Healthy(er) Candy, Proud Wife and Makeup!

photo courtesy of MLive.com

In spite of even more difficult winter weather, it was great week. This has been the snowiest, coldest winter I remember in the 20-ish years I've lived in Michigan. On Tuesday we experienced the feel of 3 seasons - winter, spring and fall - in the span of a day. It rained, snowed, rain/snowed, roads flooded, temps in the 40s, then freezing, and we even saw lightening that night, while it was snowing!!! All the while, the wind was blowing up to 50 mph at times. Ugh!

Wednesday night Scott had a stand-up show at Connexions Comedy Club in Lansing. He has a natural talent for making people laugh. It's like he was born with a microphone in his hand! I was able to video it this time, so you can watch it here if you want. (Beware, the content is NOT kid-friendly) He's been spending quite a bit of time at Connexions on Wednesday nights lately and really enjoying it.

Scott's been doing stand-up comedy for years - he was a regular at Connexions - but he backed off from it for a while due to time constraints. He's also done theater and on-air/radio work. He truly loves all of it, and he's working on building up his resume and picking up more gigs. I'm so proud of him!

I discovered a food company today that I'm really excited about. It's called UNREAL Candy. I found it at Target of all places and bought the peanut butter cups. The packaging caught my attention, and I picked it up and read the label. They've taken strides to replace the cheap, processed ingredients found in traditional candy with real food ingredients. For instance, the peanut butter cups are sweetened with cane sugar and organic palm sugar, and includes other tree nuts, instead of the processed sugar and dextrose found in Reese's peanut butter cups. The company produces other look-a-likes: M&M and Milky Way - like candy. I bought the peanut butter cups, and they taste just as good as Reese's. Yum!!!

I looked the UNREAL Candy company up online when I got home: http://getunreal.com and read their story. It was started because a 13 year old boy asked, "Why do the foods we love the most have to be so bad for us?" It's encouraging to see a main-stream 'super-store' carrying a product like this. Kudos to Target.

Today was a shopping day with my daughter. Along with the trip to Target you just read about, we went to Ulta and each got over $100 of makeup for just over $20! That's my kind of shopping!!! We caught Ulta at a great time. :) And I totally enjoyed my afternoon with Shelby.

I hope you all had a great week and are working on a great weekend!

Do You Have a Spiritual Guide?

The read for last week's book group meeting of The Novelties was Journey With Zeke, Gift or Curse? by Lynette Teachout. Lynette is a local  author and was good enough to visit with our group for the discussion. I always love author visits and our field trips to author events. This one, in particular, was in interesting discussion.

Mrs. Teachout is a psychic medium. I learned there's a difference between a psychic medium and other types of people who claim to be able to tell the future. A psychic medium is someone who receives messages from people who are "in spirit." Sometimes they're as simple as the spirit wanting to acknowledge a person through her. Sometimes it's a warning of someone heading down a dangerous path. She shared many stories.

I wasn't quite sure what to expect from our meeting or how my fellow members would handle a discussion about a topic that has the potential to be controversial like this. And I wasn't sure how I feel about this myself. I've never claimed to not believe in this type of spirituality, but it's definitely something that's hard to embrace.

Lynette's open, frank and friendly way of speaking about her gift encouraged a lot of curious and emotional dialogue. She explained that we all have a guide in the spirit world. If we pay attention, we can see evidence of the guide being with us in the form of obstacles in our path or opportunities opening up...

On this night, some of us shared stories of events that seem unexplainable unless you believe in a higher spirit watching over us. One such story of mine is of a phone call I received at a time I needed it most. I was in a very low time in my life, depressed and feeling lost, along with having financial difficulties. I was sitting in my car in the parking lot of a mall a few weeks before Christmas, feeling broken, worn out and crying. At that very moment my dad called me. I hadn't talked to him in several weeks. We don't talk on a regular basis, just catch up every once in a while. When I answered and he discovered I was crying he told me that he'd had a very strong feeling that one of his kids was hurting so he planned to call each of us. I was his first call. Lynette said that was our guides working together to take care of me when I needed it. That incident stays with me. It's something I'll never forget because of the way it made me feel totally convinced that someone was watching over me.

