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Earlier Years, Fat Pants

  By juliefeb14 | August 15, 2014 - 3:35 am | ,
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fat pants

Earlier Years, Fat Pants

fat pantsI’ve been thinking about the years when my children were younger. There is a bit of longing for those little bitty ones that made me laugh and cry! Baby Luke was really quiet for one of his naps. When I opened up the door, he had stuffed all of his pants with clothes and called them fat pants. He brought them into the living room and lined them up. I have no idea where he came up with that…ha! It’s interesting how we tend to long for what has passed or what is yet to come. Somewhere along the way we need to convince ourselves that now is pretty great too.

Mind, Body, and Spirit

  By juliefeb14 | June 22, 2014 - 11:54 pm | ,
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Fitness

FitnessMind, Body, and Spirit

When considering well-being, think of your physical, emotional, and spiritual self as a 3 legged stool. When one of those aspects of your life is off-balance you are going to fall. You can be in top physical shape but if you are an emotional wreck, you fall. You’re spirituality will suffer if you are not taking care of yourself physically etc.

 

We know that stress causes emotional, physical, and spiritual troubles.

A few of the causes of stress:

  1. Family issues
  2. Work issues
  3. Money issues
  4. Driving while talking on the phone
  5. Driving!
  6. Gruesome, scary movies
  7. Arguing with people

There are ways to attack stress:

  1. Serve others
  2. Spending quiet time with those you love
  3. Work
  4. Exercise

 

A few of the benefits of exercise

  1. Improves health
  2. Releases tension
  3. Gives you a healthy perspective on life
  4. Improves self-esteem and confidence
  5. Strengths muscles
  6. You have a more restful sleep
  7. Gives you time to meditate and ponder
  8. Is a diversion from your worries
  9. Counters fatigue
  10. Better blood circulation

 

 “Physical well-being is not only a priceless asset to one’s self—it is also a heritage to be passed on. With good health all the activities of life are greatly enhanced. A clean mind in a healthy body enables one to render far more effective service to others. It helps one provide more vigorous leadership. It gives our every experience in life more zest and more meaning. Robust health is a noble and worthwhile attainment.” 4

Ezra Taft Benson, talk given at President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s second annual Council on Physical Fitness, Cascade, Maryland, September 8, 1958.

Molasses Oat Bread — Delicious

  By juliefeb14 | June 9, 2014 - 4:43 am | ,
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molasses oat bread

molasses oat breadMolasses Oat Bread — Delicious

I love this recipe! I can toss the ingredients into the breadmaker and a few hours later slice it up for dinner.

Put ingredients into the breadmaker in the order listed.

 

1 1/3 C boiling water

2/3 C rolled oats

1/3 C molasses

1 TB oil

2 TB honey

1 C spelt flour (or wheat, or white)

2 ¼ C wheat flour

1 tsp salt

1 tsp yeast

Set your breadmaker on the wheat setting.

Honey

  By juliefeb14 | May 31, 2014 - 3:17 am | ,
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Honey
Honey

Honey by Hillary Stein

The other day I was reading about natural honey (since I love sweets!) and came across some really cool facts I thought I would share. Natural honey is wonderful as a food and also as a medicine. There are many different grades of honey, depending on factors such as where it is sourced and what containers it was stored in.

  • While honey is sweet like white sugar, it is unique in that it also has small amounts of nutrients our bodies need for healthy living including: calcium, potassium, magnesium, and folic acid.

 

  • Honey is a source of antioxidants which aids in protecting against some diseases. The quality of the antioxidants depends partially on the floral source of the honey. The darker honeys are known to have a higher antioxidant content.

 

  • Honey is a great sports activity enhancer because of its high energy boosting ability. Plus, it is a lot cheaper than commercially sold sports bars and drinks. Because honey is in a pre-digested form it is directly absorbed into the body unlike refined sugar which needs to go through normal digestion.

 

  • A recent study showed there is an antibacterial property to honey which makes it a better choice than refined sugar when it comes to tooth decay. Fruit juice starts to erode the tooth enamel ten minutes after consumption. Honey showed a delayed reaction on the teeth of 30 minutes, and the prominence of the erosion was less.

These facts make it highly worth substituting honey in some foods for other sweeteners. So for that next peanut butter sandwich opt out of jam and bring on the honey!

Because of the possible presence of botulinum , infants under 1 year old should not be feed honey.

