INDONESIA: 5 Healthy Living Tips for Moms

INDONESIA: 5 Healthy Living Tips for Moms

for-MAUREEN-May-30We are all busy moms. Some of us work full time, some of us stay at home, and some of us work from home. Bottom line, we are all busy busy busy.

Sometimes we wish we have more than 24 hours in a day to get things done, right?

But you know what, if we do have let’s say 28 hours a day, chances are we’ll be working even longer, be even busier.

Since I’m taking healthy living more seriously and now that it has become my lifestyle of choice, I’d like to share with you these tips:

  • Ditch the guilt! Why are we as moms are so hardwired to feel guilty when we do take some times alone for ourselves? We need to STOP this. Nothing is wrong about taking an hour out of your hectic schedule to workout, make it your ME time. When Mom is happy, everyone is happy right? Exercise produces endorphins, and endorphins equals happy Moms. (more…)

Maureen

Founder of Single Moms Indonesia, community leader and builder. Deeply passionate about women empowerment.

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NEW JERSEY, USA: One Exhausted Mama

NEW JERSEY, USA: One Exhausted Mama

WomanYawning

I made my first guest contribution to the World Moms Blog about two years ago. My article focused on being a “busy bee,” and managing working, motherhood and household duties. I wrote about energy, dedication to my career and “getting it all done,” even though I knew the workload was hard. At that point in time, my son had just turned one. Well, flash forward to 2013 and my son will be three in a few weeks and my daughter will be one in two months. There is only one word that comes to mind – Exhaustion! (more…)

Wall Street Mama (USA)

Wall Street Mama was born and raised in the suburbs of Chicago and moved to NJ when she was a teenager. She fell in love with New York City and set her mind to one thing after college – working on Wall Street. She has spent the last 16 years working on the trading floor at three major banks. As an Institutional Salesperson, she is responsible for helping large corporations and money funds invest their short term cash in the fixed income part of the market. She lives in the suburbs of central NJ with her husband of 11 years, their amazing 21 month old boy and their first baby – a very spoiled Maltese. She has baby #2 on the way and is expecting a little girl in June 2012. She is a full time working mother and struggles with “having it all” while wondering if that is even possible. Wall Street Mama was married at the age of 25 but waited to have children because she felt she was too focused on her career which required a lot of traveling and entertaining. When she was finally ready, she thought she could plan the exact month she was ready to have a child, like everything else she planned in her life. She was shocked and frustrated when things did not go according to her plan. Fast forward four years later, after a miscarriage and several rounds of failed fertility injections, her little miracle was conceived naturally. She never thought in a million years, that she and her husband would be in their late 30’s by the time they had their first child. Since the financial crisis of 2008, she has endured some of the most difficult years of her life. The stress of trying to conceive was combined with some of life’s biggest challenges. She and her husband, who is a trader, both lost their jobs on Wall Street the exact same month. Her mother was diagnosed with terminal cancer and she ended up passing away while she was 6 months pregnant. At times it didn’t seem like things would ever get better, but she has learned that life is cyclical and what comes down must again go up. Leaving her baby boy with a wonderful nanny each day is difficult, but at times it is easier than she would have expected. She still enjoys the seemingly addictive draw of working on Wall Street. The past few years have been dramatically different from the “good days” but she is focused on trying to achieve what she once had before. She is currently working on launching her own blog, Wall Street Mama, in an attempt to guide others who are focused on continuing their career, yet struggle with leaving their little ones at home. She is weathering the ups and downs of the market and motherhood, one day at a time.

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UNITED KINGDOM:  Baking with Betty

UNITED KINGDOM: Baking with Betty

baking with bettyThe sun is shining through the trees at the bottom of the garden and dancing dappled light on the kitchen window. It gilds the pot of basil on the sill and warms our faces and illuminates the dust of flour in the air around us as Betty bends to her task.

She stands sturdily beside me, elevated on a kitchen chair, wrapped in a bright plastic apron. I have tied her hair up – though untidy tendrils still make their way across her cheek – and as she leans over to check her progress I have to resist the urge to kiss the perfect dimple in the nape of her neck.

