Share this: Did you enjoy this? Share it with a friend!

OK……so they say that eating breakfast gives your metabolism a jump start and gets it burning calories. It also helps with regulating your blood sugar. It also helps with keeping your mind sharp and focused.

 

So WHY wouldn’t I want help with ALL those things??

 

Gosh I don’t know, maybe I like being an idiot in the morning? LOL

 

Somewhere we have it in the backs of our minds that skipping meals is helping us, and it truly isn’t.

 

Sometimes I would skip breakfast, but I made a commitment to be more on top of this, and also to try to help my hubby with this. So now I try to get up with him (at O’dark thirty!!) and make sure he gets a breakfast too.

 

It only takes about 5 minutes to make a batch of raisin, cinnamon oatmeal. And that is GOOD for you! It  lowers your cholesterol.

 

Or you could make a yoghurt fruit smoothie. Fiona’s Smoothie

It doesn’t have to be big or elaborate. It only take a few minutes. And it is SO GOOD for you.

So Habit #1 was giving up one fatty thing in my day, in my case  the half and half in my coffee. Habit #2 is eating breakfast. This is not hard stuff, but it does make a big difference. Jump on the habit wagon with me!

Share this: Did you enjoy this? Share it with a friend!

 

Sometimes you just need a boost. Sometimes you just need to laugh out loud.

 

One of the best instigators of spontaneous laughter is my middle daughter.

 

A while back we had a back patio birthday party for her. A bunch of her friends got together here and we had a BBQ, cupcakes, and gathered around the firepit. It was such a fun evening.

 

And everyone was wearing fake moustaches………..

The girls and their “staches”!

 

Yes, I do mean everyone. 

A-DOR-A-BLE!!!!!

 

After the party, for weeks, I was finding moustaches everywhere. They were on the porch, in the laundry, stuck to things in the kitchen……………I even found one at rehearsal down at the church. I just happened to look down and see something stuck to the bottom of my foot. I pulled it off my shoe and started laughing, and then the background vocalists started laughing. I stuck it on my mic, I thought maybe it would look like I had a moustache while I was singing.

 

When I was pulling a moustache out of the washing machine, I stuck it on a bleach bottle.

 

This is what I found later.

 

 

 

Oh my gosh!! I laughed so hard!

 

And now I see it everytime I do laundry. I laugh everytime I see it. The fun just keeps on going. And you gotta admit, anything you can do to make laundry more fun…..is a good thing.

 

Share this: Did you enjoy this? Share it with a friend!

OK so where to begin, we didn’t eat that badly at our house. I wasn’t really sure what to do as far as making changes. I did think though that changes would become apparent once I got started.

 

So I decided to begin at the beginning. What was the very first thing I would do when I got up in the morning? Make a cup of coffee, with sugar and half and half.

 

Messing with a busy woman’s coffee??? Isn’t that just a little bit sacred? As a wife and a mother I need all the help I can get! LOL  And one cup of coffee is not being overly indulgent. But I did make a comittment to ONE change. I’m not giving up my sugar (maybe someday), but I gave up my half and half and replaced it with 2%.

 

Well, it’s a start! And to be honest it was actually really easy.

I do have half and half in my coffee while on vacation twice a year. Knowing I get to indulge a little at some point makes it a lot easier to do the right thing for my health the rest of the time.

 

What is one high fat thing you could give up that you do every day? Maybe look at your day starting at the beginning, and see what you come up with.

Remember that the point of this was for me to get healthier without cholesterol reducing drugs, and to develope habits that would stay with me. Here is what has happened so far….

My cholesterol is 30 points lower (and that reading is from BEFORE I was exercising a lot)

I am stronger

I am lowering my chances of osteoporosis, high blood pressure, heart disease, cancer, and diabetes

I am beginning to look better

I have more energy                                                                                     

My clothes fit better

And I have lost 10 pounds

Let me know what you pick out as your first habit change, I want to hear!  

Habit #1-Use 2%

Share this: Did you enjoy this? Share it with a friend!

YUM!!!

