Surrender, Dorothy! (let the munchkins lead the way already).

We are the grown-ups. The parents. The Wizards.
And as the grown-ups we’re called to act appropriately “grown up”.

Right?

As the ones in charge, our days are filled with climbing ladders that don’t typically have spiral slides or fire poles or tree houses on the other side.

We support our kids from the sidelines, set the stage and make sure they have plenty of play dates, toys, and educational experiences that will help them grow into creative, well-round big people.

But we rarely take a flying leap into the pond of Playfulness ourselves, unless begged by our kids to join in their fun.

What’s up with that?

Every one of us has an innate, cellular longing to PLAY. To let loose, shake our hair down, surrender to our silly selves, act a bit immature and truly, and not while texting, Laugh. Out. Loud.

If we look just below our well-manicured “grown-up” exteriors, we too yearn for those twisty, thrilling; unpredictable slides on the other side of the ladders we’re all climbing.

But we’re the grow-ups now.
Who has time to play around?

We hear a lot about the mental and physical benefits of being well rested and well feed and well hydrated.
But what about being well PLAYED?

In fact, there may be some serious health benefits hidden just beneath the surface of silly.
Allowing ourselves time to play reduces stress, boosts creativity, releases happy little endorphins and unclogs our uptight selves helping us to slip out of our cranky-pants, and making us all a whole lot more fun to be around. But how do we return to a place of play?

Simple really. We take a cue from the munchkins. Those odd little beings that reside in our homes and crave play like the Kardashians crave attention.

These munchkins of ours, with their curious nature and unbridled energy are a constant reminder that our own playful spirit is anxiously awaiting its release. They welcome us into their world, freely. Usually everyday. They don’t care how silly they look, or who’s watching, or what others may think. They are play personified.

SO I say let the munchkins show you the way. Play with them. Like getting on the floor with the Barbies and Matchbox cars and making awesome sound effects kinda PLAY.

Then use what you’ve learned and Play by yourself. And Play more with your spouse and your friends and your dog and your neighbors. And see what happens.

When we have children we’re dropped head first into this fanciful land of OZ, with a munchkin as Mayor.
A place filled with magic wands and talking trees and flying monkeys. We might as well grab some ruby slippers, sisters, pick up some yellow bricks, and start building.

Guest post by Meredith Sinclair. Meredith Sinclair M.Ed. is the chief blogger/vlogger at Hoo-dee-Hoo.com , a site she calls “a shout out to modern motherhood”. She also blogs at Chicagoparent.com, writes two monthly columns for Chicago Parent Magazine, and is an on-air contributor for ABC-7’s Windy City LIVE, where she shares ideas and advice for Modern Moms.

Don’t drive yourself crazy.
Drive yourself to a coffee shop for another latte.

Do you have days that you feel like you are facing a problem that you just get over with? Or you are so excited that something great is happening soon and you feel like a kid on Halloween morning? Are you waiting on hearing some news, good or bad?

Good or bad, we sometimes drive ourselves crazy by obsessing on things.

Sometimes we are scared of something we know we need to go through, and sometimes we are so excited we can’t think of anything else. The worse is when we are waiting to even know (for example waiting to know bad news like if you need a surgery, or waiting to know good news like if you got the job) and drive ourselves crazy going through options in our heads. While I believe that planning a happy life is half of having a happy life, and you should always have plan B for everything, even if the plan B is “if Plan A will not happen, I have strength to figure out a Plan B when that time comes”, it is useless to drive yourself crazy with your thoughts and getting all worked up on things that you can not do anything about anymore. And if there is a case you CAN do something to make a difference, go do it, and stop just thinking about it.

The point of not driving yourself crazy and rather driving yourself to “a coffee shop” is that instead of being passive and just thinking and obsessing, take action to do something. Even if it is something simple just to take your mind away and force yourself to think about something else.

I have many creative people as my friends, and many other bloggers and writers and every single writer sometimes gets a writer’s block and don’t know what to write about. Usually this is one of those moments that “drive you crazy”! The best trick: walk away from the laptop, do something totally different, and once you stop thinking about how you can’t think of anything to write about and you actually do something – you will think of something to write about! This same applies to anything in life.

And while the “drive yourself to a coffee shop” was more of a metaphor… there is nothing wrong actually taking a break and doing just that. If you do, raise your latte for yourself and enjoy it!

