Internal health

I am not able to excercise yet, and I'm still using food for comfort (so I'll have to work up to that one).  So my first week is easy.  I added all those pesky supplements that usually are just a pain to remember.  Yes, I know that an amazing diet makes suplements unneccesary, but I need all the help I can get. 

As a part of supplementation, I have begun an essential oil regimen.  Each night and morning I topically or internally take the oils I need for insomnia, energy, antiviral, or breathing.  I even add one for skin to my daily moisturizer.  I used to use them as wonderful first aid items, but since I have learned that to see excellent progress, you need consistency. 

So consistency is the goal this week.  Nine pills each day, three pills to cleanse the colon, oils in the morning and oils at night.  It's amazing how much my energy has improved.  When I put Vetiver and Lavender on my feet at night, I just about fall asleep instantly.  I drink Digest Zen in my water to improve my sluggish digestion... it works.  Enough said.  So, week number one is a success.  I am ready to add my next healthy habbit. 

Are You Ready for A Life Change?

January often brings post holiday blah syndrome.  I like to give this hibernating, slow time meaning by ramping up my goals, and setting myself up for change.  Sweet Briz had a meeting with the family, distributed little planners to everyone, and had the yearly goal discussion.  I had already set my yearly goals... in September, so for me, it was a good opportunity to detail and shimmy my current plan. 

At Education Week, I entered a class where numerous sharp women were clustered around the previous speaker and her posters.  Instinctively, I saved my chair, then made my way up to join the crowd.  They were ogling a vision board.  I found the speakers name, then after my class went to the annex to find any books by her.  Are You Ready for a Life Change?  found its way into my basket and into my life. It is a simple short book with step by step details on how to make change a reality. 

My tendency is to focus on areas of my life that are dragging me down or driving me crazy.  Bahram Akradi changed my mind about that.  He suggested the following.  "Imagine that you're interviewing candidates for a really great, important job - the job of improving your life.  Really, of course, you'll be interviewing various parts of yourself, gauging your own willingness readiness to embrace change.  "Thanks for applying for this opportunity as a major force for change in my life.  Now I'd like to ask you a few questions:  What makes you interested in doing this job?  Why does it matter to you?  What's your long-term vision for how things will change if we're seccessful?  What are the first steps and small daily changes you'd like to begin with?  What obstacles do you think you'll encounter?  And what new skills or support will you need in order to succeed?" 

I hired 3 candidates, organization, relationships, and my health.  Then I divided up the year into 3 sections, where each candidate could do their best to improve my life.  This new year's section is for health. (Really it was supposed to me the final section, but since my health is sooooo poor right now, it would be pointless to work on anything else.  

My health decided it needed to improve in different ways each month:
1.  Strong mind/ immune system
2.  Proper nutrition
3.  Strong Body

Each week I accomplish the focus in  specific way and build new habits.  To maintain my vision, I have hung my vision board in my room and read it daily.  To ensure accountability, I will write about my weeks.  So, sorry... I'll be writing a lot about health for the next 3 months. 

Here's to a new year and a life change!

Cheers!

Hero Worship

To complement our Book of Mormon Reading, each girl picked a hero poster for her room.  We are providing our Primary children with scripture hero trading cards, along with their scripture reading log.  Ladybug picked a young women of courage... I probably should have insisted on a real hero, but it is beautiful.  Little Mother picked Helaman and the 2,000 warriors.  I think she likes having a scantily clad buff man picture in her room, but hey, it's better than Justin Timberlake.  Sunshine picked Mary, because she also has blueberry eyes. 

I love heroes.  Sure they can let you down if you expect too much of them, but if you just look to see what you can gain and leave the rest, they make wonderful friends to have.  I keep a council of them in my head for difficult situations.  I have to imagine their responses to my dilemas but they give me great council. 

This year, I am going to fill my little one's heads with heroes and heroines.  I want to fill their little brain councils with noble friends.  This morning we began with Enoch.  How can you not love self effacing amazing Enoch.  What kind of teacher could turn a whole city into such goodness?  The only thing I know that can work miracles like that is love.  He must have had a lot of it. 

Who is your hero?  Pick one or two new ones to add to your collection this year.  They make excellent friends. 

Boredom Busters

Today's boredom was banished by a "cake" decorating class using sugar cookies and yummy frosting.  We learned how to make ribbons, write names, make flowers and borders.  After one layer was complete, they started on a new one.  When  2 inches of frosting made the cookie unstable, they began with a new one.

Go Rams!

The Rams made the playoffs.  That may not mean much to me, but it means a great deal to a grown up little boy who wore a Rams helmet at the age of three.  Immediately he plans a party, which really just includes us, his girls, and his little brother, another loyal fan.  He buys ingredients for his favorite soup, and as I am too weak to cook, chops and stirs with Mitch to create dinner.  Saddly, he realizes he has no paraphanelia to wear for this momentous occasion. 

His little princesses note his sadness and go to work.  With the help of paper, tape and markers, soon Little Mother has all of us outfitted with Go Rams! hats and pendants. 