Betty and I are baking. With nimble little fingers she is sieving the flour and baking powder, tap-tapping it against her palm like a tambourine and watching the clouds of white fall into the bowl. From time to time she looks up at me and grins, exposing the sweetly crooked front tooth that is the result of falling on her face mid-dash down the garden path a year ago. Betty does everything at a dash: most of her toys have to have wheels just to keep up with her. But today, she is by my side and she stays there. It’s Wednesday: our baking day, the day I don’t go to work. So here we are, elbow to elbow, delighting at our creations and the alchemy we work.

This is just as new to me as it is to Betty. I have always cooked, rarely baked. I have produced breakfasts, lunches, dinners; steaming layers of lasagne (“with GREEN pasta, Mummy!”); round, ripe tomatoes stuffed with rice; home-made turkey burgers with a secret parcel of melted cheese inside; roast chicken, roast lamb, roast beef; fat, gleaming omelettes; pancakes on feast days and naughty nuggets and chips on holidays and just-because-we-can days. But baking: that was for people who had time. I provided proudly but quickly and efficiently and then I got on with the next thing on my list.

What Betty and I do now is different. I watch her tap the egg oh so carefully on the rim of the mixing bowl before gripping it with both her little thumbs and attempting to prise it apart. Her approach is not working, so she grips it harder with her little fist and the egg crunches and splatters into the creamy whiteness of the blended butter and sugar. She makes a sound of consternation and looks up at me. I laugh, and she relaxes, and together we pick out the bits of shell. We are both learning to be patient, to enjoy the process as much as the outcome. She is so entranced by what happens when she stirs the ingredients together that she forgets to fidget and want to run. I am so entranced by her absorption that I forget to worry about what’s next on the list.

Week by week we work our way through her favourites. My baby daughter has my heart already but week by week I give it to her all over again in every offering: tender yellow vanilla-scented cupcakes that she decorates with butterflies; sturdy banana and cherry loaf; chocolate chip cookies that expand so alarmingly while cooking that we shriek and slam the oven door shut quickly and giggle. We make flapjacks, shaking oats and raisins into the mixing bowl and I smile to see her eyes widen and her hand wobble at the weight of the golden syrup we spoon in next, inhaling the bitter metal smell of the glutinous mass, our mouths watering.

Sometimes Betty gets tired and pushes the bowl back over to me to mix. Sometimes she rests her head against my side and curls a small arm around my back, sucking the first two fingers of her other hand as she watches me turn the mixture over and again and back on itself until the lumps are gone and the components blended. Then she stirs to help me transfer it into multicoloured cases, or buttered tins, before setting about licking the spoon clean, rosy pink tongue lapping like a kitten’s.

When our cakes are baked and ready, our kitchen smells of love.

This is an original post to World Moms Blog from our contributor in the UK and mum to 2 daughters and to 2 step-sons, Sophie Walker.

The image used in this post is credited to the author.

Sophie Walker (UK)

Writer, mother, runner: Sophie works for an international news agency and has written about economics, politics, trade, war, diplomacy and finance from datelines as diverse as Paris, Washington, Hong Kong, Kabul, Baghdad and Islamabad. She now lives in London with her husband, two daughters and two step-sons. Sophie's elder daughter Grace was diagnosed with Asperger Syndrome several years ago. Grace is a bright, artistic girl who nonetheless struggles to fit into a world she often finds hard to understand. Sophie and Grace have come across great kindness but more often been shocked by how little people know and understand about autism and by how difficult it is to get Grace the help she needs. Sophie writes about Grace’s daily challenges, and those of the grueling training regimes she sets herself to run long-distance events in order to raise awareness and funds for Britain’s National Autistic Society so that Grace and children like her can blossom. Her book "Grace Under Pressure: Going The Distance as an Asperger's Mum" was published by Little, Brown (Piatkus) in 2012. Her blog is called Grace Under Pressure.

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New York, USA: Running in Circles

Moms In Training Team“I think I am going to run a 10K”  I told my husband over dinner one night.  He looked at me like I had two heads.  “If you told me that you were going to swim or cycle, I wouldn’t be surprised – but running is not your thing”.

It’s so true!  It’s not my “thing”.  In fact I hate running, but I received an email from Apple Seeds, an amazing indoor playground offering tons of classes for kids and moms in New York City, Mumbai and Dubai, telling me all about this Moms In Training group.  A group of moms, who train together for 8 weeks leading up to the race day, a women’s run around Central Park on June 8th.  So, I decided to look into it… and it sounded AMAZING!