As a child, I was always told that if I work hard I could have a lot of money then I could be happy. It’s a simple proposition to life. If you do your work then you will have the money then you will be happy. What we find as we get older is that we work really hard, make a little money and then keep working for more. When do you get to be happy? When is it enough?

The truth is that we have been doing it backwards. This concept is discussed in Conversations with God and The Law of Attraction. Our reality is that work begets more work. Stress creates more stress. And, the ever elusive happiness is this distant shimmering goal we never quite reach. Even our language is predisposed to Do, Have, Be. We say things like pursuing happiness when happiness is not asking us to chase it. In Conversations with God, God says, “All states of mind reproduce themselves.” Working hard is not a state of mind of happiness but a feeling that you do not have enough. This is not to say that working hard is a bad thing but you always need to be mindful of the feelings fueling the work.

Our society is even scheduled with do, have and be. We are expected to work hard all our lives and have money saved up and then, when retired, we can be happy and relaxed. Being happy is not a realistic expectation for youth and is only reserved for those who are old and have done all they could. We even teach our children that they must behave to have their toys and then they can be happy. It’s insidious.

This is what we propose: Be happy. Do the things that happy people do. Have a wonderfully happy life.

Life is too short to be miserable at a job or waiting for retirement to be happy. It’s when we begin with the happiness that we continue to generate happiness. Therefore, feel good! BE HAPPY, NOW!

Guest post by Lee and Paul Reyes-Fournier. Lee and Paul Reyes-Fournier are the writers of CoupleDumb.com the relationship blog that covers everything from marriage to dating to parenting. They have a book called Dysaffirmations: Because This Kind Of Stupid Takes Work!. Lee is a professional psychotherapist with over 20 years of experience in marriage, family and addiction therapies. Paul is a professional writer with degrees in AstroPhysics and an MBA. They have been married for 23 happy years and have three kids. Lee and Paul also do a web series and pod cast called Relationship Rehab where they take viewer/listener questions.

The hurricane Irene is a great reminder to live life to the fullest and enjoy life, you never know what’s going to happen next.

I spent the last four days traveling in the beautiful Southern Baja California Sur area of Mexico, while following the path of the hurricane Irene via internet and news, praying and hoping my family in New York would be unaffected by the storm. My family is fine, our area in Dutchess county New York did not suffer from the storm, and I am on my way home to my family, currently in Atlanta. I take the this hurricane (and earthquakes, flooding, wildfires and everything else our country has experienced the past week) as a reminder to urge you to live Skimbaco lifestyle; live life to the fullest, enjoy life, and be prepared for the unexpected things in life, don’t wait to live.

Here is a picture of me on a boat in the Sea of Cortez with my travel buddies Lisa of Hammock in Paradise, Rachelle of The Travel Bite and Mardi of eat. live. travel. write.

Be Prepared

Make plans, and be prepared for multiple options of what might happen. It truly disheartens me to hear how some people think the hurricane emergency preparing in New York City was overacted – being prepared is never bad. Not preparing is like never using sunscreen or a seat belt. On 99.99% of the time you are driving in a car you probably didn’t really need the seat belt. But it can save your life on the 0.01% time. And don’t even get my started with sunscreen and see my picture with long sleeves on a boat. But even when it comes to everyday life, and not just natural disasters – you should be prepared for things, good and bad. Being prepared gives you confidence to know what to do, let’s you live with less stress, and ultimately makes you a happier person and more likely to live adventurously and spontaneously do things to enjoy life more.

Even people who know me well can say I plan everything, and yet I’m the most spontaneous person they’ve ever met. It may sound contradictory. Well, I do make lots of plans, and am usually five steps ahead and have a plan B, C, D and E, and that makes it very easy to be prepared for just about anything and be ready to step in the next plan when the other one didn’t work out. That’s life, things don’t always go the way we plan, and we just need to be willing to move on and make the best out of it and be open to other options, and sometimes the things we learn this way are even better than the option A. I would have never met my husband or moved to the US if I had lived my life the way I had originally planned, and meeting my husband and having a family with him is the best that has ever happened to me.

Taking Chances

When it comes to safety and being smart – never ever take chances. Don’t ever think skipping an important safety step “just this once”. But take chances on trying new things, and be open to new experiences. When you are prepared, it is easier to take chances! Try new foods, meet new people, try new hobbies, travel to new places, learn new skills. Take a chance on living Skimbaco lifestyle and truly living life to the fullest, one small step at the time. You can teach yourself to be more adventurous by starting small new things that take you out of your comfort zone.

