Four Keys To Success

I am reading a great book by Candace Cameron Bure. You might remember her on Full House as DJ Tanner. She has written a great book called Reshaping It All: Motivation for Physical and Spiritual Fitness. This is one of the things I am using to help me keep the right frame of mind about my whole weight loss journey. 

The chapter I am on right now is called Unlock Your Freedom. It talks about the keys to success. I know I want success in this adventure. And I want to keep it off for good. I don't want to travel down this road again over and over again anymore. I have done that all of my adult life. 

So the first key is Willpower. We can't just want to do something, we have to put action behind  it. We can strengthen our willpower through positive thoughts. That makes sense, doesn't it? Negative thoughts sure don't make it easier to accomplish something. We have to keep our thoughts positive in order to accomplish weight loss. Plus willpower is what it takes to push on even when obstacles get in our way, including stress.

The next key is Belief. What we believe will be our outcome. We need to choose to believe we can succeed. We need to believe that our bodies were created to be a certain way and through healthy eating we can live a more abundant life. We have a choice to believe negative thoughts or positive ones. I want to be a positive person and believe I can succeed.

The third key is Decision. Each small decision we make builds to make a bigger picture. Every time we say no to something we shouldn't eat that takes that want a little farther away. I have successfully cut out soda again. It was really easy this time because I had given it up four years ago and only just started having a few here and there this past year. I am limiting sweets to a bare minimal. Not because I have to, because I choose to. I have a goal in mind, a purpose. I don't want to weigh this anymore. So even though saying no to one candy bar might seem small, it really isn't. I was able to purchase one for my husband on Saturday and didn't even think about buying one for myself. The desire wasn't even there. That is progress, especially for a chocoholic like myself. 

The fourth key is Action. Nothing will happen without action.You have to put action to your decisions, belief and willpower. We can want something all day long but without action we aren't going to get it. If we need to set aside a certain time to workout then we better do it. Then when that time comes around don't hesitate but jump in there and get it done. I know I feel so much better after I have worked out, even when it was at 6 in the morning. I was proud of myself for getting up and working out. I knew I had done something to move forward in what I wanted. 

We have to put all four together to succeed. We can't just rely on one or the other. They work together. I know I don't have as much to go as some, but to me, it seems like a great deal. I have gotten down to 150 pounds before but I really need to reach a much lower amount on the scales. For my height I should weigh between 120 and 130. I was 120 pounds for a long time before I had children. I would like to try working all the fat off my body and toning as best I can and see what that looks like on the scales. I could weigh more because muscle weighs more than fat. I didn't have much muscle on my body back then even though I was 120 pounds. I plan to have a toned body and will be fine if that looks like more on the scales. 

Some key thoughts: I have been putting my goals into action. I have been watching portion control and counting my calories since the beginning of December. I have been working out almost daily for the past three weeks. I have been taking care of my face daily like I should. It is my desire to have overall better health. 

What goals are you going to put the four keys into practice to accomplish?

Changing my life a day at a time.

Field Trip: George Washington Exhibit

Before Christmas we finished a unit on the American Revolution and George Washington's life. There just happened to be an exhibit at the Fort Worth Museum of Science and History on George Washington. How exciting for us. We were thrilled that our friends, Cindy and Ryan, have season passes and were able to invite us to go. It really made all we learned come alive and we learned even more.

I hope you enjoy our slide show. This didn't include the whole exhibit but I got what I could.

Make your own slideshow design

What is your favorite field trip your family has done?

That is our progress report for today. Thanks for stopping by. 

Freezer Cooking

I am not sure if everyone knows about "freezer cooking" or "once a month cooking" or other names people call it. Whatever name you use, it's the same concept: you cook a bunch of stuff once a month and stick it in the freezer then pull it out at dinner time each night without all the prep work that goes into putting it together. It takes a bit of extra time one day a month. A lot of people choose a Saturday because they can enlist the aid of their entire family for it. The size of your family will determine how much time it will take. I have five people that live in my home right now. If you have 8 or 10 then you would make twice as much as I would. Make sense? You know your family and the size meals they eat. So when you plan out your cooking just do what you always do and allow for that many mouths. 

A very helpful website I found is Life As Mom. She has a whole list of helpful blog posts. It tells you step by step her plan for doing this. There are lists of how to pack things, what the time limit is on freezing things, even breakfast freezing. 

Also, I found another great site, Fabulessly Frugal. She has a thing called Fabuless Freezer Cooking. She has the plan, how to get a "group" of friends together to do it with you so you all save money and lots of recipes. 

It is going to take me a bit of time to sort through these sites and decide what will work for me. But it is my hope that I can start this next week. We get paid once a month so cooking once a month sounds great. I can get everything I need at the store for my freezer cooking and pick a day to cook. Then have my dinner in the freezer for each day. That sounds GREAT for those days when I am just worn out and don't have the energy to think about what to make for dinner or to even turn on the stove. We all have those days. Plus the breakfast in the freezer cooking sounds wonderful. It would be great to offer my family a nice hot meal for breakfast instead of cereal or poptarts. That is a much healthier start to the day.

I will post recipes and updates as I figure it all out. And share what works for me and what doesn't. Everything has to be made to fit your life because we are all different and one thing doesn't always work for another.  

Until next time...blessings to you.

