Anything but Resolutions

When I (Charity) was single I would always take time to write about my “Reflections and Resolutions”. I have always loved starting a new year. I love the idea of starting afresh and changing ways. Even if January 1^st really isn’t that different from December 31^st. It is the concept of change that resonates with me. My resolutions were always a mixed bag. I might have something about losing weight, or getting healthy, or ditching a relationship, or making better choices with relationships – or all of the above. The thing was, that within a few weeks of the year I would have forgotten my resolution. Or keeping them became too hard. Or, I just stopped caring. And out the window they went – until the next year that is.

Now when a new year starts I don’t think much about resolutions (other than hearing what everyone else is doing). Though, I still love the idea of change. And the funny thing is that not having resolutions feels both freeing and at the same time sad. Sad as in, what are my goals for the next year? What do I want to accomplish?

As we entered into this new year, Paul and I found a wonderful middle ground. At the end of 2012, we sat down over steaming mugs of chai tea, warm tomato soup and a salad to talk about 2012 and 2013. We had a list of questions that we had separately spent a couple of months thinking about. We took three hours and hammered out the details. At the end of our time we had a roadmap for 2013 and goals for each of us. What I like about this is that we’re on the same page. We know and agree on our goals as a couple and our separate goals. We can encourage one another. We can point out when something will not align with our goals. These are not just fleeting resolutions.

We also built in a quarterly check-in system to talk through our notes and see where we are at. Are things working? Why are they not working? Do we need to change course?  Below is a list of the questions that we worked through. I highly recommend it! And if you’re single – find someone that you can ask to hold you accountable. Find someone willing to check in with you quarterly, someone who won’t mince words when it comes to speaking truth!

Here is a snapshot of the questions we worked through. Do you have specific questions you think or work through when a new year starts?

Finances
Re-look at our monthly budget break down.
Is the budget working?
What needs to change?
What is our plan for saving?
How much are we going to tithe?
How much are we going to spend as an offering?

Spiritual/Community

What spiritual areas are we going to focus on as a family?
How do we add more prayer into our daily routine?
Where do we want to serve/volunteer?
Who are the people we are investing in?
Who do we want to start investing time in?
Who are we being mentored by?
How can we add more margin in our schedule so we can spend more time together?

Lifestyle
What big trips do we want to take?
What small trips do we want to take?
What are our fitness goals?
What are our lifestyle goals?

Wrapping up Advent

Where did the rest of December go?  I have no excuse for not blogging about the rest of our advent season, other than the fact that I was enjoying quality time with my husband. We had a week and a half off together and it was delightful!

So here is a list of our final Advent activities. Some of them we didn’t make it to, and we were okay with that! The moral of the story is that we were connecting during the chaos of the holidays and remembering the reason for the season. I think we earned an A+.

Day 16: Scripture Reading & Candle Lighting

Day 17: Create/Buy an ornament that symbolizes 2012 (I had a great idea, but wasn’t able to find the supplies to pull it off)

Day 18: Make Snowflakes and write what we’re thankful for.

Day 19: Enjoy Hot Cocoa & Marshmallows. I even made us Paleo Marshmallows to enjoy. And boy did we!

Day 20: Dance to our favorite Christmas song.

Day 21: Go Ice Skating (What a blast! We had never done this together!)

Day 22: Stocking Stuffer Challenge (1 store, a set amount of time and money. GO!)

Day 23: Scripture Reading & Candle Lighting ( We did this with our dear friends the Kaetzel’s!)

Day 24: Attend Christmas Eve Service at church (This was really nice and we even had some friends join us!)

Day 25: Celebrate Jesus’ birth

Continuing Advent

I failed quite a bit with documenting our continued advent celebration. I kept getting so caught up in the moment and would realize later that I meant to take pictures! Oh well, bear with me. I’ll work on getting better!

Day 6: Make (and Enjoy) Mulled Wine. My first attempt wasn’t too shabby. We had friends over to enjoy and it seemed to be a hit! The perfect beverage to warm up with!

Day 7 & Day 8: We were on the road over the weekend to visit our cousins in Portland. So to make things easier I made these days “treat” days. Paul got a Bag o’ Sunflower seeds (which is one of his favorite things about road trips) and a Theo Chocolate bar for us to enjoy. The best part though was playing with this handsome fellow! He is going to be a heart breaker!

Day 9: Scripture Reading & Candle Lighting.

