The only gift I want to open this Christmas is their happiness and their love and their hugs.  I thank God for my family every single day for they are the biggest blessing I could ever ask for.  They are my motivation, they are my strength and they most definitely are my happiness.  I could not be who I am without them. They inspire me every day to be the best version of myself I can be and then some.


I have three little lives just learning to one day take flight in this sometimes scary world and it's up to me to help them make the best of it.  I was ill prepared and had no clue where I was headed when I was young and it seems like I still don't sometimes.  If the only good thing I do in this life is make them better prepared to take this life by the horns, then I will have succeeded in my journey.  Take nothing for granted and learn from every experience.  Good or bad, it doesn't matter.  Life is meant to be lived, not feared.  Like a lioness, my three little cubs make me fierce!

So Merry Christmas to all my family and friends out there and may you be blessed this coming year. Remember that nobody gives out blessings, we have to find them ourselves. This is why they say "count your blessings" because they are already in front of you.  Happiness is wanting what you have and that should only be each other.  

"I don't know how I know what I know but I do know that books help get me here."  

So how do I tackle all this reading into my busy life?  Trust me, peaceful reading time is not readily available to me these days so I always have to find a way.  If you love doing it, you will find a way. Back in college I took a course on speed reading and their knowledge went something like this: the more you read the faster you read.  Wow, yeah, I thought, I paid 300 dollars for this crappy advice? But when I began actually doing their exercises and implementing their advice, it all made sense.  I learned a few tips and tricks to increase my speed and now this has been a life saver since I don't have all the time I used to.  Reading faster and more efficient is key for me.

1. ALL ABOUT THE HAND EYE COORDINATION.
   Use your hand to read! Yes.  They taught me that sliding my hand across the page to read trains your eyes not to jump around the page and stays focused.  This habit will pay off in the long run no matter how stupid it feels in the beginning.  Now I do this all the time without even thinking about it and now my hand and eyes dance in unison across the page.  It's adorable.  So teach your kids to always use their hand or their finger when they are reading.  It's a good habit to have.
2. PENCIL IS YOUR BOOK FRIEND.
   Always use a pencil when reading.  Don't waste time with a highlighter at the beginning. It will be distracting.  The point is to just flow and go for speed.  You don't have time to stop at every other sentence to highlight, just make a line like this | at the side of the book to make a mark and keep reading.  Then when you finish the chapter and you go back to review what you read, you will only visit those areas that were important.  Then and only then you are allowed to highlight cause this is just for review.  So highlight away, I know I do.
3. SPEED BABY SPEED!
   One important thing to note here is that speed should be your goal.  People who daydream while reading is for one specific reason, they are not reading fast enough which allows their brain to think of something else.  Once you reach your thinking speed, you will not, I repeat, will not have mind capacity left for anything else.  Your brain will be reading so fast, it will need every bit of juice to keep up.  Your mind thinks way faster than it can read, so push yourself to reach this thinking speed and you will be amazed at how much more you retain.  
4. MIND READING TIP
   One final tip here is that you will know you are speed reading when you no longer read word by word, or sentence by sentence.  Once you can see in your mind the whole meaning of the page at a time you will have reached this glorious stage of mind reading.  As children we start with reading word by word then we can crunch a few words at a time, then move on to whole sentences but once you reach the next lever, which is what our brains are capable and more, you will not be able to go back.  It's a tremendously powerful habit you must train your brain to do, it will pay in dividends.  

This reading thing works better if you actually enjoying what you're reading.  I now read purely for pleasure.  I have always loved reading but in the beginning it was hard to find the one kind of books that was me.  I have found that Self Help books is most definitely my kind of books.  With my psychology studies background, I have a natural undying love for everything mind related, so naturally knowing more of how the mind works, what makes it tick and how to make it better is right up there in my favorites list.

Just sitting here thinking about all the time I've wasted thinking about things I could never change.  Pointless, senseless, hurtful things.  For years I lived in self pity.  Always internalizing my fears, my doubts and my agony of past events that haunted me.  They eventually consumed me, little by little, I began to lose sight of who I really was.  I felt controlled.  I felt manipulated.  I was a hot mess.

I'm done.  

Those two words meant a whole new beginning for me.  When I finally said those words with resolve and without fearing for myself, I felt empowered.  I felt like I had my voice again.  If I wasn't going to stand up for myself, then who would?  Memories were haunting me.  Regrets.  Always thinking of the past as if whining about it would do me any good.  It never did and I finally knew that.

When I broke free from my past, I felt such an immense sense of relief.  Like a ton of weights had been lifted off my chest. I was suffocating, I could hardly breath.  When I finally let go of the hurtful memories and made a conscious decision to start over, I felt free.  You know what happened when I finally felt free?  I felt happy.  There is nothing more amazing that self confidence!


This is why happiness is such an important part of my message now.  Because I know what it feels like to be in the opposite side of the happy spectrum.  You don't want to go there, let alone stay there.  Trust me, it's a terrible place to live at.  But what I didn't know then what that I HAD A CHOICE.  I actually had a choice to leave sorrowland and come to the happy side? Yes!  We often don't think we have a choice, but God almighty, we do, and when you finally realize this, it feels like a chocolate cupcake with a cherry on top from Smallcakes!

Choose to be happy today friends.  Choose to not let the past consume you, worry you or control you.  Choose to let go. Choose to be the person you've always wanted to be.  All this is your and only your choice to make.  Don't let someone else make this decision for you.  This is our time to finally seize every single moment and make it our own.  Choose to be the you you've always wanted.

Just make the choice and your happy place is right around the corner. Trust me.  Happiness is more than just a feeling, it's a state of mind, a way of life that is completely within your reach.

Let's be Happy Together!

Another thing that's made me happy this week: Monogramed Stocking! Yes and thank you.  I have always wanted to get the family monogrammed stockings and it finally happened.  I'm super happy about that and the best part is that I also got an L and G for hubby and me.  Now the whole family is complete!  I asked the girls if we should decorate them some more but they were happy leaving them just the way they are.  BTW, I snagged these at Kroger for $9.99 each!

Yay for Starbucks cups and monogram stockings!  Just a couple more of it's #thelittlethings that I have found has given me a shot of happy this December.  Always be in the lookout for these, they are small, but they make a huge impact in our overall mood.  Happy things don't have to be big, just memorable.

So always be in the look out for these little moments of happy.  The more you find and acknowledge them, the more meaningful and powerful they become in our lives.  The more they shift our thinking into a more positive attitude, the more positive our lives is and the more meaningful is starts to become.

So yay for the little things and #HappyHunting!

It's never too late to start a new family tradition and this Christmas is one more. I am actually thinking of throwing away my artificial tree just because I've you go real, you never go back.