Has anything like that ever happened to you?

I was curious about her beliefs in God and Jesus. She is a strong believer and follower of Jesus. That was a relief to me. I'd always been a little confused about whether or not there is conflict in the two beliefs.

Lynette taught us several things she's learned in her life about the spirit world. She was positive and matter-of-fact about all of it, as if it were as much a fact of life as breathing. I do believe someone is always watching over me; I usually imagine that it's Jesus. But maybe God is using spirits of others to do that sometimes.....

I'd love to know your thoughts on the subject.

Getting Acquainted With Detroit and my Sweet Co-Workers

It was another busy week, but I'm getting better at figuring out how to organize my time and get things done without feeling so overwhelmed. I worked in areas all over and around Detroit and Ann Arbor this week. I had to stop occasionally at coffee shops or cafes to take care of things in between appointments on some days. I enjoy that flexibility, but it requires some major time organization and planning, especially if I want to not eat junk all week. Again, I'm getting better at planning so that I don't sabotage my good intentions. Still working on it....

I was determined this week to eat better than last week, so last Sunday I cooked some chicken and pork to have for lunches and quick dinners, and made sure I had plenty of veggies for salads and snacks. On Monday and Tuesday I packed lunches and ate well, and I made dinners from the meat and some rice and potatoes.

Wednesday night was book group, and I ate pretzels, cookies, some veggies and wine with my girls. That was dinner that night. Thursday was a late day from work. When I got home I just snacked on pretzels and chex mix and called it dinner, ugh!

Friday night I had an awesome meal at Grand River Marketplace where my hubby and I went for our Valentine's dinner. I had one of their specials - lobster risotto, with a wine from their own winery, and strawberry cheesecake for desert. Yum! Yum! Yum!

I have some of the pork and chicken still in the fridge, so I think I'll make soup out of it this weekend.

One of the reps I work with is a sweet 23 year old girl who recently moved up here from Texas. She's great at using her southern charm to win people over. I love her to death, and she does an awesome job with her work. I walked into the office the other day and saw this flask on her desk that was a gift from a friend.

Working with people who are the same age as my kids is a new thing for me recently. As much as I like to think of myself as a young 40-something, it sometimes makes me remember I'm a "mature" adult now.

I snapped these pictures of my two other babies at home this week. Cletus and Harley would be lost without each other. The one of Harley by herself is when I was scolding her for being on the couch. They're not allowed on the furniture, but sometimes when we're not in the room, we find evidence (hair!) they get up there. This morning I caught her red-handed.

I love my doggies!

Thankful For Family, Friends and Traditions

We're back home from Thanksgiving vacation at my mom's home in Tennessee. In all, we spent two days on the road and three days at my mom's.

For my eating plan, the two days on the road weren't difficult at all. The three days at mom's, however, were challenging.

I'm on day fourteen of the 21 Day Sugar Detox. During the days at mom's, I stayed on course with the plan approximately 75% of the time. I did indulge in that chocolate pie of my mom's a couple of times, and I wasn't able to examine ingredient lists of some things or know how everything was prepared.

Last night, the last dinner we had there, I took over cooking duty. I made pork chops simmered in pinto beans and tomatoes, and mashed potatoes. I was able to control that meal a little better.

I haven't thought much about this in a while, but it's no wonder I'm usually such a carb junkie. Every single meal in my mom's house contains a large percentage of bread. Breakfast always includes biscuits and some kind of sweat sauce (jam, preserves, gravy, etc.). For dinner, some kind of biscuit or rolls are a staple, as well as something like breaded meat and/or dressing. Lunch, of course is some type of sandwich or leftovers. That's the way I grew up eating. Most of our meals were home-cooked, but we didn't realize how harmful the excessive amount of bread and sugar-loaded sides we consumed was.

While I was there, I was able to abstain from the bread at my meals and stick with the meat and vegetables, but the effort I had to put forth to be intentional with it really opened my eyes to how much processed grains and sugar my family consumes as part of their normal diet. I'm thankful I was knee-deep in the 21 Day Sugar Detox while I was there. Even though I didn't follow it perfectly, it served its purpose of keeping me from coming home miserable.

