Eat healthy food.            

Have healthy children.    

                                           

                    Have happy children.      

 

 

 

 

Come and join my bonus daughter Kristi Marsh and our two adorable grandsons Tanner and Kyle as we all explore what is called a CSA, or just simply a shared farm! Kristi and the boys show us how much fun it is to actually see where your food comes from and take part in growing it. You'll never have to wrangle your child to the floor again pleading “one more bite of green beans!” when they actually pick them themselves. Your kids will love the fresh taste that just can't be found in the supermarket aisles and will leave them loving the crunchy, sweet taste of sun washed fruits and vegetables. For more great ideas on ways to live a healthy life be sure and visit Kristi's website at choosewiser.com!

 

 

Did you know the Easter Bunny is going low-carb?

It may not look that way at Walmart, but it’s true. As an alternative to candy, he’s filling the hollow eggs with notes of appreciation, motivation and inspiration and you can do it too.

You know how we all love fortune cookies, well your kids will love hunting for eggs and getting note-after-note of encouragement, fun activities and surprises to find.

Your dentist will be happy too! (Well, we hope so anyway.)

Here’s the list we got from the Big Bunny.

        Redeem this not for a foot rub.
        Redeem this note for a back rub.
        This note is good for one download at iTunes.
        Redeem this note for a book, next time we go shopping.
        Your laughter makes us happy.

 

 

Are you thinking about Easter? 

 

 

 

Do you have visions of sugarplums dancing in your head?

 

Does your mouth water at the luscious looking Easter candy being displayed at your grocery store?

If so, I think you’ll find this very enlightening.

I received this email this morning and it became the subject of my blog.

        Dear Pam,

Feeding Babies Healthy Food

Leanne Ely, The Dinner Diva asked me if I’d like to write for you all and I felt like I was back in school and got an assignment from a favorite teacher. Her assignment: Write about feeding little ones.

 I was at a neighborhood block party and one of my neighbors was there with her nine-month-old (he’s seven now). This was a baby that was delivered at home with the help of a midwife. No anesthetic, no doctor, no problem. My neighbor was in labor one hour! She brought the baby to the party in some kind of a hammock hung from her neck and he was in a fetal position as he happily slept through the first half of the party.

When it came to feeding time (I love to watch babies eat) the mother hauled out a Tupperware container full of the most ghastly looking green gruel from her diaper bag. (I’m sure that by the time the concoction went through the baby’s digestive system, it looked exactly the same in his diaper as it looked going into his mouth.)

 

My kind of plan!

 

Are you following a weekly plan that helps you run a cozy, organized home?

When my sister Peggy and I developed the infamous, get organized 3x5 card file system outlined in our book Sidetracked Home Executives: from pigpen to paradise, we created a weekly plan that included a “free day.”

 

On that special day, we could stay in our pajamas all day, eat over the sink and slouch around and do nothing if we wanted to. I still have that day only I call it My Day. I do what I want and I don’t do anything I don’t want to do. I pretend it’s my birthday to get into the mood.

The interesting thing I’ve discovered over the years of enjoying My Day is that I accomplish so much in the name of being selfish about doing what I want to do! It continues to amaze me that what I’ve been preaching about for 40 years is profoundly true.

Your attitude is way more important than fact,

Stop the habits that got you to this place where

you want to lose weight.

 When you decide to lose weight by eating healthy; until you establish the new habits to support the lighter body you want, you’ll have to stay alert to the way you were eating and what you were thinking when you created an overweight body. In other words, you have to stop the habits that got you to this place where you want to lose weight, and establish new habits that’ll get you that healthy body you want.

 A habit becomes a habit when you think and do something over and over (about 21 days) until it’s automatic. Once it’s a habit, good or bad, you no longer have to think about the action in order to do it. When you are establishing a new habit, you have to be mindful of the thought that created the old habit in order to be successful at changing.

 I had to strip my kitchen of the stuff that was making me fat

I was 65, when I lost 35 pounds, so don’t give me any guff that you’re too old to lose weight. I knew I’d be trying to talk myself into my old ways of thinking (and subsequently eating) every time I opened the cupboard or the refrigerator, so if I wanted to eliminate that constant self-bickering, I had to strip my kitchen of the stuff that was making me fat. (For me, carbs were the culprits.) I dumped all the sugar, flour, rice, pasta, ice cream, corn and any processed foods like bread and cereal. That way I removed the possibility of those arguments and reduced the chance to talk myself into eating something to one place, the grocery store!

You can’t eat it if you don’t buy it

 

We want to get organized for several reasons. We think that if we get organized, we’ll save time, money and energy. That’s true. Disorganization causes us to spend time looking for our stuff, more money because we buy stuff we already have but can’t find and energy just being overwhelmed, discouraged, and angry with ourselves.

By establishing just a few simple habits, we can train ourselves out of many of our messes and save time, money and energy. Our brains were wired for establishing habits, and when we have a healthy brain, it takes about 21 days to establish a habit. So I think it’s logical we should take care of our brains first.

