Everyone has an inner child, but not everyone is aware of it. Your inner child has been with you since you grew up and if you haven't been aware of her, you're in for a treat! 

Three of my books deal with problems I've faced in my life; being in debt, being over weight and being disorganized. My unique, fun-loving approach to solving these challenges have to do with getting to know the child that resides in me.

Do you sense that if, right now, your body weighed what it weighed in high school, you'd feel better than you do? Just think back for a minute about your body in high school. Can you remember how fun it was to be active in it? It was flexible and it loved to be frisky and run, jump and dance. 

The older we are the more we seem to have time on our sides. No you read that right. Sides. Time meaning a length of time to collect fat. For most of us it's a gradual collection over the years. The collecting is surprisingly gradual! For example, if you gained just one pound a year, you'd weigh 25 pounds more at your 25th high school class reunion, 50 pounds more at your 50th. One pound a year! That's only 1.3 ounces a month!!!

Did you make a New Year's Resolution? The reason we make them is we want something to change and we think the change will make us feel better. Really we want to be happy. We feel better when we’re happy. Abraham Hicks said, “A happy life is just a collection of happy moments. But most people don’t allow the happy moment, because they’re so busy trying to get a happy life.” So we make resolutions to improve in the desire to lead to a happier life and we can miss all the yummy, happy moments that occur in spite of our resolutions.

Here it is the second week in January and by now many people have not been able to keep the resolutions they made on New Year’s Eve. Congratulations to you if you’re still on track with your resolve! But if you’re starting to fall off that resolve wagon, it’s really not that big of a deal and it’s not too late to put an addendum on it! You have a choice jump off the wagon or stay on with some help. 

Do you love the thought of "getting away?" A Great Get Away catches our attention! Much of our desire to get away on vacation is to subconsciously get away from our stuff. At the resort it’s easier to forget about the garage that’s filled leaving the car to live in the drive-way. When you’re eating out in restaurants on vacation it’s easier to forget about the outdated food in your pantry and the cupboards filled with stuff you don’t cook with or eat on. When you go to bed in a hotel room it’s easier to forget about your closets filled with old linens, tired towels and clothes you can’t fit into. When you're distracted by new surroundings it's easy to forget about the attic crammed with sentimental stuff that’s boxed up waiting for you to be sentimental over it. Clutter creates stress. Stress makes you want to get away! So if you could eliminate clutter, maybe you wouldn’t want to get away!

Years ago, when I was experimenting with my sidetracked nature, I tethered myself to the post in the middle of a round oak table using a six-foot rope. I attached the other end to my ankle. I had a dust rag and Pledge and a basket for “put-aways,” so  I could deliver them when I’d cleaned the circle within the radius of six feet. This was all for keeping me in one place until the cleaning was done in that place. (I’d gotten the idea from a goat that lived on a farm near me. She was also on a rope and had cleared a weed-ridden patch into a perfect circle that resembled a putting green.)

In a way that’s what having only one leg to use has done for me. It has caused me to slow down my “action” while my brain remains at its normal output of information. One example happens every time I leave one room to go to another (which I try to keep to a minimum). First I make sure I have a list of what I’ll be doing in the room I’m headed for; sort of like making a grocery list. So going from the living room to the kitchen, my list might read:

If you’re all twirled up in Christmas preparations, it wouldn’t hurt to stop, sit down for a breath and get your perspective back on what’s really important right now. The place where you live is exclusive to you, whether it’s on a ranch in Wyoming, an apartment in NY, a mansion in California or a room in someone else’s home, it’s your space on the planet and it’s precious.

Let Them Eat Fat!!!

"Fill 'em with fat, right off the bat!" When Terry and I decided to live a low-carb lifestyle, eight years ago, I went to a rather famous doctor in Portland, Oregon. She's a psychiatrist who, in addition to caring for children in her psychiatric practice, has a thriving practice helping low carbers understand the science that supports the low carb high fat diet. Her name is Dr. Ann Childers.

She was constantly telling me that she believes the epidemic of dementia, Parkinson's Disease and Alzheimer's is because our brains need fat and with the craze of low-fat products that have filled our world for the last 40 years, we've deprived our brains of the fat they need. (I'm paraphrasing her.)

I discovered early on with this way of eating that fat is the best food to stop craving and feeling hungry. If your kids are like mine were, they're hungry much of the time, and nothing seems to stop the little munchkins from rummaging around the kitchen like homeless guys in the park. Round and round they go pulling open cabinet, oven, pantry and freezer doors searching for something to eat. 

Low carb, high fat cooking can come to the rescue, because fat stays with your body and gives you the kind of energy that lasts.....through the snowball fights, sledding, ice skating, snowman making, skiing, snowboarding, you name it. I think you'll love this easy, healthy snack that's better than ice cream and it's guaranteed to shut up your craving for junk food! What happens is you gradually weanyourself off of sugar and processed junk foods, because your taste buds change. After being on a low carb, high fat diet for just a month, vegetables like cucumbers, tomatoes and broccoli began to have a sweet taste to them and berries taste like candy they're so sweet. Candy becomes disgustingly and spit-outably sweet!

In this video, I show you how to make a snack that'll stop the the whole family (including you) from craving junk food.

Getting through the holidays on one leg!

Most of you know (if you read my posts) that I received a hairline fracture of my kneecap while in New York visiting my son and family over the Thanksgiving holiday. I went to an urgent care clinic where they x-rayed my knee and discovered it was not only the kneecap, but the top of the tibia (that's the long bone that runs down to your foot) also had a hairline fracture. The doctor feared complications and recommended an MRI to see if there was more damage.

My son Michael (seen here at his 40th birthday party wearing a $40 dollar hat I made him) went in with me for the exam and he felt I should check with my doctor at home to see if he recommended an MRI as well. For some reason this doctor couldn't send my doctor the x-rays (..."too big to send") so we just sent the report from the radiologist to my doctor. My doctor said, "Let's wait until you come home and then we'll decide." With that, I was given a brace and told to keep all weight off my right leg or I could do more damage.

When I went to my doctor here in Washington, he took more x-rays and said there were no complications and that I can even put weight on my right leg as long as I have the brace on! That's like getting a leg for Christmas! I've learned so much in the two weeks I've been a "temporary" invalid so I hope you read on and benefit from my misfortune. Plus I'm going to share with you a video.

The Wake-Up Fall

We can learn so much from the so-called negative situations we all have to face from time-to-time in life. Not that we need them in order to grow spiritually, but they certainly help if we let such events teach us something.

While in New York over the Thanksgiving holiday, my son Michael and Lou his golden lab and I took a walk on the second day I arrived. It was a beautiful morning in Brooklyn and the two of them were showing me around their neighborhood. It was obviously a younger community with lots of renovation going on. Quaint, old buildings gutted and remodeled like new, young people walking, jogging and enjoying each other. The sidewalks were all lined with the trees that grow in Brooklyn, each succumbing to winter in its own way.

The Cleaner Guy (Jeffrey Jones) has shown you how to make your own,  toxic-free cleaning products in his series of cleaning videos and now he's going to show you how to clean Zone One. We're following the Flylady Flight Plan (which is the Zone Plan my sister, Peggy, and I developed and gave permission to Flylady to use on her website. So if you get the flight plan every day from her, you know we are now in Week One/ Zone One which is the dining room and entryway.)

Watch The Cleaner Guy cleaning my dining room.