Day 10: Game Night & Christmas Music. I wanted to zone out to  some Zombie Dice, but Paul talked me into playing a mellower card game called Pitch. It was a delightful evening!

Day 11: Have a Candlelit Dinner. An easy way to have a relaxing evening!

Day 12: Make a Holiday Treat. We made Dark Chocolate Peppermint truffles which were amazing!! Typically I never share the kitchen with Paul.  This was an easy way for us to get our hands dirty (literally) and share in the food making experience.

PS - How cute are those plates! My Secret Santa aka dear friend Christianna got those for me! I've been using them a lot!

Day 13: Kissing under the mistletoe (no explanation needed).

Day 14: Watch a Holiday Movie. We were too busy this weekend to make this happen. But I still hope we get around to it!

Day 15: Gather with Community. This was awesome! We had a group of friends over for a breakfast potluck. We also collected coats and blankets to donate to the homeless youth. I do not have any pics of the nearly 20 adults and 7 kids that packed our house! But here is a picture of the great stuff we donated!

Creating Traditions

Tradition has been on my mind lately. I often think about traditions in the context of “when we have children we will…” and then fill in the blank. Recently I have been struck by the idea that Team O needs to begin building our traditions as a family before we have children. The idea is that children will naturally become a part of those traditions.

 

I thought this year would be an excellent time to begin an advent tradition. However, I wasn’t sure where to start. I only knew of Advent done two ways: 1) chocolates in a calendar and 2) the family tradition our dear friends the Kaetzel’s passed down to us where a candle is lit each Sunday leading up to Christmas, scripture is read, songs are sung and the nativity scene is built each week.

During the advent season I want us to keep Jesus as focus, I want to do activities that promote ‘us’ time,  I want fun and silly little things to get us into the holiday spirit, and I wanted to build memories. So from December 1^st to the 25^th we are doing a plethora of small and inexpensive things to achieve those goals. I say small because the last thing I would want to do is build up a tradition that only stresses us out. The idea is this is a joyful time, Christ IS coming! We are also going to use the devotionals from this online advent book from Desiring God.

 

Before we started I had to acquire a calendar of some sort. Speaking of stress, google "advent calendars" and you will find many variations that you can make. Sometimes seeing other people's insane creativity flat out stresses me out. One night after work I found myself at JoAnn's meandering the aisles looking for inspiration. And then I stumbled across this beauty and realized - heck no, I'm not making a calendar. I'm buying! I am beyond thrilled with this unexpected (and on sale) purchase!

 

Our Calendar for many years to come.

 

 

 

I will document our celebration as the month goes on. For now I'll share Days 1-5.

 

Day 1: Acquire & Decorate a Christmas Tree. Paul hauled this tree over his shoulder the three blocks from the fruit stand to our house!

 

Day 2: Light the "Gospel" candle, read Scripture and set up our nativity set. In the future we'll set the nativity up week by week.

Day 3: Hang our stockings by the faux fire. Well I guess I could have lit the faux fire, but I honestly don't remember how! Charlie needs a little stocking love too!

Day 4: Write out Christmas cards. Since they're not done I'm not showing our awesome 2012 photo card just yet! I will also say that on Tuesday evening we were exhausted. So we tabled writing out our Christmas cards. Flexibility is key!

Day 5: Share a favorite Christmas memory. Paul telling me about the year he got ALL the video games he asked for made me laugh so hard last night! I remember Christmas PJ's and waking up way too early and eating toaster strudels waiting for my parents to get up. Mmmm Toaster Strudels!!

Team O's Fall of Fun

Okay, in reality, Team O probably broke the bank for our Summer of Fun. But now I just really like looking forward to thinking about what the upcoming season holds for us.

Fall highlights that I'm excited about:

• Starting up our marriage life group. Paul and I've already started the book and have challenged and encouraged. Can't wait to talk about it with other couples.
• Seeing Family. Our cousin Matt comes into town next week. And at the end of the month my dad starts his Tour De Retirement. First stop Seattle! 
• Monthly Saturday Brunch: This is our new tradition as a way to connect with friends we don't get to see as often. 
• Harleween! Goth? Yes please! I still haven't figured out how I'm going to contain my chipperness!
• Portland! We are overdue to visit our little buddy Jackson! He falls into the family category. I think he is our first cousin once removed? I 
• Iowa! We are overdue to visit our little buddies Kevin and Destiny. Okay, I guess these are big buddies since it's my Sister and Bro-In-Law we are talking about! Excited to get some quality time in!
• December Stay-cation! So this is probably technically winter. But I am so excited for 11 days off from work and to hang around with my husbuddy!
• Again winter, but we will be hosting our 3rd annual (across 4 years) Orphan Christmas!

