Book Club: Twelve Mighty Orphans

This is one of our current book club books and I cannot put it down. Its a great story about orphans at the Masonic Home in Fort Worth, Texas and their quest to become great. I can hardly put it down at times. You will especially love it if you love Texas football, but I think anyone would like this book about overcoming great odds.

Twelve Mighty Orphans by Jim Dent

Gardening update!

I was reading my Gardening magazine....because I am a gardening nerd....and this is the time that Texans need to prune their pear trees down to 2 blooms per cluster. It brought back so many memories of all of us up there at the good old pear tree on Glade Road thinning out the pear tree so we could have luscious pears every year......hmmmm....that memory is actually a little fuzzy....hmmm.....I am thinking that maybe because we NEVER did that, that might be why the pears were so yucky!

Anyway...I was out in the garden today gathering some of its goodness. I am so pleased with how well it has grown so far. I have taken a salad from my garden to work for lunch probably 7 times lately plus had some for dinners and such at home. My lettuces have just been great! And my radishes are also doing really well. I have almost pulled up all of the first harvest section. I had read to plant them every 2 weeks or so, so that you have a continual harvest. I also read to plant your radishes and carrots together....to actually mix the seeds together and plant them because the carrots won't really start to grow until you have harvested the radishes. So, now that I have pulled the radishes, the carrots are getting into their growing season and I can't wait to have fresh carrots at my doorstep!


Here is my latest gardening endeavor....its an herb garden that I just planted last week. I have 2 of these full of herb seeds and I already have a few little sproutlets coming up.

This is my basket of bountiful goods from the garden today. These are radishes and Bibb Lettuce.

This is my garden after I had already harvested some lettuce and radishes, the right are my lettuce plants and the left are my radish and now mainly carrot plants.

Below on the right are my onions, the middle is the pepper plants that have baby little peppers on them now, and the far left is lettuce.

And THESE below are my wonderful tomato plants that I am SO EXCITED to start harvesting from. I have 2 yellow pear tomato plants (the 2 on the outside) and the one in the middle is a cherry tomato, I think its a celebrity 100 (off the top of my head). There was a 4th one that was a Mr. Stripey tomato plant but it died....those just never seem to work for me so its the last year I try! The tomatoes on the other plants are little green marbles and I am excited to eat me a fab tomato salad!

Aaron called me at work last night (we had a special event going on ) to tell me that we had a snake in our garden. So, I will be heading to Home Depot tomorrow to get some Snake Away. I had 3 people t work verify that it works for them and they have no snake problems when they use it, so I am going to get me some! I hate snakes, by the way.

Anyway, I hope you are all doing well and trying your luck at some gardening! Let me know how its going!

Aaron works late all this week so Landry and I will be entertaining ourselves at night. We may spend long hours walking the halls of our fav store....HOME DEPOT!

I start boot camp back up in the morning....so life gets crazy again at 5:00 am!

Love ya!

Heather

Country Bob's Secret Sauce Winner

and the winner is ROBYN!!!!!

Robyn...email me your address and I will send it to Country Bob and he will send you 2 free bottles of sauce! ENJOY!

Thanks everybody for entering!

Heather

Blog Food Giveaway!

Don't forget to enter the giveaway for some free Country Bob's Special Sauce! Check out the blog below!

Product: Country Bob's All Purpose Sauce, Pork Slow Cooker Recipes

Howdy all! Have any of you every tried this sauce? Country Bob's All Purpose Sauce!

I just got some and cooked with it this weekend. It has a similar feel and taste to Worcestershire sauce but I like it better because its a little less caustic to my taste buds. I think this is great for man pleasing meals, because my husband likes almost anything with Worcestershire sauce on it but for me I get a little tired of the taste....but this was a nice compliment! It wasn't too harsh and still had good flavor. I have 2 bottles of this stuff so I used an entire bottle when I made the pork roast and then I used about 2-3 tablespoons of it when I made the pork chops. I think this would be really good in some baked beans too because it would give it a little bit of smokey flavor too.

Its available at Wal Mart and other stores, so you will have to check it out if you have a chance. My husband kept talking about how much he liked it, so it scored big points with him!

Here are the recipes!

