I am STARTing SOMEthing NEW!!!

Time seems to stand still in this time of waiting for our family to increase by one via Haiti adoption...

Some days I handle it well; other days, not so much.
One thing is for sure-- life keeps moving forward, with or without me.

In The Waiting:

__I am SO grateful for the times of spiritual growth and reflection and learning (trying to) the lessons God is teaching me.
__I am thankful for the time to read parenting books on adoption and trauma and the realities of older child adoption and discuss topics with other adoptive parents.
__I appreciate the special supportive friends I am making in the cyber adoption world, and drawing closer to the friends I have right here.
__I also am glad for the time we have to "get our house in order".  For our family, this means preparing W's room (oh which color scheme and decor?), getting our house better organized (oh my!), working towards our goal of debt free living (help us, Jesus!), getting a handle on our schedule (um, remind me to put that on the calendar...), etc. etc. etc.

This time of waiting is also a FABULOUS TIME for our family to turn our crazy days and hectic eat-on-the-run and exercise?-what's-that? life around.  I am tired of being a 40 (something) mom who sleeps poorly, lacks energy and has headaches triggered by lazy nutrition.  I have been feeling convicted for months to make improvements in my health and my family's...and slowly but surely God is convincing me.

To be completely honest, organization doesn't come naturally for me, I don't really much like cooking, I'm a major sweet tooth, and going to the gym is low on my list of enjoyable things,,,THEREFORE I need accountability to have success in these areas.  Putting this out here in Blog Land does offer me some level of accountability, and to make it stick...I am starting a New Blog.
I have a title and a new blog site but no content yet.  But I will.  I've got several posts swirling around in my head.  I have great hopes that this "Accountability Blog" will inspire and challenge me and our family to continue the baby steps we've been making towards living a more natural and healthy lifestyle.

Some of the topics I'll be writing about:

1)  Essential Oils -- This is a huge topic and super fun!  I've been using essential oils on myself and my family for several months for preventative and alternative health, and I am loving the positive results.  Buh-bye, OTC's!  Hello, natural healing!  I will definitely be sharing our experiences and offering tips on how you can add essential oils into your daily life.  I want every family to reap the benefits we are, and more!

2)  DIY Natural body products and cleaning products for the home -- I've been creating products for myself and my girls (my hubby, uh, he's kind of against lotion - ha!) and the results have amazed me!  I've also love the cleaning products I'm making with all natural ingredients.  They are safe for my kids and pets, and they make my house smell great (of course! cuz they've got essentials oils in 'em too!).

3)  Quick & Easy Healthy Meals (did I mention *easy*?) --  The fewer the ingredients, the better!  I want to cook and bake meals my family will love, that are wholesome (and not that frozen, processed, stuff (uh, don't look in our freezer)), that will be fun for me to prepare...because that would make me want to do it more often, see? ;-)  Noelle, our oldest daughter would dearly love to have a garden.  I'm not so sure we have the time in our lives to manage a garden, but who knows what the future holds.  We did grow strawberries and tomatoes this summer.  The tomatoes were quite yummy, however, the strawberries kind of fizzled out early in the season.  Soooo the gardening idea is on the back burner for now.

4)  Reading labels -- This was probably my first step towards improving our family's diet.  I've been doing this for a couple of years now.  I read labels every time I grocery shop.  I am looking to avoid artificial colors (wooo do these ever mess with Noelle!), artificial flavors, artificial preservatives, high fructose corn syrup and partially hydrogenated oils.  I am also becoming wise to dough conditioners, hormones, GMO's, and many other chemicals that the food industry is adding to the items on grocery store shelves.

5)  Exercise for the Whole Family --  I have been participating in an Aqua Pilates class for several months and really enjoy it.  However, I have to get up at 5:30 am 3 times a week to participate.  I started out strong but have been less consistent in recent weeks.  I have plenty of excuses I could share--some of them are quite good--but I won't bore you with my whine.  I am currently looking for alternative exercise routines since, as a chronic poor sleeper, exercising that early sometimes makes me feel worse.  I may have found a workout routine one that my hubby, the girls and I can actually do together every morning.  And it's only 4 minutes long.  Seriously!!  More on that later.

The other thing I could and should do is to get back into my martial arts workouts.  My husband and I earned our black belts in the Lung Fu Do system several years ago, but I've really gotten away from keeping up my skills.  Maybe writing a get-me-and-my-family-healthy-Accountability-blog will inspire me?  I can sure hope!

5)  Probiotics -- I am a big believer in supporting and improving gut health by taking potent daily probiotics.  I've tried different ones over the years, but only this year have found a couple of quality brands that have really helped my digestive issues.  Studies have shown that there is a strong connection between how healthy our gut is (the amount of healthy bacteria vs. the bacteria that makes you sick) and how we feel throughout our entire body.  Of course, if we eat crud all day, popping probiotics ain't gonna make much difference at all.  I know that as I improve what I eat, my (expensive, gulp) probiotics I take every night will work even better.

6) Margin & Balance --  This is not a health topic, per se, but having a life that lacks Spiritual, Physical, Emotional and Relational balance is an unhealthy life.  Eric and I serve in full time ministry and are the kind of people who love to dream big dreams with God.  We love to partner with other passionate ministry minded individuals.  Being involved with, and serving the people in our local community, as well as supporting ministries in other countries is a priority for us.  Historically we have tended to take on more than we can "effectively" balance.  We've said "yes" to things that were good but maybe not best.

We want to grow and improve in this area of our life.  It is important for us to be healthy, balanced individuals who can effectively lead the people of our church into fulfiling service in God's kingdom.  We desire to have margin in our life so we can plan times of intentional outreach to the most needy and hurting people in our community.  But most of all, we want to be healthy and balanced parents who are able to provide the safe, loving and nurturing environment our adopted children need to grow and heal and become the best people they can be in Christ! :)

7)  Etc.

You probably noticed I did not even mention Organic vs. Conventional foods.  I definitely agree that organic is the best way to go, but for our family it is not financially feasible to go strictly organic.  I purchase organic produce as often as I can, but sometimes I have to be satisfied with conventionally grown because I want my family to eat fruits and veggies.  I do suspect that as we see organically grown and produced foods becoming more mainstream, the price point will go down.  That will be a great day! :)

So friends, I hope that you will join me over on my new blog!  I would love for you to read and post your comments so we can have helpful discussions about having healthier families.  When I have things up and running, I will post the link here.

See you soon!

Jennifer