Marriage Monday and a Mission…Preferences

I prefer tea over coffee and I prefer to have my tea prepared a certain way.

I prefer my salad dressing be served on the side.

I prefer home grown food.

I prefer listening to music over watching TV when I am home during the day.

My preferences aren’t absolutes but they are the way I like things.  Our culture tells us that having preferences is good and I couldn’t agree more. They are a part of who we are. However it also tells us that we are actually entitled to having things our way.   When I was a kid if you thought that way you were considered spoiled but today it seems like we are supposed to demand that our preferences be honored even at the expense of manners and graciousness. This can be obnoxious in social situations.  It can be devastating in a marriages.

Hurdling the Barriers to Healthy Eating

If you are struggling to eat healthier and finding that it is:  too time consuming, too complicated or too expensive I have some tips for you today.

Re Time:  It is precious and what feels like a lack of it often makes us crazy but think about this:  You may be using time to eat healthfully but odds are good that your healthy diet will be  helping you to actually GAIN TIME by adding time to your life in the long run.

Time spent prepping healthy lunches on a day off can help you save time the rest of your work week.   When school is in session I try to bring a week’s worth of lunch each monday.  My go-to usually consists of greens, cherry tomatoes , diced sweet mini peppers, black beans and a protein source.  I make up a salad and dress it with salsa and sometimes toss in a half serving of this:

for a 20 something calorie dose of cream goodness.   What this means is that I get all my lunch stuff together on Sunday afternoon and then I don’t have to prep my lunch on those always hectic work mornings.   This woman’s blog details how she organized her way to a healthier lifestyle and she provides a bunch of recipes and other good information for using your limited time to get yourself more time:  organize yourself skinny

Happiness Key: Having a team to cheer for.

I am a sports fan.  Have been a basketball fan since I started “keeping the book” for the 8th grade boys team in middle school. I ran track, played a little softball volleyball and basketball in high school  I played intramural water polo, basketball and soccer in college   Became a football fan when my boyfriend (now my husband) started taking me to see Joe Montana play in Candlestick Park;  became an even bigger fan when our son began to play and my man began to coach. I enjoy baseball but we tend to take a break from sports watching between the NBA Championship and the beginning of football season. We catch a game here and there over the summer but in general we pick up baseball in October for the good part.

And then there were two…On “The Empty Nest”

I want to start off today by thanking my followers and my likers for their attention.   I feel called to share what I have learned and it is gratifying to know that I am touching something in you.   I hope that you are enjoying your summers.   It is supposed to be HOT ie 100+ for the next few days here in Northern CA.  I hope all y’all are able to stay cool.   Don’t forget to keep yourselves and your pets hydrated.

So in my“About Me” Post I shared that my children were grown but that 1.5 of them were still living at home.   One of my twin daughters was the .5 as she was working about 2.5 hours away and spending some nights at home and other nights with her sister during that time.  The 1 was my 20 y/o son, our youngest.   Since that time our daughter and her sister found an apartment together and yesterday actually just a little over 24 hours ago, the boy departed for a solo cross country trip.  At the end of his trek he will find his home for the next 5 months and the school that will train him for his future career.  So, just like that it is just me and my honey.

Fitness Friday: Why I Have a Crush on My Fitbit

Remember years ago when this woman  declared her love for the Eiffel Tower by having a marriage ceremony that joined them as….errr “Iconic Parisian Structure and Wife?”  I may understand her a bit better now than I did when I first heard her story

Don’t get me wrong,  I am thoroughly and permanently in love my actual human husband but I think I may have a slight case of “Objectophilia” myself.   The object of my affections is my fitbit. I reach for it each morning, keep it close to me all day long, check in with it like a stalker, and change my behavior in order to get its “attagirls.”   If I am separated from it I feel bereft and though I know it isn’t true,  if it isn’t with me as  go through my day I can’t help but think that many of the things I do don’t matter.

On Pets: Specifically Dogs

I encourage everyone to check out this post. In it I detail what I believe to be the cornerstones of happiness. One of those cornerstones is to involve yourself in some way with animals.

