Tag: New years resolution

2015: A Year of Courage

Posted on December 30, 2015 by Jennifer Wolfe

My word for 2015 was courage – courage because I knew that coming off the significant changes in my life from 2014, I would need fearlessness to remember that when one door closes, another door opens.

I would need courage to really look at myself in the year before I turned 50, hoping to find some place to simultaneously settle into life as it is, while keeping an open heart and mind for new opportunities.

Courage opened my eyes to parts of my life, right here, right now, that I wanted to pour energy into, and parts that I wanted to shut down. Courage helped me to look at relationships, to identify friendships that were worth investing in, and to feel confident that putting family first was the right choice. 2015 helped me to examine my teaching, my commitment to my career, and most of all, to have the bravery needed to put up strong boundaries to create the life I want to live. And it took a bit of courage to admit that when I turned 50 in early December, I was officially ‘middle-aged’.

It surfaced in my writing, too. Courage allowed me to blog on my own schedule, to share with you, my readers, parts of my life that I was trying to decode, to comprehend, to adapt to. Today I’d love to share some of my favorite posts from last year, most of which reflected on this theme. I’m still thinking of my word for 2016; as many of my readers know, I’d rather focus on the broad expanse a word allows than to create a list of resolutions that somehow never seem to manifest.

Thank you all for reading and commenting and supporting my blog in 2015. I look forward to a prolific year in 2016, and to grow our mamawolfe community of lovers of thinking deeply, loving fiercely, and teaching audaciously.

My top posts of 2015:

Letter To My College-Bound Daughter

5 Things You Probably Don’t Know Teachers Are Thinking

What Teachers Really Want For Teacher Appreciation Week

3 Fun And Easy Ways To Encourage Your Child To Write

Flipped Learning Using Edmodo

She’s Nineteen, And She Doesn’t Live Here Anymore

A Letter To Parents Leaving Their Kids At College

Finding The Teacher Mom Balance

Into The Fog: The Sweetheart Murders

A Year of Accidental Life Lessons

My favorite posts about courage in 2015:

No New Year’s Resolutions: Just Courage

Being Normal

Love Makes Your Soul Crawl Out

It’s The Last Day of School – So Why Aren’t My Students Leaving?

Living In Courage: Three Vignettes Vlog

What are your reflections on 2015? Which were your favorite mamawolfe posts? Happy new year, to each of you, and thank you for being a part of my world.

Jennifer Wolfe

Jennifer Wolfe, a writer-teacher-mom, is dedicated to finding the extraordinary in the ordinary moments of life by thinking deeply, loving fiercely, and teaching audaciously. Jennifer is a Google Certified Educator, Hyperdoc fanatic, and a voracious reader. Read her stories on her blog, mamawolfe, and grab free copies of her teaching and parenting resources.

How Healthy Is Your Family?

Posted on February 8, 2014 by Jennifer Wolfe

Are you still thinking about that New Year’s resolution you made? Are your kids (and you) slipping into their old habits? Not to worry – mamawolfe is delighted to have guest writer Jessica Socheski share her ideas about healthy families!

Every January, the number one New Year’s resolution is to get back in shape. After the months of holiday indulgence it only seems natural to start the New Year off right with workout routines and new diets.

Instead of doing this resolution alone, why not include the entire family? Children need to practice healthy habits in order to maintain health in adulthood, so why not make health a family affair?

Family Physician

One of the first steps towards improving family wellness is to find a good family doctor. A great doctor will take an interest in every family member and take the time to know your clan. Having a family practitioner who is good with children will help kids feel comfortable when receiving shots, visiting for check-ups, or receiving emergency medical attention.

Because kids need regular check-ups to ensure healthy growing, developing a personal relationship with your physician seems ideal because you will be interacting with him or her on a regular basis. When finding a family physician, consider traditional insurance coverage and alternatives like concierge medicine which tends to provide more private primary healthcare.

Make Mealtime Fun

Many times families spend more time eating on-the-go from fast food restaurants than they do in their own kitchens. No matter how many nutritious offering a restaurant boasts on its menu, cooking at home almost always proves better at delivering healthier food and better family relationships.

In order to make mealtime fun, invite your kids to cook with you in the kitchen. Spend time each weekend looking over healthy and relatively simple recipes. After selecting a few to choose from, ask the kids to pick the meals for the week. Your children will feel involved in the process and, as a result, will probably be more likely to eat the healthy food on their plates because they asked for it.

Bring the kids to the grocery store, too. Most parents dislike shopping with their children because it seems like too much of a hassle. Avoid the junk aisles when shopping with kids, and allow them to select whatever they want to eat from the healthy aisles. This is another practical step to involving children in your family’s new healthy lifestyle.

Finally, make sure meals are eaten together. Do not let life’s busyness interfere with enjoying this essential time with your children.

Family Night

Designate one night a week as family night. Family health is not just physical health; it includes mental and relational health as well. Spending at least one night a week together without homework, work, chores, and other interfering tasks can improve a family’s overall mentality. Children naturally want to spend time with their parents, but if this happens rarely, families will grow apart.

Outdoor Adventures

Another great way to pursue health together is to spend time exercising as a family. Kids learn the most from your example. So spending family days biking together, hiking, walking, or playing sports will teach children to stay healthy through fun exercise. And these activities will also serve as team builders between you and your kids.

As a parent, there is nothing more important than the well-being of your family. Focus on improving the areas that are lacking in mental and physical health and turn 2014 into the year of total wellness.

Image Source: www.prairiefarms.com

Jennifer Wolfe

Persistence

Posted on January 12, 2014 by Jennifer Wolfe

Persistence: Leonard John Matthews

You probably have no idea how close I was to giving up. Seriously. Sometimes all the new-year-resolution-I’m-going-to-do-it-this-way-this-year talk backfires on me. It’s my stubborn streak, I know.

You’ve got to do it for the right reasons, that little voice kept whispering to me. Tell your stories. Use your voice. Share your words.

Sigh. Here she comes again. She’s like a two-year-old, always right in the middle of everything.

But why? my own little voice responded. Can’t you hear the defeat in my voice? What’s the point? It’s not like anyone is listening. I think I’m done.

That little voice never goes away. Who is she, anyway? Sometimes I wish she would dissolve into little snowflake shards, and leave me alone. Fizzle out. Melt away.

Does she talk to everyone this way?

And then just like that, the Universe responded. Shivers trickle down my spine. Seriously?

Thank you, she said one morning. I love reading your words. They make me smile. How do you do all that?

I wonder if my expression gave me away. Did she really know what I was thinking, how close I was?

Persistence. That’s who she is, anyway.

January prompt-a-day from write.alm – today’s prompt is persistence.