Back to School: Tips to Make This Year the Best

I realize that most of have been in school for a week or two already, but I think this topic is still relevant.

School for most kids is marked with homework, bad lunches, boyfriends and girlfriends, car wheels, fights with Mom and Dad, rebellion or the attempt/ thought to rebel, and drama. Most of these things you really don't want to go through. Here are ways to make this year way better:

((( DISCLAIMER! Because I am home- schooled I am not an expert in anything I talk about here, nor do I claim to be. If I have something completely wrong, please note that in the comment section and I will get back to you as soon as possible. Thanks!))

1. When you want to argue with Mom
 Teens inherently think (myself included) that since we have made it this far, we must know as much as the parental units. Mix that with crazy emotions and a tendency to want to "tell the truth", we say a bunch of stupid stuff  that hurts yourself and your parent(s).

When you feel like giving a snappy comeback when your mom says you can't go out with friends, please just say "Okay", go to your room and cool off. Your friends will be there forever, and your mom will say yes some other time.

2. That mean girl is asking for it

 We know the type, blonde, perfect, designer outfits, the whole enchilada. She drags her perfect boyfriend all around school, parading him like a trophy. Ugh... It didn't really bother you until she and The Posse decide to turn on you, targeting your "Ew, you got that at Goodwill!" clothes. Your parents don't have enough money to take you clothes shopping and 12 hours at Dairy Queen a week won't pay for a full wardrobe of Gucci. 

Before you say something that will make an enemy for life and also ensure she gets a bad impression of Christians, you can do one of two things. 1. Walk away. When you walk away, she might act like your deaf, but in reality she'll feel stupid. The reason she nags at you is because she wants a reaction. If she doesn't get one, she'll probably leave you alone. 2. Say, "You know, name of mean girl, I really like these clothes. I'll wear what I like and you can wear what you like."

3.You're struggling in school
  
We all know that school isn't easy. School is hard, and it is really easy to doze in class and miss something completely important. Suddenly, you feel like you might as well be thrown back to the fifth grade, because you are totally lost.  

 Before you freak out or have a nervous breakdown or go on one of those really dangerous shopping sprees, do three things: pray, talk to your teacher, and if on of your parents knows anything about the given topic, ask them for help. A couple of days ago, I was freaking out because I couldn't figure out the difference between a chloride atom and a chloride ion, and I thought they didn't mention it in my book, I broke down and had my dad look through it. Ten minutes later he showed me the passage and it was all hunky- dory again. Don't be afraid to ask for help.

4. When you are having a bad day

This morning you woke up all broken out. When you are ready to put on your make up, you find that you younger sister decided to use all our concealer and leave the spatula- emptied tube in you drawer. Great. Then you get to school two minutes late and realize there was that there was that big trigonometry test that you forgot to study for. To put the cherry on the sundae, you got yelled at by the coach because "you didn't have your head in the game".

Wow, you are having a really bad day. Unfortunately, there really is no way to predict when a bad is gonna come or how to stop it before it gets, well, bad. However there are a couple things you can do to make it a little better.

1. I have this sign in my room that says, "When in doubt, 1.Pray 2. Ask Mom 3. Drink Coffee." Being the caffeine addict that I am, this isn't surprising. I think this also applies to bad days, pray, talk to mom, drink a cup of joe.
2.  Johnny Cash's lyrics to one of his songs were "Get rhythm when you get the blues". So true! When you are having a tough day, listen to some music. It really helps, plus it's something to swish around in your head when the coach is yelling at you or the mean girls from problem 2 are at it again.
3. Sitting down and having a couple minutes alone never hurt anyone either. Just take a breather and move on. When the going gets tough, I tell myself this day will be over, and I can go home later and cry my eyes out.
4. Tell your friends, "Hey I'm having a bad day, so if I yell at you, it's not your fault." They could take it a number of different ways, they could laugh, hug you, or pray for you, but I'm pretty sure they'll sympathize.