Pork Roast

1 large or 2 small pork loins

1 cup of soy sauce

3 garlic cloves. minced

1 T Fresh Ginger, grated on the fine grate side or a microplane (you could use ground too)

1 Bottle of Country Bob's All Purpose Sauce

3/4 cup of water

Salt and pepper

Season the pork with salt and pepper and then place it and the above ingredients in your slow cooker. If you like, you can throw some potatoes and other root veggies on top. Cook on low for 6-8 hours. Take the pork and veggies out and add a little flour and whisk, then turn the cooker to high and cook for a few minutes to make a nice sauce/gravy.

Good Stuff!

Pork Chops

1 can Cream of Mushroom Soup

1/4 cup ketchup

2-3 tablespoons of Country Bob's All Purpose Sauce

3/4 cup of water

4-6 pork chops (I used the boneless kind)

Place all the ingredients in a slow cooker and cook on low for 6-8 hours.

And now for some more BLOG CANDY!

I am giving away 2 bottles of Country Bob's All Purpose Sauce for free to one lucky winner! To enter, just post a comment on this post with the answer to this question....What is your favorite kind of sauce? The contest will end Saturday morning and I will choose a winner from a random drawing sometime over the weekend!

Enjoy!

Here is the link to the company http://www.countrybobs.com/

Beans: Cheap and Good

With everyone trying to be a little more health conscience and a little more healthy, I found this blog on beans and how to measure them, how to cook them, and the value of different kinds of beans. I thought it was very useful so I wanted to post the link. She talks about black beans, garbanzo beans, pinto beans, etc

http://healthyfoodonabudget.wordpress.com/2009/04/08/how-about-%e2%80%9cthe-benefits-of-beans%e2%80%9d/


Its a great way to add some heft to a meal without adding a meat. Black beans are seen a lot these days in burritos and other dishes to replace meat. Buying dried beans is cheaper and generally has less sodium than the canned variety, plus they can be easy to store in an air tight container and last a really long time.

Blog Candy Winners!!i

Congrats to Dolls123 and Tiffaneep!!! If you can both email me at beautifulbasics@gmail.com with your addresses, then I will send you your prizes!!!

Thanks to all who entered, I will have some more blog candy coming up this week...this one is food related!!

Happy Sunday!

Heather

Scrapbook Week Day 6--Choo Choo Trains

This is one of my favorite layouts ever!

I have a son who LOVES LOVES LOVES Trains!

This layout is made from using a bunch of strips of paper that I had as scraps and creating a background with those. After I adhered all those to the paper, then I just added pictures and the words CHOO CHOO TRAINS to the page. My friend Mickey has a cricut so she cut the letters out on her machine for me. The train along the bottom is the new Stampin' Up Train Set in the Spring Mini. The photos are backed with SU Chocolate Chip paper.

I love the colors of this and that I used up some scrap pieces of paper! You could adapt this to any number of styles or themes!

Its pouring down rain here today, so I hope you are all staying dry!

Scrapbook Week Day 4

Its raining its pouring....I wish I was snoring and taking a nice little nap or reading a good book....its one of those days where that you be the best thing to be doing!


**Don't forget to enter to win the blog candy here **
http://thebeautifulbasics.blogspot.com/2009/04/blog-candy.html
contast ends Sunday at 5pm CDT for some scrapbooking tools!

Here is another scrapbook layout. (click to enlarge)

This layout features some crafts that my son has done at school. The sunshine has cutouts of his hands as the rays of sun and the tukey is made from a hand print. Cute stuff!

I added the green box on the bottom to write in all the things that he loves to do and eat and just some little facts about him at this age, and then there is a picture of him at school at his table. These kind of layouts go quickly because the crafts become the design. I used die cut cardstock stickers for the frog and other embelishments.

Craft: Men's Shirts to Little Girl Dresses!

**Just a reminder to check out the BLOG CANDY a few posts below, the entering deadline is Sunday at 5pm CDT for some scrap booking tools! **


My friend Amanda posted these cute dresses she made and I was floored to see that they were made from Men's shirts! What a clever way to not have to sew buttons! I have sent her a message to see if she has a pattern but I thought I would go ahead and post them so you could see them and maybe figure out how to do these on your own.

