My blog dashboard has blog idea prompts and I enjoy reading through them. Sometimes I get ideas from the prompts, most I never use, but some are thought provoking and make me think for a while. Today’s blog is a result of a prompt from last week that I have thought a bit about.
The question was: are you a leader or follower? I thought quite a bit about that because I have never thought of myself in either position and yet have been in both, and depending on how those are used they each come with positive and negative connotations. After having thought about it, I have realized that we are either one or the other most of our lives and we need both in this world.
Through my Church I have had the opportunity to be the leader or “president” of a number of organizations since I was a young adult. As well as sit on and chair community boards. I find being the leader can be a great position to be in when you have a clear direction you want to go and followers who catch your vision and will help you make it happen. It’s also great to have trusted followers willing to advise you along the way so that you can maintain a good perspective. I have found it helpful as the leader to surround myself with followers with different talents and perspectives. This helps to create a well rounded program that helps the greatest number of people within the reach of that particular organization.
I have never considered myself a follower in my narrow definition of someone who blindly agrees with anything to fit in or be part of something. That’s what I think about when I think follower. But as I’ve pondered I realized I have been a follower in many different capacities. I’ve had the opportunity to sit on different boards and participate in many presidencies as a follower or councilor. Just as described above, I’ve had opportunity to catch someone else’s vision and help make that happen as well. I’ve had the opportunity to also strive to follow in my Savior Jesus Christ’s footsteps, and while my path has been a crooked path because of imperfection I still try to follow to the best of my ability.
I think this world needs good leaders as much as it needs good followers, and needs people on both sides willing to listen, council and discuss hard things and come up with great solutions together. Being the leader is great because you have the final say, but the buck also stops with you, and you take upon yourself the most responsibility. Being a follower is great because you are not ultimately responsible for the final decision, but sometimes things don’t go the way you’d hoped because you don’t get to make the final decisions. I believe in this life we should have opportunity to be both. As we have that chance we develop character and compassion for each position. I am grateful for the opportunities I have had to be both and for the positive character building experiences each has had in my life. Which do you prefer?
I did not write this Amazon review, but I do have to agree, this has to be one of the best reviews I have ever read! I would definitely be taking this woman’s experience into consideration when thinking about durability and wear on an item like this.
Do you read the reviews on products? Do you write a review on products after you have purchased them? I have to admit, if it’s not an exceptionally good or bad product, I rarely write a review for anything I purchase online, unless that person specifically contacts me and asks me if I would be willing to do so. That’s if it’s a small business. Something like Amazon I wouldn’t write anything except for the above mentioned reasons.
However, I do read reviews quite often when I am looking at purchasing items. Even if I’m purchasing an item locally, especially if it’s expensive. I rarely read the 5 star reviews however, I always go to the 1 or 2 star reviews and read why people didn’t like the item. About half of the those reviews don’t have anything to do with the product, usually dealing with the shipping or gripes with the company, I don’t think those are helpful. But if there’s a consistent issue with the company or the product it usually shows up there.
I also like the websites that compare similar items. When I was looking for my large format printer I looked at quite a number of different comparison charts to see which models were the most consistently at the top of the lists. Once I settled on the ones I was pretty sure I was most interested in, then I started reading reviews on a number of different platforms as well. This is where I start reading both the good and bad reviews. Often a bad review will have a problem that a good review will actually have the answer to. My laptop was that way, with people complaining about several problems and people elsewhere sharing what they did to fix the problem easily with various updates.
Reviews are helpful to read, and I should probably write them more often. Sometimes they aren’t just informative but quite entertaining as well. How many of you read and/or write reviews? Do you find it helpful?
Personal finance is hard, but it’s possible to stay on budget with a little bit of work.
First of all, happy Mother’s Day to all the mothers, grandmothers, and mothers to be, whenever that may be. I hope you all had a great day today and that you felt appreciated. If you did not, please know that you are, even when those around you don’t realize how much they appreciate you.
Recently I was given the opportunity to take a personal finance class through my Church, well, it’s ongoing for about 10 weeks. I was asked to attend so that my sons would attend. They are having all the older youth take this class as they are soon embarking on adulthood and everything involved with caring for themselves. It’s a great opportunity for review or learning if we haven’t learned yet, and a great reminder to be more frugal for some (like me), who forget to keep track sometimes.
As I was listening and reading through the materials there were several quotes about controlling spending and staying out of debt for the most part. But the instructor also talked a lot about the freedom associated with financial control. There is some necessary debt in our world today. Few people can buy a home or car with cash, most people need to get a loan for those types of things, but the rest of the things we acquire in life rarely need a loan or debt associated with them if we are planning and saving. I would even go so far as to say that most education does not require a loan if we are willing to work through school.