 

This was not something I was really wanting to write about. I don’t think I know that much about being healthy, or getting healthy. I’m no expert, and there is just SO MUCH for me still to learn. In fact I even hesitated sending this out several times because I thought “They are going to look at me and think I still have so far to go.” But one of the blessing about getting older is that you just don’t care as much about what people think. The people that love you are excited about the little victories in your life, and the people that needed the encouragement are the ones that this is all about.

 

My sweet hubby encouraged me a lot saying,”But what if there is someone who needs to hear this? What if there is ONE person who needs to hear it?” He and I talked for a long time and I said, “Why would anyone even want to read about it? There are lots of people writing about getting healthy. What makes me unique?” His response? “The fact that you don’t give up, the fact that you have had 4 car accidents, and you didn’t give up. The fact that you homeschooled, and didn’t give up. The fact that you had four abdominal surgeries and didn’t give up. The fact that you had two major illnesses and didn’t give up. That’s what’s unique about you.”

 

So without going into a huge long healthy history,  it’s been a rough road……………. a really really rough road.

 

So over the years, and having my kids, I worked out from time to time. When I couldn’t work out, I plunked whichever baby was the youngest into the stroller and off we would go. I also got a treadmill. For someone who loves to walk, it was a great investment. I have been walking on it for 17 ½ years. I would just turn on some music and walk for about a half hour.

 

But after a bad cholesterol reading (something I inherited from my family) and a trip to the ER because of my heart,  it was time to make a few changes. I certainly wasn’t badly overweight, but I weighed more than I wanted. And to be honest making changes wasn’t really a matter of weight as it was health, and specifically heart health.

 

I realized something, if you worried about eating for diabetes, blood pressure, or cholesterol, the one thing that covers all of those is a heart healthy diet. If you go heart healthy you are covering all your bases.

 

But I also don’t believe in diets. The reason for that is simple,  in my opinion a diet means “temporary”. So it only works for a time. I do believe that if we are going to make changes they should be lifestyle changes, and that it’s OK to splurge sometimes if it keeps us from eating garbage most of the time. I also don’t believe that God put bacon on the earth to torture us. Sorry, but I think he loves us more than that. I have bacon when I am on vacation with my family, and occasionally in a quiche. I don’t eat tons of bacon through the year, but I get to have it a couple times a year. I’m OK with that. It’s enough for me.

 

Plus the word “diet” implies restrictions. So what’s the first thing we want to do??? Eat what we shouldn’t.

 

Now I don’t want anyone blasting me for my thoughts. They are just that, my thoughts. There are people that shouldn’t eat bacon, maybe their blood pressure is at stroke level. I’m talking about your average middle aged person who is pretty healthy and just wants to take it up a notch and think long term. One of my thoughts that keeps me going is I’d love to have energy to play with my grandkids when they come along. I would love to still be able to hike with my sweetie in my 60′s and 70′s, maybe even my 80′s.

 

OK so back to the bad cholesterol reading, it caught me very much by surprise. We eat pretty healthy about here, and I exercised some, evidently it can be hereditary. I did not know that. I knew I got my big laugh, my foot size, and my smile from my family. Cholesterol???? Yay…..cholesterol (please read that phrase with some sarcasm and a frozen smile pasted on your face). That was a gift I wasn’t excited about at all.

 

I decided that lots of little changes over time would be easier to do. I also didn’t want to fail. I knew that if I changed everything overnight it would be overwhelming, I would get frustrated, I might even forget some of the things I should do if I put too much on the list of changes.

 

They say that if you want to change a habit to do it for 30 days. So if I make a change every 30 days, that is 12 changes in a year.

 

So I’m going to chronicle the changes I made. Include a few tips, some exercise suggestions, and some healthy recipes. I’m also going to talk about some huge challenges that I faced while trying to make these changes, and some inspiration I found to keep going.

 

I still think I have a long way to go, but considering I have a real life, a hubby and three kids, and have had more than a few setbacks, I’m pleased with what I have accomplished. And with God’s continued help I will go even farther.

 

If your interested, you can subscribe to my blog so you get these in your email. That way you don’t miss the sequence of steps that I took.

 

So here’s step #1!! And you don’t even have to do anything! Just view your changes whatever they happen to be as lifestyle changes not a diet. And there is so much more than what we eat……it is exercise, and lowering our stress level, being kind to our bodies.