My mom and her husband own a Christmas tree farm on their property at their home. Our family tradition is for us to travel there for Thanksgiving and help with their opening weekend that week. It's a very active "vacation." Their tree farm has become a destination and family tradition for so many local families. It's heart-warming to be involved in all the positive, festive energy. And the weather was beautiful each day we were there.

It was really nice to be able to spend some time with my sister. She and her family live about a mile from my mom's house, and she's always a huge part of the farm's opening weekend. You may have read in an earlier post that she's battling breast cancer. She's been through 12 weeks of chemotherapy, a double mastectomy, and is currently receiving another 12 weeks of chemo, which will be followed by radiation. Thankfully, her treatment so far has been successful and hasn't run her down very much. She looks great and has her typical upbeat, always-smiling attitude. We all feel blessed for that and pray for continued success in her fight of this terrible disease.

I was also able to catch up with one of my lifelong friends. Beth and I were friends in high school in Kingsport, TN. She now lives in the Nashville area, and I live in Michigan. We usually meet up while we're both in town for Thanksgiving.

I truly am blessed with close family and friends who love and support each other. I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving weekend as well.

Tomorrow It Begins (21DSD)

Today was a busy day for a Sunday, but I got a lot done. I ate horribly all weekend, but I'm ok with that. I didn't really intend to do a "last supper" kind of thing and eat all the junk I won't have for the next three weeks, but I did allow myself to eat whatever I wanted. Today that included pancakes with peanut butter and maple syrup, popcorn and soda, nachos, and chocolate. Tomorrow I begin the 21Day Sugar Detox I've been preparing for all week.

We started our day with an awesome church service at Westwinds. Going there never fails to leave me super energized. Great music; great message.

Then we went to the theater to see Thor. I ate plenty of popcorn, candy and cherry Coke. Then I came home and did laundry and prepared food for tomorrow.

The first thing I made was the buffalo chicken egg muffins for breakfast.

Then I made a jar of homemade mayonnaise to use in salmon salad for tomorrow's lunch.

I also made a batch of cinna-vanilla nuts for snacks for tomorrow, but I forgot to snap a picture before I put them away.

I enjoyed all the cooking I did today. What I liked about it was using fresh ingredients and doing everything from scratch.

I just sat down to relax for the first time since we got home from the theater. All the kiddos (big and little) are in bed, and hubby and I are watching The Walking Dead.  Then I'm off to bed - it'll be an early morning tomorrow.

Relationships, Kindness and Grace

I took a little bit of a break in my online journaling over the past week or so. The last week of October was a doozie with the inclusion of emotional upheaval that led up to the single most challenging day of the year so far for me and my family. I was able to get in most of my planned workouts and wrote in my personal journal most days, and that helped with my stress level. It's good to be back to a somewhat normal mindset now.

We all have challenging days and weeks. I wrote here about stress, how our bodies are designed to handle it, and how we become stronger because of it. Last Sunday at church, my pastor, David McDonald, talked about the importance of having a strong root system in our relationships. I thank God every day for the strength of mine, because without it, weathering the storms would leave me feeling destroyed instead of stronger.

Another point in Dave's message last Sunday that was timely for me to hear is that kindness and grace play a vitally important role in growing and strengthening your root system. He likened this to a farmer spreading seed on his field. Some will take root and grow - others will not. But every seed has potential, and so every seed counts. The same goes for kindness and grace: every kind deed and act of grace you bestow on another will not reap reward in the form of a better relationship, but some will. Every act of kindness and grace counts.

"Not every seed grows, but every seed counts." ---Dr. David McDonald

I keep a personal journal in which I write almost every day. The first sentence each day is a statement of something I am grateful for. When is the last time you took a few minutes to just reflect on the things you're thankful for?

Processed Food and Social Media

I heard an interesting view of social media on a podcast I listened to this week. Tony Federico made the comparison of Facebook/texting/Twitter... to processed food. The points he made were:

Processed Food:

• Humans are built to use food as fuel. We need it to survive.
• Real food is top choice for our bodies to be their best and feel fulfilled.
• Processed food is an altered version of food.
• Highly processed food provides very little nutrition and leaves us craving more.