Sated with Super Bowl Soup, cheese ball, avocado dip, and Lil Smokies, the die hard fans and the three little ones who desperately want to please plop down to cheer on their fight.  I am supposed to be resting, But it is a bit hard when I hear "Man!  That is unbelievable."  or "No!  No!  No!"  yelled at full volume from the family room.  Yet for all the despair, I hear joy in the voice of my husband.  He is watching his team with his family in Rams paraphernalia.  Win or Lose, All is right with the world. 

popcycle stick coffin

"All true stories end in death.  And this is a true story."  Briz philosophically quips from his favorite movie as we prepare for yet more funerals.  The bright green tree frog became a frogcicle in our below zero temperatures, and we don't know what happened to Tootsie.  She just lay in the bottom of her cage.  Dead.  I suppose we are really prepping our kids for life, because we speak at a lot of funerals.  The flower bed outside Ladybug's window is full of corpses, some in home made coffins, others in the soft cloth.  Each lovingly placed, each one eulogized.  Ladybug is already angling for new fish.  Big ones though. 

I'm Bored!

"I'm Bored!" 

The whine reaches my left ear as read languidly.  I smile, a slow dangerous smile.  The offending one looks a little nervous.  "Only boring people get bored."  I reply my pat answer for such rubbish. 

"What can I do?  And DON'T say clean something again."

Though normally these are fighting words, I've been waiting, longing for these words. Why?  Because I want to spend a certain type of time with my kids, and I want it to be their idea. 

Take down the Christmas Tree
Scour the toilet
Write Thank You notes
Make bananna bread?
Learn a new skill?
Would any of these work for you?

The day together flies by.

We feed the birds.

They learn to chain stitch

To mend their own clothes

To make a pillow case

Bored kids make good moms.  I hope they get bored tomorrow.  Maybe they'll learn Latin?  

Programs

One of the many versions of Jingle Bells

They came... the three Christmas programs I was responsible for.  Some classes did well, others shone, and others didn't quite reach their potential.  Still, it is over... and I am left with these debilitating chronic illnesses.  Was it worth it to push myself?  I don't know the answer to that yet.  I have the next several months to think it out.  I do know that I love being a part of my childrens' education, that I love touching young minds, that I both wish I had more interaction with my students and less.  My favorite program was the one in which my own children performed.  Probably because I had the most say in what happened.  I particularly loved watching them interact with their parents and grandparents at the end as they taught them the Zemmer Atic, an Iraeli folk dance.

Learning the Zemmer Atic

I loved seeing them laugh together and share in their educational experience.  Sadly, I had to leave just as it really got going as my next program (a play about the Christmas Train) was about to begin.  Celebrating together is one of the great joys of Christmas.

Live Nativity

Every year I drive by the church advertising the live nativity, three shows a night for 2 weeks.  This is the year.  We'll try it out early in the season. 

First we meet at Jodi's for a cookie and hot cocoa bar. 

Outdoors, under a shelter, we sit on prickly hay bales, stuffed like cattle in a milking stall.  The back half is standing room only.  This must be really good, we think as we wait.

The young adult ward offers this nativity as it's gift to the community each year.  They have a small choir, actors, narrators, and several musical numbers.  The first musical number begins.  The gangling young man and the two young women screech their harmonies and I am embarrassed for them.  How can they bear to sing like that in front of so many people?  The play continues on the same note.  Three earnest wise men, bespectacled, plump, and in towels, TOWELS for crying out loud reverently make their way to see the doll.  This is without a doubt the WORST nativity I have ever seen and that includes all those years of sheeted childhood wonder.  So, why am I crying? 

This humble and honest offering made from over one hundred individuals offering their very best was enough.  The spirit of Christmas was not missing, it was strong, and we smiled as we swam through the crowd to the car.  What I have to offer this season is enough.  It is always enough. 

Little Mother is studying the middle ages.  She chose to do a report on physicians.  She was to create a 3-D showcase of her profession.  She decided she was 3-D and created this lovely outfit. 

We learned that the Beak like thing was stuffed with oils and herbs to keep the physician from becoming ill.  The full length coat, hat, and mask served the same purpose.  Their little glass vase they carried was for urine.  Sadly, the test was performed by the doctor himself who tasted it to give his diagnosis.  Oh the useful facts we gather!

Just another Day in Paradise

Though not a country lover, my theme song has long been Just Another Day in Paradise.  I giggled this week as it played again in my undercounter CD player,

The kids screaming, phone ringing
Dog barking at the mailman bringing
That stack of bills - overdue
Good morning baby, how are you?
Got a half hour, quick shower
Take a drink of milk but the milk's gone sour
My funny face makes you laugh
Twist the top on and I put it back
There goes the washing machine
Baby, don't kick it.
I promise I'll fix it
Long about a million other things


Except, this time, I've got laryngitis, we're totally out of groceries, the washer is broken, I'm out of money, the truck is broken, and Briz needs to fix the lawnmower before the snows set in.  I am clueless as to how to accomplish this without a truck.  Briz is much more resourceful.  I pick up the children from school. 

We drive by, pause, wave, honk, and laugh our heads off! 

Well, it's ok. It's so nice
It's just another day in paradise
Well, there's no place that
I'd rather be
Well, it's two hearts
And one dream
I wouldn't trade it for anything
And I ask the Lord every night
For just another day in paradise

Halloween Man

 It takes a manly man to measure and braid countless strands of yarn to build a beehive headdress. 

 Such a man, would be far too dignified to play with drop kicking cats.

 But his efforts would help produce a beehive, a hippie, and a Rose garden.  Three young women would idolize him.

And he would fall into the clutches of a spider witch.  


Go get yourself one for Halloween!