 

So lifestyle changes here we come! Step #1 is done! No diets, but changes for life!

 

FOR LIFE! Two very powerful words.

 

I choose LIFE!

Heart healthy! Heart happy!

                                                      

 

Share this: Did you enjoy this? Share it with a friend!

OK, So I’m in the middle of a situation and there is NOTHING I can do about it. NOTHING. I just have to wait a few days. They must not know me because they don’t know how HARD that is for me. I love to jump in and get it done. It’s not so much that I’m impatient (although that can be a part of it), it’s that I used to be such a procrastinator that I don’t want that to be a part of how things shake out. I want to be able to stay on top of it and see it through. Git er done!

 

But when there is nothing I can do…………I stop and look around and ask….”Ok, what CAN I do?”

 

When I can’t do what I need to, I’ll do what I can.

 

I can bring some order into my situation. So that when I get a chance to act, I don’t have a million other things that need my attention. First I look at my list and see if there is anything my sweet hubby needed me to do. Then I look at the kids part of my list and see if there is anything there that I need to do, like taking one to get their permit, or helping another get copies of their resume. Then I throw a load of laundry in, and look at my business list. I tie up any loose ends there.

 

Then comes the house. I’ll try to catch up there too. So when I can do something about the problem, and my situation then requires some action at the appropriate time I can jump on it immediately because I don’t have all the other things distracting me. And there is nothing more frustrating than when you finally have the opportunity to go for it and get some big hairy awful thing off your list, you can’t because your attention is really needed elsewhere.

 

So that’s where I am right now, I am focusing on what I CAN do until I can work on what I SHOULD do.

 

 

 

Does Any of this make sense?? Please tell me I’m not alone on this. lolol

 

Ecc 9:10a :”Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might”

Share this: Did you enjoy this? Share it with a friend!

Fiona’s Fiesta Smoothie

This was a kitchen experiment, and hopefully the first of many more. The sweet hubby and I have been making some healthy changes over the years. And I decided it would be fun to take you along with me.

I wanted some smoothie recipes but haven’t really gotten around to looking some up on the web. I pinned some photos on pinterest of smoothies that looked good. But I confess I was feeling a little impatient this morning, and there were some peaches sitting RIGHT THERE…….and well, you can figure out the rest.

Pretty soon Fiona was flinging stuff around the kitchen, the blender was blending, and this is what I got.

Fiona’s Fiesta Smoothie!!

1/2 cup yoghurt (peach or plain)

5 peach slices (I just used from a can, drain syrup)

1/2 cup non fat milk

1/3 of a large cucumber (peeled)

handful of chopped red pepper (rinsed and seeded)

1/2 cup crushed ice

BLEND!!!

 

Oh my gosh this was so good!!!!! And in my opinion the red pepper just MAKES IT! Enjoy!! Tell me what you think!

Share this: Did you enjoy this? Share it with a friend!

One of our favorite places on earth……..

 

We laughed

We ate

We listened

We walked

We let the sand rub the hard edges off the difficult things

We let the stiff ocean breeze blow the difficult things south…..

(they must be to San Fransisco by now)

We let the peace seep into our hearts

But we let the difficult things change us

So that they are not wasted

So that they have eternal significance

The difficult things didn’t truly blow away to San Fransisco

But the visual of God’s breath in the ocean breeze blowng them away is healing

And something HE CAN DO

If we let him

We have the choice of accepting peace when it comes to knock on our door again

Share this: Did you enjoy this? Share it with a friend!

 

The mancub and I-our final edition

Everything kind of came to a screeching halt when I ended up in the hospital in the fall, and everyone pitched in to help. But there were some things that just had to be put on hold.

 

I’m doing great now, still getting my energy back slowly but surely. But really, feeling pretty normal.

 

One thing I discovered (once I was back to doing everything again) is that there were some things I really missed doing. I missed being able to do my barn chores, because I love that it gets me outdoors three times a day (or more). I missed being able to clean. I enjoy cleaning and putting my nest in order. But one of those things that I missed was writing my son a “napkin note” to put in his lunch for school.

 

He is my last one, the caboose, the final edition. He has just recently graduated and the era of writing napkin notes is over.  

