Morning,
One of my lists sent off this superb parenting tip:
“Selective ignorance, a cornerstone of child rearing. You don’t put kids under surveillance: it might frighten you. Parents should sit tall in the saddle and look upon their troops with a noble and benevolent and extremely nearsighted gaze.”
Love the ‘extremely nearsighted gaze’ comment!
Enjoy,
Barbara
ps – Parenting is a hero’s journey, worthy of the following rewards. 
Morning,
The good news is that I’m breathing.
The bad news is that I’m ‘way sick with allergies or a cold. Hopefully allergies…I really don’t have time for a cold right now!
Wah. Methinks today I will simply do my circle walk for exercise (so long as my nose ceases to trying marathon competitions) and then do bodyweight workouts at home.
In other news, we had a different instructor in swords/kendo yesterday, and wow, both the senseis are truly superb in their own individual ways. I really liked how Sensei II had use do 4 move combos until they were etched in the mind – the repetition made for much better retention.
Did I mention I’m sick?
Time to dose myself with chicken soup,
Barbara
ps – need allergy/flu remedies? Consider:
Well!
After this morning’s excitement (which I’ll post at a later time), I decided to buckle down and create a most useful tool for myself – a custom search engine that returns excellent answers regarding diet and fitness from the most respected sources online.
It worked out so well I want to now share it!
Visit the Fab Fit Mom Diet Fitness Search Engine. Let’s say you want to find out what non-scammers are saying about, oh, hmmmmm:
What I really like about the search results is that people who answer generally don’t have monetary reasons to promote a product….so they give their honest opinion.
Give it a shot and if you like it, share it with your friends!
Enjoy,
Barbara
Morning,
Life is truly joyous when you are awakened at 2am by your spouse or kids and no matter how hard you try, your sleeping ability laughs hysterically at you as it chortles in the distance. Not.
Ah well, these things happen. At least I got a lot of writing done!
Anywhos, I’m now participating on SparkPages! It’s a super free diet/weight loss/fitness/get healthy place that has tens of thousands of bunches of members, many of whom post up a storm!
I really adore some of the message board threads like:
All in all, it’s a really exciting supportive place! I’m looking forward to participating.
One thing I noticed is there’s this neat Panic Button message board too! Some of the titles include:
All in all, a very impressive place indeed! I encourage you to check it out as well.
Enjoy,
Barbara
ps – Lots of people try Weight Watchers. Here’s some things I’ve found regarding it:
One of the best benefits for raising kids with an academic focus is how they approach carrot-and-stick thingees like ‘free homework passes’.
One of my kids came home from school today and told me:
“Mom, we’re given tokens for this done well or that done well….and if you save 10 of them, you can have lunch with the teacher! And 5, well, 5, you get a ‘free homework pass’. But Mom, if you don’t actually use that homework pass, if you gather 10 of those before the school year ends, Mom, you get a prize!!
So Mom, here’s my strategy – I’m going to save and save and save and you just wait and see!”
The idea of taking advantage of the pass and actually NOT doing the homework never occurred to her.
That’s me girl.
People have asked me in the past, how on earth do I manage to get my kids to listen to me, buckle down and do their work, and never whine about it to boot?
The answer is simple – back when they were younger, I figured that challenges would get greater and greater as opposed to shrinking down to nothing. So I made certain to set up rules and expectations…and then held the kids to them. Certainly, there were some power struggles back then…..but years later (ie today), they are very few and far between.
Kids. Boundaries. High expectations. Accountability. These go together like rainbows and unicorns. Math and beauty. Weight lifting and sleeveless gi’s!
Mighty proud mommy,
Barbara
ps – did you know there are homework helpers available today? Check out:
Need to pump iron, but you’re deskbound at the office?
One effective way to arm curl is to use your briefcase or your backpack as the weight you lift! I remember doing this myself when I was taking my kids to the Anime Conference – it was time for my usual bodyweight workouts and alas, the hotel at which we were staying had no fitness facilities. Wah!
However, by using the backpacks we had brought for our goodies, I was able to get quite a good workout in for my biceps. It wasn’t perfect, mind you, but did adequately well for my needs.
Barbara
ps – Looking for good briefcases for such activities? Consider:
Morning,
One of the best things my kids and I do as a family is take karate together. Not only does it help speed/coordination/self-defense/etc., it also provides an atmosphere of calmness, respect and doing the very best you can.
Well, that is….generally it does. Last week, my single-digit young one decided to spiral into a snit. He had been appropriately reprimanded by the sensei for his attitude, and he chose to sink into an unhappy mass of nonverbal ‘nobody understands me!’
