Have a Summer Plan! Decide in advance what you’d like to do. Instead of rushing around madly trying to accomplish an undefined set of goals, or constantly “intending” to take that trip, make a plan! List your choices in your Day-Timer planner according to preference, and then plan your summer accordingly.

Learn to Multitask: Organized people can do more than one thing at a time. Suppose you need to conduct business in another town. Is there a way for you to add some fun to the trip? Are there theme parks, museums, or sites of natural beauty in the area? Investigate the possibilities! You may end up packing a swimsuit in your briefcase!

Organize Weekend Vacations: Some of the most pleasant vacations take place over long weekends. Leave on Friday and return on Monday night. If you live near a “hub” airport, you may be able to jet to Key West or New Orleans for the weekend. You’ll return to work on Tuesday, refreshed and rejuvenated… ready to plan for your next long weekend!

Make Time for Family: Vow to get the family active this summer! Winter tends to lull most of us into a lazy pattern that often includes television and junk food, but little real bonding time or fitness-related activity. Think about how much closer your family could be after a white-water rafting trip or a visit to a rock-climbing gym! Then again, simply adding a family game night to your schedule could serve the same purpose… without ever leaving the house!

Try New Things! Have you always wanted to try water skiing or rollerblading, but never had the opportunity? Create your own opportunities this summer! Do research on the internet about a sport you never played (but always wanted to try)… grab the phone book… and call about taking lessons! Read the
entertainment section of your local newspaper – it’s usually overflowing with fun ideas. Promise yourself that you’ll experience something new this summer, whether it’s guitar lessons, skydiving, cooking classes, or learning to speak another language. Come autumn, you might discover a whole new you!

Aurelia
Real Life Solutions

Self esteem in an important quality for all children to have. As parents, you can help to boost your child’s self esteem by following the steps below:

• Model good self-esteem: Express through your actions and words that you respect yourself. Children are wonderful at imitating what they see and hear. Remember, you are your child’s best role model.

• Create positive routines: Young children need routines to help them to feel secure and competent. Try to set a good schedule for bedtime, rest/naps, meals, etc. Try to keep exceptions to the routine to a minimum and explain any necessary changes if/when they occur.

• Allow many opportunities for children to contribute to the family: Give your child a job/chore that only he/she does for the family. Even a small job can have a positive lasting impact on your child’s self esteem.

• Spend time with your child: Remember quality is more important than quantity. Even if you spend just 30 minutes with your child one on one — playing games, taking walks, having long bedtime chats, or just snuggling in front of the TV, spending time with your child shows them that you value their company.

• Give your child choices: Giving your child choices between a reasonable set of options that are already predetermined by you will make them feel empowered.

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Featured Resource
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Self-Esteem Games: 300 Fun Activities That Make Children Feel Good about Themselves These joyful activities help children learn how to make friends, express feelings, trust others, accept themselves, use their imaginations, and more. The book combines upbeat, positive advice—including tips for better parenting—with step-by-step directions for each activity.

Helping Children Conquer Their Fears

Balancing Your Home and Business Life without Having Super Powers

For moms who work from home, balancing the home and business sides of their lives can feel downright impossible, especially when the reason they began working from home was so they could spend more time with family. However, many home businesses actually fail because moms don’t manage to balance business and home life. How can you juggle your family’s needs, your business needs and occasionally find some time for your needs without being a super hero?

The first thing any mom should do to achieve balance is to get the family involved. If your children and husband support you, you will find that they interrupt less often and are more likely to pitch in to get household chores done. You’re probably thinking that will happen the day the moon turns to blue cheese, right? However, if you mention that you need to get a major project done and will be able to buy a pizza and rent a video when you are paid, you may be surprised at how quickly everyone pitches in to help out.

If you have young children, they may not be able to understand the concept of waiting for a reward. To get your younger children involved, try explaining what you are doing in very simple terms and having them help you. Set up a small desk or table for your toddlers and add crayons and paper so they can help you with your work by drawing some pictures or writing a letter. Children that are a bit older can put stamps on envelopes and seal them, paperclip papers together or do other simple organizational tasks.

Of course, no matter how supportive your family and friends are, they are not going to be happy if you work 15 hours a day. Make sure that you ask for uninterrupted time to do your job or run your business, but also make sure that you schedule time for your family and friends. While you are making up that schedule, don’t forget your significant other. If you sit at your computer all evening after the children are tucked away for the night, you may end up with some serious relationship issues!

Once your family and friends are involved and you’ve scheduled time for them in your life, it is time to consider a few ways to make the most of your valuable work time. While you may be tempted to work non-stop during the time you have dedicated to your business, you should actually try to take some breaks. Taking a half-hour walk or having lunch away from your desk can really help you recharge your mind and keeps your body from growing stiff and tired. When you sit back down, you can do so with a clearer view of your goals and fresh energy and focus.

Also, don’t be afraid to make a “to do” list for your business. Write the four or five items you absolutely must do on your list and promise yourself that you will get them done before you visit your favorite forums or check your email. This can really help you get more work accomplished in less time.

