Category: Sharing

05
Jul
2017

Feeling Stuck – Treading Water in the Ocean of Life

Do you ever feel stuck? Unable to move forward or backward or in any direction? Are you treading water – surviving, keeping your head above the surface, but not actually moving toward anything? Well hello and welcome, my friend. Let’s talk about feeling stuck and what we can do to get unstuck.

feeling stuck

Feeling Stuck – Treading Water

I think everybody experiences this feeling at some point, but I’m guessing it’s common for moms at my stage to experience this. When your kids get older and don’t need you as much anymore (my son just graduated from high school), you realize that your purpose and identity is no longer wrapped up in raising children. That’s the focus when children are younger and it needs to be – raising humans is kind of a big deal. It doesn’t mean that I neglected myself or ignored my own hobbies and passions during that time.

But I find myself at an older age not knowing quite what I’m supposed to be doing when I grow up. And so I tread water. I work; I spend time with family; I cook and clean; I meet with friends; I write. But I’m not swimming toward any of these things. I do what’s necessary but lack passion and commitment. Because.

Because I’m undecided. I don’t know what I really want to do or if what I want to do is best for me. I lack purpose. It’s like I’m waiting for a lightning bolt of inspiration to strike that will point me in the right direction. And that hasn’t happened. And that leaves me feeling stuck. But I can’t tread water forever. I wrote a poem trying to capture the essence of it all.

Standing Still

She’s standing so still, but a statue she’s not.
On the inside there’s motion, a battle well-fought;
A war of directions, of which way to move,
But the way that is right is not easy to prove.

The back way invites – stay safe and sound.
The front way says she’ll discover new ground.
The side way promises blessings will abound.

The magnetic pulling of each calling way
Results in an ongoing internal fray.
Going the wrong way may cost heavy dues,
But the only escape is to finally choose.

How long will she stand – can she break free?
How long till she knows that a guide is key?
It won’t be long now; her heart whispers a plea.
…
The long wait is over; her eyes now see.
– Lisa Marie Watson

So how can we get unstuck and get moving in a direction – any direction? There are a few tips I’ve come up with to help us stop treading water and start swimming toward something.

feeling stuck

Get Unstuck – Start Swimming

If you’re ready to stop treading water, try these three tips:

Stop making such a big deal.
Certainly there are times in our lives when we have to make actual life-changing decisions. But many times when we are feeling stuck – it’s more similar to deciding which shade of gray to paint on a wall. Choosing a direction to go in that turns out not to be best may mean more work later or minor consequences, but it’s probably not the end of the world. You will never have 100% certainty that what you decide to pursue is the best decision before you do it. Pray about it; get input from trusted sources; pick a direction and start moving toward it. Don’t overthink it beyond what is reasonable.

Do the next thing.
Pick a direction and take a baby step. Taking a few baby steps in one direction might help us decide whether it’s the right way to go or not. Don’t get overwhelmed by making a big plan right now before making any movement forward. Don’t even make a list yet. Yes, those things are good and necessary, but not always when we’re paralyzed by indecision. Did you know that making lists is another form of procrastination for some people (me)? So – pick a direction you want to move in. What is one thing, one baby step, that you can do today to move toward that goal? Do it. Don’t think beyond the one thing right now. And then? Do the next thing.

Believe in yourself.
Every time we think about moving in certain directions, self-doubt creeps in and holds us back. If we doubt ourselves in all things, we’ll stay right where we are and never move. Remember that nobody is perfect. And rarely is anybody amazing at something immediately – it takes practice, persistence, and perseverance. You’ve been created to be a unique masterpiece. You can and will do amazing things. Speak some positive words to yourself today and believe them. Now get moving in a direction – you got this!

Does this sound doable? Are you ready to get unstuck? Treading water for too long gets tiring. Let’s stop feeling stuck, and start moving toward something new today. Take a deep breath – you can do it! What are you going to move toward?

Once you start moving forward and feel ready to set some new goals and make plans to achieve them, download my planning tools to help you figure out what your priorities are right now!

