Tag Archives: Christmas

Focus on the prize

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Thanksgiving week here in the U.S.  Thursday we will give thanks for our many blessings and watch football, spend time with family and friends, and nap after a ridiculously huge and delicious meal.  The next day many will head out and shop ’til they drop, thus signifying the start of a month-long season of eating, drinking and generally living in gluttonous excess in celebration of the birth of Our Saviour.  Weird, huh?

The average weight gain during “the holidays” is reported to be about 7 pounds per American, other studies show its more realistically about a pound…..for my, it’s about 4. Average spending per American is about $700 during the holidays.  No wonder we are all stressed.  I was thinking about all of this the other day and decided THIS year I am approaching the holidays differently.  Much differently.

I enlisted my girlfriend who I work with and another girlfriend who I know does EVERYTHING for EVERYONE all year-long and can use some de-stressing as well.

It’s simple, really.

One day at a time.

  • Focus on regular exercise throughout the remainder of the year.  Shooting for a minimum of 20 minutes a day.  That is NOTHING!!!!!  Just plan it.  A quick 20 minute walk before your day gets going.  20 minutes while dinner is in the over.  20 minutes after dinner.  Whatever.  The time is there.  Just do it.
  • Healthy eating choices.  Log food or plan it out.  Be AWARE of what is going in.  So much temptation.  Ask yourself, “is it worth it”?

This season is about Jesus.  Let us focus on Him.  Let us treat our bodies as the Temples they are.  If we don’t take care of ourselves, how in the WORLD can we love and take care of those around us???  The airlines don’t tell us to put our own oxygen on first and then the kids for nothing…

1 Corinthians 6:19-20

19 Or do you not know that your body is a [a]temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from [b]God, and that you are not your own? 20 For you have been bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body.

I plan on blogging throughout the month-ish and re-blogging encouraging and inspirational blogs as well to cheer us on.  Be blessed.  Don’t stress.

To encourage you….this morning I did 20 minutes of P90X Cardio X.  20 minutes.  It’s what I had time for.  Bring it!

Friday, Advent and style…it’s a theme.

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It’s Friday, so that means it must be:  7 Quick Takes with Jennifer Fulwiler et al.  Join on in, it’s a super crowd!!

1) I don’t want to get anyone all crazy or anything but Advent is just around the corner, December 2, 2012…the first day.  You ready??  Huh??  Huh??  Huh??  Me??  Uhhhhhh.  Sorta.  Our family does a little thing each Advent, for every day, this will be our 3rd year.  I have procured the items we will need over the past many months.  It’s something a good friend of mine started us on our first year in where we randomly and anonymously “gift” someone throughout Advent.  It’s not anything big, just something small to hopefully brighten their day and spread some CHRISTmas joy.  Yes, the cards even say “Merry Christmas”…..scandalous in this P.C. day and age, right??

2) Now I’ve just spent 2 hours trying to decide which site to use for our Christmas card with the right pictures and coupon code and the site freaked out and I had to start over.   Grrrr..  Bedtime!!

3) We’ve had soccer and cheer all week, staggered so it’s been very DRAWN OUT!  At least I’m getting my walks in!!  However, joy of joys….it is the LAST week of both girl’s sports.  Our last  soccer game is tomorrow and it’s at HOME, and cheer finishes up with competition on Black Friday (can you believe the nerve?!?!?)

4) This week gave me a little reminder of how busy the holiday season is going to be and my girlfriend and I are going to start a little holiday health challenge/focus to get us through the New Year.  It’s such an insane time of year with parties, plays, gift giving, meals, time off from school, juggling family visits etc, that, as a woman (and I’m sure a few men, too) we tend to get so caught up in taking care of others and focusing on activities that we OFTEN forget to take care of ourselves.  Therefore, we are planning on being accountable for regular exercise (nothing crazy…just staying active) and watching what we put in our mouths.  We need to remind ourselves our body is The Temple of Christ and I think we all forget that from time to time.  Isn’t Advent a “good” time to focus on that?  Anyone can join in…if there’s a big interest I’ll make up something “official-like”, for now it’s just email and texting and friends at work accountability, too!

5) Speaking of Advent…(apparently there’s a little bit of a theme this week since I continue to return to Advent), My blog is almost at 100 followers!  So, I’ve decided that  I’m going to do a giveaway of Dan Lord’s new book, “Choosing Joy:  The secret to living a fully Christian life”.    If you didn’t know, Dan is married to Hallie Lord, author of “Style, sex and substance” and blogger on marriage and style over at Moxie Wife.   I’ll post a blog on the official giveaway and all that jazz once I hit 100 followers!

