Oola Life: I Give and Receive LOVE

One of the things we need most in this world is LOVE. Not only do we need to feel loved by others, we need to be sure they feel loved by us. Recently I was challenged to think more about what it means to truly love others. If you read this blog regularly you know I am reading the book, Oola: Find Balance in an Unbalanced World. As part of the book study, I did a quiz to see which areas of my life needed more attention. (See my earlier post for quiz link) Initially, I thought my family area was one of my strongest. Chapter 5 made me re-examine this in light of the broader definition of family.

In Chapter 5, the Oola guys define family relationships using a circle metaphor. The inner part of the circle is your immediate family. For me right now, this is my parents. For you, it might be your spouse and children. These are the people who are nearest and dearest to you and you likely see them daily. The next ring is your siblings, aunts, uncles, and others who you see during the year. The outer ring is your cousins and extended family members who you see occasionally at weddings or family reunions. The intensity of your feelings lessens as you move away from the center of the circle. However, the Oola guys caution us to be sure that all of our family relationships are loving and that we have forgiven any past hurts. Don't think because you only see someone occasionally that you can let that relationship become toxic because one toxic relationship can poison all your family relationships. Now the challenge for me is that I have become neglectful of those in my outer rings. (Sorry cousins) So, to grow in the Oola area of family, I need to commit time to these relationships.

Well, that's enough for now. Until next time, consider your own family relationships. Do you give love, receive love and forgive others to ensure that your family life continues to grow?

February Oola Goal: Family Time

Hello dearest friends, family, and blog followers. Sorry, I have been MIA lately, but I am taking a break from my full-time RV life. I moved back to Ohio to live with my parents. This will allow me to provide them with some daily assistance. I've been home for about a week and it has been a joy. My parents are two of the most amazing people I know and so much fun to be with. The only downside is that it is COLD and SNOWY here. The photo shown here is the view from my window. A little different from the last view from the RV windshield window that I shared last, isn't it?

So here's my January accountability update that I promised you. My January Oola goal was FITNESS and I spent the month learning more about healthy eating using Whole30 guidelines and working hard to increase the number of days that I walked each month. My Nike running app shows that I walked 9 times using the app and I  walked (without using the app) every day with Susie in Disney World from January 21-26. We also walked about 2 miles on the trails at the Three Rivers State Park near Sneads in the Florida panhandle on January 27th. This makes a total of 15 days. WooHoo! This is halfway to my goal of walking every day and triple what I walked in December.

As you may have guessed, my February Oola life goal is FAMILY.  The family is one of the seven areas of our lives that the Oola guys have identified as needing to be in balance with the six other areas in our lives. As the Oola guys say on their oolalife.com website, love is always, unconditional and no matter what. This lesson is also one that my parents modeled for me and my siblings our whole lives. Living with my parents will give me a special opportunity to talk with them about old family photo albums and stories. Since I won't be traveling in the RV, I will have lots of time to update my ancestry.com family tree and clean out years of collected family archives. During February I am also committing myself to stay connected with the members of my family who live all around the USA via social media, phone calls and cards. This will be a very special time for me.

So, what about this blog?  Well, I will continue to share things here about my RV life since I have a few months of campsite reviews, RV tips and tricks and other information to share. Then the blog will shift in content to information about Oola goals, essential oils, Whole30 and other things I am learning about while I spend time with my parents.

As you go today back into your everyday life, I challenge you to hug the ones you love, call someone in your family you haven't spoken with in a while and/or send someone a card to tell you how much you love them.

Looking for Balance in Your Life?

Are you trying to find balance in your life? Thinking that if things were different, it would be easier? I used to think that too. When I retired and started living fulltime in an RV I thought it would solve all my problems. I would lose 60 pounds, visit with my family who live all over the United States, reconnect with friends, have time for more fun, ramp up my prayer life, find a cool part-time job and have enough money to do everything without ever having to go back to work in an office.  WELL . . . things haven't turned out quite the way I imagined. What I've learned is that sometimes "the road is uneven and bumpy". Now don't get me wrong, I've had an amazing three months, as you can see from my blog and Instagram posts. But, I've also had a terrible cold, been lost in the mountains with almost no gas, and haven't really gotten my new job off and running yet.


It's amazing what you can learn about yourself by just answering a few questions. So, at the end of this first quarter, I am taking the time to assess my life. The tool I am using is found on a website called "Oola Life". I heard the authors, Dave and Troy, speak at a conference in September and have been trying to improve in the seven areas of my life ever since. These areas are faith, family, friends, fun, fitness, finance and field (work). As I sit here and write this blog post I must confess I've had my ups and downs. Most likely this is due to the fact that I haven't actually written down goals or figured out how to measure my progress toward growth in all 7 areas. (I know all my former colleagues are gasping as I was the queen of the measurement tool). So, you guessed it, I've decided to take this month to find my baseline measures in each area and actually write my goals down for myself.  In the next few weeks, I will share my goals and then you can keep me accountable.  If you are also looking to set some "New Year's Resolutions" and need a tool to help you identify where you have some room to grow, I'd like to recommend that you take the free online quiz at https://www.oolalife.com/step1


(Sorry if this page is weird looking when you try and read it. I've been having some computer issues with Blogger and was waiting to post till I worked it out. Obviously, I haven't worked them out but I wanted to keep you updated on the ongoing Camino Turtle adventures.)