Spontaneous?

Spontaneous? Umm, let's see where can I schedule that? I'm such a planner. At one point when I was attending seminary and working night shift my sleep was even scheduled. I had a breakdown when one of my prof's gave homework that was due the next day because I had to sleep and work all night. It was not in the plan for that week to have spontaneous homework. My children were VERY planned. I wanted my first child to be born during our 3 week Christmas break...she was born the day we were due back at school..pretty close timing I think. When I was in NP school and working full time I had a schedule of when to study for what class and when to do what homework. I had a color coded calendar. I love looking at organizing websites and organized rooms in my BHG magazine. You can't tell it from looking at my house but I love things that are neat, orderly and in their place. I have a routine at home too and I hate getting out of my routine. It stresses me out totally. But I have 2 kids and my husband is a full time minister...do you know how many times my schedule gets thrown out the window? My husband did not want to know the gender of either of our children. I wanted to plan a nursery...which I did...it just took a little more work.

So, all that to say this..if you see me looking frazzled or if you ask me to do something spur of the moment remember I don't do spontaneous very well.

Running.

I want to be a runner. I like the whole idea of running. Anytime I'm watching a movie and one of the main characters is running with energetic music in the background it makes me want to don my tenny's and hit the road. The thought of running with the wind in my face, music in my ears, alone with my thoughts makes me smile. Running is good for you. Gets the heart to pumping and the blood flowing. All the runners they show on tv are slim and fit and tan...not sure how running makes you tan but they are. My question is..how do they find time to run? I already get up at 5AM and by the time I get home from work it's after 6 PM and I have 2 little ones to feed, bathe, play with and put to bed by that time it's either too dark or I'm too tired to run. Maybe all those tv runners are thin and slim b/c they don't have kids to chase or jobs they are tied to. Maybe one day I'll find time to run or motivation to run. Until then, I'll just live in my little dream running world.

Raising Healthy Kids

Everyday I hear more and more about the rising rates of obesity in our nation and the rising rates of obesity in children and teenagers. More and more teenagers are being diagnosed with high blood pressure and type 2 Diabetes...things that we used to associate with older adulthood. A year ago we made big changes in our eating habits. We cut down our eating out to 2x or less a week and cut down on the number of carbs in our diet. Did you know that 1 serving of pasta has almost the number of carbs you should eat in an entire meal? And how many times do we eat 1 serving? I know people get frustrated with school systems cutting out french fries and fast food places automatically serving apples instead of fries but we have to teach our children to make good choices. My son has had very few servings of mac and cheese but he has had many dinners with broccoli...if given the choice will he choose the mac and cheese...sure but he's barely over a year old. If there's no mac and cheese but there is broccoli he'll eat his weight in broccoli..I've seen it! I hear so many people say their kids won't eat veggies. My response is to keep offering and start early. If they grow up eating fresh food they will think that's "normal". Yes we eat junk food sometimes but I don't buy it often. If given the choice they will choose junk. Don't buy it. Buy fruit instead.

Next post: exercise ;)

Question for you: which do you find harder exercise or eating healthy?