As we head into Fall, I am reminded that there is so much to be thankful for!

Part 2: Paleo - What’s all the hype?

Before getting into all of the Paleo hype. I want to give a shout out to Paul. Paul ran a half marathon this last weekend. He shaved 8 minutes off his personal record. So proud of that guy!

I mention Paul's PR because we absolutely believe that the changes in our diet results in optimal performance in our bodies. Paul did not eat a conventional Standard American Diet (SAD) to prepare for his race. No weird goos. No ingredients we couldnt pronounce. Nothing processed. A Paleo lifestyle dumps all of that junk out of our diet. Paul kicked optimal ass! 

Paleo is often referred to as the caveman diet or dino chow. In reality we choose foods that provide our bodies with optimal performance. Foods that are dense with nutrients. Foods that do not harm the insides of our bodies. We no longer stock our pantry with foods that will last forever. Food quality is important -- We are careful about where our meat comes from, and buy produce locally and organically as often as possible.

In a nutshell, this lifestyle is simply about 1) eating whole foods that provide better fuel for your body and 2) avoiding processed, refined, nutrient-poor factory foods.

We avoid corn and soy to stay away from GMOs and poor farming practices. We also avoid processed foods, grains, legumes, diary, white potatoes, and vegetable oils.

What do we eat? Quality meat, eggs, fruits and vegetables, nuts and seeds. We sweeten foods with dates, fruit, honey (preferably raw), and occasionally maple syrup.

If you're interested in learning more. Our friends at Rugged Elite have written a couple of helpful blog posts. One post gets into the idea of making this a lifestyle and the other has great resources for getting started.

So what is all the hype? The hype is that it is changing peoples lives. My body literally feels better. Issues I have had for years have just gone away. Paul has had a significant decrease of inflammation in his body which is noticeable when he logs his miles of running. Our bodies just feel better.

Once upon a time a wise man wrote something profound that takes on so much more meaning in today's world:

"Let food by thy medicine, and medicine be thy food" ~ Hippocrates

Part 1: Getting Healthy

Up until a few months ago, I would have considered myself a fairly healthy person. I worked out several times a week for a healthy heart and healthy lungs. I ate pretty decent, though I definitely have a sweet tooth! Oh and I did tend to suck at portion control. I want what Paul gets (though he runs gazillions of miles each week, I run no miles each week).

So why was there a problem? Well, I was sleeping with a bottle of Maalox by the bed and I kept a bottle of Tums on the kitchen counter. Both were Always in close proximity and I used one or the other pretty much every day. I could only go to sleep when lying on my left side because it helped my tummy feel better when trying to fall asleep. What foods I did digest, I digested very slowly (aka always gassy, aka TMI).

And honestly, all of that was the norm for me. It frustrated Paul to no end, but it was just what I was used to. I just assumed that I had a "sensitive" stomach. 

This problem came to the forefront in May. Paul had been talking to several people about the Paleo lifestyle and had heard all kinds of good results happening to people who made the lifestyle change. At the end of May, Paul told me he wanted to try doing Paleo for a month.

I said Hell No. Why would I want to cut so many tasty foods out of my life? Paul persisted. I told him give me a week to think about it and look around online. See what it entailed. While exploring online I came across so many other testimonials about people who felt better after going Paleo. Interesting….

I didn’t understand the why? What was so magical about cutting out: Dairy, Grains, Legumes, and Soy? More reading entailed. A lot of the foods that are eliminated boil down to antinutrients such as phytates, biologically active lectins, and immunoreactive proteins. What? Yes science. Look it up yourself - cause I ain't no scientist.

Here is what has applied to me specifically. Lectins. Lectins damage the walls of your intestines, helping to create “leaky gut”, so that other large particles can cross the intestinal barrier, enter your blood stream and begin other immune cascades. This is basically how food sensitivities start. Something goes in and makes some holes in your gut that lets big particles of food into your blood stream. Then your immune system gets VERY overwhelmed and confused and starts attacking things at random. Gee that sounds like a party. Well, this started sounding like why I might be feeling awful.

So, I relented. I told Paul I would try it for one month.

Part 2: Paleo, What’s all the hype? (coming soon)