Fit Mommy Friday - Verse Update

“I am the Aleph and the Tav,” says the Lord God, “who is, and who was, and who is to come, the Almighty.” Revelation 1:8

Love this...He is the aleph and the tav - teh beginning and the end, or in Greek He is the alpha and omega. However, He would never had said the Greek....His language is Hebrew. This word Aleph Tav in Hebrew is pronounced "et". It is the most commonly used word in the Hebrew scriptures, however it is never translated. The two letters themselves signify the Strong Covenant or Head of the Covenant. There is so much to these two little letters...and they are everywhere throughout scripture.

Here is a link to an interesting article by my favorite Hebrew researcher, Jeff Benner: http://www.ancient-hebrew.org/0_logo.html

Fit Mommy Friday

CHECK IN TIME!

So, this last week was pretty good...I am using SparkPeople App for Itouch, and I am really loving it! I am using it to keep track of my food intake as well as my calories burned from my workouts. It is fun to have a gadget to "play" with while working on this goal.

So, I don't think I met my water intake each day, sadly it seems like when I focus on one element another one gets lost. So, my goal for this week is to keep ALL my elements going strong, not dropping one to focus on another. I am sure I got close to my water intake, but just didn't quite make it.

I did great on not eating after dinner 5 nights out of 7. YAY!

I did all my workouts for the week. Which consisted of my pilates day, loving it still! Weights, cardio workouts combined with toning and today I went out and went for a walk/run. I am really enjoying the higher intensity of running in bursts throughout a strong walk.

I ate all my fruits and veggies each day...and I find it really helps make me more aware for my whole family. As of yesterday I decided I am going to work on getting lots of colors in our f/v intake as well. I can easily get stuck in a rut and I am trying to break out to get more great things in us! So, we bought pomegranates, yellow squash to go in salads, of course the usual suspects, such as green beans, peas, salads, etc.

Speaking of, here is a FABULOUS recipe for green beans...watch the fat in it, it can get a bit high if you are not careful.

Steam green beans in basket steamer until tender crisp. Meanwhile, chop up garlic cloves (as much as you like!) In a frying pan pour in a little olive oil and about a tablespoon of butter, warm these together. When green beans are done, add them to the frying pan along with the garlic, stir until garlic is tender. Season with salt, pepper and parmesan cheese. OH MY YUM!

I did my no sugar day, it took two tries, but I accomplished it. I am becoming so aware of just how easy it is to eat sugar. I cannot believe how many things it is in. How do people do it that have no sugar at all??? I have to start looking at my menus and foods I am buying. But jeepers, it's in catsup too!?

So, I am not telling you all how my goal of weighing is going, I am going to give a final tally on that at the end of the challenge. But I will give you a heads up...the scale is moving in the right direction. I just really didn't want this to be all about weight...more about my health.

Thanksgiving is coming up, my goal for this next week is to maintain all my current goals, up 3 of my days working out to 45 minutes instead of just 30 and to not overdo it on Tday. I will let you all know how it goes on Friday. Do you have any goals lined up to help get you through without blowing all your hard work?

Ok, that's my check in! I pray you all have a fabulous week, be strong, this week is Thanksgiving! I will be thinking about you!!

Fit Mommy Friday

Update...well, this last week went OK. Here is the breakdown,
I ate all my required fruits and veggies each day. I also successfully checked off my no sugar day, YIPPEE!! That one is a HUGE challenge, so I was quite pleased when I got it out of the way early on.

I did all my workouts as planned and even bumped it up a notch. I have an app on my itouch that has workouts for the treadmill or walking outdoors on it. It is great, I set it for a harder routine, headed off to the gym and ended up running for about 15 minutes at different intervals, the other 15 minutes were spurts of walking intermixed with uphill climbs. It was GREAT!! I also have to say, I am LOVING doing the pilates thing once a week. What a difference in how I feel overall when I get that day in. I almost feeling like doing another after because I feel so good. Notice: I said almost.

I have been drinking my water! This one is not too hard, but I can forget when I am not focusing on it as part of a challenge. Really all I drink is water for every meal....but I do like an occasional treat such as my Zevia pop. If you don't know about it, google it, great stuff.

I did my bible verse as you all saw! I love having a new one up each week, they sit right at my kitchen window so I see it all throughout the day. What a blessing that has been.

Ok, here is where I fell down, skinned my knees and sat there crying about it for a while. Well, not literally, but I broke my no eating after dinner rule 3 days this week. ACK! I did great last night, which I am very happy to report, since I had no reason to get back on track other than I wanted to, but it had not "payoff" for me like helping me win this challenge. I did it because I knew I needed to and I am very glad today I did.

So, today was weights day, it was great! I am finding this change up in my workout schedule to be very refreshing.

So, I am hoping everyone else had a good week too!

Apple picking

Last year we went apple picking and it was such a fun family activity! I was so excited when we were invited to go again! This time we went to our local pumpkin farm where they have apple orchards and were able to pick a big bag of apples. It was a lovely afternoon for being outside and enjoying our friends as well as some delicious apples.