When my husband and I were first married we learned the value of staying out of debt. Before my husband and I got married he had no trouble making money. He made really good money in fact. Because he always had money however, he never saved money, and I never had more than a small part time job that didn’t add up to much before we got married. But after we got married, it seemed like nothing we did ever panned out to much more than just scrapping by. Looking back, I don’t think that’s a bad thing necessarily. I learned how to budget what little we had to keep us mostly out of debt. However, one particular day, as we were sitting on the US/Canada border, driving home to Alaska, we stopped to get gas and our credit card was declined. It was maxed out. We had just a few hundred dollars to our name and a couple thousand miles to go to get home. We made it back home with less than $100 in our pockets and around $3,000 in debt. Fortunately that was the credit limit on our credit card at that point in time.
I had never owed anyone anything before that point in time, anything I wanted I saved for and then paid cash. My husband had never had any debt he couldn’t pay for by the end of the month, so for both of us this was extremely stressful. We didn’t have any jobs lined up and weren’t sure what we would do. We were living in our shop building which was all paid for, so there was no living expenses in that regard, and we didn’t have electricity, so no bill there. We were also very fortunate to have his parents living next door, and they kept us fed while we figured out what to do next. I am so grateful that was our only bill at the time. We did find work, and it took a few months, but we were able to get that credit card bill paid off. But it burned into my soul the desire to never be in debt again.
My oldest daughter recently took an online personal finance class. She was here in Alaska for the first part of it, so I got to hear a lot of the material, and she was super excited about what she was learning, so what I didn’t hear, she shared with me. It talked about exactly what the quote above says, controlling your money, not letting it control you. When we are able to do that, we gain freedom. Freedom from others controlling where our money goes and what happens with our money. We gain freedom of conscience as well, and it makes it a whole lot easier to sleep at night. Some of the lectures also talked about money as a tool. I had never thought about that before. It also talked about utilizing money to accomplish your goals, rather than letting your money, or lack of control of your money, control your decisions and the direction of your life.
I am really excited to participate in this class, especially with my boys. Recently I have been thinking I needed to watch what I was spending better, but life happens and I don’t really get it done, it seems like a lot of work. But this class has kicked me in the butt and I am going to get it done and get back on track with my budgeting and control over where our money goes and why. We still don’t have any debt, but I could be a better steward over what we have and I know if I put my mind to it, this class will help with that. I am excited for this class, and will probably write about some of the things I am learning as I go along.
When I was a kid I couldn’t wait to grow up and eat whatever I wanted.
Eating healthy has not always been my favorite thing in the world. When I was growing up my mom made almost all the food we ate, from scratch. When I was a kid I really didn’t realize how good that was for me. I was a picky eater and I didn’t like very many vegetables. If I got to pick the vegetable I would always pick corn. I did like other vegetables like carrots and potatoes. My mom always made healthy meals and was aware of the nutrient needs we each needed, but that didn’t mean we always at what was on the table. It wasn’t until I became an adult and started studying about how to be healthier that I realized that none of my favorite veggies were the best kind of vegetable. Not that they’re bad, and they have good nutrients in them, and I still eat them, but they’re not the ones we should be getting the most of. I have, therefore, adjusted how I eat dramatically from how I ate as a teenager and young adult. Having inflammation problems in the last couple of years has also served to refine further my eating habits and focus more on what’s good for me. Today I thought I would share some of my favorite healthy foods.
I’ll start with my least favorite category, or at least it used to be, vegetables. Potatoes have lots of good vitamins and minerals in them, they are especially high in potassium. They also taste great, so we eat potatoes fairly regularly. How they are prepared makes a big difference in how healthy they remain though, like any vegetable. Quite often potatoes, as well as sweet potatoes, broccoli, green beans, brussel sprouts, sometimes squash, carrots, well a lot of the bulkier veggies I roast in the oven. It’s super easy and doesn’t take a really long time. I usually cut them up into bite size pieces, toss them with olive oil and some salt and pepper, and then roast them at 450 degrees until tender (depends on the veggie how long that takes). It’s simple and they always taste great. I have always liked lettuce, but not the good lettuce, iceberg lettuce. Again, not that it’s bad for you, but there are a ton of better options. I have learned how good these deep greens are for my body, and how anti inflammatory they are, consequently I eat several cups of them a day usually. For the leafy greens, it’s usually in salad form with some form of dressing. Keeping the dressing to a minimum however, as that adds a ton of calories and a lot of dressings really aren’t that good for you anyway. If we have Mexican food I will often finely shred the various dark leafy greens and use that as my topping for tacos, taco salad, nachos, or whatever.