I grew up country.   We had barn cats and house cats, dogs and sheep and a horse or two.  I had to milk the goat before school and on my second date ever the boy put his arm around me and stuck his hand in my jacket pocket then pulled out a fistfull of hay.  There was no 3rd date…go figure.

Tasty Tuesday

If you read this post  then you know that one of my core beliefs about happiness is that people should focus their diet primarily on foods that had either a mother or roots before they landed on a dinner plate. By that I mean whole foods; foods that grow from the Earth and/or were originally placed here by God.

This is the way people ate before WWII, before huge commercial farming enterprises took large amounts of nutrition out of our food and replaced it with salt and fat and sugar and sometimes I think crack cocaine.

Marrige Monday Fighting the Drift and Monday Mission #3

Welcome to another Monday I like to set time aside on Mondays to help you get a stronger happier marriage or maybe just insert a little extra joy into a marriage that is already rockin!   The subject of today’s Marriage Monday is Fighting the Drift.

Do you ever get so angry with a media message that you yell at the TV or Radio ? I do and one of the thing that sets me off is hearing how another celebrity couple is divorcing because they “Drifted Apart.” I find it moronic and lazy that people who at one point felt strongly enough about their love and their future together that they stood up and professed it in front of friends and family, are calling it quits because of something that is not only inevitable but potentially reparable .

As a teacher I like to tell stories to illustrate my point, as a blogger I am the same way so here goes:

Stylin Saturday…My First Stitch Fix Review Whoot!!!

Several years back my husband sent me shopping.  His directions as he kissed me goodbye and pressed some cash into my hand were:

“Do NOT go to a discount store and don’t bother coming back unless you have spent at least 100.00 on a pair of jeans.”

Uhhhm What?!?  I had spent the previous 20 or so years priding myself on looking good in hand me downs and things from Ross.  I had never spent more than 50.00 on an article of clothing other than my wedding dress.  The subtext of my husband’s instructions were clear.  He was telling me “I want you to put yourself and how you feel when you look in the mirror first for a day.”   Apparently He thought that if I put aside the thrift store chic I might look better.  Who knew?  Out of respect for my husband I made the 3 hour round trip and came home with some lovely things, none of them ever owned by another woman.  I even bought a pair of jeans marked  $110.00 but they were marked down to 80.00.  Hey I tried.

Here is a little Marriage Minute to consider:  Your man wants you to look good.  He knows that you are beautiful through and through but it makes him feel proud to look at you and have you looking your best.   If he is a gentleman he will NEVER come right out and say it but if he is like most men he wants you to fight the frump.  Clearly you have to stay within your means but I encourage you, if you haven’t already, to  a) ask your husband if there is anything in your closet he can’t stand to see you in and then donate or toss it and b) start adding in some nicer things that you love and look good on you.

Why and How My Muscles are Mostly Made at Home

Think of something that has changed your life for the better.   What did you come up with?  I can make a pretty long list but basically the answer can be boiled down to video technology.  I used to go to  fitness classes and when I was younger I entertained fleeting thoughts of becoming an instructor.  I began a flirtation at the gym with a really cute boy who ultimately became my boyfriend and I still like the IDEA of going. It’s just that it became so impractical for me.

Said cute boyfriend turned into my husband and he and I created  twins and followed them up with a third baby 4 years later.  No more gym for this mama.   So I turned to workout programs on TV, VHS and DVDs in my living room. At best I was a sporadic worker-outer.   My time management disorder and my desire to do anything other than sweat made it easy for me to turn my back on Denise Austin and Billy Blanks for days and often weeks at a time. Plus having small kids is always a great excuse for getting out of just about everything. Not to mention I swear I have exercise ADD. 3 times through a particular session and I get bored.  We were always on a budget and I didn’t have that many Tapes or DVDs. Tivo didn’t exist and most of those exercise programs on TV came on in the morning.  No way I was giving up morning chill time for a workout.