Restarting the Blog

It's been long enough to have a baby since my last post - but not to worry, there are no announcements of new kids in the family. Rather I've just taken a break from writing - all writing. But I'm thinking maybe it's time to get back into it, and that restarting my blog might be a good first "baby" step towards developing healthy new writing habits.

But I am one reader short now. My mother passed away in November. I've missed her so much, still do, and there are so many times I wish I could talk to her again. She always read my blog, and even though she rarely posted a comment, she often verbalized thoughts to me about my posts. I'm going to miss that too. She was a remarkable woman, full of integrity, compassion, and candid honesty.

So for any readers who stumble across this blog or those who are still subscribed, please know that I appreciate hearing from you. I miss my mother’s oftentimes un-asked-for advice, and especially its truthfulness. I’d love to hear it from you too.

Stay tuned for weekly posts!

Even Better Than Organic!

To help with my new healthy eating lifestyle, I have found myself spending more and more time in the produce department at the grocery store. I've even forged ahead with buying organic, since it makes sense that less chemicals in the growing process can only mean healthier food. But what has happened is my grocery bill has went through the roof! Big time.

Ahh, but I've found something even better than organic. It's grow-your-own! And it's what's for dinner... and lunch... and even breakfast!

Green beans - on the menu for dinner

I'm thinking Fried Green!

Collard greens - delicious and nutritious

Strawberries with breakfast

It's been a real learning process to grow fruits and vegetables in Texas where the summer sun is truly killer (a veggie killer). We've learned to plant early, in a raised bed, and with good soil. We are reaping the benefits and loving every minute of it.

Getting Fit - The Last 5-10 Pounds

I've been working to get fit for 6+ months now, having started with exercise last fall and adding a healthy diet as a New Year's resolution. To date, I've lost between 15-20 pounds, so I know it's working. But it's working as slow as slow gets. And in everything I've read, they say the last 5-10 pounds are the hardest.

Some people say it's self-sabotage. Or that because you are close to your goal you ease up and become less disciplined. Others simply say the weight loss becomes so slow that you give up.

I'm determined to make it and to keep it off, and wanted to share some of what's worked for me so far and ask for your advice for continued success.

Here's what's worked for me so far.

• Setting the clock weekdays for 1 hour earlier and using the time for a morning workout. I mix up the workouts too, some mornings doing yoga and ab exercises, other mornings cardio or workouts with weights.
• Establishing my daily caloric output. There are a lot of online tools to do this, but my favorite is www.caloriecount.com. This site lets you plug in your body type and activity level, and calculates approximately how many calories you expend in a day. Then it gives you the opportunity to add specific activities, like yoga, bicycling, or cleaning for example. I'm sedentary, having a job where I sit most of the day, but I add in my daily workout and any additional physical activities (like when I spend 4 hours doing intense cleaning).
• Once I know how many calories are being burned in a day, all I have to do is keep my caloric intake less than that number. And calorie count helps you track that as well (along with your nutrient intake).

Sounds simple enough. But it is hard. Hard to get up early in the morning when everyone else is sleeping. Hard to limit my caloric intake when I really would LOVE to have one of those girl scout cookies (actually I would prefer the delicious, best I've ever had in my life, coconut cupcakes that my neighbor baked and brought over recently).

So I guess the main thing is to keep plugging away at it, even after a day of blowing the caloric deficit or omitting the daily workout. The main thing is to get it right on a routine basis, and not sweat the mess ups.

Your Story - A Poem

Recently, my daughter was given an assignment to write a poem following the format of the Mother to Son poem by Langston Hughes. The theme was "life" and metaphor was required. What she wrote is so beautiful, that I had to share it here.

Your Story

by Katherine Tuttle

Well, Grace, I'll tell you:
Life is your story written in ink.
It has misspelled words,
And pages missing.
There will be times when you don't know what to write,
And there will be times when your pen runs out of ink -
Dry.
But don't quit writing.
I've been correcting my mistakes,
And I've been turning and filling up my pages.
Keep writing because if you do,
You will be able to cross out your mistakes, or tear out the page,
And start the chapter over again.
Grace, don't stop writing.
Don't let the jumbled sentences get in your way.
Keep going.
Don't let your story be unfinished.
Don't put your pen down yet
Because your story is still ahead of you.
That is life, your story written in ink.

