Mother’s Mood

Something to admire

The Pyramid of Luxuries

The Bespoke - 75’’ 4K Smart TV

The Ultra High End - $100 Target eGift Card

The Superpremium - Mother India

The Premium Core - More Than A Mom by Kari Kampakis

The Accessible Core - Mother’s Mood

The Affordable Luxury - What Financial Wealth Topics Are You Interested In?

The Everyday Luxury - January & February Ultra High End Submissions

The Bespoke

Click on the banner to enter The Bespoke Photo Contest. Click here for the Official Contest Rules.

• Prize: 75’’ 4K Smart TV [ARV $900]

• Odds: For every 120 Ducky Tran premium member by the time of judging, I will give out one (1) 75” TV Prize

• Contest Period: May 1, 2024 at 10 AM CST to May 28, 2024 at 10 PM CST

For anyone that missed out, check out Issue 24 for more details about this prize.

The Ultra High End

Previous Contest Winner

The winner of Issue 24 is HA from Lincoln, Nebraska! This is her submission for “a photo of an animal that resembles you”:

Congratulations to HA, I hope you find fun things to do this summer with the Groupon Gift Card!

If you zoom into this week’s submissions you can see how these represents the many people around us. From attitude-filled to sleepy-head to slick fox to happy-go-lucky expressions. We’re animals ourselves, maybe we’re copying them?

This Week’s Contest

Click on the banner to enter The Ultra High End Photo Contest. Click here for the Official Contest Rules.

• Prize: $100 Target eGift Card [ARV $100]

• Odds: For every 70 Ducky Tran premium members by the time of judging, I will give out one (1) $100 Gift Card

• Contest Period: May 8, 2024 at 10 AM CST to May 14, 2024 at 10 PM CST

This week’s focus is mental wealth and what better way to relieve mental stress than to induce high levels of competitive stress with your family and friends! Jokes aside, this is exactly what we want, “good” stress that can get us to be more productive. Avoiding stress completely can be detrimental to other wealth pillars like social, financial, and even physical.

My family does a few things to keep ourselves sane and connected. We gather every few weeks for a party, eat together, and destroy each other in competitive board/card games. Not all stress is necessarily “bad,” stress from competition can fuel growth in confidence, knowledge, and skills. It will also fortify you for future “bad” stressors that may show up in the future.

My family gets nearly all our games at the local Target. So, for this week, I’m giving a $100 Target eGift Card so you can get your family’s board/card game collection started too. Send some pictures of what games your family like to play to [email protected].

The Superpremium

This week’s Superpremium topic is Mother India, a small family-owned restaurant in Omaha, Nebraska (now closed permanently).

I thought hard about writing about a place that has closed, but like most things in life we don’t see its true value until it’s gone. But I wanted to point to a bigger problem, we’re starting to lose small, local restaurants and this has to do with our mental state.

Mother India wasn’t a big, fancy, or gourmet… but it was authentic. This small building housed some of most delicious, authentic Indian foods in the Western Hemisphere. This was achieved because an immigrant Indian family took upon themselves to make food from their culture and share it with the residents of Omaha. The best thing was they didn’t take shortcuts and this was obvious as I stood behind their counter watching the open-kitchen as they made everything to order.

Every item I ate showed the skills honed after many years of cooking; unfortunately, the family had to close the store down due to their father’s age. A different Indian restaurant did take its place but it doesn’t have the same feeling that Mother India embodied.

Since March 2020, more than 90,000 restaurants have closed in the United States, most of them being small, family-owned restaurants. The crazy thing is, nearly every month I see a new franchise fast-food restaurant opening, while another local family restaurant is closing.

We have an epidemic of fast-food restaurant in the United States. Not only are they generally less healthy, they are compromising authenticity, flavor, and culture for money. How is it happening?

Well, we did it! We choose convenience, pricing, and hype over flavor and authenticity. There’s nothing wrong with flavorless foods, cheap foods, or even fast-food; however, if we ever complain of about how we have no choices other than fast-food, we must realize we chose it. If we want to change our future food options, we need to take time to think about what, where, and how we eat. Hopefully, all the restaurants like Mother India are receiving support from their local communities so I have more wonderful stories to tell about their culture and foods.

The Premium Core

This week’s Premium Core topic is the book More Than A Mom by Kari Kampakis. To celebrate this Mother’s Day weekend, I want to share a book by an amazing author known for her books in raising teenage girls and mom empowerment.

