An apple a day may add days to your life

Want to live longer? You might want to stock on Apples from now on.
According to a study done by scientists from the Chinese University of Hong Kong found that eating an apple a day may increase an individual’s lifespan by up to 10 percent.

The researchers studied fruit flies, which share a lot of genes with humans, and gave them apple extract for the duration of the study.
According to the

Guest Blog-Imperfection is the new perfection

I've had a rough week. It is with great excitement that I turn my blog over to J.L.W from The Practical Mom Guide today. I hope every mom out there had a fabulous mother's day. I'm off to play my new Wii. Enjoy!!

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The moment a child is born, the mother is also born.  She never existed before.  The woman existed, but the mother, never.  A mother is something absolutely new.  ~Rajneesh

 I remember driving with my mother to see fireworks one fourth of July.  I remember asking her what it was like to be a mother.  It was dark out and the only light in the car was from the street lights.  She had looked at me and asked, "what kind of question is that?"  I could tell she was perplexed about where this question had come from.  How do you explain to someone that isn't a mother what it is like?

When I held my daughter for the first time, I understood what my mother couldn't say.  Everything you are, everything you want to be is staring back at you when you look at your child...and everything you are not.

Who knew that motherhood would...

...be more of an adventure than Alice's in Wonderland.

...make me worry so much that getting the recommended amount of sleep would be a distant dream.

...be so hard at times that I questioned whether I was a good mom.

...make me wonder about my sanity.

...make me want to be a better person.

...make me feel so proud when I tell people that I am a mom.

...make me forget about my own needs and wants at times.

...make me laugh so hard at the silliest most mundane things (like my daughter attempting to blow raspberries on her sister's head).

...make me so happy.

...make me forget all the unpleasantness of pregnancy and labor and make me want to do it again.

...let me give up the quest for perfection. 

I have learned that motherhood isn't about perfection. It is all about the imperfections.  I had this vision when I was pregnant with my first daughter about the kind of mother I wanted to be.  I shudder to think of the June Cleaver/Stepford wife that I wanted to be.  In reality, I am more Lucy Ricardo, Lois Griffin, with maybe a little Marion Cunningham and a tiny smidge of June Cleaver in the mix. 

I try to be a good mom and I want to teach my daughters to respect others and themselves, to be kind, to have a thirst for knowledge, to care for the things they have but at the same time to realize that material things are not everything, to be generous, to be confident, to listen, to take chances, to be honest, to have integrity, to have faith, to have hope, and to really enjoy life and not take it for granted.

I sometimes leave the dishes in the sink, laundry sometimes sits unfolded in the basket in the laundry room, I am not very punctual, I have a tendency to burn things in the kitchen, and the list goes on.  My "To-do" list pad says "Both of us can't look good at the same time...it's either me or the house".  That describes me perfectly.  One of us (obviously me or the house) will be lacking by June Cleaver's standards by the end of the day. 

 My daughters don't need a perfect mother, they need me-imperfections and all. If I was perfect, how could I be expected to teach my daughters about life.  Life in itself is imperfect, impractical, and impervious to any kind of logic.  The only thing I need to do is love them and make sure that they know that and to try to help them become the women they can be, imperfections and all.

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Thanks again to JLW from The Practical Mom Guide for guest posting today!! Make sure you leave J.L.W. lots of love for her very awesome post here.

P.S. There's a lot more where that came from. Just click here.

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