New Years Resolutions

I don't like to call them that, because if I fall off the wagon, do I have to wait until next New Years to try again? I guess this year I will work monthly. I have a lot of resolutions I want to achieve, but if I break them down to monthly, I may have more success.




Number one...I want to eat healthier....I strive now for five days a week, I am going to continue this. I can indulge on the weekends, and eat healthy every other day of the week. I also want to eat Sunday dinner every week at my dining room table. Other days are optional, I want every Sunday to be home with my husband and kids, the only exception is when we are out of town. Take note: my dining room table includes my patio table outside in the warm months.

Next, I want to remove negative people from my life....or at least, keep them at a safe distance. If someone does not have a positive attitude, and treat others positively, I don't want to be around them. This will be hard, as there are one or two relatives who are very negative, in fact, I never hear a postive thing from them about my family, so as long as I can keep them at a safe distance, I am fine with that.

I want to exercise more often, whether it be playing tennis with my sisters, hubby and kids, or friends, going for walks, doing workout dvds or whatever, I need to keep variety in my work out for muscle confusion and to keep it fun.

Lastly, I want to strive to meditate everyday at least once a day and once a week, a really long meditation session.

These are my goals for January, and if I fall off the wagon, I will just start back up again.

Zoning laws

I am trying to understand the reasoning for some of the zoning laws.
I thought that I owned my home.

I have to pay taxes just to own this home. Then, the government is going to tell me what I can and cannot do. I have a decrepit fence that I inherited when I bought this home. It is falling over, has holes in it and looks a mess. I must pay money to get a permit to replace my fence, but my neighbors can spray their lawns and trees with pesticides that are poisonous to wildlife, our children and our environment and linger in the environment for decades, and do not need a permit to do so.

So replacing my ratty fence with a nicer fence that hurts no one, is not allowed without permission and paying a fee, but they can poison the world, just so their lawns don't have dandelions and need no permission to do so. I remember reading an article about a woman who was told to cut her wildflowers down that she planted, because they were "weeds". The definition of a weed is a plant that is not valued where it is growing. So who needs to value this ? The homeowner that planted the wildflowers to attract birds or the government, who leads us to believe this is a free country, yet we never really own our homes.

Chew your food!

Back in the 70's, when I was a child, my grandmother had a magazine with Suzanne Somers on the cover of it. Well, she was just the most beautiful person in the world to me then (and don't get me wrong, she is still very pretty, I only hope to age as well as her)....anway, I opened up the magazine and there was an article asking her how she stays so thin. She said, she chews her food. If I remember correctly, she mentioned that she chewed it, umteen times...I forget how many exactly, but she said by chewing her food very well, she was able to tell when she was full, when she was full, not when she had over eaten. Plus, you are not getting the great taste of it. Chew those favorite treats well, you eat less of them, and be able to savor the taste while eating them.

I got an email from sparks people* (http://www.sparkpeople.com/) the other day about chewing your food and enjoying it. Most people inhale their food, which is not good for your digestive system and also, you are eating more than you should.

*Sparks people is a great site for weight control...it's free, you can sign up for motivational emails, keep track of exercise you do daily, keep a food diary online, and make your own page, simliar to myspace, but to chat with other's looking to control their weight.

My favorite place to get calorie counts for my food journal (which I find easier to hand write in a notebook, rather than logging online for keeping a food journal) is...

http://www.calorieking.com/ as recommended by Jillian Michaels.

wine charms

I make my own wine charms out of shinky dinks, swarovski crystals and other charms. I stamp the blank shrinky dink material, with things like cute characters for generalized charms to personalized charms with names stamped on them.

These are great for parties, and also for kids. My kids like to drink grape juice, water etc from wine glasses, and so do we. You can also put these charms on the pop top of soda cans to tell whose is whose, and coffee mugs too.

I cannot take credit for these wine charms pictured here, but they are the basic type of layout for my wine charms. I did not take pictures of mine. Some have name tags, animals, bugs, etc...and some have silver charms instead of shrinky dinks.

I actually got the idea from Long Trout Winery, they have shinky dink charms of their fish logo they gave to us when we bought a case of wine. It did not have any beads on it, it was just the fish logo shrinky dink, but it was so cute, I had to make them.

My family as elves

Merry Christmas

My family as elves

http://elfyourself.jibjab.com/view/B5xDFWpb8h66FDExWdwG

Pantry Challenged

I joined a great group called, Pantry Challenged. It's a yahoo group with some great gals (and maybe guys) where they talk about kitchen issues, using the foods in the pantry, how to stock the pantry, ideas etc.
Its a fun group. Nice members.
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PantryChallenged/
Here is the homepage description
This list was the original Pantry Challenged list that became Pantrychallengedandfrugal at one point. We've decided to "reclaim" this list and make it active again. All topics related to homemaking, budgeting, shopping, cooking cheaply, living frugally, menuplanning, eating out of our pantries, decluttering, couponing, and just trying to save and get by are all welcome. "Whats for Dinner?" topics are welcome as well as recipes and even a little off topic chat! This list has a "Closed Membership" setting so the only way to join is by invite or direct add if you allow it. If you would like an invite or would like to be added directly please email the list owner and mods and request so. Be sure to include where/how you heard of us in your request along with a brief introduction as we are a private list and not listed in Yahoogroups directory.