About Kim Lovell, LBSW

L.B.S.W. - Family Services Director

What Makes you Tick?

Posted on May 18, 2012 by Kim Lovell, LBSW

What Makes You Tick?

You know, they say that it takes all kinds to make the world go around. To everyone, there are different ideas, traditions, views, values and purposes in life that skew the way we move forward in life. To some, it is the tradition of family. Maybe going to grandma’s and grandpa’s house on Sunday after church for lunch with the whole family is tradition. Maybe a dad instilling in his children a hard work ethic your word is your word, a handshake between two people is a contract, showing up for work on time and giving your all to the company you work for.

How you make decisions in life, in relationships, at work or play depends on the values that drive you. Your values reflect your beliefs about how life should be. To take it a little further- do your values line up to what you tell others? Do you put those words into action? So say you tell a friend that you value a healthy lifestyle with staying fit, exercising every day, eating fresh whole, organic foods, but yet when you go out to eat together, you’re actually getting the cheeseburger-loaded, French fries, and chocolate shake. Your values and beliefs now have no meaning as you have given a mixed signal to your friend. Or maybe you made a promise to your child to come watch them play ball and “something came up.” Continue reading →

The Gift

Posted on May 11, 2012 by Kim Lovell, LBSW

What are some things you can name on one hand that in your lifetime, are the most precious gifts that have been given to you? It may be a fine piece of jewelry that has been handed down from generation to generation. Or could it be the family bible that is on the coffee table? How about the family photo album? One of the single most important gifts that were ever given to me was the opportunity to become a mother.

As some of my very close friends know, in my early working years I wanted a husband, house, career, and to go fishing. And you know children, “they cost too much”, “your life will never be the same again”, you will “never sleep again the rest of your life,”, and best yet “this world is too awful to raise a child in now days.” No children were ever a part of my “plan.” My selfish way of thinking that children would just interrupt what life had to offer, would soon come to an end. God had better plans. As time went along-my female hormones telling me my “time’s ticking”, “you don’t have much time”, and “you’re only getting older” started nagging me. God prodding me and my husband had a way of changing our mind on the concept of bearing children. Continue reading →

Learn to LOL

Posted on April 17, 2012 by Kim Lovell, LBSW

LOL!

What does that mean? LOL. We are in a new technological cyber fast-fingered age of the English Language. For those of you not hip to the initials, it means: “Laugh Out Loud”. Or if it is really, really funny, you could say ROFL. Stumped? It means “Rolling on the Floor Laughing”.

Your laughing now, aren’t you? Well you should be! They say laughter is good for the soul. It has medicinal qualities. “The old saying that ‘laughter is the best medicine,’ definitely appears to be true when it comes to protecting your heart,” says Michael Miller, M.D., director of the Center for Preventive Cardiology at the University of Maryland Medical Center and a professor of medicine at the University of Maryland School of Medicine. So why don’t we do it more often if it helps our heart? We need to learn to incorporate it into our daily work schedules. Continue reading →

Do Your Windows Need Cleaning

Posted on April 6, 2012 by Kim Lovell, LBSW

We did not get much of a winter and now we are heading into spring. The trees and flowers are blooming, the sun is shining and people are spending more time outside. Time too will change soon giving us more daylight time. What does spring mean to you? Watching baseball? Planting flowers and vegetables? Spring cleaning? Most of us view spring cleaning as a necessary evil and cleaning the windows to our homes or cars as the worst. Windows collect dust, dirt, cob webs, bugs, and smudges. I know when my children want to show me something outside the car they put their fingerprints all over the window leaving smudge marks and making it hard to see out the side window. If the smudges are not cleaned, then it could lead to a potential dangerous situation while driving.

The proper technique in cleaning windows from www.do-it-yourself-window-cleaning-tips.com:

If the window is super dirty you will want to give it a pre-wash. Using your scrubber or a natural sponge, soak the entire window. Then use your squeegee to remove the dirty water.
Use a scraper to get any hard dirt off the window.
Next use a squeegee to clean the window with a certain amount of pressure and speed you have to use to avoid getting window streaks.
Now that the window has been squeegeed off, you will need to wipe the edges. Also known as detailing. It is very important to wipe all the remaining water from the edges in order to get that crisp, flawless finished look. Continue reading →

5 Tips For End of Life Caregivers

Posted on March 23, 2012 by Kim Lovell, LBSW

Have you ever found yourself helping a family member make difficult decisions regarding his or her medical care, or assisting with personal business affairs, like paying bills? Maybe you have even done hands-on care like bathing, toileting, or assisting with feeding meals? If you have assisted with any of these tasks you are a family caregiver. Caregiving for a loved one is providing support to someone by meeting his or her needs sometimes daily, weekly, or monthly. A caregiver invests time, energy, and support.

End of life caregiving can often mean having feelings of loss - grieving over someone who is sick or the loss of your life before the illness. Once you realize what is truly happening you then accept your role as the caregiver, with all the new demands and duties involved in providing such care. Then you find purpose and meaning in the experience. Providing care for someone who is dying can be personally rewarding even in the midst of those demands. Continue reading →

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