Many times it also just takes time to be educated to see that the things we are worried about are not a big deal. For example when I was telling my friends about going to a trip to Mexico, many were worried and warned me of the dangers of the country. Sure, there are places that are unstable in Mexico, but did you know that the country is about 761,600 square miles large? That’s about three times the size of Texas, you wouldn’t the entire south by just visiting one city in Texas, now would you? Being prepared and educated allows us to take chances and try new things, and I am so thrilled I took a chance on Mexico, and traveled there for the first time. It will not be my last.

Yes, that’s me, horseback riding in Montana this summer, directly to riding from airport.

Live in the Moment

So many times people do the planning, make sure everything is the way they want, and then are so stressed that everything doesn’t go as planned that they forget to enjoy the moment. Just stop. You can prepare, but you can’t predict the future, you still need to live in the moment and why ruin the moment by worrying? And even if things don’t go exactly how you planned – don’t ruin the moment just because. I do not get the Bridezilla mentality AT ALL. Why not just live in the moment and make the best of it? Humor helps so much in situations when things are not going the way you planned and the unexpected things make our lives rich, and often are the best things in our life. Don’t let amazing things in your life to pass you, just because you didn’t plan it to happen.

The dolphins in the Sea of Cortez are showing how to enjoy life as they were following our boat and wave surfing and jumping in the waves.

Live in the moment, make the best out of it, and enjoy small and big things in life. I will be sharing more travel stories from this summer at Skimbaco Travel in the upcoming weeks, if you’d like to read about my travels, please subscribe to the Skimbaco Travel feed.

“Let’s dream!” I told Northwest Community Credit Union’s Management Team, at the Personal Branding program I presented for them last week. “If the sky was the limit, how would you want to grow your department?”

And dream they did: from creating ideas for new marketing campaigns to developing systems for better communication… their list was long. Next, I challenged them to narrow the list down to areas that didn’t require an additional line item to the budget–music to the accounting manager’s ears—rather, areas that could be accomplished with people skills. For example: internal communication, ways to improve customer relations, follow-up etc. So often we put off progress because we think it’s related to money. But so much progress can be made by investing in how we support our staff internally and how we care for our clients.

What the managers realized is that by investing in “skills,” we can accomplish dreams without ever spending a dime. We don’t have to wait until the next fiscal year to invest in our people skills. Our number one asset isn’t what we have, but who we are.

It’s this way with our personal lives, is it not? So often we say, “I’ll do that when I have more money” or “when I have more time.” But what about the life we live between then and now? Why not enjoy take every opportunity to enjoy every season of life.

Today, I write this from our new temporary living space. A wonderful townhouse on a lake. As much as I love the space, I really don’t know how long we will be here. It could be six months, it could be a couple of years. At first I found myself putting off the idea of getting settled because it wasn’t our “forever space” but then I realized…I’m putting off something that could be really special. I’m not about to let this temporary space hold me back from living…from making it home…from making memories with my family and living in a beautiful and organized space. All things I have control over and can make without it being my “forever” space.

Take a moment this weekend to find ways to be Gracious to yourself and live the life you’ve always wanted… wanting to relax more? It doesn’t require a trip around the world. You want to be healthier? It doesn’t require a personal trainer… there are so many ways that we can live our life. Is there something you’ve been waiting for? We’d love to hear.

Have guts to swim with the sharks.
Don’t let sharks to prevent you from enjoying the ocean.

Do you sometimes feel you want to swim in the ocean of life, but there are so many “sharks” that make you scared and prevent you from living life to the fullest?

Have guts to “swim with the sharks”.
Take risks.
Be bold.
Be brave.
Make a plan.

Think what would be the worst case scenario, and why you are so afraid of that happening. Thankfully many of the things we are scared in our lives are far less scary than literally being eaten by a shark. We are often held back by things like worrying what other people think of us, or failing doing something in the front of others. I don’t know about you, but if I see someone failing in the front of me, I don’t think bad about that person; I give the person credit for trying and will try to help that person to make it the next time!

I have learned more in life when I have been “bitten” than when I haven’t even tried. I fail all the time. I make mistakes, bad things happen to me, things don’t go the way I want. I have just chosen to live life to the fullest, no matter what. I have chosen to take failure as an opportunity for something new, I have taken every single lemon life has given me and made it into lemonade, and oh boy life can be sweet when you just decide so.

Don’t let the “sharks” prevent you from enjoying what the beautiful ocean of life has to offer, or your life will go by you just standing on the shore. And when life bites you, bite it back.