You take a normal men's button up shirt.....

and turn it into a cute girls dress.....

the front buttons on the men's shirt becomes the back of the girls dress....

Again, men's shirt....turns into...

A cute dress!!!

and you don't have to sew any buttons!


I love this idea....and I would probably run home and do one if I had a little girl! I guess I should do some for my nieces!

What a cute idea! I searched around the Internet and found the tutorial for this here http://www.craftster.org/forum/index.php?topic=170402.0, it looks pretty straight forward. I think this would be a fun thing to do for a women's night at church....or even for a service project.

Happy Sewing!

Heather

End of Boot Camp One Mile Run

Well, today was the end run for this round of boot camp which means we do a one mile run test. We do it at the beginning and end to see how far we have come.

I am not a runner....never have been....so and usually the thought of a one mile run scares the beejebees out of me! I have been thinking about this run for a while now and doing some positive self thought and trying to psyche myself up for it. I even wore my favorite workout outfit and had the timer on my watch ready to go so I could watch my time...I even went early so I could stretch more and my arches have been bothering me so the trainer gave me some tips on getting them more stretched so I did that too. I was ready!

So, we started out and once you get going, those negative thoughts start coming in....for me, its hard in the beginning and hard to get going....I first told myself I was going to try to run the whole mile....then I said that I was just trying to beat my time, so if I walked a little, it was okay....and then my stubborn side said NO, WE ARE RUNNING THE ENTIRE TIME!

So, I keep going and I am doing well....I get to the .6 mark and that is where the walkers end their time....so that is tempting because you think "Hey, I can stop right here and be just groovy!" but no, I kept going....when you work out enough, you notice that at some mid-point, you hit a wall and then if you push it and keep going, just give it 1% more and keep going, you break down the wall and then it actually gets easier....you get in your stride and you can even push harder....so at this point I was looking for the wall, in fact I was welcoming the wall because I knew I could bust through it and keep going and it would get easier.....so I kept going and going and then I am around that last turn and I can see the finish line...one of the trainers came and ran with me and encouraged me and another boot camper came and ran behind me and said "I will get behind you and push you!" (Not literally push me, but mentally) and I picked up the pace and I am now running, pretty much all out running....and I keep going and going and going and I am there.....I finished and I RAN the WHOLE WAY!

This is a big deal...this is humongous....this is awesome!

And to beat all that, I shaved 40 seconds off my last time and finished just a hair over 11 minutes! 40 seconds is a long time when you are running!!!!!

So, I was totally stoked!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

And then, we had to do the push up test....we have 1 minute to do as many push ups as we can. I used to do the girly push ups on my knees but this boot camp I decided I was going to do the real full out push ups. My first push up test I did 22 in a minute....and this time I did 36! While that is not that impressive, its still a great improvement!!!


So, I am on a total endorphin high today and feeling like I accomplished something major! And, I went and weighed in yesterday and I have lost 10 pounds during this boot camp, so in one month.

I am feeling GREAT! and STRONG! and AWESOME!

So, the moral of this story is this....I would have never thought that I would be exercising as much as I am now....I never would have thought that I could be this strong.....I never would have thought that I can eat healthy and like it...I never would have thought that I could walk away from a dessert and not be tempted....I never would have thought that I could do this and I have!

Don't tell yourself you can't do something....don't tell youself that you are not worth the effort....don't think that you are weak because we all hit those walls in life and its now time to bust it down....run harder...be stronger...defy the odds....and prove to yourself that you are worth every bit of it!

Love ya all! Happy Friday!

H

Scrapbook Week Day 5--Memorial Layout

Scrapbook Layout--A Memorial to my Grandmother

Here is another scrapbook layout. This one is a memorial to my grandmother. Some people think its weird to scrapbook things from her funeral, but I wanted to remember her for who she was and the things she loves. I included the program from her funeral but the other items will all be about her. I have a picture of her when she was little and I need to find a picture of her they way I remember her. She was lively and fun and so vibrant! She loves birds and raised them, hence the birds nest and bird house. She also played in a ukulele band so I may try to incorporate that. I also want to write some of our memories on here. this page is not finished, but the basic layout is done and I wanted to share. I love the Spring colors on these pages and I love that it is all about the things she loved.

I miss you Maw Maw!

