Values Bring Joy | Family Brings Joy

Old People Music

October 6, 2015 By Shan 1 Comment

My Sister, Mom, Brother and I

This last weekend was heavenly. Many of my family members, including both sets of parents came to visit us this weekend. I can’t begin to explain the joy it brought me to have everyone here. I would find myself smiling as laughter wafted through the house.

The main reason which brought family in town was Alice…the one act play derived from Alice in Wonderland. My youngest daughter has embraced my thespian side. She was cast as the Dormouse in this school play.

However, Saturday happened to be my Mom’s Birthday! We used this opportunity to hold a party of sorts for both her and my Son who turned 17 last week. It was casual. We had BBQ, cake and watched both the Texas Rangers & Alabama (my Mom went to Alabama for 2 years) games.

Funny story

My Daughter had to leave the party early Saturday to prepare for the play. She didn’t see the gifts I bought for her Grandmother. Here’s a conversation I had with my Daughter on the way home from school yesterday:

Me: “I received a text from Grandmother today. She said she is loving her new Taylor Swift CD.”

Her: “You gave her a Taylor Swift CD?”

Me: “Yes, 1989.”

Her: “Why?”

Me: “She likes Taylor Swift. I found out since she has been visiting she didn’t have a copy, so I thought it would be the perfect gift! Why do you sound surprised?”

Her: “Because, I thought she liked old people music.”

We then had a discussion about how my mom likes all kinds of music. It was a good teaching opportunity for me to explain how music isn’t generational. Personally, I really love it when an album can be listened and enjoyed by several generations. I believe Taylor Swift’s 1989 does just that. I believe the only other CD I have gifted as much as 1989 would be Mindy Gledhill’s Winter Moon & Anchor albums.

Despite the couple of bad words in Taylor’s 1989, it is a remarkable album with up tempo and slow songs for every kind of mood. Plus, every time I hear about the amount of money she gives to someone in need, I don’t mind spending the money on her album. She earned every penny with her excellent lyrics. I’m happy to support an artist who appears to be a genuine person in spite of her fame. Keep up the good work Taylor! Our family is enjoying your music.

wrapped gifts for my mom familybringsjoy.com

Mirror, Mirror on the wall, I am my Mother after all.

Oh blog, how I’ve missed you.

Music Brings Joy,

Teaching Your Children How to be Financially Successful

June 11, 2015 By Shan 1 Comment

I came across a very intriguing post recently. So much so that I feel it important to share on my blog today. The post is titled Will Your Child be Rich or Poor? 15 Poverty Habits Parents Teach Their Children. The title alone definitely peaked my interest. I immediately wanted to find out if I am teaching my children poverty habits. I opened to find the following:

Screenshot from RichHabits.net

Don’t you find this fascinating? Already I have learned some very helpful information as a parent. Tom Corley, the author and professional of Rich Habits who wrote this post continues with the following helpful advice for parents:

Screenshot from RichHabits.net

I think I’ve found a new blog to follow daily. Thank you Tom for sharing your study with us so we can know what habits to teach our children to be financially successful. Go read the rest of this post by clicking here. It’s definitely worth your time to read.

Blogs Bring Joy,

Filed Under: Blogs Bring Joy, Values Bring Joy

Excellent Phone Apps for Family History

February 28, 2015 By Shan 1 Comment

I am super excited to share with you an excellent presentation on phone apps for doing your family history!

One of my friends, Crystal Beutler, taught a class at RootsTech a few weekends ago called Family History on the Go. Fortunately for us, they recorded the class and have shared it online for FREE. I love FREE! Crystal co-taught the class with creative app developer Rhonna Farrer. I use her app Rhonna Designs to create fun Instagrams with quotes and designs. If you go into my Instagram feed(@familybringsjoy) you will see what I am referring to.

Family History is the perfect activity during snow days like today! It’s Saturday, so the kids wouldn’t normally have school, but the roads have iced over. It’s not too safe for us to be going anywhere. I’m excited to show my kids what I learned. I believe this class completely revolutionized my way of doing Family History. Genealogy can bring family unity like nothing else.

Learning brings joy,

Filed Under: Photography Brings Joy, Values Bring Joy

Happy Families

February 19, 2015 By Shan Leave a Comment

I’m really enjoying this new video series titled “Happy Families.” It’s refreshing to see what other happy families do. What makes them happy?

