Do you take your full vacation? Or perhaps a better question is, do you get vacation time?

According to an initiative called “Time Back Your Time” vacation time for the United States isn’t a sure thing. More than that, a small percentage of people (14%) “will get a vacation of two weeks or longer this year.” The remainer of people either get less than two weeks or have no time off at all. Worse than that, some people don’t use their vacation for fear that they will be demoted or laid off.

I know a few people who would fit into this category, and it’s just crazy. If we don’t have time away from work, how will we ever truly unwind and get some balance?

Take Back Your Time is spear-heading a campaign to pass The Minimum Leave Protection, Family Bonding and Personal Well-Being Act of 2007. This act would establish a minimum three weeks vacation for any American that’s been at a job for a year, even if you change jobs.

Other countries have a national paid leave time, but somehow I can’t see this happening with the United States.

Do you think we should create a law that protects vacation time?

Image from Morguefile.

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I’m sure many of you can relate to this: some days you just feel like your life is on permanent fast forward. Everything goes too darn fast. And yet, there’s still no time. No time for hobbies, for love, for real relationships… Certainly no time just to sit and do nothing (without feeling guilty!)

This kind of hurried life can cause plenty of problems, too. For me, it added to health issues. I had to slow down because my body just couldn’t keep up. For others, it may mean you don’t have the same quality relationship with your spouse, or even that your kids are as stressed as you are.

I caught this interesting article that talked about the effects ofa life zipping by too fast, and one of the things it mentioned wasHurried Woman’s Syndrome. It said:

“Women who try to do too many things at oncejuggling work with hectic home lifecomplain of chronic stress, tiredness, weight gain, sleep problems, guilt, knackered self-esteem.

They suffer, according to Dr. Brent Bost, from hurried woman syndrome.”

The remedy for this is simply slowing down. But it’s easier said than done. It takes a concentrated effort. But once you master it, you won’t want to go back.

I had to adjust my life at first because of health reasons. But now, I protect my time and that of my family. I don’t over schedule. In some cases, that’s meant we don’t socialize as much as we used to. We had some friends that we saw once in a while that constantly caused us stress. But we worked to fit them into our social calendar. Now, we don’t. (And haven’t missed them.)

Instead, we focus on those rare friendships that are special. We spend quality time with people that care about us. We work to make our holidays less hectic. We even use caution when it comes togetting into new TV shows or hobbies. We also purposely don’t schedule activities as often as we did before. We choose plays or flea markets (or whatever we truly love) over those things that would have us stuck in traffic and feeling rushed. We rarely schedule anything for during the week.

Basically, we guard our schedule as if it’s the most precious thing around. It’s not something I’ve always done. But now that I have this mindset, I really see the difference in how much calmer I am.

What about you? Are you suffering from “Hurried Woman’s (or Men’s) Syndrome”? If so, what steps can you take to slow down?

Image from Morguefile.

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With cold and flu season upon us, when you work outside the home and you have a sick child, one of the first things you have to ascertain is, “Are they really sick?” Not that you should doubt your child, but when it happens you have to arrange your whole day differently and you have to know the facts.

Even the best kids have their faking moments, my oldest has recently confessed a few to me, and even though they were several years ago, she was gooooood, and I’m even a nurse.

Sometimes, when kids are slightly ill or recovering, you have to decide if they can go to school or not.

ABC News has some tips on sorting things out Sick Kids: Keep Them Home? Or Are They Faking?.

One of my favorite strategies is mentioned in the article.

If one of my kids is home and it’s a little questionable, I make sure to emphasize that they must be simply “too exhausted” to watch a lot of TV or use the computer and that I’m sure they (child in question) needs to get right to bed. That usually sorts things out pretty quickly.

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I don’t know about you, but without my crockpot there are some days when my family would not have a hot meal. I’ve used my crockpot for a long time, and when I was single it was nice to come home to a hot meal. Now that I cook for my husband and mom, I especially appreciate the ability to “cook” dinner without having to do more than just throw a few items into the machine.

I have several crockpot cookbooks now, but I tend to shy away from those that require any prep work. Call my lazy, but I can’t see frying up meat and onions or whatever, and then throwing into the crockpot. I want to throw it all in, and walk away. That’s it.

I’ve come across a few good recipes for this, many of them from right here at b5. For example:

• 50 Awesome Crockpot Recipes to Keep You Warm and Full
• Crockpot Chicken Creole
• Andouille & Lentil Stew
• and even, Crock Pot Creme Brulee

I created a recipe myself and can direct you tomany more free crockpot recipes over atSimply Thrifty.

Lately, I’ve finally discovered that you can cook rice (and pasta) in with your meal as well. (You guys probably already knew that! I’m slow sometimes… :) I can’t tell you how delighted I was to learn that! It meant I could truly make a one pot meal right in the good ole slow cooker.

What’s your favorite crockpot meal? Is there a recipe online you can share? Or better yet, add it to the comments below!

Image from Morguefile.

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Congratulations to Deborah W. and Janet F. who were the winners of the Walk Family DVD giveaway! I’ve sent emails to both of you so be sure to watch your inbox.

For those that entered and didn’t win please keep reading here, we’ll have some fun stuff coming up in the next few days and weeks.

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