Birthday Moments

So, I turned the big 4 0 this year, how weird is that?! It was a wonderful birthday for me too. My family and friends all came together to make it a special and memorable time. I will start off with my birthday at my moms, which was a wonderful and very special evening. You will see the table set beautifully by my mom and my daughter. My mom made tacos, spanish rice and beans. It was delicious and brought back memories. It was such fun to sit around the table and just enjoy the company. There was also an incredible cake for dessert!

Scott & my mom went in on an Itouch for me...what a wonderful gift! I really was surprised, even if I did figure out what it was before opening it! That for me, is just part of the fun!

On Sunday, my sweet friends coordinated a surprise birthday tea luncheon!! What a wonderful surprise that was! We enjoyed a full tea service, and lots of fun together. And I was truly utterly surprised when I walked in that room and saw if full of family and friends.

My children also went out of their way to make me feel special this year. Atira, my sweet and very thoughtful daughter, gave me a beautiful red wallet that can double as a purse so I can carry it while shopping, hands free! Jordan, my wonderfully conscientious son bought me slippers, he knows how much I count on and love my slippers each fall and winter season.

It was a wonderful birthday and turning 40 was no big deal. I am thankful for this age, there are so many blessings that go along with this time in life....I wouldn't trade it for anything.

Fit Mommy Friday - Verse Update

I know it is really late...but at least it is here!!

The Write Foundation

The Write Foundation is a Christian company offering curriculum designed to help reluctant writers. They offer three levels of study in their program:

• Level 1, Sentence to Paragraph Writing; Suggested ages 11-13
• Level 2, Paragraph Writing; Suggested ages 12-15
• Level 3, Essay Writing; Suggested ages 14-17

I received Level 2, Paragraph Writing. I will start off by telling you about their amazing customer service. My package arrived badly damaged, however the materials inside were in tact. Even so, the company wanted to make sure I had the best quality in the materials and offered to replace them immediately if I desired. They also decided to make changes in their shipping envelope choice. Their heart truly appears to be in helping their customers have the best experience with their product. It is a joy to work with a company that cares.

Now to the nitty gritty. I have to be honest from the start here, this was not a curriculum for my family. As I read through the instructions on how to use this product, I found myself frequently confused, and I hate to say it, but a bit bored by the style in which the information is shared. And I am not sure if it is just me or not, but I had a difficult time understanding what I was supposed to do with this curriculum. I finally decided to just jump in and see if it would start to make some sense if I was in their "getting my hands dirty".

I am happy to report, it did help....some. We got in there and started the work, my son really enjoyed the "Mind Benders", a game that you play here and there throughout the curriculum. We then moved on to lessons, I noticed that the instructions frequently reference group activities, I feel this may have been written more for a co-op than focused on a home setting. I also want to mention, there are many abbreviations and key words used throughout the curriculum, which I needed to memorize, I found this made the curriculum a bit more difficult for me as my poor brain is just filled to the brim with things I am supposed to remember!

Now, for the upside, as we did get into this, I could see the light shining in the distance. I can see how this curriculum offered some wonderful ways of teaching writing, that really helped my son see the mechanics of a well written paragraph. I believe if I dedicated some serious time to wrapping my brain cells around this curriculum, it would be very beneficial. And the passion the author has in sharing the beauty of writing is evident.

For more information, check out their very well equipped website. You can see free samples there, find out more about the author as well as so much more.

The Write Foundation offers this curriculum and level 3 for $65 plus tax/shipping/handling. Level 1 is sold for $100 plus tax/shipping/handling.


Disclaimer: I am a member of the TOS Homeschool Crew. As such I have received this product free of charge in exchange for my honest opinion and review of this product. I have not received any additional compensation for my review.

Fit Mommy Friday

A day late...oh well.

So, it was a GREAT week!

Again, I met my goal of exercising 5x, but actually I went an extra day to the gym with my hubby! Amazing! I did my day of pilates, my day of weights and a I went one day in the middle of the week and did Zumba! That was a lot of fun, although one song the lady played was a bit disturbing....

I did not drink my 8 glasses of water everyday. Almost everyday, bummer.

I did my no sugar day! And that is a tuffy for me. I had one day where I started out doing it, then without thinking I popped a bit of banana bread in my mouth, one bite and it was over. Ugh. Don't worry though, I made up for it, I ate a few more sugary things before the day was through, heck, if I am gonna blow it, why not just keep going? I know stinky attitude, but it was all within my calorie goal for the day and it was not true junk food, just things like jelly (which has sugar added) and other such silly things.

I did not eat after dinner 5 out of 7 days...YAY! I think this is one of my biggest accomplishments. I struggled for a very long time with night time snacking. Thank God for challenges like these that help me avoid that! And I have to say, brushing my teeth right after dinner is a huge deterrent!

And of course, I posted my bible verse...will work on another for tomorrow!

Can't wait to see how all you ladies did!!