12
Apr
2017

Spring Clean Your Life in 7 Days

categories: Living, Sharing, Uncategorized

With Spring comes Spring Cleaning. While the chores aren’t necessarily fun, don’t you love the sense of accomplishment and fresh feeling you get after finishing those tasks? How would you like to have those same feelings about your life rather than the state of your home? I’ve got just the thing – and it’s super simple and free!

spring clean

Spring Clean Your Life Tasks

Whether it’s tackling chores in the home or organizing my life, I get overwhelmed by the giant list of stuff that should be accomplished. That leads to me trying to hide or escape, which doesn’t help at all. But if I break it all down into baby steps and just keep doing the next thing, I can handle the tasks and before I know it, I have accomplished a lot!

Let’s try spring cleaning your life! I’m not talking about cleaning your home. I have some simple tasks that you can do in roughly 15 minutes a day that do not actually involve cleaning. They are the tasks involving health, organization, connection, etc. that you tend to put off or don’t think about (and some of them are even fun!), but will give you that sense of accomplishment when you actually complete them. And when you finish a few, you’ll feel a little of that weight lift off your shoulders, breathe a little easier, find that smile, and feel ready for your next project.

Spring Clean Your Life Emails

For 7 days, I’ll email you a simple task each morning that you can tackle that day – usually in about 15 minutes. No overwhelming projects. No big lists and wondering how you’ll ever finish. Just 1 simple task a day to focus on. After 7 days, you’ll have accomplished 7 tasks. Feeling like you can take on more than that? The email will actually include 2 choices of tasks – that way you can either do the one that fits your life best or be bold and do both!

Join up now so you don’t miss out! Emails will begin on Monday, April 17th. Totally free. No spam. No selling anything. Just me and you – spring cleaning our lives.

12
Feb
2017

The Power of Positive Words – My Scrapbook of Compliments

categories: Sharing

I do have one. A scrapbook of compliments that I’ve received over the years. But it’s virtual – it’s kept in my mind. You know how negative words stay with us and keep replaying in our minds? So do positive words and it’s important that we start replaying those instead!

compliments

I know how the cycle goes.

Maybe everything went wrong with the kids and the house today. Maybe you made a mistake at work and your boss was disappointed in you. Maybe a friend didn’t respond to you when you reached out. Maybe you were on Facebook and saw that 10 people you know are seemingly super-blessed right now and succeeding at life while your life feels like a failure. Maybe you fell short of reaching a goal that was really important to you. And then?

Then you feel like failure and a mess and all the negative words, sometimes from others, more often from yourself, come flooding back into your mind. I don’t need to repeat the negative words here – you know them and can probably give me at least 3 examples of your own negative-speak right off the top of your head. And the more you repeat it, the more you believe it. And the more you believe it, the more you live it.

The Power of Positive Words

I get it. I have my own negative words. But I choose to push them out again and again (and yes, I’m kind of an optimist) and choose the positive words instead. Some of my positive words are in the form of compliments I have received over the years. I keep them in my scrapbook. My imaginary scrapbook. As I flip through the pages in my mind, I read through my saved compliments. Words like:

You have a really great smile.
You have stage presence. Even if only a tree, everyone would know you were there.
You always lift my spirits.
You’re so laid back. I think God put you in my life to teach me patience.
You’re a good listener.
You’re beautiful.
You’re a great storyteller. You should write novels.
You are classy.
You are an encouragement to others.

Each of those compliments are a blessing. And I choose to believe them, no matter how long ago they were given! They help me when Life isn’t going quite the way I expect and the negative self-talk begins to creep in. If I need to repeat them over and over until they sink in, I’ll do that. No matter what happens, I choose the positive words and I choose to keep on flashing my really great smile and encouraging others. I KNOW that you have been given compliments in your lifetime. Stop and think back right now. What compliments have stayed with you through the years? What positive things have people said to you recently (whether you believed them or not)?

A Scrapbook of Compliments

I want you to gather up those positive words and compliments and make your own virtual scrapbook right now. It’s not necessary to remember who told you what or the exact words. But I want you to lock them in your mind right now. Better yet? Write them out, like I did. And read them. Again. And again. Let these words push out those negative ones you keep letting in and listening to. You are unique and wonderfully made. Nobody can be a better you than you.

If you are struggling to come up with the positive words because you have avoided them for too long or forgotten them, I’ll let you borrow some. Here’s your scrapbook to borrow until you are able to add your own pages. (Click the arrow underneath the image to see all the pages.)