That’s why I chose these 3 important habits to establish, because they’ll lead to health and a healthy body makes for a healthy brain and a healthy brain leads to well-being.

1   Go to bed early

Do you think you’d be happier if you got more sleep? Do you think the world would be a happier place if its residents all got more sleep? Here’s an excerpt from Chapter Three of The Sidetracked Sister’s Happiness File entitled Early to Bed Early to Rise. It’s a letter from Napoleon’s teacher.

Eiffel Elementary School                                                  June 6, 1777

7312 Rue des Hors d’Oeuvres

Paris, France 10046

 Dear Mr. and Mrs. Bonaparte:

I think you are probably aware of some of the problems we are having with Napoleon at school. I believe they began early in the year when some of the other boys teased him about his size. I have spoken to the other children and their parents about the importance of being kind to those who are different. However, I don’t believe that the teasing is the main reason for your son’s troubles. I think Napoleon needs more sleep.

During class I often see his head on his desk, and although he stays on task and has no problem understanding the work, he is often listless and irritable. Perhaps you, as his parents, could see to it that your son gets to bed at a reasonable hour so that he will be able to cope better in class and on the playground.

Sincerely,

Morrie Chevalier    (Third Grade Teacher)

P.S. Napoleon is a good leader and when he gets the other boys on his side he is able to make them do whatever he wants. (Good or bad.) I truly believe that more sleep will help him to blossom into a fine citizen. Perhaps this summer you can establish a routine bedtime for him.

 

Think of how the course of history might have been altered if the Bonapartes had heeded Mr. Chevalier’s advice.

Are you like Napoleon and not getting enough sleep, either? I’ve found that the best way to get more rest is to have an earlier bedtime and make it a habit. You can purchase the Happiness File by clicking on Napolean.

Are you always looking for ways to lose weight and keep it off? To really lose weight you have to change your lifestyle (especially if overeating is part of it).

Recently there was an article that dealt with the psychology of overeating. It told about a couple of studies you might be interested in. One was conducted by researchers with extraordinary credentials from prestigious educational institutions, but the article concluded with this quote: “Ultimately, all this research shows we need to understand the brain chemistry behind overeating a lot better. Until we do, there won’t be any really significant advances in medications to help people lose weight,” Dr. David Herber, a professor of medicine and director of the Center for Human Nutrition at the University of California, Los Angeles.

1. You have the power to change your brain chemistry

You have the power to change your brain chemistry with your thinking and feeling. In one of the studies young women were asked to sit in a brain scanner while drinking a chocolate milk shake. Half the women were told that the yummy treat was a regular shake; the other half were told it was a low-fat version. In truth they all got the same shake.

As the researchers watched their monitors, the reward centers of the shake drinkers’ brains lit up when the women consumed the shakes. But the women who thought they were getting a low-fat shake had much less activation. In other words, “knowing” that the shake was low fat took a lot of the fun out of the experience. Low-fat labels may backfire by making food seem less tasty, according to scientists at the Oregon Research Institute. Nelly (my inner child) can attest to that! She hates those words “low fat” on a label!

Because of these fancy scanners we now know that we have a “reward center” in our brains! I know we can activate that center by having positive and loving talks with ourselves. Here’s an example before I tell you about the other study.

One of my all-time favorite low-carb cooking recipes is what I call “Cauliflower-oni and Cheese." Who needs that carb-loaded, slimy macaroni when you can cook up a yummy, steamy head of cauliflower and leave your pickiest eater drooling for more? In this fun, how-to cooking video, I share with you the secrets of happy cows from Ireland, and the joys of a forty year old pot. (The kind on the stove.) This is sumptuous, guilt-free dining, and you'll want to make plenty for the crowds that will be begging for seconds and thirds and the recipe.

I’m grateful to each and every one of you who are raising fabulous citizens of our next generation. It’s an awesome responsibility. Keep up the good work, don’t get too serious (your kids can help you with that) and learn something every day from them (they have much to teach us). 

Now that the House Fairy has a brand new website, I’m so happy with her new and improved programs. More than 20,000 families are House Fairy friendly and I love that the programs are for life! Once you are a member you are always a member and there are no dues or monthly fees and the House Fairy and I get to keep coming up with helpful tools that you’ll receive as they come. I also have some exciting things happening and you’ll be the first to know what’s new. 

Because you’re interested in helping your kids establish good habits that’ll serve them throughout their lives, I’d like to share something that occurred to me about habits.

Join NOSS and Establish Good Habits

 The only way to establish a habit is to put the action you want to become a habit into a routine. You’ll have to do the action enough times for it to become automatic. In order to do that, you have to be an option stopper. Don’t give yourself the option of not doing the action you want to have become a habit. 

For example, if you want exercise to be part of your routine, then you have to stop giving yourself options out of exercise. Options abound. Until exercise is a habit, your options will always look better than exercise. But if you’ll be an option stopper, one day you’ll realize you have a new habit!