 

Parent Payback

  By juliefeb14 | May 21, 2014 - 6:44 pm | ,
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parent payback
parent payback

parent payback

Parent Payback

Every once in a while, don’t you just bask in the parent payback?  Sometimes it doesn’t come around as much as I would like it to!  But, if you are lucky it may come. I was reading through some of my old journal entries and found one that almost made me giggle. My little pre-teen can be quite volatile in his moods these days and will act like I pretty much just bug him. This is what he said to me about a year and a half ago, “Mom, I feel bad for kids that don’t have you for a mom, don’t you?”  I am hoping that maybe, possibly, hopefully he still feels that on occasion:).

Mint Raspberry Lemonade – This is so good!

  By juliefeb14 | May 14, 2014 - 3:12 am | ,
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cran-raspberry lemonade
cran-raspberry lemonade
Mint Raspberry Lemonade

This is a version of my fabulous sister-in-law’s recipe.  Grow some mint and try this. Mint is very easy to grow but be selective where you put it because it is invasive. This is a great container plant.

 

Mint Syrup

1 ½ C sugar

1 C water

6-8 sprigs of fresh mint

Combine water and sugar. Bring to boil to dissolve sugar. Remove from heat and add mint. Let sit for several minutes. Strain leaves.

 

Fruit & Mint Lemonade

½ C mint syrup (or to taste)  You can serve this without the mint syrup–but you will be missing out!!

Fresh pureed fruit (raspberry or strawberry is wonderful) you can use frozen.

Or you can be daring and try mango or blueberry!

 

1 Can of lemonade or fresh lemon juice, water and sugar to taste

Mix and serve chilled

I Love You Mom

  By juliefeb14 | May 5, 2014 - 8:46 pm | ,
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mom

I love you mommomm1mom

Sheronne

I Love You Mom

I sure have some great times with you Mom. Nothing beats a good yardsale adventure with you.

I have the best mom in the world. Yep, sorry about that the rest of you guys.

She can make me laugh like no one else can. When you are in her company you know that you are loved.

 

I also can’t forget the best mother-in law in the world!  I adore this picture of her holding one of her babies.

I would like to dedicate this video to the two magnificent mom’s in my life:

Sleep

  By juliefeb14 | April 28, 2014 - 4:15 am | ,
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sleep

 

 

Sleep

sleep

 

Living healthy and looking at the whole picture is more than just exercise and eating right. Those two are certainly key, but there are other areas to consider. We want a healthy physical life but also emotional, mental, and spiritual.  Sleep is a major contributor to our feeling great or feeling crummy. Our bodies repair system kicks in during sleep. Basic information about sleep can be found on the websites I have below. We have REM sleep, where dreams occur and Non-REM sleep, where body repair occurs. We need both. Check out the sites below:

This website has tons of information on sleep.

This website has an interesting test you can take to see if you may have a sleep disorder.

At the same time, over 100,000 billion of cells restore themselves in their 7-year cycle. Growth hormones are released, cells are actively replaced and muscular tissue is built up through protein synthesis. Mineral losses are replenished. Wounds heal. Corticosteroid hormones build up our resistance to infections and tiredness. We become immune again to all kinds of diseases. White corpuscles surround and destroy bacteria. In the lymph glands and the spleen, they remove bacteria from the blood. 

During the deep stages of NREM sleep, the body repairs and regenerates tissues, builds bone and muscle, and appears to strengthen the immune system. As you get older, you sleep more lightly and get less deep sleep. Aging is also associated with shorter time spans of sleep, although studies show the amount of sleep needed doesn’t appear to diminish with age.

It is worth exploring ways to improve your sleep!

Yoga

  By juliefeb14 | April 20, 2014 - 8:56 pm | ,
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Yoga

YogaYoga

SO MANY BENEFITS! IT IS WORTH LOOKING INTO.

I am not sure why it has taken me so long to post about yoga.  It’s a love of mine. The incredible sense of wellbeing after I attend a yoga class is almost addictive. Let me mention some of the benefits:

1. Deliberate breathing to match movement enhances the sense of wellbeing.

2. Yoga is strength training. Yes, it strains the muscles. I used to think of yoga as poses that looked like a human pretzel.  It is that for some, but there is much more to it.

3. Part of yoga practice includes balance. With patience in yourself and practice, the balance comes.  Balance manifests itself in many things in life. My husband marvels at my balance as I maneuver my bike around tricky areas where he has to get off of his bike.

4. I love the stretching portion of yoga. It doesn’t matter how flexible or not you are. Practice shows improvement.  In turn, this helps guard against injury.

5. Perhaps my favorite part of yoga is practicing calming my mind…a difficult task in this whirlwind life. Also, you can have a deeper sleep because of the relaxation that accompanies yoga practice. Yes!

Find a class! It is difficult at first, so give it time and I think you will end up loving it too!

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