DIET is a 4-letter word

Most people associate the word "diet" with an attempt to lose weight.  In a more general sense, "diet" means "the foods eaten by a particular person or group."  It is simply a way of describing one's way of eating.  I have never been on a weight-loss diet in my life.  In fact, the only time I've tried to stick to any kind of diet is when my husband and I decided to be vegetarian for a few months.  That got old fast.  I've always believed in eating healthy and have lived by the philosophy "everything in moderation".  That + good genes + exercise have worked for me.  I have a little fat on my thighs and perhaps some tiny love handles, but nothing I'm concerned about or ever spent much energy trying to get rid of.  Okay, by now, all my girlfriends have decided they hate me and have gone to find something else to read.  But WAIT!  Count your blessings . . .

I have had troublesome digestive/GI issues for at least 5 years now.  It started shortly after we moved to Colorado, so I thought maybe it had something to do with altitude.  It got particularly bad one day after a bowl of homemade ice cream, so I thought perhaps dairy was the culprit.  I went lactose-free for a while, and that really helped.  I slowly added back in skim milk and the occasional bit of cheese, and things seemed fine, so I went with that.  But the past 2 years, things have been on the decline.  Since I have taken up running, it has become more important to me to find a solution.  It's really annoying trying to plan running routes around which parks have restrooms that are not locked for the winter!

I have thought about going gluten-free to see if that helps, but that seems so complicated . . . and flavorless.  This past Saturday, I had decided that was the route I needed to go, though - a last-ditch effort before paying for another doctor's visit.  Fortune/Fate/God had it that I ran into a friend that morning who, out of the blue, started telling me about this diet he just started.  The Paleo Solution.  In short, no dairy, no legumes, no grains - just eat meat, fish, poultry, vegetables and fruit.  The basic theory behind it is that for most of human history, we were hunters and gatherers.  It's only in the past tiny fraction of time that we have become agricultural.  As John pointed out, we are omnivores, and that is one of the reasons why mankind has survived so long.  Yes, I agree.  I'm not going to get all fanatical about this and say that the rise of agriculture is killing us.  I'm just relating the basic theory behind this caveman diet.  (You can read more at this site or buy Robb Wolf's book.)  Anyway, when I started reading the prologue of the book and discovered Robb's theory that our bodies are not really meant to digest grains of any sort and that they just inflame the intestines and make your immune system work overtime, I was intrigued.  This was the first diet that had ever resonated with me in any way.  It seemed worth a shot.

I'm going to try it for 30 days.  I don't think it could hurt, and hopefully it will help!  So far (I've only done this for 2 days), I've had meals like this: ostrich steak wrapped in bacon and fried in a skillet with green beans, mushrooms and a side salad; salmon with rosemary and pecans; poached eggs and almonds and berries for breakfast, and so on.  Everything is absolutely delicious.  If nothing else, this will get me to give up Dr Pepper and sugar for a month.

I'll keep you updated.

Quitters Never Win, and Winners Never Quit . . .

Except when they do. For their own sanity.

Usually, my blog is more family oriented - a photo journal of what we've been up to and our travels. But today, I am feeling the urge to write something more personal.

I quit two major commitments (things I've done for years) this past week, both of which I love, and I would like to try to explain why I quit. I have been on the board of the Longmont Council for the Arts for 3 years. I enjoy art and believe it is important to enhance culture by supporting and promoting the arts. For three years, I have had a great time organizing the Art, Wine & Jazz annual fund raiser. This past year, however, I felt like I was just going through the motions. My heart was not completely in it. The event did well, but I still feel that it suffered because of my apathy. And I skipped the past two monthly board meetings because I felt stressed. My to do list was so long that I couldn't imagine sitting through a meeting for an hour and a half without being restless and projecting a negative attitude and being worthless to the organization.

The other thing I quit is the Tae Kwon Do program at my current dojo. I know. Huge. I won't even talk about how much I love TKD or how long I've done martial arts because I've done that in other posts (and because I don't want to cry).

I'll just try to explain why (this is as much for me to figure it all out myself as it is to explain it to anyone else).