I hope these tips will help you all! Just remember that if you are fighting with the parents, or the mean girls are doing what they do best, you are having a tough time in school, or it was just a really bad day, God is with always and forever. Even when you feel like the world is crashing down, God is with you. Go give 'em heaven!

Book Review for Food:A Love Story

Jim Gaffigan is a hilarious comedian. I really enjoy his quippy remarks regarding food, flab, and family.


I had reviewed this book in February, but had seen it was available again, and the cover looked different, so I requested it. It is the same book, however it is softcover, published by a different publisher, and was cheaper. 
  
Every time I read this book (or any of Gaffigan's books, really) it gets funnier. Food: A Love Story  are his musings about food, and every kind. He states the pros and cons of differing fast food restaurants, Hot Pockets, and even has a United States food map! 
DISCLAIMER: Jim Gaffigan is a self- proclaimed eatie, not a foodie.

 Food: A Love Story is a truly enjoyable read. A lighthearted essay, it is fun, sweet (literally and figuratively), and humorous. If you like food, if you like humor, if you like Jim Gaffigan, this book is for you.

I was sent this book in exchange for my honest opinion by Blogging for Books.

Cheap Chic by Caterine Milinaire and Carol Troy; foreword by Tim Gunn

So, I'm like most people. I'd love to have a killer wardrobe but not interested in spend thousands of dollars doing it. When I saw I could review Cheap Chic, I was pretty excited. When I got it in the mail later, I started to leaf through it.

I think that there are really great tips in here. This edition of Cheap Chic is the 40th Anniversary so there were some things in there a little funky like a pair of four dollar sneakers. I didn't mind though.

The book is divided in to clothing articles such as jeans and T shirts, then sweaters, then coats, then things like shoes and accessories.

Despite the awesome tips in this book, I was appalled to find nudity in the book. I really don't understand why they needed to put that garbage in there, but it ruined it for me. I really think this would have been a great book for anyone to read, but after that, I think no one should read it.

Disclosure of Material Connection: I was provided a free copy of this book by Blogging for Books in exchange for my honest opinion 

Happy Birthday!!!!!!!!

Yesterday Dolly's Pix turned one!!!!! I'd like to thank all my readers; without you there would be no Dolly's Pix. God bless!

Reservations for Two by Hillary Monton Lodge

Juliette D'Alisa loves her French and Italian family roots. On a trip with her boyfriend, Neil McLaren, she visits her family in France, eating all the pastries she can handle, and visiting Italy, while celebrating her nonno's birthday. During her time in France at the family's chateau, she finds some of her Grand- mere's letters to Juliette's grand- tante and a mystery man.

Reservations for Two is an endearing story of food, love, and history. It is the second book in the Two Blue Doors series.


When Juliette begins to go through the letters, she finds her family history was not as well defined as she thought.

To compound her confusion, Neil and Juliette are becoming increasingly serious, but she lives in Portland, and he lives in Memphis. Her mother is seriously sick with ovarian cancer, so she can't move to Memphis.

Also, her brother Nico, just opened a new restaurant, and needs Juliette's help to get it going.

I thought the premise of this book was excellent. The ideas were complete and succinct. However, there were some many plots in this book, it was confusing. The characters were "alive" on the page, but it really needed to be cut down to two or three plots, whereas there really was more like six or seven.

Also, I felt that the book could have had more spiritual influence. She rarely goes to church, there are barely any scenes of prayer, and they never have conversations about God. For a Christian book, it felt incomplete.

As for grand- mere's letters, I loved them. They were true to the era (the early 1940's) and she has a sense of humor. Unfortunately, they were finally brought in halfway through the book!

Other than these errors, I thought this book was heartwarming, delightful, and had the perfect amount of surprise. I think this book would be very good if it was just went back to the editors office for a little bit of polishing.

Cool: Not Another "Reasons Why Cool is Dumb" Talk

Cool. What does that even mean? Technically, it means chilly, refreshing, cold. However, we usually use the word as a positive or as a state on the high school food chain. "That movie was so cool!" "Cool! We get to go to the mall!" "He is so cool."