Scrapbook of Compliments by From Lisa Marie

Once you realize how powerful these positive words can be for your own self, you’ll realize how much they can mean to someone else. Why do we hold ourselves back from giving compliments and expressing our positive thoughts about others? Be brave today and give your friends, family, or even strangers heartfelt, sincere compliments. Tell them in person, on the phone, or in writing, but do tell them. You might be helping them add a page to their own scrapbook of compliments so that they can stop focusing on the negative.

I hope you can make this shift and believe the compliments that have been given to you. I’d like to help you stand up a little straighter, hold your head up high, and find your smile. Prayers & virtual hugs from me today, friends.

If you want to be encouraged and want a little help finding your smile, let’s connect. Join me in my new Facebook Group, Find Your Smile (click on over and request to Join), and join my list by clicking here so you can stay connected.

In case you wonder how I can stay positive, and think that maybe my life must be so much better than yours – know that I’m just like you. I experienced childhood issues, divorced parents, mental illness in my family, infertility, deaths of loved ones, motherhood, etc. I have a heart filled with joy and optimism, even in sadness, mainly because I am a Christian. No matter how bad this life gets, I know how it all works out in the end (Jesus wins!) and I get to go to my real home – Heaven. That doesn’t mean that I don’t struggle and need reminders to focus on the positive. But I know that there are blessings hidden in struggles and sunshine above the rain clouds. Love to you all!

28
Sep
2016

My Infertility Story – Part 2

categories: Family Life, Sharing

Warning – I share my full infertility story here, including miscarriage details. This may be too emotional for some people and disturbing for others.

If you have not yet read Let’s Talk About Infertility – please read that first as an introduction to the subject. And then read Part 1 of My Infertility Story. The story continues and finishes here. Why am I sharing it? By speaking up and sharing about my own struggles, I hope to show you that you are not alone in your struggles and to encourage you to step forward and share. Infertility shouldn’t be a secret subject and we should feel comfortable telling others that we are struggling and that we are not okay! My story is actually about secondary infertility but I hope that you find value in it if you are experiencing infertility of any kind. Here is Part 2 of my own infertility story.

From Part 1:

And then, out of the blue, we were surprised by a pregnancy. My cycle was late and I took a test which turned out positive, much to my great surprise! We thought we would finally have another baby, since the pregnancy happened without us stressing or any help from medication. The baby checked out okay at our appointment as well, so we were cautiously optimistic. Everything changed just a few weeks later…

My Infertility Story – Part 2

We had an appointment scheduled near 12 weeks into the pregnancy. If everything checked out, we planned to start telling people that I was pregnant. We did end up telling close family only at this point. Sadly, at the appointment, the doctor and nurse discovered that the baby had already passed away – probably around 10 weeks. It was harder to cope with than in the past because this particular pregnancy had seemed like it was progressing better than any in the past.

At that point, I had a difficult decision to make – either to have a procedure done to remove the baby and scrape the uterus or to let the body miscarry the baby when ready. With either choice, there was risk of hemorrhaging. I decided that letting it happen naturally when my body was ready sounded like the better option. I now wish I had decided differently.

Over 2 weeks went by and I did not have any miscarriage. We had a vacation already scheduled and hoped everything would be okay until we got back from our trip. We left on our already-planned vacation to Montana. While there, we took a side trip through Glacier National Park and enjoyed ourselves. On the drive back from Glacier Park to my parents’ house, I started feeling miserable and realized that the actual process of miscarriage was beginning.

When we got back to my parents’ house, I went immediately to bed, bleeding and in pain. Later, I had to stay in the bathroom for a couple of hours because of the almost non-stop bleeding. We were very concerned about hemorrhaging but I wanted to hold off for a while since the hospital was only a 2-minute drive from the house if we needed to go. Finally, the bleeding seemed to slow just the smallest bit so we decided that I didn’t need to go to the hospital.

The whole process was not only very painful, but very scary, especially the fact that we had to go through it while not being at home. It was emotionally exhausting for both my husband and me. It really was horrible and I wouldn’t want to repeat that experience. Thankfully, at some point I was able to rest and then stayed in bed the next day. I felt sorry for my father and stepmother, though they were very sweet. It’s awkward going through a personal and painful experience in someone else’s home, even if they are family.

That miscarriage affected us more than the others. We had our hopes up that this pregnancy was going to be a successful one. This miscarriage was far more traumatic than the others had been. One of the after-effects, and I’m guessing it’s the same for many women who go through this, is that I developed a fear of getting pregnant. Though on the one hand I wanted to get pregnant and have another child, I also secretly hoped that I would not get pregnant again so that I wouldn’t have a chance of experiencing another miscarriage.