I often take on too much. My "problem" is that I have a variety of interests, and I like to pursue all of them to the fullest. If I were single and childless and rich, I imagine I would still be in college, taking every possible class available. I love to learn new things. And I would volunteer for Habitat for Humanity and three or four other organizations in my free time. At my first high school teaching job, the principal had to call me in to his office and ask me to give up some of the clubs I sponsored. I guess most teachers sponsor one club, if any. I had German club, German Honor Society, Table Tennis, Swing Dancing, and Martial Arts. I think that's it. Part of it is that I have a hard time saying no, but much of it is also self-induced. All of those clubs represented either things I was already passionate about or things I wanted to learn more about. All of that is to say that I have gone through this same cycle many times in my life: taking on more and more and more until eventually I get overwhelmed and have to drop some things.

Like I said, "If I were single and childless . . ." but I'm not. So I can't act like it. My family comes first. I don't think I was putting them last when I was busy, but I was being drained of energy and time trying to put them at the top AND do everything else I wanted to do. Before John started taking TKD, he could pick up some of the slack. But now that he is taking it (and loving it), I felt like we were dragging the kids to the studio constantly (they are not doing TKD anymore, either; they were just there hanging out while we did our classes) and we were going out to eat a lot. Now I can keep them at home and cook healthy dinners more often. My son has also had a lot of stress in his life this school year. I'm not sure what it's all about (neither is he), but I'm hoping with more time at home in the evenings, he will feel less stressed, and we can work this out as a family.

Someone said to me the other day, "But you have to do something for yourself!" I do. I am. I don't want to mislead anyone into thinking that I am a martyr, giving up everything for my family. Far from it. I LOVE to teach. Always have. And with Fox Creek Fitness, I still get to teach lots of my Tiny Tigers classes and a few kickboxing classes. I also run and attend some KB classes for myself. I often treat myself to Starbucks or a new book. I go on Girls' Nights Out and Cousins' Weekends. I do plenty for myself. And being so busy was putting stress on me, personally, as well - not just on the other members of my family. I've only been a "quitter" for a few days now, but I can already feel the stress melting away.

And I have to write this, to remind myself: my Sensei said I can come join in on a class whenever I want. And I know I can practice forms and combos and techniques on my own whenever I want. I even have friends who will let me beat up on them from time to time to keep up my sparring. :) So, it's not like I'm giving up martial arts; I'm just not going to be a part of the program and feel like I need to go to class three times a week and push myself to constantly improve.

I have a friend who has been through a lot (hard times) this last year, and her blog is called Ctrl+Alt+Del because in many ways she is starting over. I'm not having to do a full reboot of my life's computer. I'm just moving a few files to the Archive folder, storing them there to reduce the clutter on my desktop (because clutter drives me insane). I can come back and retrieve them anytime.

Ah. Deep breath.

Great Wolf Lodge, part 2

Lindsey sent me a few pictures he took from our weekend together, so this is an add-on to my previous post.

I took this picture of Campbell, Helene, and their cousins, Jack and Carter, back when we all lived in Tyler:

We decided to recreate it in Southlake this weekend:

Here is Big Daddy with his grandkids:
And this is the pile of fried chicken and chicken fried steak that we were served, family style, at Babe's Chicken Dinner House. Yum!

Great Wolf Lodge

We scheduled a trip to Dallas for a wedding that ended up not happening (not yet, anyway), so we took full advantage of the quick trip to see as much family and cram as much fun as we could into two days. It was a blast, but not enough time. There are so many people I wanted to see that we just could not find time for.

And I only brought a crummy little camera, so I don't have many pictures. Big Daddy and Beth took quite a few, so hopefully I'll get copies of those soon.

Visiting family and friends and eating Tex-Mex and Chicken Fried Steak were the highlight of the trip for me. Here are Helene and Campbell playing with their cousin, Carter, on some statues in downtown Grapevine:

Here are John's sister, Beth, and her fiance', Eddie:
Charlotte and Kevin Mims met us at the hotel bar for drinks. We had a great time. Charlotte and John have the same phone, so they did a "phone 5":
I also got to see my college roommate, Christy, and her daughters. But I forgot to get any pictures. And we saw lots of other family members; hopefully I'll get those pictures soon.