What's Your Spiritual Gift?

I give thanks to my God always for you because of the grace of God that has been given you in Christ Jesus, for in every way you have been enriched in him, in speech and knowledge of every kind — just as the testimony of Christ has been strengthened among you — so that you are not lacking in any spiritual gift as you wait for the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ. He will also strengthen you to the end, so that you may be blameless on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. God is faithful; by him you were called into the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.

1 Corinthians 1:4-9

At church, several weeks ago now, our pastor preached a sermon that talked about spiritual gifts. It was a good and moving service, and I was quite taken aback when the pastor went around the room and individually named spiritual gifts that each person in our congregation was blessed with. Wow.

She really nailed my daughters. She named faith as a spiritual gift of my oldest, and joy, a gift of my youngest. What really surprised me was the gift she named for me. Teaching. Teaching? Really?

Funny, but when I was a younger working adult and went back to college, I wanted to get a degree so that I could become a teacher, but the counselors discouraged that choice, and so I focused on marketing instead. And my jobs since then have all been in sales-related fields. My passion has always been writing. So where does teaching fit into all of this?

But it does. Sales and marketing is a matter of educating a prospect on the benefits they will receive with your product or service. So I am teaching in my job. And as far as writing, it would be swell to think that something I wrote had an impact on someone in a manner that they felt they learned something.

So teaching as a spiritual gift is cool. And I hope to learn other meaningful ways in which to teach.

Book Reviews - The Time Traveler's Wife and The Giver

Since I am behind on numerous book reviews, I'm going to bundle a few together and keep them brief so as to get these posted as quickly as possible.


The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger

The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

What I liked - the fascination with time travel and the relationship between Henry and Clare at various stages/ages in their lives.

What I didn't like - at times it became confusing and I found I would have to look back in the book to reorientate myself with the timing.

I do want to see the movie now that I've read the book.



The Giver by Lois Lowry

The Giver by Lois Lowry

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I really enjoyed this classic young readers story about 12-year old Jonas, who is selected to be the Receiver of Memory in a community where roles are assigned and everything in life is orderly, predictable, same, and perfect. Or so the community believes. As Jonas receives memories of generations; pain and pleasure, warmth and cold, even color, he learns about and makes a life changing decision. Unfortunately, the ending is unclear and left to interpretation, the only reason I didn't give this story 5 stars.

Double thumbs up - it's kid friendly and a book I can enjoy even with my 10-year old!

New Years Resolutions for 2011

Anyone reading - please feel free to hold me to these. I appreciate your checking in with me from time to time to see how I'm doing and to keep me honest. I'll do the same for you if you like, just let me know in the comments.

2011 New Years Resolutions and Goals

1. Get fit - enough so that I can wear a 2-piece bathing suit this summer (if I decide I want to).
2. Eat healthier - less meat and more fruits and veggies - the closer to being how it is offered from the Earth, the better.
3. Read the bible, cover to cover. Something I've always wanted to do and have started a few times, but never finished.

Realistic? I think so. Anyway I'm keeping it simple to better my odds of success. Too many years' goals get lost and abandoned, and I want these to stick. Good luck to everyone in the new year!

To Blog or Not to Blog

My last blog post was September 13 and it was a book review. Prior to that, I had been fairly regularly posting to this blog, and I had been keeping up with my blog subscriptions. All that has changed however, and I'm wondering if I want to get back into it now or not.

I truly enjoyed all the blogs I followed, but I found it to be a tremendous drain on my time. Maybe I subscribed to too many, as I did enjoy reading a variety of posts and interesting tidbits from various authors. It just began to take too much time.

And so did writing posts. And I always questioned if it was interesting enough to justify the time it would take for anyone to actually read the post. But I so enjoyed it! So I'm contemplating.

I've read about a zillion books (OK, a slight exaggeration), and could have a ton of book reviews to post. Not sure about other content though. Anyway, anyone want to weigh in. . .?