Healty You Tip of the Day

Now.  Think of three things that make you happy.
Don't you feel better already?

Even better, join  me in starting a gratuities journal.  Everyday write down things you are thankful for. 
I'm sure you've read that over and over like I have, but I think if you just jump in and do it you will be happy you did.

Read more here .....
In a study by psychologists, Michael McCollough of Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas, and Robert Emmons of the University of California at Davis participants were divided into three groups the first asked to journal with no direction, the second to journal unpleasant experiences, and the third to journal what they were thankful for.  "The results indicated that daily gratitude exercises resulted in higher reported levels of alertness, enthusiasm, determination, optimism, and energy. In addition, those in the gratitude group experienced less depression and stress, were more likely to help others, exercised more regularly, and made greater progress toward achieving personal goals."

Healty You Tip of the Day

Drink water.
I know it's simple.  But you probably aren't getting enough. 
I know I'm not.
So right now.  Go.  Get yourself a glass of water.
Drink up.

January Goals Progress: kitchen countertops

How to get rid of the paper pile that seems to gather in the kitchen??
Create a tickler file.
I am amazed at how well this is working in my house.
Find information on how to create you own at simplemom.net
In addition to the month folders I've added a folder for tax documents so I have a place to put these as they come in and a folder for saved art work to be filed away at the end of school year.  I have concert tickets in the folder for the month of the concert.  Paperwork filed in the month it needs to be taken care of.  And no pile of stay paper laying in my kitchen.  It's a beautiful thing.

Healthy Home tip of the Day

Take off your shoes inside your door.  Shoes carry loads of pesticides, tar, oil and grease, and all the other toxins you walk through in the course of the day.  Do you really want to track that through your home?  I love classrooms where the children remove shoes indoors and change into house shoes, what a nice way to keep the children's area clean.  In fact, now is a great time to buy house shoes or slippers, they are always marked down between Christmas and spring, some are priced so low you could get a pair for this year and next.

January Goals Progress

Cleaning the vent on the hood of the stove.
I never even knew this job had to be done.  Go figure.
First I tried soaking in dish soap but they looked no better and I really didn't have the right kind of brush that would do much good.
Then I thought to run them through the dishwasher....much better....and super easy. 
Who Knew? 

January Goals

Are you looking to organize and have a smooth running household in 2012?  I certainly am.  I will be posting my monthly goals here (sure I should have done this at the beginning of the month, not half way through it), and I would love you to join me on my journey.

January Goals
--deep clean fridge
--clean out pantry
--rotate/flip mattresses, clean all mattress pads and blankets
--create meal planning system
--create grocery shopping system
--start daily devotionals
--write in gratuities journal daily
--clean stove hood vent filters
--clean kitchen counter tops and clean out cabinets

Healty You Tip of the Day

Do Something Different.
Changing your routine keeps your brain young.  This can be even simple things like taking a different way home.  Your challenge for tonight...if you choose to accept it...
Change where everyone sits at the dinner table.

Have Fun!

Healthy Home tip of the Day

Open your windows. 
It may be months before we have another nice day like this.  Let some of the bad air out and good air in.  Your body will thank you.

My Favorite Things: Children's Music

Have you heard Justin Roberts?  We really enjoy his music
Currently we are listening to the Best of the Laurie Berkner Band--lots of fun
Also Dino O'Dell from Kansas City who performs in St. Louis from time to time

Upcoming Events

At Wilson School in Saint Louis

Thomas W. Phelan, Ph.D.

1-2-3 Magic:  Effective Discipline for Children Age Two to Twelve

Thursday, February 9^th, 7:00 – 8:30 p.m.

Open to the public and offered at no charge.

Reservations recommended.

Speakerseries@wilsonschool.com

Wipe Recall

YIKES!!

http://www.stltoday.com/news/national/firm-in-wisconsin-has-to-recall-baby-wipes-again/article_944051b3-b8b7-5cb8-bcfc-67841e010939.html

Upcoming Events

Solving YOUR Weight Loss Puzzle

FREE

January 11 

7:00-8:00pm

Keller Williams Realty

 10936 Manchester Road

  Kirkwood

RSVP to sweetpea@usana.com

say you heard about it on Krypton Complete

My Favorite Things: Sappington Farmer's Market

Sappington Farmer's Market on Watson is a great locally owned grocery store that carries many local products.  My favorite part is that they have $10 off $50 purchase every Thursday.  You can print the coupon from home or pick one up on their add in-store.  The also have a rewards program in which you can accumalate points for free products.  And they have a CSA as well, though I've not had experience with it to share with you.

From their website:

"We’re the Missouri Farmer Owned Supermarket

Sappington Farmers Market is owned by a Missouri Cooperative effort of Small Family Farmers and Rural Entrepreneurs producing food the way it should be — naturally."

Here are my top picks:

• Store made peanut butter---yummy, it's found in the cheese case in the back of the store
• Windcrest Dairy Farms Yogurt--we love it! from Trenton, IL, cows not given hormones or antibiotics (unless they are sick), comes in regular and Greek styles, vanilla and plain
• Raw local honey
• local free range eggs in paper cartons 
• gluten free products if you need them
• pork from Todd Geisert Farms in Washington, MO
• local and hormone/antibiotic free chicken and beef, though I find this to be less predictable
• Salmon from Alaska caught and brought back by local fishermen

I like a lot about this store.  In fact I am there almost every week.  What I wish they did a better job of is labeling where the produce labeled "homegrown" come from.  Are they local?  Can I research the farm to find out what their practices and philosophies are?  A lot of time I end up not buying a product because I don't have this information and it might be exactly what I am looking for.

