Healthy Living, not impossible

Wow! My second Blog, and it has only been one week since my first, and I remembered. Amazing, maybe I'll be able to keep this up.
One topic that has been on my mind for sometime now, is how to live healthier. 5 years ago if you asked me how healthy I thought our lifestyle was, I would have said we are a pretty healthy family! I thought we were doing just fine. Then 3 years ago, my oldest son Josh started getting these terrible headaches. They happened 1-2 times per month and would be just awful. They would make him very sick and he would be in pain until he fell asleep. I had similar headaches when I was in my early 20's and worked in a bar/restaurant called Di Matteo's. Back then you could smoke in bars and I found that I was very sensitive to second hand smoke. I would get migraines occasionally and they were very scary. I thought my head was going to burst, they were so painful. After I stopped working there I never got another one. My oldest child, however was the lucky recipient of this condition.

We started seeing a specialist for Josh to determine that they were in fact migraines. We kept a journal of his headaches, he had multiple tests done, and we worked hard to figure out what his triggers were. It was during this time that I started researching the food we ate and our activity level. I got a full eye opener about the hormones, pesticides, and preservatives put in the food we had been eating and the chemicals in the products I had been cleaning with. This stuff is pretty scary when you start to think about the poisons we had been breathing and ingesting. I had been one of those people who didn't understand the people spending so much money on organic foods, but that all changed after my research. Our food bill also changed and now that all three boys are eating quite a bit our bill is close to $750 a month instead of $400 from 3 years ago. Shocker, right? Our health is so very important, it is worth every penny. I also only use a cleaner for toilets, a safe oil for wood and white vinegar for everything else. I used to think that if a product was available to buy, then it must be safe. Think again. No one knows the long term effects on the environment with all of the chemicals used, and they are not necessarily safe. I used to think anti-bacterial sanitizer was great, now we don't touch it and wash our hands more. We get sick much less now. The size of my garden has doubled and during the spring, summer, fall months I grow much of our produce.

After a few months of seeing the specialist, Josh's migraines were determined to be of multiple sources: audio sensitivities, food, weather, hunger, stress, lack of sleep, hormones. Even now new possibilities of migraine triggers pop up, and it is something he will have to figure out on his own as he gets older. As long as he gets his medicine before the migraine gets bad, he only lays down for about 30 minutes and is fine. If he puts it off and doesn't say anything until he is crying, then the migraine is terrible. Again, something he has to figure out. At this point the number of them is still 1-2 a month and we have gone through stretches of months (summer) when he didn't have any. School stress is a definite trigger.
We also decided to join the Hockessin Athletic Club (HAC). We had been at the Y for awhile, and we as a family needed something more. Joining HAC was one of the best decisions we ever made. It is a little pricey, but totally worth it. I watched my husband who has struggled with weight loss lose 25 lbs. I never really struggled like him, but I lost 10lbs myself and was down to my pre-marriage weight. The kids are involved with gymnastics, swim lessons, dodgeball, tee-ball, flag football & karate.

This has been our healthy living journey so far. We have made it a priority in our lives and we hope we can continue it for our lifetimes. We also hope we are teaching our kids valuable lessons on how they treat their bodies. God only gave us one body and it is our job to take care of it the best we can. My husband and I are currently working on a challenge and weigh in is tomorrow, so stay tuned for that blog....

Peace

You can take me or leave me

Hi, I'm Cindy Zern.  It has been bugging me for sometime to create a blog, should I or shouldn't I? If I did, what in the world would I write about? I don't have some cause to write about, some goal I need to accomplish, family living far away that I want to give updates on my life to, problems to vent about (at least not today), or self help blogs of encouragement. I decided I am going to write about me and my life. The day to day life of a 35 year old stay at home mom. I think it will be fun to read back on these blogs and remember things I will have otherwise forgotten about. To see myself and the people I write about change and grow. Someday my children may find they never really knew all about their Mom until they read these, and they may grow to appreciate the time I took to write. I have three boys, so maybe they won't appreciate, but their wives and kids might! I am not much of a writer, although past writings I have done certainly crack me up. So here goes nothing....my very on blog...all about me....Cindy Zern.

As I stated above, I am currently a stay at home mom, a position/career I have held for almost 12 years. Like any job (and I did work for 10 years as a commercial insurance underwriter in the "real world") it has its ups and downs and I stopped counting the positives and negative long ago. They never seemed to balance out. I am married with 3 boys, a dog, cat, and fish. I am the queen of the house, since I am the only female. I couldn't even get a girl dog, but someday...just wait! We live in the typical rural suburbs in a nice house with nice neighbors. I guess we are the "American" family. My husband brings home the bacon and I fry it up in a pan. As for me, I love the Lord, my family, friends and country.  I am not your typical homemaker and I have many interests outside of the house. I am smart, opinionated, rational, logical, aggressive, organized, athletic, quick minded, conservative, honest, and sarcastic. I am sure many blogs I will post will irritate and offend some people. One view I take is that everyone is entitled to their opinion and I really try not to call any one names, except my husband, when we argue, and he interrupts me :-). I love arguing, but the productive logical kind.

So I guess that is enough for my opening blog. As the title states, you can take me or leave me. I can't promise much about my life other then it is quite entertaining, never a dull moment. I look forward to keeping this up. And who knows, it might make me rich and famous one day. One thing is for sure, because of my honesty trait, I will never be able to run for office.

Peace