Social Media:

• Humans are built as relational beings. We need relationships.
• Face to face relationships are top choice for complete fulfillment.
• Social media and texting relationships are altered versions of real relationships.
• Social media and texting relationships are not as fulfilling as real-life relationships and leave us wanting more.

The views the author expressed were not that social media and texting are bad. We all use those tools. They're wonderful ways to stay connected to loved ones and friends, and they provide valuable connections to new people we would never have the opportunity to know otherwise. However, our use of social media and texting should not happen at the cost of live relationships.

The same holds true with processed food. We're not expected to raise our own animals for meat, for example. Some processing is required in order to get food from the field to our tables. But processing of food should be kept to a minimum and real food eaten as much as possible.

I love this analogy. Personally, I hadn't thought much about the health and happiness relationship to relationships. Maybe there's something to be said for our parents' opinions of the younger generations spending too much time with technology. 

If you'd like to listen to this podcast, you can find it here. 

Good Friends, Books and Wine

Today I was able to stay in Jackson for work, so since I didn't have that longer commute, I slept in until 6 am. I ate a granola bar before heading to the gym with my amino energy drink for weight training.

The granola bar wasn't the best choice since three of the first four ingredients are bad for the body (sugar, canola oil and brown sugar oil). I don't know if I can directly blame my sluggish performance on that, but it's a likely culprit. I planned on doing 20 minutes of cardio after weight training, but I didn't have it in me. I stepped on the treadmill and felt foggy, like my limbs were too heavy. So I skipped it.

Amino Energy

If you're curious about the amino energy drink I talk about often, this is what it is:
I get it at GNC. I like it because it has caffeine and other energy-boosting ingredients, and branch chain amino acids. And it tastes great.






After the gym I made scrambled eggs with turkey sausage and cheese for breakfast. And of course I had my coffee with honey, almond milk and cinnamon.



For lunch I had the last of my turkey rice veggie stuff from the weekend, and followed it up with a chocolate cupcake that a co-worker made. I also had a cup of hot green tea with my lunch today. I haven't had tea in a while. It was perfect for today.

Mid afternoon I had an iced latte and an apple. After work I hurried home and ate some left over hamburger helper (made with turkey) that the kids had for dinner a couple of nights ago. Again, not the best choice, but it was quick and easy before heading back out the door to book group.

Our book group meets once a month. Tonight we met at the home of one of our ladies, and I enjoyed a glass of red wine and some cashews. I love my friends in this group.

The idea of this blog is to talk about all things healthy, which includes taking care of our emotional and spiritual health. Getting together with a group of good friends talking about a common love of books and catching up on each others' lives is very good for helping me step outside of my hectic life for a little bit.

I hope you're having a wonderful week!

Our New Rooms!

Scott and I got our exercise today doing things that reminded me of something Cross Fit would be great preparation for. Cross Fit classes work your body using functional exercises – exercises that are closer to the way we use our bodies in everyday physical activities.  

Today we decided to rearrange two rooms in our house. We have two living rooms – one we use as a family room with our TV in it, and the other is full of books and comfy seating to lounge and read. The family room was the lower level living room on the back of the house that walks out into a screened-in porch. The upper level living room is on the front of the house and has big windows across two walls, and we used that as the reading room.

Because the family room has the TV, we spend more time in it. We decided it was time to reverse the rooms so that we’re spending more time in the one with more natural lighting from the front of the house.  

We started by me taking all of the books off the bookshelves while Scott re-wired the rooms for the cable/internet/phones. 

 

Then we started moving the heavy stuff. I'm very thankful my hubby is a big guy. He handles the furniture like it's nothing more than moving around some pieces in a game (ok, maybe that's exaggerating a bit, but sheesh!). 

We finally got the rooms put back together, and then I did the fun part of placing our books, pictures and other stuff around to make the rooms feel warm and cozy.  

Here are some pictures of the final project.

New family room

New reading room

Breast Cancer Strikes Too Close For Comfort

I haven’t written in a couple of weeks. It’s been a doozie of a month so far.

I took a quick trip to Tennessee to visit three of my favorite women: my daughter, sister and mom. Last month, my sister, Kim, was diagnosed with breast cancer. It came at her out of the blue. She had a mammogram last November which was clear. These cancer cells are aggressive enough to have spread to her lymph nodes and clavicle before she even knew anything was wrong.