Mancub-3 months

 

I have always put notes in the kids lunches, written right onto their napkin to encourage them. I have been doing this for nine years. I figured that when they went off to high school, it was the least I could do since I wasn’t home schooling them anymore. To make them a nice lunch, and throw some encouragement in. That way I could do something to encourage and lift them up since I wasn’t there.

 

Sometimes I write down a scripture, or something funny. Sometimes I write something that we are looking forward to. For example,“Chocolate chip cookies, homework, roaring fire, then we’ll hang out and chill”, or I tell them how proud I am of them. Sometimes I’ll say things like, “Hey I’m going to pray for you while you take your biology test.” It varied according to the need of the moment.

 

A few years ago I was writing more than one a day. I was writing one each for my two daughters. They would read them out loud with their friends at lunchtime. Then some of the other kids started requesting them. There for a while I was writing about five of them a day towards the end of the school year. What a blessing it was to be able to do that. 

The kiddos!

 

It only took a few minutes, but it was something that blessed them. It reminded them that they are special, that we were proud of them, that they could do it, they had back up, and someone would pray.

 

I can hardly believe that the “Napkin Note” era has come to an end. It has been such a pleasure. I would pray over each one, and ask the Lord what sort of a boost I could give the kids for that day.

 

So June has come and gone, and with it graduation. I think I will turn my attention to finding a different way to encourage now. It’s a new season, and time for new things. 

My boy. Not such a boy anymore.

 

But I will miss writing the notes for my boy, the mancub.

Share this: Did you enjoy this? Share it with a friend!

Of warm breezes

 

Fresh tomatos

 

The Ocean

 

The smell of sunscreen

 

Iced tea

 

Running in the early morning

 

Smores around the patio fire

 

More running early in the morning because of the smores around the patio fire-lol

 

I’m just so ready for summer to get here. Who is with me? What is your favorite thing about summer?

Share this: Did you enjoy this? Share it with a friend!

It’s actually hard to write something about Bob, because that means I have to wrap my mind around the fact that he isn’t here and that is just SO hard for me to comprehend, and certainly not something I want to accept. And how do you describe such a  precious person in a paragraph or two?

 

Bob loved the Lord, and adored his family. Bob was like sunshine that came into a room and lit it up. Bob was an exceptional artist. Bob knew how to be a friend.

 

I remember the times we gathered together and laughed, played, ate, fished, sat by the water, hiked, gathered around a fire, hung out, cleaned (remember the garage extravaganza!), celebrated, BBQ-ed, talked parenting strategies, discussed philosophy…….but it really all boiled down to love. We loved hanging out with you guys. You all became part of our family. You loved our kids like they were yours, and we loved yours like they were ours.

 

I loved how you would help Zelta pick peaches, and berries. You would help the kids with one of their cars, or help a neighbor fix something. You helped people and didn’t take money when they offered it. You would tell it like it was. David would do his Sean Connery impression and you laughed til you cried. Then you would turn around and do your impressions of David and you were SO SPOT ON, and we have never laughed so hard.

 

But the memory I hold closest to my heart, was when David and I were hurting so bad. You and Z were sitting on the couch, David and I were across from you. I was sitting on the floor and D was in a chair next to me. When we broke down while telling you our pain, you quickly got up and dropped on your knees between D and I, put your arms around both of us and cried with us. And we all prayed together. You were there in our darkest hour. You knew how to be the very best of friends. And you were there when so many others walked away from us, and didn’t even ask if we were OK.

 

You were a treasure in our life, and I can’t imagine you not in it. I know dear Bob that you struggled, I can’t imagine how hard it must have been, but in my heart that will NEVER be the sum of who you are, because you were just SO MUCH MORE than the alcohol. Your life was so much more than that.

 

I’m so grateful you’re in the arms of your savior, and I can just picture us all, in heaven, around a campfire……….and you and David are doing the BEST impressions of the disciples EVER!! I can’t wait to see you again my friend. We love you Bob Freakin Fox!!!!!    

 

   I am including the link to Bob’s Memorial Page. If you want to leave a special memory or would like to make a donation, PLEASE do. He leaves behind a wife, four grown children, and three grandkids.     http://robertkfoxmemorialblog.blogspot.com/