There are definitely psychological issues that go along with infertility – don’t beat yourself up thinking that you should be handling everything well. Don’t feel guilty when experiencing feelings of resentment, anger, heartbreak, fear, failure, low self-worth, and more. Having these feelings while struggling with infertility does not make you a bad person. It’s important to be honest about your feelings (they are normal and you are not the only one experiencing them) so that you can deal with them and ask for help, if needed.

One of the issues that comes up and catches you off guard when you are struggling is hearing a friend or family member announce their pregnancy. I still remember a couple of announcements happening while I was in the midst of infertility. Though my mind knew that I wanted to be happy for them, my heart could not catch up. I faked my smiles and hugs as my thoughts went to wondering why them and why not me and why would they be so bold as to announce a pregnancy so early, when a miscarriage could happen at any time. The things that helped me were prayer and time, but I think if I had opened up and discussed these feelings with somebody, that would have been very helpful as well.

After going through that hardest miscarriage, my medical provider had me listed for three “official” miscarriages (I know that I had more early ones but never officially documented them). This fact triggered genetic testing, which I went ahead and did. When the results were in, I got a phone call. The lab discovered that I had a Protein S deficiency. While not as serious as a protein C deficiency, this does mean that I have an increased risk of developing an abnormal blood clot.

The counselor went over behaviors I should change, medications I should avoid, and recommended that I take a baby aspirin every day as a preventative measure. She said that it may have been a contributing factor in the miscarriages though not the only explanation for not having another child as we also should have conceived more often. The protein deficiency is important to know about for any possible future surgeries I have. It actually was a blessing to have discovered this important health information.

I never had another miscarriage like that one. I had one or two very early miscarriages sometime after that, similar to my first ones and so early that I hadn’t tested for pregnancy yet. There have been no other pregnancies that I am aware of for the last few years. I assume that due to my age, there is not much chance of getting pregnant anymore, though technically it is still possible.

I can’t just say “The End” and leave the story there because you will think this is all so sad and feel sorry for me. You need to know that I’m not sad anymore. I did not pray for God to make me pregnant, but rather prayed for His will to be done – no matter what that was and to give me contentment either way.

I don’t know the reasons why we were only meant to have one child, but our son is certainly a fabulous child and would be hard to top! And we have been able to bless others in many ways over the years, with babysitting, giving rides, making meals, helping financially, etc. that we may not have been able to do as easily if we had a larger family. Over time, God did help me find contentment – it was gradual until I realized one day that I was perfectly happy with and thankful for my little family.

If you are in the midst of struggling with infertility right now or are still dealing with the pain of it from the past, I pray for peace and contentment for you. And I offer you a giant virtual hug! It is not easy and it is painful and often feels lonely. Do reach out and talk about it with family and friends, even if you feel like you’ll make them uncomfortable and they don’t know the right things to say. Ask for prayer and ask friends to just be there for you to listen to you and support you. I’d love to hear from you – I welcome your comments right here on the post as well as on my Facebook page.

Thank you for being here to read my story. Click here to sign up and receive my blog posts by email so you’ll know when I post and we can stay connected.

01
Aug
2016

My Infertility Story – Part 1

categories: Family Life, Sharing

Warning – I share my full infertility story here, including miscarriage details. This may be too emotional for some people and disturbing for others.

If you have not yet read Let’s Talk About Infertility – I encourage you to read that first. I said in my previous infertility post that “Sometimes we don’t like to make others feel uncomfortable by discussing our own struggles.” But by sharing about our own struggles, we open the door for others to feel brave enough to speak up and share. We also help each other with the comforting fact that we are not alone. My story is actually about secondary infertility but I hope that it feels relevant to anybody experiencing infertility of any kind. Here is Part 1 of my own infertility story (I’m too wordy as usual and had to split into two parts – Part 2 has been published).

My Infertility Story

We didn’t have any fertility issues as far as we knew before having our son. We did wait a few years as we were busy finishing college and working full-time. When we were ready to try to have a child, I got pregnant without any issues and had no complications during the pregnancy. The only crazy thing that happened was that he arrived exactly four weeks early! (So the whole relaxing while taking four weeks off from work before giving birth was not to be. Thus I had a messy house, nothing prepared, and was completely exhausted!)