Our Progress

August - December 2011

The first half of this school year has been wonderful. The reason I put a castle for my picture was to represent all the places we have traveled through stories and movies of the year, and the many others we will visit in the years to come. I have managed to blog about most of the really fun and interesting things we have done. We started the school year off in August by finishing up three units from last year's curriculum that we weren't able to finish because of all the preparation for our trip to Kenya in June. We went right into this years material without a pause. We completed two of those units. That makes five units for the first half of our year. 

We had some great projects with our homeschool groups. We did a Dolphin Tale study  and went to the movie on opening day for Home School Day. We made a lap book for Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs. The kids played soccer with one of our groups and I was the coach. We had a super missions day for our AAHE October meeting. We had one field trip, to the public library. Because we are part of two groups we are able to do more. Our last group activity of 2011 was our Christmas party, which was a huge success and loads of fun. 

We did a major field trip to Kenya in June/July. That was an experience that our family will never forget. We spent three weeks there. We were on 9 airplanes and it took over 30 hours to reach our final destination each way. Even though that wasn't "during the school year" we felt it was a huge part of our educational experience.  

I rearranged the "school room" twice. This last time was to accommodate the re-opening of our kidcare and preschool.  We have involved the front room and the dinning room. It really looks nice and we have all of our resources readily available when we need them. 

January - May 2012

We started back to school on January 2. We had three weeks off of school in December and were ready to jump back into it. We have some huge plans for this half of the school year. We will do two more units before taking our Spring Break. Then we will do two more units and finish school mid May. They will finish this years Math by spring break. They will be given the option of starting next years math. I purchased their math for the next several years at the book fair last year. 

We are planning a very special Spring Break for the kids to show them we are proud of all their hard work in school this year. We want to make it a tradition each year to do something special, fun and different. They have no idea what we have planned. 

We hope to do a few more field trips for the year. There is an exhibit on George Washington at the local museum that we are going to see next week. They have a special website to go along with the exhibit and enhance your learning experience. We will do more book/movie studies. Our next one will be War Horse. We will read the book, do the study and see the movie in January. 

That is just a glimpse of the next five months. I can't wait to blog the pictures from all the adventures we will have. 

That's our progress report for today. Thanks for stopping by. 

Just Stopping For a Cup of Coffee

It's been awhile but...I just have time for a short cup of coffee with you and then I am back to my sewing and other things to get ready for Christmas. I know I haven't blogged in awhile, on any of my blogs except my writer's blog for reviews that were due. My excuses? Well, I have many. We are never short of excuses, at least I'm not. Here are mine!

I have been so busy trying to get EXTRA homeschooling done so we can have the next two weeks off (the week before and week after Christmas) that we even pushed it farther and finished up this Tuesday (my son finished on Monday because he is over zealous). I have three or four posts for my homeschool blog that I NEED to get on there soon! Maybe the week AFTER Christmas I will be able to allow myself time to blog, maybe.

I have been trying to get the house in order for the inspection that should happen soon to get my kid care open. I've been hanging pictures on the wall, which got me to thinking about what OTHER pictures I NEED to put in frames and hang next to those. So far my picture walls look GREAT and I have some ideas on what I want to do. I will try to do a little each payday, get a couple of frames and/or order the prints I want to hang if I don't already have them. I know, that has NOTHING to do with the kid care. But it has to do with getting things out of boxes and on the walls like we actually LIVE here! It's all part of the whole, we are living here and now instead of living to move WHEREVER God is going to send us. We are OK with that but we have been living in that mentality for seven years, first for Colorado and then overseas. Like I said in another post, time to live our lives to the fullest here and now. For we aren't guaranteed tomorrow, so live today! 

I have been sewing! I CAN'T tell you WHAT I am sewing because someone MIGHT see this and find out what is under the tree for them! AFTER Christmas I will be sure to post pictures and details. Needless to say, sewing takes up a LOT of time. I am not even going to get it all done before the 25th, I don't think. I am going to keep trying. 

In fact, I need to get back to work now. My coffee is gone. I only have nine days left till Christmas so I better get busy! This is going to take more than that! 

Merry Christmas to all of you!

Until next time...blessings to you.

Homeschool Group Christmas Party

For our homeschool group Christmas party we had a lot of fun. We all brought goodies to eat and one of the moms put together a great craft for the kids. She brought different sizes of spoons and gave them choices on what to make. They each had the different colors of paint on their tables and had foil to work on. They each had the different colors of paint on their tables and had foil to work on. We had a very large group that day. Everyone had so much fun. They had to wait for directions for the character of their choice. We had a table full of goodies plus cookies for them to decorate. All of the kids enjoyed it, young and old. They had to paint the spoon first before adding any pipe cleaners. They drew on the faces with markers when needed. Then it was time to decorate cookies and eat them. Since we meet in the gym at the church they got to play after we were done. The kids love the new air hockey table.

  

Merry Christmas!

That's our progress report for today. Thanks for stopping by.

                                                                                                    

Homeschool Field Trip: Public Library

We had a field trip to the Public Library. It was a lot of fun and very interesting. They kids enjoyed it very much. They got to see the workings of the library from behind the scenes. 

The librarian showed us the books they have in Braille. The kids got to feel the pages. 

He told us about the computer area and what is upstairs.

This is the room that has all the new books being sent to the different libraries around Arlington. 

The children's area was our last stop.

I didn't take pictures of each area. We first went to the area that the books are brought back and how they are sorted and returned to the shelves. We also got to see the teen section. It was just fun getting to see and hear about how the library works. 

That's our progress report for today. Thanks for stopping by.