I thought you might like it as well!

Blessings to you,

Filed Under: Photography Brings Joy, Values Bring Joy

Therapeutic Ramblings

February 11, 2015 By Shan 4 Comments

I’m here.

I’ve come to the conclusion I may not have any more faithful readers. I’ve been neglectful in my blog writing. Mainly because life has been very full these days. Full probably is an understatement. It’s been busting at the seams and I can’t seem to catch up. I’m not complaining, except that I miss writing/journaling. I’ve pondered over how this blog began. It was simply me writing about my life, my family and my interests. I still do that…yet I feel like I can’t post something unless I have photos to accompany my post. Pouring through photos, editing photos and then adding them to a post is the most time consuming [for me] with blogging. I love photography. I’m a visual person, so it seems nonsensical to NOT have photos. Don’t get me wrong, the writing part does and can take up time. Depending on the subject, sometimes it can take literally all day just to write one post. I truly hate when that happens; because then I am too tired to go through the process of adding the photos. Then I get upset with myself. It begins a cycle of frustration. I know why this happens. My ADD brain causes this. Even though I know why it happens, it doesn’t change how it makes me feel.

Over the last few months I’ve noticed a trend with some of my other blogger friends. I’m not the only one who has neglected their blog writing. As a matter of fact, I’ve noticed some have focused mainly on Instagram rather than blog. I completely understand this. It is way less time consuming to post photos on Instagram and add your thoughts than keep up a blog.

In my personal reflection of my blogging, I kind of feel like I need to chastise myself to some extent. My blog was for me to share my thoughts and feelings. It is mine. I don’t need to do it a certain way. I don’t blog primarily for monetary gain (although it would be nice) so I don’t need to follow certain rules to gain followers etc. I have always and will always only want readers by way of organic means. {meaning I don’t pay to advertise my blog or any of my social media to gain readers} However, for some reason, I entered the mindset that I needed to write about certain things in a certain way and order. I don’t like that. I don’t like my creativity, my flow of thoughts to be stifled.

I can’t remember the last time I looked at Google Analytics to see how many readers I have or what post was being read the most. I think doing that also stifled my creativity. I don’t want to feel as though I am in competition with anyone. I just want to be me and if people want to read what I have to say, they are welcome. It’s okay to have a post without photos. It’s okay to just write. I’m really trying to talk myself into this mindset…mainly the photo part. {I don’t think I’m a great writer too…please don’t check my grammar}

Last but not least, I think my other issue has been the name of my blog. I worry people see the name of my blog and think I have a perfect family. Or I worry they think I’m an expert at creating a joyful family. Unfortunately, this is definitely NOT true. About a year & a half ago our family almost dissolved. My marriage was falling apart. I had filed for divorce. Without divulging details, it didn’t happen. We are working on us. It’s difficult, yet we are managing. Life is rough. Families and marriages are made up of individuals. We don’t have control over those individuals. We can influence and teach, but we don’t have control. Anyway, during that tumultuous time in my life, several people asked me if I was going to change the name of my blog. It really caught me off guard. Why would I need to change the name of my blog? I still believe family brings joy. My own parents divorced, yet I still love my family…I have more family to love.

When I redesigned my blog several years back, I added and sometimes other emotions as a subtitle hoping to clarify, that just because you have a family, doesn’t mean you will live in a constant state of joy. We all know that is not the case. People/individuals in families can cause heartbreak, frustration and every other form of emotion possible. Even so, I still believe the family is the basic unit of society. I believe it is better for each individual of a family to stay in tact. {as long as there is not abuse being inflicted in any way} I’m not going to site a study on family or give quotes. This is my personal belief from my own experience in this life. I also know that if a spouse dies it doesn’t mean the family is dissolved. I guess what I’m trying to say is that I didn’t have any intention of changing the name of my blog when I thought I was going to be divorced. Nevertheless, now I am reevaluating. Should I change the name? Is it misleading?