Everyone looks at the cool kids in disgust, with cut-downs on how shallow they are, the dumb things they do, who's dating who and if they are cheating, all the while we worship them and want to be them. Can anyone say, oxymoron? 

I've always been perplexed by the meaning of cool. Can anyone one really explain what it means? It usually is associated with popularity, but who can explain that either?

That fact is that coolness and popularity take you only so far in life. When you are working in an office building as an adult, do you think anyone will care that your blouse is from (oh my goodness!) last year? No one will care if you have a (gasp!) last generation smartphone! And (God forbid) you didn't make it to Jen from Human Resources's biggest bash of the year! 

As I promised in the title of this post, this is not another "Reasons Why Cool is Dumb" talk, but what God wants for your life. God doesn't want you drinking underage, doing drugs, having premarital sex, etc. We try to tell ourselves that we can walk through mud and not get our feet dirty, but the truth is you can't be "cool" without doing the aforementioned things. It is impossible. High school lasts only four years, but the things you do right now will last you for the rest of your life.

 

Rebellion: Heroic or Stupid?

As I go down my list of fundamentals that I follow, she looks increasingly amused. After I finish telling her my "code", she looks at me strangely. Laughing, she says, "You're not much of a rebel are you?" I pull back emotionally, embarrassed. 

I don't even remember why we were discussing such things, we hardly knew each other. We were just on the same train. For days after that, though, her voice kept ringing inside my head,  "You're not much of a rebel are you?","You're not much of a rebel are you?","You're not much of a rebel are you?" 

After about day three of being embarrassed, I begin to wonder why her statement bothered me so much. I knew I was no rebel, and I had a cause. For some reason I was so disturbed by her comment.

Finally I realized, media would like to tell you that rebellion is normal, if not necessary, in teens. Think about, every Disney movie you watch, one of the kids is a rebel. There's always that punk metal band being played at your school. You can't walk into Barnes and Noble without being bombarded by child- rearing books. But all the while, kids are seeing all this stuff. That girl in the movie is the heroine. The punk band is being played everywhere nonstop by the "cool" kids. Mom's bookshelf is absolutely filled with those books. It's encouraging them to rebel! (Maybe not the child- rearing books, but you never know!)

I looked up the word "rebel", and essentially it means: a person who opposes a person or group in authority : a person who does not obey rules or accept normal standards of behavior, dress, etc. *

When we rebel from our parents, we are really pulling a Jonah. "You don't control me!"  "I can do what I want."  "They just don't understand me." But eventually we wisen up. Sometimes it takes getting swallowed by a proverbial whale, but if that's what it takes. 

The Heroic Side

When rebellion is heroic is when it is done in protest of something wrong. The Christians that are martyred in the Middle East by ISIS, they are rebels. But instead of rebelling against what is right, they are willing to sacrifice their own lives in protest of what is wrong. There is a very fine line between the two.

What those martyrs are doing is the most amazing act of faith ever. They are willing to die, be tortured, have anything done to them, because they are so solid in their faith. That is heroic rebellion.

The Stupid Side
  
When rebellion is stupid is when it's done in pride and vanity. This is most often seen in teenagers. I'll be honest, as teens, we are clueless. Sure, we know a lot more than when we were youngsters, or even just last year, but parents will always know what's best for us. To think that we know what is best for us is, I'll be frank, flat out stupid. What may seem like a good idea right now, will probably not be when you look at it in retrospect. That's when pride and vanity step in. Rebellion encourages us to do things that will make us vain. Rainbow colored hair, skimpy clothes, tattoos, body piercings. These are things your parents most likely don't approve of. Ask yourself this question and please answer honestly. Would you do all those things if your parents approved? That is stupid rebellion.


Well, I hope that this post was helpful on you view of rebellion. I know that this was frank, so if it applies to you, please don't take it personally. I'd just like to share with you what God wants for you. Have a great day!

*Courtesy of Merriam-Webster dictionary