To his credit, he did manage to pull himself together about 10 minutes after the incident. But after the class, I had a very solemn, sincere talk with him about respecting one’s teachers and rising to the challenge…and then I walked him over to our senseis to apologize. Said senseis were wonderfully supportive to him, and my boy was all smiles afterwards (and during the car ride home, I heard ‘aren’t you proud of me mommy, I got my good attitude back! at least 17 times).
This brings me to today’s following topics. As parents, it’s our duty to ensure our kids behave well and treat their teachers with respect and obedience. If our kids choose to act out, they MUST have consequences for their behavior!
Our senseis have the patience of a master bonsai gardener! I really admire them for that… I would probably implode with the style and grace of a wounded wolverine if I had to endure what they do when unruly kids show up.
Remember, extracurricular activities like karate or sports or ballet or what have you, are a privilege. The people who teach our children are deserving of praise and respect – always make certain your kids honor them with good behavior.
Enjoy,
Barbara
Well!
As you might remember, over the weekend the hubby and I started clearing out the garage for our town’s heavy item dropoff day.
Why stop there? This morning, we realized there were still bunches of rocks under the deck and living happily within unopportune places. So….instead of hiring someone to clean out the area, my kids and I used one of their purple plastic snow sleds, carefully loaded the bricks and rocks on it, and made about 17 trips to clear out the entire area.
Talk about a workout! But it was fun with the family helping.
Barbara
ps – you don’t have to use rocks for weight lifting, of course – consider:
Morning,
Well! Today I weigh 140 instead of what I weighed yesterday, which was 135. Ain’t life grand?
Actually, however, I’m not worried about it whatsoever. And here’s why…..
Every weekend, I give myself one cheat day in which I assume responsibility for actually (dare I say it?) eating stuff that is, well, really, really darned dumb! In my case, it’s veggies with additional salt (I love salt but don’t eat it hardly at all during the week). Oooh I love that (lettuce, onions, etc.)….but Oooooh, I pay for it the next day!
Speaking of which, today IS that next day, and as expected, I was retaining more water than the Hoover Dam! (How did I come up with this blindingly obvious observation? Whenever I’m huger than usual, my wedding band wont’ come off of my finger. But I digress.) But! I know that drinking water always helps such conditions, so I quickly downed 5 large cups of the miracle liquid.
The good news is that my fingers no longer resemble a McDonald’s sausage special!
The bad news is that I had the extraordinarily bad judgment to weigh myself…instead of 135, the scale read, 140!
Well, duh, of course it would! Each cup of water weighs a pound (yes, I did weigh that). So if I drank 5 cups, obviously, I’d gain 5 temporary pounds until it flushes away.
That’s one of the reasons why losing weight and getting healthy can be such a hero’s journey. Many many times, you’re faced with increases that are temporary…but perhaps your mindset gives way to all those insidious voices that chant, it’s useless, why are you torturing yourself, just give it up and get thee to a seven pound chocolate cake!
Remember, scales reveal only numbers…and those numbers can reflect temporary gains. Never let that sway you from what you know to be true (that weight loss is a long-term process that has ups and downs).
Enjoy,
Barbara
ps – Speaking of salt, did you know salt shakers could look like:
So!
Today is the day my karate dojo gives a performance for various communities. While neither I nor my kids are on the demo teams (yet!), we’ve been faithfully attending every Sunday rehearsal and looking forward to watching the show. I also had promised several of the parents I’d take pictures as well!
Enter today – some home improvement folk were scheduled to show up between 11am and 12pm. Thus, my husband took my kids…and I’m home with my ferocious pets, waiting by the telephone.
Now, I have been anticipating watching the demo for months! While I’m still quite incompetent in nunchaku and other weapons, I really enjoy watching my fellow classmates and thinking how great it will be when I’m at their level.
To miss this performance just plain makes me go ANGST ANGST ANGST! BUT!! I do firmly believe everything happens for a reason. My kids know how much I wanted to attend…and they also watched me calmly deal with the reality, set up everything so I didn’t need to be present, give them the camera to take pictures for me, give my husband the directions to the event, etc.
In other words, they witnessed how Mommy deals with disappointment when life happens. She makes provisions and “lets the emotion” go.
This will really come in handy in the future when they have to deal with crushing disappointments; I always believe in ‘walking the walk’ when raising my kids.
Personally speaking, of course, I’m really unhappy about how things turned out…for me, that is. But I can look beyond that if my kids took something positive out of the whole experience.
Back to writing,
Barbara
ps – did you know that there are generic iPods available? I’ve heard you can download workout music to them too – I’ll have to research about and see. Here are some popular ones….