It would be a lot of work to change the name. In the blogging world they call the name of your blog your “brand.” So I have spent many years cultivating my brand. What if a reader wanted to see what I was up to and they couldn’t find me anymore? I really don’t want to change the name. I also don’t want my integrity to be in question. Yes, this is my blog. If you have not met me in real life, then my blog is a reflection of who I am as a person. It is my sincere desire for people to know I am authentic. I am a highly sensitive person which makes me very conscientious of others feelings. When I leave this life I want to leave a legacy my family will want to continue…one of integrity and love of all mankind, but most of all my love of family. It is most precious. And with constant nourishment it can survive into the eternities.

So whether anyone has read this post or not, the writing of it was beneficial to me. And from here on out I pledge to write more regularly for me with or without pictures. With that being said, I absolutely and positively love having readers…especially interacting with them. You are welcome to come along on this journey. All insights and comments are welcome…although I reserve the right to delete any contentious ones, as I would rather keep things on a positive and uplifting basis. Life is rough enough as it is. I don’t need anyone bringing me down…my own nature does that enough as it is.

Now I’m going to go take a walk/run. I wish you a good day.

Writing brings joy,

Filed Under: Me Time Brings Joy, Other Emotions, Values Bring Joy

Bad Days Can Have Good Endings

October 6, 2014 By Shan Leave a Comment

Saturday our family had the wonderful opportunity to screen the upcoming movie Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day. That is a very long title for a movie. Try to say that fast! I will refer to the movie as Alexander for the rest of this post. 😉 Oh and in case you are wondering what the full movie poster looks like (since I couldn’t squeeze it all in my selfie pic to the left.)

I’m always super grateful when there is a movie in which every member (our kids ages 16 & 11) of our family can enjoy watching it together. Family values movies seem to be few and far between these days. I watched the following trailer once before going to the movie. In case you haven’t seen it yet, here it is:

I wonder how many other moms might have cringed a little while watching the preview…wondering to themselves, “do I really want to pay to see a bad day?” To be honest, I thought that. Yet, I knew Disney would make it right and they did. Alexander has something for every member of the family to relate and laugh about. It turns out the movie is based on a children’s book written in the early 70’s by Judith Viorst. If you liked Steve Carrell in Date Night then you will like him in this movie as well. Steve plays Alexander’s father.

“As a dad I can totally relate to this movie. Things tend to not go the way that you think they’ll go. But there’s always a contingency plan. There’s always a backup. Things go wrong in life and I think that’s part of the charm of this movie: Everyone experiences those days. It’s all about how you struggle through and keep your dignity and your sense of family and fun and the kind of love that is pervasive between the characters in this film.” Steve Carrell

I am a huge fan of Alias, so I’m always excited to see Jennifer Garner. I enjoyed seeing Jennifer play the mother roll in The Odd Life of Timothy Green. She doesn’t disappoint in this movie too. It’s interesting I brought up Date Night and The Odd Life of Timothy Green, because if you mix those 2 movies together, you can sort of sense how Alexander is (without the magic aspect.)

“I don’t think I’ve ever played anything closer to my real life. Not that I have days as bad as this, but just days with the chaos of having a bunch of kids in the house—when there’s a kid peeing on the floor, and the dog is throwing up and somebody’s about to step in it, and you’re trying to get dinner on the table. I can definitely relate to the idea of trying to do too much in a day.” Jennifer Garner

The family portrayed in Alexander does have a really bad day, but what I like is how the family deals with the bad things. The Dad is an optimist and is always telling the children to hop on the ship of positivity. Families can learn a lot from these characters. My 16 year old son really laughed out loud during the driving test scene. He is about to take his driving test, possibly tomorrow. I’m truly hoping it doesn’t go the way this one did.

There were so many good quotes I wish I had written down while watching Alexander. Most of them were said by Alexander. The following quote, however simple, is completely true. “You gotta have the bad days so you can love the good days.”

Alexander is a definite family values movie…a must see! You won’t be disappointed. Let me put it this way…I don’t like to buy movies or watch them more than once. Yet when I left the movie I thought to myself, “We need to buy that movie when it comes out on DVD.” Bravo! Well done! Take your family to see Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day this weekend.

Just for you, my awesome readers, I’m including the recipe to Ben Cooper’s Quiche he made in the movie. Quiche is one of my favs. Can’t wait to make it myself.

Click on this link for a PDF copy of Ben Cooper’s Crustless Quiche Recipe

I will conclude with the Cooper family sitting down at the table for meal time…hope you’re family is sitting together for meals. (You know how I feel about that)