We didn’t give much thought to when we should try having our next baby. We figured it would happen when it happened. I was so busy taking care of my son that I didn’t think too much about it. When he was between one and two years old, I experienced some strange spotting, unrelated to my monthly cycle. I spoke with a friend who said she had experienced something similar and that it was the fertilized egg implanting. I took a pregnancy test and it was positive. I began the process with my medical provider – an official urine test, paperwork, a class I had to attend, etc. But sometime after that I had a menstrual cycle and wondered what was going on. A followup test revealed that I was not pregnant.

What had occurred is that I had conceived, then began the process of miscarriage early on (the spotting). I tested positive for pregnancy at that time because I still had high levels of the pregnancy hormones. What I thought was a menstrual cycle after that was actually the miscarriage finishing. It was very disappointing news, but we assumed it was a fluke thing and tried not to dwell on it.

I experienced more of these early miscarriages but did not go to the doctor each time because I was able to recognize the signs on my own. Eventually I went to a fertility specialist. We completed paperwork and they ran all sorts of tests on both of us. One of those tests was to check my uterus and was much more painful than I anticipated. But thankfully all tests came out perfectly fine/normal. We made the decision to move forward with taking the mildest fertility drug which would just increase my natural ovulation and allow us to have better timing.

That was a rough few months. Taking the drug for infertility was similar to having pregnancy hormones all the time, so I was stressed and emotional. I had to go in regularly to see if I was going to ovulate. If I got my menstrual cycle after that, it was assumed that I had not conceived and the cycle started all over again. We had a couple of disappointing months with nothing happening or eggs ready but then not conceiving. Then we were informed that there were four eggs ready to drop at once.

This completely stressed us out, because it meant a possibility, no matter how slight, that all four eggs could be fertilized at once. That would mean quadruplets! I did not feel ready for quadruplets. The doctors told us not to worry about it as we could simply choose not to carry all four if that happened. Our personal beliefs were against that, so we knew if we had four fertilized eggs, then we would carry all four babies!

We started to wonder if we were doing the best thing by taking this medication. We were stressing out about possibly having multiple babies but the multiples were only occurring because of the drug I was taking. We thought maybe it would be better for me not to take the drug. After all the stressing out, I had what seemed like a normal menstrual cycle, which meant I was supposed to start the next round of medication. I started the medication again, as usual.

About a week or more later, I had more bleeding. When I went in to get checked, it turned out that I was pregnant after all (and the medication should never be taken if pregnant). What had most likely happened was that I had three fertilized eggs and miscarried one baby, then lost another shortly after. I had one baby left, but we were excited about that!

I started going through the required pregnancy appointments and classes. Unfortunately at my next checkup, the doctor determined that the baby was too small for its age and that it was not thriving. I was told that I would miscarry. It was my choice whether to end it then with a procedure and lower the risk of hemorrhaging or let the miscarriage happen naturally at some point. I chose to let it happen naturally.

As difficult as it is to have an unexpected miscarriage, it is almost worse walking around knowing that at any moment you will miscarry. I miscarried a few days later. This had been the longest of my pregnancies since our son was born, but had ended at about eight weeks. At that point, we felt that taking the fertility medication while pregnant may have led to the miscarriage. So I decided to stop taking any medication.

It was at this time that we decided to look into adoption – mainly adoption through foster care. We did thoroughly look into it, but I’ll leave that part of the story for another time. We made the decision not to adopt at that time. That decision caused me to experience guilt, which added to the level of stress. It was also stressful listening to my son praying for a brother or a sister and explaining to him that not every family has siblings.

For a year or two, I counted days of cycles and tried ovulation prediction tools. Every time my monthly cycle was a day or two late, I started wondering if I was actually pregnant. If it went longer than three days or so, I took a pregnancy test. The tests were always negative. I had one to two more very early miscarriages, but didn’t go to the doctor for those. I didn’t hold out much hope that I would ever have another successful pregnancy.

I finally made the decision to stop worrying about it and stop counting days, etc. I focused on the blessing we already had – our amazing son, and the many ways our little family was blessed. And then, out of the blue, we were surprised by a pregnancy. My cycle was late and I took a test which turned out positive, much to my great surprise! We thought we would finally have another baby, since the pregnancy happened without us stressing or any help from medication. The baby checked out okay at our appointment as well, so we were cautiously optimistic. Everything changed just a few weeks later…

I’ll publish Part 2 of my infertility story as soon as I finish it. Since I don’t know exactly when I will publish it, I recommend that you click here to sign up and receive my blog posts by email. Then you don’t have to wonder if I have finished the story – you’ll be in the know!