Kim is an inspiration for strength and positivity. As soon as she was diagnosed, the doctors moved swiftly to get treatment started, and Kim had to quickly get things in order to be able to take a leave of absence from work. She’s such a trooper. Her attitude is that of taking one day and one thing at a time, doing what needs to be done, and putting the rest in God’s hands. And thank God for the awesome support system of family and friends she has around her.

The treatment strategy is to do four rounds of chemotherapy and then surgery. After surgery I believe they’ll assess next steps. Last week she began her second round of chemotherapy. So far the treatments haven’t made her extremely sick like we feared. She has, however, lost most of her hair, and I had the privilege of going with her to an appointment at a wig shop. Kim looked so natural and beautiful trying on the different styles. The week before I visited, my daughter Shelby (who lives in the same city in TN as Kim) went with Kim to a Look Good Feel Better appointment. They taught her makeup tips and gave her name-brand make up to take with her. That first day I saw her after I arrived in TN, she had her makeup on and was wearing a ball cap. She looked beautiful, full of life, and happy.

Now that someone very dear to me is fighting cancer, I’ve noticed the tremendous amount of support based organizations that pour love onto cancer patients. And the more I read and research (which is my tendency when faced with an unexpected difficult situation), the more I find people who unselfishly step up to provide assistance, knowledge, encouragement and love when needed most.

Diesel, Shelby's dog, playing with the toy I bought her.

The days I spent in TN were wonderfully full of girl-time. I was able to reconnect with the three most important women in my life. I’m sort of a nomad, introvert type of person and admittedly sometimes let my family relationships take a back seat to other things. I vow to be more intentional from now on to keep those relationships active and close.

Clothes from Mom's closet that I brought home. :)

Stress: good or bad for you?

It’s been a roller coaster of a week for me. My stress levels and emotions have been driven up one

side of the hill and back down the other a few times. Stress has become a dirty word in our language. It doesn’t feel good. But a healthy body is designed to handle stress and grow stronger because of it. Exercise is a form of physical stress. Facing a difficult challenge at work is an example of mental stress. Feeling sad saying goodbye to a loved one is emotional stress. Everyone experiences stress on a regular basis; there’s no way around it in our normal, everyday lives. The challenges we face and overcome cause whichever bodily system being taxed to become stronger in order to handle it again the next time.

The dangers of stress come from being exposed to it over and over again with no relief. In the same way that rest is required in order for the body to become physically stronger after a workout, other systems of the body need rest between challenges in order to recover and become stronger. A body that is continuously exposed to stress without reprieve is at risk because its normal defenses are overcome and become weak.

Relentless stress can be a factor in many health issues: headaches, fatigue, high blood pressure, skin conditions, anxiety, stomach problems… to name a few. It’s like a worm that snakes its way through everything and wreaks havoc.

My natural tendency when stressed is to give in to the paralyzing feeling I get, which throws me off my normal routines. I’ve done it before. When I’m mentally drained, it’s easy to allow myself to skip the gym and not stick with my eating plan. Those things take energy to follow through with, and stress saps my energy.

I thank God every day for my husband. On the worst day this week, my mind was reeling with upsetting thoughts and worries about an issue I was dealing with, and I just wanted to sit on the couch, with my computer to keep me distracted, and turn inside myself. Scott talked me into going to the gym with him and getting a cardio workout. He knew it would make me feel better. It was, of course, exactly what I needed to do. Another day I did a cardio workout in the evening at the track at a school up the street. Being outdoors and feeling my body push beyond comfortable limits did wonders for my mood. Both of those workouts were in my normal routine, but I was tempted to skip them.

That leads me to a final point I want to make about handling stress: the importance of having healthy routines already in motion. Your routines can be things that are easy to fall back on without having to put much effort into planning or thinking about “what, why and how.” When you’re overcome with stress, force yourself to do each next step of your routine. For example, if you’re already in the routine of getting up early in the morning to work out, do it, even if you don’t feel like it because you’re nervous about a difficulty you’re anticipating at work. I guarantee it’ll make you feel strong and ready to face the challenge. 

Here's to next week being a great week!