Everyone has a mom, half the world may become moms, and there’s about 2 billion mothers alive today. These insanely common statistics make us forget how important and influential they are to our lives, or for moms, to your children’s lives.

This study shows the direct correlation to physical and psychological conditions increases with every childbearing. This reveals the natural toll mothers endure physically and mentally to have children. More than half of mothers report some form of mental health issue after childbearing, may it be from stress, hormones, physical weakness, social impairment, or a combination.

Because being a mother is such the “norm,” the mental health issues of mothers haven’t really been cared for until recently. To help your moms or you with self-care, I want to provide this wonderful book from a mother of four. It is a light, well-organized read so that you or your mom can be taken care of and focus on the thing that matters the most to moms, motherhood.

Deal #1: I’m offering a discount on the book at shop.duckytran.com. You can get this $13 book for just $5, only 5 will be available. Help mom take care of herself!

The Accessible Core

Mother’s Mood

Most people know that motherhood comes with physical and mental conditions, but today I will focus on the most common mental issues and how to help. Most of us know how stubborn our mothers can be with addressing their own issues, but it may be that they don’t realize the signs themselves. For moms, self-care is important and only by keeping yourself healthy can you truly enjoy motherhood to its fullest. Not just THROUGH your children, but WITH your children.

Due to fluctuation of hormones and physiological imbalances that childbearing causes, postpartum depression, or anxiety is the most common mental condition. Some signs may be apparent but often not obvious to the individual:

1. Sad or angry mood swings without warning

2. Foggy or forgetfulness

3. Feeling “robotic,” just going through the motions

4. Anxious around babies or their other children

5. Guilt of failing as a mom

6. Unusual irritation or anger

7. Little interest in old hobbies

8. Scary thoughts that don’t go away

Statistics show that 1 in 8 women reported these symptoms after childbearing; however, like mentioned before many may not report or know they have these symptoms. These actual numbers can be great as 1 in 3 mothers, but even if it’s 1 in 8, that’s still 250 million moms out there that may have some level of anxiety or depression.

What can I do for myself (moms):

1. Ask for help

2. Be part of a mom’s group, to get advice, socialize, and give advice

3. Set time aside for recovery time, time where chores are put aside and you can relax doing your favorite thing, even if it’s just playing with your kids

4. Talk therapy, this can be with a professional, friends, family, or mom’s group. Talking about the things that make you feel anxious, mad, sad, or irritable have been proven to drastically reduce its effect on your mood.

5. Be with other adults, family and friends, someone that can provide comfort and support if needed, but also just to socialize.

What can I do for my mom/wife:

1. Patience, moms may be going through a lot and cannot describe it and many times hold it in to be a “better mom.”

2. Talk to them, most of the time they just want to be loved and talking to them often is how they receive this love. Gifts are great, but the greatest gift for a mother is often, appreciation.

3. Affection, hugs and a simple “I love you” can do wonders for mom’s mental health.

4. Give them their own time, moms need time to be with their friends, hobbies, and themselves too. Don’t hog them, give them time for self-care and socializing.

Happy Mother’s Day to all the moms in the community! I hope this short reminder of mental health will bring you mental wealth in the future. Don’t forget, being a mom isn’t a job, you don’t get paid. Like most life skills, it is a commitment and you can only do your best if you’re in the best condition!

The Affordable Luxury

Issue 24 Community Poll Results

This last week must have been a crazy week for everyone, there was a drastic decline in members that voted and entered the contests. This will skew the results, but here are the results for Issue 24:

1. Most of you feel that there are things that you can NEVER share with others. I’m in the same boat, but it stills feel unfortunate to be in this type of situation.

2. Everyone that voted was on Team MOM. Dad is just going to have to wait for his birthday to celebrate Mom.

3. Unfortunately, we didn’t have any volunteers as a guest on the podcast, possibly due to low poll count this week too. We will try again another week, until then I’ll record without guests.

This Week’s Community Poll

Here are this week’s poll questions:

The Everyday Luxury

(The referral program is only viewable on the email version of the newsletter.)

Check out contest submissions for January and February 2024!

I just love these collages; it really showcases the crazy lives we have and how we miss those small things when we get too busy to just think about them. Enjoy!

Visit shop.duckytran.com with the weekly password: frame