6) On style….for the past two Sundays I’ve participated in “What I wore Sunday” over at Fine Linen and Purple.  It’s been super fun (awesome for visitors to my blog!!!!) and inspirational on paying a little more attention to dressing for Mass and other times when I’m out of my scrubs and workout clothes (95% of my time!).  As timing would have it,  Dwija at House Unseen posted about taking care of appearance in general and the subtle messages it sends to our families and loved ones when we do or don’t pay attention to how we look.  It definitely made me think about taking a few extra minutes on regular days, too.

7) Last one, also in reference to style….last night I bought some boots.  Target.  My boot envy got the best of me, especially since I currently don’t have any boots and will need them on our surprise trip in January to Pennsylvania!  So exciting.  The only thing about boots is that my calves are muscular and sometimes it’s really difficult to find a pair of boots to zip up past my calves.  Frustrating I tell you!!

Alrighty then….I’m out.  Time to wake the kiddies and get this day rockin’ on into the weekend!  Blessings and don’t forget to check out Conversion Diary for other great peeps!!

Friday….or the day before vacation starts!

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— 1 —

It’s Friday, the end of a long week and the last day of work before I have a week of STAYCATION enjoying Christmas break with the kids, hubby and my sister and nephews…(Bro-in-law has to work—boooooo hissss)!

— 2 —

We had our parish priest over for dinner this week. We let the kids decide the menu:  Chicken Enchiladas.  They decided that all our priests and deacons should be served some sort of Mexican dish.  Taco stuffed shells, Tacos, now Enchiladas.  It was a hit. I think they just want an excuse for lots of cheese and sour cream.   It was a great dinner and plenty of entertainment provided by our two youngest who had the MOST to talk about and ask questions of our very gracious guest.  Dinner was followed by peach cobbler (yum) and the girl’s “performances”.  Lots of them.  Cheerleading tricks.  Complete with one sister (accidentally) dropping another on her head.  Magic tricks that weren’t quite magic.  and lots of “Father Chris, Father Chris…”  It was fun.  And it was funny.  Will have to have the conversation with the girls on hogging the priest next time…

— 3 —

I.  Finished.  Our.  Christmas.  Shopping.  (I think)….need to go to all my secret places and take stock and double-check that the boxes I received (hopefully safely after the whole FedEx and UPS videos lately, OY!!!…) from UPS contain what I ordered.  Otherwise….it’s going to get interesting.  I probably should do that tonight.  Just in case….

— 4 —

I.  Am.  Over.  Food.  After our pizza lunch today, I am certain that I am breaking up with food.  Or after our Christmas dinner tonight at my brother’s house.  Or after Christmas lunch.  Yes.  That will be when.  For sure.

— 5 —

I was able to get in THREE days of exercise this week.  Yup.  Sanity is somewhat intact, peeps.  My friend and I have even begun strategizing our post-Christmas workout plan in between coffee and cookie breaks.

— 6 —

Next week I am going to pretend to be a Stay-at-Home mom.  Which means I’m hitting the gym.  Or some kind of exercise all week-long.  And then I won’t be at home.  At all.  Because SAHM’s really DON’T stay home.  They are everywhere else, doing all kinds of errands.  I’m SO out of practice, but I feel up for the challenge!!

— 7 —

Tonight we build the gingerbread house.  Yes.  It is tradition.  And with onlyTWO. DAYS.  LEFT.  We are running out of time to complete our traditions!  YIKERS!!  Don’t worry, the tradition of mama (and now papa) staying up quite late with the finishing touches on Christmas Eve is sure to continue!

For more Quick Takes, visit Conversion Diary!

Expectations.

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As your life is likely as busy as ours this time of year, I’m sure you are familiar with the reality of things not always working out as expected.  It’s life.  The planets are NOT all aligned for every event to occur without a hitch and if one can’t practice some flexibility in life then it’s going to be one bitter horsepill to swallow on a regular basis.