So, although you may not have super powers, you can still have a home life, a business life and some time for yourself. The next time you are feeling overwhelmed, take a deep breath, ask your family for some help and try out a few of these great ideas for balancing your life.

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Aurelia Williams is dedicated to helping moms maximize their time and find more time for themselves. Visit her at Real Life Solutions, a Family Resource site that helps you lead an emotionally, more productive and less stressful life.

Starting a weight loss diet is one of the easiest things a person can do. Staying with it, well, that’s another thing entirely. There are so many reasons that people just can’t seem to stay with their weight loss attempts.

Dieting can be challenging at times so take time to read these easy to follow Healthy Dieting Tips and be sure to comment here and let me know your thoughts on these great tips.

Here’s to a healthier life

Aurelia
Real Life Solutions

In a search for happiness, many people look for it in other people and not within ourselves. Many people feel that things like money, a better job, better relationships..etc will make them happy. In reality, to find true contentment you must look inside yourself and learn to be your own best friend. That means you have to trust, love, and care for yourself just as you do the people you consider to be close to you.

Following are steps that you can incorporate into your life that will help you to feel more empowered and happy about yourself!

* Begin to lift yourself up, not put yourself down. If you don’t like something about yourself, work to change it. If you can’t change it, simply accept it. Don’t beat up on yourself with negative self-talk. You’re not likely to change for the better when you fill yourself with negative thoughts.

* Give yourself positive rewards. When you do something that you are proud of give yourself a small reward. Try not to wait for others to praise you because you may grow resentful if the praise doesn’t come. Pat your own back, it is a great feeling that can stay with you for a long time.

* Forgive yourself. I doubt that you would keep scolding a child over and over for making a mistake so don’t do that to yourself. Give yourself the gift of forgiveness when you make a mistake. After that, work to figure out what lesson you can learn, and use it to make better choices the next time around.

* Enjoy your successes. Most people can remember all of the details of depressing, painful or even embarrassing events that happened many years ago. What if you did the same thing with all of your wins? Try to remember all of the triumphs and accomplishments that you’ve made and keep that memory with you and think about it at least once a week.

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Real Life Coaching
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I offer wonderful support, guidance, motivation, encouragement and mentoring via online instant messaging, e-mail or telephone. I coach individuals on a wide variety of topics such as how to lead a more organized life, stress and time management and also how to reach a variety of goals. If you are interested, simply visit my site and look at the Coaching Packages that are available. I also have a few short Audio’s there that you can listen to.

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Helpful Links & Resources
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Stress Relief Tips
300 Breakthrough Stress Relief Tips: A breakthrough program that relieves the symptoms of stress and eliminates the causes, actually reversing the stressful habits, attitudes and mindsets you’ve developed over the course of your life!

Here are your
5 Steps to create a better attitude

Enjoy!!

Aurelia

I have added so many great resourses to the
Free Parenting Tips section of Real Life Solutions.

Your resource for Free Positive Parenting tips and information. Tips from how to help your toddler sleep through the night to how ways to organize your teenager for a positive ‘off to college’ experience. We have many informative articles for you.

Aurelia Williams
Real Life Solutions

I am sure that each of you at one time has felt as if you did not quite ‘measure up’ to a certain challenge or task but try to remember that ‘measuring up’ is not the goal. The goal is to learn from what you do.

See, to me, there is no such thing as failure! It is just an opportunity to grow, learn, and proceed!

Do not let fear get if your way of success. Look it your fears right in the eye with love, encouragement, compassion and dedication and work through it! You will be amazed at the power you have within yourself.

Take a moment to listen to my short, free and informative audio on overcoming the fear of failure. I hope that you find some tips and ideas to get keep you motivated.

Tune in
Here

Warmly,

Aurelia Williams
Real Life Solutions

Start Your
Journey to Joy

Parenting An Only Child - The Joys And Challenges Of Raising Your One And Only: Looks at the advantages and disadvantages of the single-child family, and offers tips on raising an only child.

Free parenting resources Here.

Aurelia

I just love sharing great resources with you all and I have to tell you about this awesome magazine called Mommy Today Magazine.

This online magazine is dedicated to today’s mom at home. Their unique goal is to enhance the lives of today’s mom at home through timely, insightful and useful articles. It is filled with wonderful information that I am sure you will find useful. Best of all, you can subscribe to this magazine free of charge.

Happy Reading and be sure to check back here and let me know what your thoughts are on this Magazine!

Aurelia
Real Life Solutions.

Hi there -

I love talking to other moms and there is an awesome forum that is set aside just for Moms to come and chat.

If you looking for a place to chat with other Moms, then be sure to visit check out MomsTalkForum. I is a new forum created for moms to talk about all aspects of motherhood and more.

Getting cheap airline tickets is not an issue with the ata airlines. However it is quite impossible with alaskan airlines or even the midwest airlines.

Aurelia