Thank you for stopping by to read my story. If you are experiencing or have experienced infertility, I would love for you to share in the comments. It helps us all to know we’re not alone in our struggles as well as to share encouragement.

17
Mar
2016

From Lisa Marie – What It’s All About

categories: Sharing

You have no idea how badly I wanted to title this “What It Is” instead of “What It’s All About” but if you saw that without hearing me say it, you would think I messed up the title rather than saying it like “What it IS, yo” [ I’m about 5% Homegirl inside and it gets out from time to time].

How I Got Here

I’m not new to blogging. I started back in 2008. Yes, that’s the equivalent of horse-and-buggy days in blog time. I learned a lot over the years and have been very blessed by my experiences. From Lisa Marie has actually been around since 2014, but I obviously didn’t have much time to devote to it. I originally started it to have a new place to write where I didn’t feel tied down or obligated to post recipes like on my other blog. There was no vision in place other than me writing all about whatever I wanted. It was nice in theory, but a lack of vision and planning can end up meaning that nothing gets accomplished. And finally, an upcoming job change to doing something more left brain apparently opened up some room for creative thought on the right side and after reading a couple of posts about blogging, I was suddenly inspired to restart this blog and with some sort of vision and plan in place.

What It’s All About

Above all, I want my blog to represent me – a down-to-earth, slightly humorous, ordinary, imperfect mom – somebody that I hope you feel connected to. There are subjects that I have knowledge of and that I want to share about and I think I have narrowed those down and found a common thread that connects them. Here are some of the subjects that I plan to share about:

[Real] Family Life
- Not that I am any kind of expert on family life, but I do like the opportunity to start the conversation around issues that come up in marriage or with raising children (my son is a teenager). Or I like to just share the joys that we all get to experience in our families, looking at the bright side together and finding a way to laugh through it all.
Health/Fitness Victories and Struggles
- Over the years, I’ve tried many a plan for health and fitness and enjoy having a group to chat with about what’s working, what isn’t, and sharing new ideas as well as recipes from time to time. For example, my No Exercising At All “plan” doesn’t seem to be making me healthier, so we’ll need to work on that. 😉
Occasional Food Posts
- Well I like food. And it just so happens that I like yummy food. So I anticipate wanting to share some recipes or food ideas with you occasionally. But be warned – I don’t take professional or even well-lit pics, which is why I can never be a food blogger.
Digital Marketing Tips
- After many years of being a mostly stay-at-home mom, I went back into the workforce full time and worked for a digital marketing company. Oh yes, I learned a ton! I’d love to be able to share tips with fellow bloggers and small-business peeps to help you out.
Blogging and Writing
- I have thoughts on writing, but don’t always follow through well. I want to get into blogging consistently and if I can share ideas along the way, I will. I also hope to get going on writing a book soonish, so will be wanting to have discussions about that and share resources.
Leadership & Customer Service
- These are a couple of subjects that I’m passionate about in the working world, but also apply to life in general. I have a lot of years of work experience in my background, including management, and hope to share my thoughts on what makes for good employers, employees, business-owners, and more.

At first, these subjects seem a bit disconnected. But there are a couple of common threads. One is that they all represent parts of me and my experiences. C’mon, isn’t that enough? Okay, well there is another common thread. Each of these parts of our “real” offline world can be enhanced by how we participate in and make use of what we find in our online world. I can go through that list and tell you how something online helped or blessed me to make things better in “real” life. [Hello…Pinterest?] There’s a danger of becoming overwhelmed or obsessed with online life, but by navigating through it well, we can use the best ideas in the most efficient way and put the focus back on living an awesome offline life.

As you can tell by the list of subjects, post topics will vary widely. I hope you can all find topics that interest you and that you can connect with. Please do share any thoughts or feedback. I’m here and listening! Here are some of the upcoming blog post topics for the near future:

My Whole 30 diet experience
A series on LinkedIn – how to use it & why you need to, best practices & tips
Allowance for kids – different thoughts and practices
Work Life Balance
You Really are a Writer
Leading by example
Favorite salad recipe links

I hope this has given you a sense of where I’m headed with this blog and my “restart” of it. You should know that it can always evolve because I am constantly changing and my blog reflects me. Also, I haven’t had much time in the past couple of years to read other blogs, but want to get back into that, too. If you have a blog, feel free to comment here and give the name and what it’s all about so we can have a visit!

