makes you smarter).
Jaidachores

I hang them on the wall so they can check what they need to do each day and mark it off with a dry-erase marker. (You can see how I made that full-wall photo display here).

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If you want the blank template for this chore chart (I adapted it from one I found on this site), you can download it free in a PDF format by clicking this link: ChoreCharttemplate. I edit mine using Photoshop to add different chores.

All that being said, we definitely don’t have a spotless home (as evidenced by this sign I have hanging by my front door–you’re probably going to want one) and we’re far from perfect. But this system at least helps me keep some of my sanity.

If you have questions, I’d be happy to answer them in the comments or you can e-mail me. If you want more detailed information on how this system works, WHY it works and the theory behind it, as well as the details on payment, etc., definitely pick up the book (link above) to learn how to do it for your family. We’ve been doing this for the past year or so and it really has been working well.

I’m curious, do YOU have a chore system for your kids? What age do you start having them do chores? Do you feel like your system works well? What do you like best about the system you use? Please share in the comments!