This weekend I was sure that we were fairly open in our schedule sans for two events:  1.  Walk through Bethlehem on Saturday evening  2.  Children’s Christmas program at our church Sunday afternoon.  Now, in hindsight,  one would think my spidey senses would have been tingling…ERROR, ERROR, ERROR at the complete ridiculousness of an “Open” schedule at this point in December, however, they failed me.  My calendar, the one right on the wall of the kitchen.  The one that we write our life on.  The one I pass a million times a day.  Yes.  That one would have reminded me of all that was planned this weekend.  And that would require looking at it.   live and learn.  live and learn.  Fortunately, I did look at it Friday night, so I had a few hours to mentally prepare:

  • Routine Saturday chores, cleaning, grocery shopping, etc…..AND get our youngest to her liturgical dance practice.  It is the 3rd Sunday (Family Mass) and they perform a little dance and have practice the day before.  Oops.
  • “Happy birthday, Jesus” annual lunch with my grandparents.  At our house.  Menu????  Oops.

So, though it wasn’t a lot of extra activity, the activities DID require time management, organization and calm.  We pulled it off (because generally I work better under pressure, not so great for my stress level, but TREMENDOUS for my focusing abilities).

Amid all the flurry of activity, the biggest disappointment was our Walk through Bethlehem.  Having never been to this particular event, nor had I spoken to anyone who had an idea of how it all operated, we went in blind.  Sadly, we made the call to exit the line after realizing we were looking at least a two-hour wait before we got it.  We don’t do lines well.  When we are ill-prepared for the line, it’s even worse.  However, we regrouped, and drove around to look at Christmas light displays and ate cookies in the care (Dad totally rocked on THAT little preparation!!).  So Plan “B” was a hit.  Mostly.  At least it restored harmony to the family.  Mostly.  And we were able to salvage the evening.  Mostly.

 

 

 

 

The Roman Soldier casing the place…the only part we sa

 

 

 

 

Some of the lights from our drive 

 

 

And because we weren’t busy enough, the baking bug hit me Sunday.  Between Mass and the Christmas program, we baked away:  Poppy seed bread.  Chocolate chip cookies.  Pumpkin chocolate chip cookies.  and our family favorite, Buckeye Balls.  I’m done.  done.  done.  done.  done.

Good lessons learned this weekend:  Check the calendar.  Always.  Twice daily when it’s December (or May).  Roll with it and be prepared to modify the “Plan”.  Expectations are destined to fall short.  Flexibility is king.  Have plenty of preparations on hand.  Or a decent time frame whilst the bread is baking to make an impromptu trip to Publix to re-stock.  Enjoy.  Every.  Little.  Moment.   It will be January before we know it!

 

December goal: SANITY!

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We’re a little over the half-way mark for the month, finishing up an amazing year of “FIRSTS” and looking forward to seeing what 2012 has in store for us.  With my recent blog posts of December mayhem and “busy-ness” it’s been a one-foot-in-front-of-the-other kind of month, and I’m not alone.

commiserating with friends the other day on the runaway-train called “December” we decided as a group to come up with a plan of action to get us through the last few weeks with some semblance of sanity intact.  Collectively, we realized that NONE of us were really getting any good exercise, a.k.a. endorphin release, in and THAT was a HUGE problem.  Agreeing that a realistic goal of a MINIMUM of three days a week for the remainder of the month for some type of exercise in our schedules, we now have one whole week under our belt.

For myself, it’s been a great stress reliever.  Last night, I realized that a walk was an absolute necessity for my sanity and general peace in the household (meaning, me not stressing on everyone in the house) and at 8:42 p.m., I laced up and hit the streets for 25 minutes.  It felt good. My head felt clearer.  My heart calmed down. My body thanked me.  I was nicer to my husband.  I was able to peacefully tuck in my children.

This morning, I accomplished the goal of DAY 3 by hitting the gym with my good friend (because you REALLY have to like someone to agree to meet them at o’dark hundred to work out), and I’m feeling good going into Friday.  Now, truth be told:

  • the kids are out of school and my mornings just got WAAAAAAAY easier for the next 19 days
  • softball and flag football are finished which means my nights just opened up
  • the majority of my Christmas shopping is done
  • Christmas cards are sent out…..with all SIX of us present and accounted for….God is so good!
  • we have only 2 functions this weekend, both fun!
SO.  As long as the Christmas treats continue to taunt my complete and total lack of self-control and things like this (show up)………
I’ll just keep on keepin’ on with our December goal and come January…..well, let’s just continue to take this one-day-at-a-time.  No need to get all crazy with resolutions, it’s WAY to early for that, but let’s just say we already have the beginning of a sanity plan with added health benefits come January….wink, wink!