Fruits have always been one of my favorite foods. When I was a kid though, I thought I could substitute fruits for veggies, or at least I hoped that was the case. Not so. Fruits are great for our bodies too, and we should get a good quantity, but not as essential as vegetables. I do enjoy combining my fruits and veggies when they are fresh though, adding pineapple, oranges, or a variety of berries to my salads is a great way to get both. My favorite fruit is probably apples, but berries come in a close second, with oranges and bananas falling somewhere in there with that whole mix. One of my favorite fruits that I can’t find up here very often is Kumquats. But once in a while I’ll find them at a local grocery store during the summer. Fruits have so many good vitamins and minerals in them along with a lot of fiber when eaten in their natural state, and the sugars in fruit, although they digest much faster than the sugars in a lot of the darker colored vegetables, it’s still slower than added sugar that you find in almost all processed food.
I like to eat meat. I also like most kinds of traditional meat, like beef, pork and chicken. Since living in Alaska I have learned to like moose and several kinds of fish as well. I think meat is a necessary part of a good diet as there are certain proteins that are essential to muscle development that cannot be found in anything but animal meat. You can take supplements for some of the protein, but there is no substitute, in my opinion, for a natural source, which meat is. I don’t like eating a ton of meat though. I don’t eat meat at every meal, although I do try to get some form of protein at every meal. Dairy is a great way to get protein and I will often add cottage cheese or some other cheese to my salads. I eat eggs for breakfast or lunch occasionally as well and I almost always have milk at some point throughout my day.
Grains are the other category that makes up the rest of the food I eat. I try to avoid sugar (sometimes not very well), snacks like potato chips, and I don’t drink soda at all, except to have 1 root beer float at some point during the summer every year. I make most of the bread my family eats, and it’s primarily sourdough bread because I have the starter and it needs to be used regularly. I like to use unbleached white flour as well as freshly ground whole wheat flour to make my breads. I also use those to make biscuits, english muffins, and whatever other breads I feel like making that week. I make granola once in a while for breakfasts. We don’t eat much oatmeal or granola however because oats are quite inflammatory. Grains are all inflammatory, oats being one of the more inflammatory ones, so I eat them sparing. My family on the other hand can eat a loaf of bread (or more) a day! Growing kids I guess.
We do eat way too many sweets, even though I try not to keep that stuff on hand, I do have a sweet tooth and I love cookies. But with teenage boys in the house, even if I buy or make that kind of stuff I don’t eat a lot of it as it gets inhaled, mostly by the boys. It’s nice though, because I can eat a little bit, to satisfy my sweet tooth, and know that the rest will be gone and I won’t be tempted later!
Eating healthy has been, and will continue to be a process of refining. I enjoy making most of what we eat as well, and I love summer here in Alaska as my garden provides most of the vegetables we eat and we do have berries around the yard and the property, when they’re in season. I have been planting fruit trees, at least the ones that will grow here, but they are years from being productive, so hopefully I can keep them alive long enough to eat the fruit! We will continue to refine, and as the kids leave I’m sure the way we eat will continue to change, hopefully continuing to get better year after year.
When I was down in Utah visiting my daughter, we were riding to Red Cliffs State Recreation Area, and I was scrolling through my Facebook feed. I noticed that there was a set of watercolor brushes that were on sale, 50% off. They are somewhat expensive by comparison to the brushes I had normally bought, which worked great, but I really wanted to try this particular brand as they were highly recommended by one of the artists on YouTube I watch, and a lot of watercolor artists that share their work online use them as well. I mentioned them to my daughter, wondering what I should do since it was a great deal, but still expensive.
She asked if I would buy them if they weren’t on sale. I said I probably would, but not the whole set all at once as that was over $100 for the 4 brushes. She said, if I would eventually buy them all, I might as was well bite the bullet and buy them now at the discounted rate. So I did it, right there and then. They are called Silver Black velvet brushes and included a size 2, 4, 6, and 8 round brush. They arrived at my home just a day or two after I got home from my trip to Utah and I was so excited!
Since I received these brushes about 6 weeks ago I have painted quite a number of things, from simple little sketches to full paintings, using them exclusively to give them a fair test run, and I have to say, I absolutely love these brushes. They are a mixture between natural and synthetic bristles. The brushes I had previously been using were all synthetic. I had gotten used to the snap that these brushes had. I ordered some squirrel hair brushes about 9 months ago and tried using them. I didn’t like those. They held a ton of water, way more than I was used to, and they had no snap. As soon as I started to lay my brush down the brush would just get flatter and flatter and wider and wider. I did not like them.
These Silver Black Velvet ones however hold a good amount of water but have good snap. they also come to a better point than my synthetic brushes and I am so amazed by the quality of these brushes, although I don’t know why, as they were so highly recommended. I have found that I paint with a bigger brush for the most part as even the size 8 brush comes to such a fine point I can use it for details that I would previously have gotten my liner brush or size 0 or smaller brush out to achieve the same type of line. They are well worth the money. I do have some specialty brushes that I love using for different things, large brushes for large washes and some interesting looking brushes for fur and different kind for textures, but for everyday painting, there is nothing better.
Just a couple of paintings I have done recently with these Silver Black Velvet brushes:
Stephanie Richey Art 
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