Thanks for being here. I’m so looking forward to sharing more with you!

07
Feb
2014

Where You Can Find Me

categories: Sharing, Uncategorized

I thought maybe you’d like to know where I “hang out” in the online world. Especially since I haven’t actually managed to put many links to those places in my sidebar!

You can still find me once in a while on my old blog: Stop and Smell the Chocolates. A couple days ago, I posted a new recipe there {Frozen Nutella Mousse} and if you haven’t stopped by there in a while, you should really check out the recipe for Double Almond Cake too.

I can be found on my Facebook page {Stop and Smell the Chocolates} every once in a while. I will always share my new posts there and sometimes other worthwhile things or I might ask a question. I’ve been there less and less as Facebook only shows my posts to 50 people, if I’m lucky. But feel free to stop by there and say hi!

I am on Twitter as @fromLisaMarie {formerly stop4chocolate}, but again, not posting there as much. I’d like to increase that a bit, but there just isn’t the interaction like there used to be when I started on there. Again – all my posts are shared there and I often retweet worthwhile tweets and links to good articles.

Of course I’m on Pinterest {Lisa Watson}! Who wouldn’t be? 🙂 I pin when I can – mostly food – but plan to add more boards and pin good articles too.

I am also on Google+ {Lisa Marie Watson}and that is where I hope to place most of my focus as time goes on. There’s much more opportunity for interaction and exposure to completely new people outside of your normal circles. Once you get the hang of it, it’s fun! It takes a bit to build up your circles {and end up in others’ circles}, but there are so many ways to help you with that process. It’s worth it. Come find me there!

And you can find me here on this blog! Not as often as I would like. I need to change that. The more I want to write, the harder it seems to be to do it. I have no idea why.

Now, where can I find YOU?!

With Love,
from Lisa Marie

08
Jan
2014

Who Is Lisa Marie?

categories: Sharing

I want to explain why I’m even starting this blog and what my hopes are for it. But first, what about Stop and Smell the Chocolates and all the yummy recipes? They’re not going anywhere! That blog will stay put and I will occasionally post new recipes and anything else that seems a better fit there. All the recipe links will still be there {hey – I use those all the time for cooking} and there will be new content, but it will not be on a regular basis. I plan to write more over on this blog. But why?

My other blog is not a food blog, but will be forever connected with food and chocolate no matter what I do. After 5 years of posting – I have plenty of recipes there but I always feel an obligation to continue putting up recipes. Though I like sharing the food, recipe posts are just not “fun” for me {that’s why I’m not an actual food blogger}. I like writing and I want a space where I feel like I can just be me and write about whatever I feel like. My blogging goals have changed over the years and I no longer have a desire to be a big, well-known blogger or to have a certain number of followers or to work with brands. I have more of a desire to write and connect.

My hope is that I will write about life and connect with you. Maybe you’ll find that we have something in common and you can keep stopping by, like friends meeting for coffee. Maybe you’ll read something that makes you stop and think about your own life and come up with a new idea or solution to a problem. {I used to meet a friend for coffee regularly and we joked that we were solving all the world’s problems during that time.} Maybe you’ll read something that encourages you and makes you hold your head a little higher. Maybe you’ll just stop by to catch your breath and find your smile. I hope that all of those things happen as we journey together here.

I say hopes rather than plans because God has a way of messing up all our plans! I hope that God will help me here in this little writing space. I hope He will give me the right words to say. I hope that He will bring the people here that need the words I write on any particular day. Whether that’s 1 person or 100 people is up to Him. I hope that we will all be blessed by meeting here together.

Who is Lisa Marie? It’s just me. Just a wife, mom, cook, maid, writer, taxi-driver, procrastinator, etc. – you know, like you. You don’t even have to call me Lisa Marie – Lisa is fine. 🙂 {Lisa Marie is just a bit more specific and matches my custom Google+ name.} And why the “from?” My hope is that what I write is something that I share with or give to you. What I write here is from my heart to yours.

Thank you for stopping by!

With love,
from Lisa Marie