St. Louis Events

Upcoming Event at Cheryl's Herbs

Thursday, January 26, 2012

7:00 - 9:00 pm

HEALING NIGHT

Our topics this month are:

How to Implement Self-Organization Skills & Self-Management

with Jo Lena Johnson

and 

Practical Tips & Easy Methods for Aromatherapy, Herb & Food Preparations for a Busy Lifestyle

with Cheryl Hoard.

Preschool Project: Giving

This the season for charitable giving, but how to teach that to a preschooler can be difficult.  Here is what we did this year.

My son's preschool collected personal care items one week and food the next.  For the personal care items he and I sat down to make a shopping list, I explained we needed to list "things we used to take care of our bodies."  Our finished list was: soap, shampoo, toothbrushes, and band aids.  I would have never thought of this last items myself, but certainly it is something the charities could use.   By every word on the list I drew an icon so that at the store my son could "read" the list and check off the items as we put them in the cart.  For most items we purchased both a kid and adult version (i.e. children's and adults' toothbrushes). 

For food we had less of a process.  My husband and son had one cart for charity and I had another for our own family.  We had coupons for $7 off $30 so we divided and loaded each cart with $30 worth of food.  (some of which went to the school's drive and some of which went to my husband's work drive).  We tried to get high protein items as those seemed to be in greater need.

Finally we got a name off the giving tree at our parish.  We chose a 4-year-old boy so that our son could help choose a gift for a boy like himself.

All items went into a bin I kept in a corner of the kitchen.  When my son went to school each day he went to the bin and loaded his backpack with the items being collected and once at school he unloaded his items into the box in his classroom.  We spread it out over several days so that he could do the work himself.  We wrapped the gift from the giving tree together and he took it to church and put it under the tree there. 

Now, do I think my son learned a great lesson in giving.... probably not.  But he did practice the act.  And like anything else practice makes perfect. 

Berry Booster Nutrimeal Shake

One of my favorite shake combinations

Frozen Blueberries (I buy the wild ones from Trader Joes)
Coconut Milk
1 Pack Usana Booster C
3 Scoops Usana Vanilla Nutrimeal

I think it is yummy!  Give it a try. 

Preshool Projects: cereal bird feeder

What a fun and easy project.

Materials needed:
---O cereal
---ribbon

Directions:
1. string cereal on ribbon,
2.  tie in circle,
3.  hang on tree (make sure you hang on a branch with one under for the bird to perch on). 
note:  I tried twine and string first, but they did not make it through the cereal as well.  It worked much better with a thin ribbon with a taped end.

Great workout for those little fingers, not messy (especially if you have a dog to eat up any dropped cereal), no expensive materials, and no worries about the little ones putting the materials in their mouths.  My boys loved it.

What's for Dinner? Chicken and Stock

Last night I baked an Amish Chicken from Straub's.  I first sliced onions from Dry Dock Farm's CSA and put on the bottom on my Pampered Chef deep covered baker.  Then I rolled a lemon and pierced it all over with a fork and put in the chicken cavity.  I laid the chicken on to of the onions and poured homemade organic garlic infused olive oil over the whole bird and topped with sea salt.  I put the lid on the baker set the over at 425 and roasted for an hour, the result was a moist bird that my family loved (I am a vegetarian, so I can't speak for it myself).

After dinner I removed the remaining chicken from the bone and threw the bones and drippings into my stock pot and poured in water to cover.  I brought to a boil then added organic carrots, onion and sage (from Dry Dock Farm), some white wine I had in the freezer from a bottle that wasn't finished, a few whole cloves, salt and pepper.  I reduced the heat to medium low and simmered for three hours.  I then strained the pot and put the stock in the fridge.  Today I will skim the fat off the top and pour into jars to freeze.  The next time I make soup or have a recipe that calls for stock I will reach for my freezer and pull out a high quality stock that I know exactly what went into.

My Favorite Cleaner

one part vinegar
one part hydrogen peroxide
a few drop tea tree oil

I scrub my toilet and tub with baking soda first but use this as my bathroom cleaner.  It's a great multipurpose cleaner and disinfectant.  

Find out more about cleaning with vinegar here
http://www.vinegartips.com/scripts/pageViewSec.asp?id=7
Find out more about cleaning with hydrogen peroxide here
http://www.using-hydrogen-peroxide.com/using-hydrogen-peroxide-for-cleaning.html
and about tea tree oil and other natural cleaners at one of my favorites

http://simpleorganic.net/how-to-naturally-clean-a-house-after-illness-strikes/

Happy (and Healthy) Cleaning everyone!

Nutrimeal Post Workout

It is essential to replenish your body post workout and allow it to repair by eating something low fat with carbohydrates and protein.  If possible we should do this within 30 minutes of completing the workout.  This is when I grab a Nutrimeal shake.  Nutrimeal is a quick and nutritious meal replacement with 230 calories, 1 gram saturated fat, 8 grams fiber, 32 grams carbohydrates, and 17 grams sugar (based on one serving of Dutch Chocolate made with water/ice).  Unfortunately I was out of Nutrimeal the other day and purchased a post workout shake made at my gym.  But, I certainly learned another reason why Nutrimeal is the right choice for me....

Nutrimeal $2.81 per serving

Low Carb protein shake at my gym.....$5.31!!

Read more about post workout nutrition here:
http://www.sparkpeople.com/resource/nutrition_articles.asp?id=1082

Thankfully my autoship is on the way.