One year ago a pair of moms, Helena and Kristen, started this program.  It is part of the Team in Training program that helps teams train for races to raise funds for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society.  The weekly training sessions are led by certified trainers (the Madison Square Park group is led by Meri Treitler, founder of Mommy & Me Fitness). Here’s what you get: (more…)

Maman Aya (USA)

Maman Aya is a full-time working mother of 2 beautiful children, a son who is 6 and a daughter who is two. She is raising her children in the high-pressure city of New York within a bilingual and multi-religious home. Aya was born in Canada to a French mother who then swiftly whisked her away to NYC, where she grew up and spent most of her life. She was raised following Jewish traditions and married an Irish Catholic American who doesn’t speak any other language (which did not go over too well with her mother), but who is learning French through his children. Aya enjoys her job but feels “mommy guilt” while at work. She is lucky to have the flexibility to work from home on Thursdays and recently decided to change her schedule to have “mommy Fridays”, but still feels torn about her time away from her babies. Maman Aya is not a writer by any stretch of the imagination, but has been drawn in by the mothers who write for World Moms Blog. She looks forward to joining the team and trying her hand at writing!

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SINGAPORE:  Interview with A Juggling Mom

SINGAPORE: Interview with A Juggling Mom

Susan Koh Author World Moms Blog

Where in the world do you live? And, are you from there?
I was born and raised in Singapore and have lived here all my life. Although I live in the smallest country in Southeast Asia, I take pride at the vast progress that we’ve achieved. At the same time, I’m humbled to live in a city where it’s a melting pot of different cultures, fueling my passion to travel to learn more about different cultures.

What language(s) do you speak?

English is my first language. I also speak Mandarin, and dialects such as Cantonese and Hokkien. Oh and I also speak baby language 🙂

When did you first become a mother?
I became a mom at 29 years old in August 2009 which also happens to be our National Day or Independence Day!

Are you a stay-at-home mom or do you work outside the home?

I’m a full time working mom and made this choice consciously as I believe that it’s possible to balance family and a career. Though I’ve had my ups and downs especially in the initial years, I don’t regret it and hope to inspire other moms to find work life balance. (more…)

Susan Koh

Susan is from Singapore. As a full-time working mom, she's still learning to perfect the art of juggling between career and family while leading a happy and fulfilled life. She can't get by a day without coffee and swears she's no bimbo even though she likes pink and Hello Kitty. She's loves to travel and blogs passionately about parenting, marriage and relationship and leading a healthy life at A Juggling Mom.

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SINGAPORE: Five Simple Ways to Have More Time In Your Day

SINGAPORE: Five Simple Ways to Have More Time In Your Day

timeformumsMoms are probably the busiest people on earth – from household chores, taking care of the kids, to our work, and juggling our other roles as wives, daughters and more.  It’s no wonder many of us find that 24 hours a day is barely enough time.

But if we are to seriously think about it, is it really true that we don’t have enough time?  Or are there, perhaps, changes we can make that will help us save time, create calmness in our lives and to even squeeze in some me-time every day?

One of the areas I’m working on this year is putting in place systems for my home and my work so that I can be more efficient and effective. Here are some things I am doing that I find are helping me to better manage my time and be more productive.

1. Plan in advance

Planning is probably one of the most basic rules of time management, but to be honest, I’ve never been disciplined enough. So this year, I’m making this a priority. This means to plan my days, weeks and even months in advance. Planning gives me clarity and helps me stay focused. (more…)

Ruth

Ruth lives in Singapore, a tiny island 137 kilometres north of the equator. After graduating from university, she worked as a medical social worker for a few years before making a switch to HR and worked in various industries such as retail, banking and manufacturing. In spite of the invaluable skills and experiences she had gained during those years, she never felt truly happy or satisfied. It was only when she embarked on a journey to rediscover her strengths and passion that this part of her life was transformed. Today, Ruth is living her dreams as a writer. Ironically, she loves what she does so much that at one point, she even thought that becoming a mom would hinder her career. Thanks to her husband’s gentle persuasions, she now realises what joy she would have missed out had she not changed her mind. She is now a happy WAHM. Ruth launched MomME Circle, a resource site to support and inspire moms to create a life and business they love. She has a personal blog Mommy Café where she writes about her son's growing up and shares her interests such as food and photography.

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