The movie Monte Carlo with Selena Gomez is a perfect fairytale summer movie for tweens and teen girls, and quite frankly even this mom truly enjoyed it. The best about the movie is the amazing scenery around Paris and Monte Carlo and the movie taking you to a dream tour of some of of the most enchanting summer scenes of Europe. Monte Carlo is a Cinderella story of its own kind, where the step-sister isn’t ugly but actually the most daring of the bunch, and where glass slippers are cowboy boots and horses are seen only on the polo field. In all of its unrealistic plot and turns it’s a fun story that any girl would like to come true.

Trip of a Lifetime truly turns into a trip of a lifetime!

The main character of the movie Grace, played by the Disney’s sensational Selena Gomez, graduates high school and has been working as a waitress in a small town Texas; saving money and just waiting for school to end and going on a trip of a lifetime with her best friend and a fellow waitress Emma (played by Katie Cassidy). The dream trip to Paris takes a bad turn when Grace’s mom and step dad tell her older step sister Maggie (played by Leighton Meester) has to join the girls for the trip. And as the girls think things couldn’t get any worse they find out that their hotel is a crappy, the tourist bus tour is crappier and even the weather isn’t treating them well.

Just as things are falling apart, the girls realize that Grace looks exactly like a British heiress named Cordelia Winthrop Scott and they decide to take a chance on life and pretend that Grace is Cordelia. The girl-trio travels to Monte Carlo to attend a charity event where Cordelia should be at and Grace is taking Cordelia’s spot (oh, and her hotel suite, clothes, makeups and everything but the shoes!). Cordelia is rude snobbish badly behaving heiress, and Grace has somewhat hard time pretending to be her, because she is the complete opposite with her kindness and in the end does not fool Cordelia’s aunt – and even Cordelia herself shows up!

Pretending to be someone else isn’t really a solution but I love how in the movie the girls just take a chance and go with it and decide to live in the moment. The movie inspires to live life to the fullest!

My girls and I also like the Selena Gomez’s hit song from the movie “Who Says”:

Discovering Who You Are

In Monte Carlo all three girls have a totally different experience and while they range from dancing in water fountains, dining in luxury yachts to flirting at the polo field, they all find something more important that what Monte Carlo has to offer; themselves. Maggie is finally starting to live after mourning for her mother who died, and her change is probably the most remarkable in the movie; she realizes that when you let go of the past – you can start living your today and future.

Emma, a small town waitress, has always had a positive view on life, and she has always taken chances of life, but they have not always worked out as she has expected. She realizes that her dreams are simple, but within her reach, and everything that she has always wanted for are right in the front of her, and she doesn’t have to chase bigger and better things; the better things for her come in small things in every day life. Emma has a date with an European prince in Monte Carlo only to realize that her boyfriend back at home is the one and only for her. I like that while the movie is an unrealistic Cinderella story that it includes Emma who is the happiest character in the movie and yet whose dreams are the most attainable, and she isn’t changed much by the fancy travels in Europe.

Grace learns that pretending to be someone else isn’t a solution to any of her problems, and that she has to create her own life, and find her own passion. I think it’s an important message for young girls to learn and also to see that life in someone else’s shoes isn’t any easier.

Only bad thing about the movie Monte Carlo – I am now terribly homesick to go back to Europe. The movie totally reminded me of my travels in Europe when I was at that age, from dancing in the water fountains, romantic visits in the castles, and taking the trains to new adventures. But no worries, I have now my own “tip jar” and I have decided that next summer me and the girls are not just watching these summer movies set in Europe, but we will have our own adventure instead.

Monte Carlo movie opened nationwide on July 1st, 2011.

”Even though you may want to move forward in your life, you may have one foot on the brakes. In order to be free, we must learn how to let go. Release the hurt. Release the fear. Refuse to entertain your old pain. The energy it takes to hang onto the past is holding you back from a new life. What is it you would let go of today?”
Mary Manin Morrissey

This might be a little dark today… but I have a friend who is going through life changes, maybe it’s you too.

We all do it.
We want to move on, we want change.
But we are holding on tight to what we know, what we have today, what we had yesterday.

Unknown is often scarier than unpleasant things that we have gotten accustomed.

Even when we take first big step towards happier future, better life, we can still be sad and feel hurt, and the weight of it keeps us from being fully happy and moving forward. We feel conflicted – we want to be happy, we want to move on, and everything in theory is going towards a better life, but we just can’t let go. We try to find reasons for the bad things, we try to think what we could have done differently to prevent it from happening, we fear we will make the same mistakes or the same things will happen again.