The highlight of the trip for the kids was that we stayed at the Great Wolf Lodge. This place is like Water World inside a hotel. Here is the front entrance. The red and yellow funnel in the background is a part of the wildest waterslide at the park.
Hotel Lobby:
Entrance to Water Park (admission included in your stay - you wear a wristband the entire time that acts as your room key, admission to water park, and credit card, so you can buy snacks without dragging extra stuff to the pool):



Campbell, waiting for the big bucket of 1000 gallons of water to spill:

There is an outdoor section of the park, too, with 4 pools and two more water slides:

Our hotel room had a separate, walled-off area for the kids:
They had bunk beds and their own TV:
We're leaving for another trip tomorrow, so I don't have time to write much, but I wanted to get the pictures up and the basics down while they were still fresh in my mind.

Happy Father's Day

With Fathers' Day approaching, I was looking through old scrapbooks for pictures of me with my Daddy. I found so many that I loved. I selected a few that illustrate what a great father he is.
There are millions of reasons I love my father. Here are a few of them:

He instilled in me a love of Germany - the country, the language, and all things German. Because he raised us speaking words of German here and there, I ended up studying the language and becoming a German teacher.
He loves me.
He instilled values in me. This picture was taken alongside the highway somewhere, probably, but it reminds me of our farm. My father always emphasized that it was better to invest in land than cars and clothes and fancy houses. That has stuck with me, and John and I try to live the same way.
My father also instilled in me (I can't believe I'm admitting this) a love of running. I have many fond memories of tagging along when my parents ran races, and we even did a few 5Ks with them. My love for Colorado also comes from my dad. His parents started bringing him up here when he was a child, and he and my mother continued the tradition. I live here now and love it. I feel closer to God in the mountains. I am looking forward to the day my dad retires and my parents start spending more time in Colorado!
My Daddy is a great Papa.

I love the effort that all of us put towards making family trips a priority. Our trips to Costa Rica and Crystal Beach and Yellowstone made memories for a lifetime. Where are we going next?
My father, brother, and husband take annual trips together. It warms my heart to see what a good father-in-law my dad is to John. Thank you, Daddy, for continuing to be such a great father to us!

New Cabin

After years of dreaming and saving and searching, we found a getaway cabin!! We closed on March 1, but the family who were living there rented it back from us until today to give themselves time to move out. Since we only had about half a day, we didn't move in yet, but we spent the morning exploring and unloading a few boxes of dishes and other small things that some friends were kind enough to donate. The kids had not yet seen the cabin, so it was so much fun to show it to them today!!

The property is a little over an acre. The backyard has a deck and a gently sloping hill that backs up to the National Forest.


We asked the owners to leave their playset. We don't have one at our house in town, so the kids were pumped about this surprise!
This is the kitchen before the previous owners moved their stuff out:
Living Room:
Same living room, other side:
There are 3 smallish bedrooms:
And the other big surprise for the kids . . . an attic playroom:

Odyssey of the Mind 2011

Uh oh. I uploaded all of these pictures onto the blog back in March but forgot to write anything. Now I've forgotten what I wanted to say . . .

Basically, Campbell and Helene worked on Odyssey of the Mind most of the school year. They practiced with their teams once a week (and much more than that the last month) to prepare for competition in March. I coached Helene's team, which was a K-2 team. I was so impressed by their creativity and ability to respect each other and work as a team. Helene's team's project was "Money Maker," about an inventor with wild ideas to make money.

Here they are creating their props and set:
Sofia:

David:
Josh, Quin, Sofia, Brenley:
Helene and David in the helicopter (which can pick you up after school with a press of a button on the backpack our Money Maker Sofia invented):
Helene, Brenley, David, Quin, Sofia, Josh, Kayla:
Performance at competition:



Primary teams do not advance on to state or worlds, but they do get score reports. I was so proud of these guys, and their high scores showed that I wasn't biased!

Campbell's team did a problem called "Full Circle". Campbell played a bully that transported some other kids through various portals to different parallel universes.

It even involved a dance segment!


One of the best parts of the competition is when all the kids gather in the gym at the end to await the awards ceremony. They get silly and celebrate all their hard work:

Coaching was a truly rewarding experience. I hope to do this again next year.