The fear of letting go keeps us from being happy and moving forward.

We often think that the sad changes in our life are the worst, but it’s not true. Life changes to a better life can be as stressful and scary. In fact I almost think it’s sometimes even more difficult; we doubt that the better life exists because we haven’t truly lived it yet!

There is better, and there is happiness. You can achieve it, and you deserve it. Don’t let anyone say anything different, including yourself.

Let go. Don’t try to find out the why’s and what’s of life. It’s past.

Focus in the future.
Focus in your happiness, one little thing at the time.

Close your eyes and see your life how it is going to be soon, what kind of clothes you are wearing, how your hair looks, what your surrounding looks like. Imagine small things around you – and then make those small things happen, buy the clothes, get your nails done, or get the rug in your home that makes you feel you have moved on. Start building that new life one piece at the time, and suddenly you will look around and notice that your life is just like you imagined.

When we moved from Colorado to New York, it was a big change! It was a happy and an exciting change, but there was a lot of unknown, a lot of stress, and I was sad too to leave Durango behind us, and all of our friends there. I made some visible changes, like I cut my long hair to short, we sold most of our furniture, and bought new ones when we got here. I started building our life towards what I wanted it to become in New York. All of those little steps ultimately lead to a very big change and supported the big change in my life.

Do what you would do if you knew you were not going to fail.

Sometimes we are so afraid of the failure that we don’t even try. However, failure often isn’t the worst that can happen, we can learn so much from our mistakes and failures and they can be a real blessing. Not trying and regretting the things you never did is way worse tragedy than failing on doing something you truly wanted.

Find ways to test your limits and try new things. I wrote in my recent post at Skimbaco Travel how to be a fearless traveler, and I used an example of singing karaoke – you might not feel comfortable doing it in the front of people you know, but you could give it a try on your trip in a place where nobody knows you. Sometimes it takes creative thinking to create an environment that you can “safely” try something and even if you fail with flying colors it doesn’t matter – but you will get the feeling that you had guts to do it and you can learn from the failure. And best of course is to see that there was nothing to be scared off and you can do it!

Do something today, (right now!), to enjoy life.
Eat a cupcake (or two!), jump in the water puddle like a 3-year old (really, it’s fun even when you are 30 or 40), buy a purple coat (or yellow shoes) that you would normally never do just to spice your day and make you smile every time you wear it.
Rent a funny movie and invite a friend over to watch it with you.
Go swimming (in the midnight), or bowling (for the first time).
Spend time with people you love.
Call your husband and have some afternoon delight.

If you have been reading my blog for a while and know me, you know that I quit my job in January to fully focus on Skimbaco and to truly live life to the fullest. It’s been quite a spring for me, I have been able to take my family to DisneyWorld twice, to ski trips, to events and I’ve been able to spend more time with my children, while building my business smarter. I’ve been cooking more dinners and doing crafts. I’m all caught up on iCarly, and went to a school trip with my son. I have been going to Zumba, and Yoga. While there has been a lot of glitz and glamour, great business opportunities, amazing experiences, meeting celebrities, and memories of a lifetime just this spring alone, that I would not trade for anything, I still believe small things, and every day things matter the most. The Floridan sun does not warm me in rainy New York, but the smile I get from my kids for spending more time with them on a daily basis does.

Speaking of my day with my kids yesterday. I spent an afternoon sewing bags with my girls (it was quite fun, tutorial coming soon), while my son was on a play date with his best friend. We are really bad at play dates during school week, because usually want to have dinner all together. So yesterday was very special, because he also ate dinner at his friend’s house. It was sort of different than normally anyways, my husband is traveling for business. One of the fun things for kids also has been that I’ve been letting one of the kids to sleep with me in our bed each night while my husband is away, and I was asking whose turn it was last night. It was my son’s turn. I said “wow, lucky you, play date with your best friend and now snuggling with mama, quite a day” and he answered “this is the best day of my life”.

The best day of my life.

It really made me start thinking how we sometimes feel we don’t have this or we don’t have that, and how much we are lacking on things or experiences, while some of the BEST things in life are right in the front of us, and we refuse to see them because we are too busy chasing the glitzy things that doesn’t really even matter. Don’t spend your entire fortune today, and please still keep saving for that second honeymoon on an exotic island, you still deserve that too, but for Pete’s sake do something fun and fabulous TODAY and live life to the fullest in your everyday life.