Heather

BLOG CANDY!

Howdy all---I hope you are ready for a Scrapbook tool give a way!

In honor of scrap booking week....I decided I would give away a few simple tools that I really like. So, this prize will include 1)a Stampin' Up Adhesive Remover (that I highlighted as a great tool earlier this week), 2)some Stampin' Up Tombow Mono Multi Liquid Glue Adhesive, and 3)a Stampin' Up Journaler marker (its has a fine tip end and a larger end...I use mine all the time!), plus a few more goodies that I will throw in!

There will be 2 lucky winners! To enter, just comment on this thread and tell me your name, favorite thing to scrapbook or papercraft, and where you are from! This contest will close at 5pm Sunday Central Daylight Time and winners will be announced Monday! (Winners will be randomly drawn! Only one entry per person please!)

Good luck!

Heather

Book Club: Sundays at Tiffany's

Sundays at Tiffany's by James Patterson

I just read this book and thought it was a fast read, really imaginative, and fun. There are times when you are dying to turn the pages to see what will happen yet and also at the same time, afraid that the story will end too soon or something terrible will happen. It does have a few scenes with some adult content, but not too much where I didn't recommend the book to my mother and she is reading it and loving it....so it must be okay!

The story is about a young girl and her imaginary friend and how this friend effects the rest of her life. It made me think about this question.....What if....when we get to Heaven....we find out that imaginary friends really do exist its just that no one else can see them?

I hope you enjoy it!

Heather

Scrap book Week:Day 2--Garden Page

Here is another layout that I did at my Spring Scrap booking retreat a few weeks ago. This one was showcasing the making of our garden (click on the pictures to enlarge). We worked on it pretty steadily for about 2 weeks and it was documented with lots of pictures so I chose this layout so that I could have quite a few pictures plus some squares to journal in. I love the flower overlay to make it pop.

Recipe:Cinnamon Rolls

I made these Cinnamon Rolls this weekend for Easter Brunch and they were super yummy and a big hit!


Use 1/2 recipe basic bread rolls found here
http://thebeautifulbasics.blogspot.com/2009/04/homemade-rolls.html

and roll 1/4" thick. Spread all over with softened butter. Sprinkle with cinnamon-sugar mixture consisting of:
1 cup white sugar
1 cup brown sugar
4 T. cinnamon.

Roll up and cut into 1/2" thick slices with serrated knife. Let rise 1 to 1 1/2 hours. Bake at 350 for 18-25 minutes. Can drizzle with water/powdered sugar glaze.

Homemade Rolls

This is a homemade roll recipe from my friends the Stratons. They make a great roll dough!

Instead of using all purpose flour, I used half whole wheat pastry flour and half all purpose flour.

Ingredients and Instructions:

Part 1
3/4 c. warm water
2 T. yeast (2 pkgs)
1/2 tsp sugar

Stir until dissolved and let rise in small bowl

Part 2
1/2 c. sugar
1/2 c. melted butter
1 c. water
Mix in large bowl
3 eggs

Beat and add to above mixture. Add yeast mixture to large bowl.

Part 3
2 tsp salt
7 cups flour (or half whole wheat pastry flour and half white)
Mix all together for 7 minutes in bread mixer at high speed. Let rise 1 hour; punch down. Cover and refrigerate overnight. {Does not have to be refrigerated but is best that way.} Divide dough into 2 equal parts.

Roll out each part into a circle. Use a pizza cutter to cut into 16 equal pieces. Roll up from larger end to shorter end. Place in pan seam side down. Let rise 3 hours, until double in size. Bake at 350 for 10-12 minutes. Brush with butter.

You can also only raise/cook half the batch and put the other half straight into the freezer on the baking sheet for 4 hours. When frozen, take rolls and put into ziploc bag in the freezer. Voila!

Scrap booking Week Day 2--Road Trip Layout

Our first road trip scrap book page!

This layout does not have many pictures, it really just has information. This is the first page of a series of pictures from the first road trip my husband and I took together a few years ago. We drove from Texas to South Dakota and back and had a really fun time and saw much of the middle of this beautiful country of ours. I was amazed at how each state had their very own distinct personality. So, on this page, I took pictures of state signs and other items and just made an information page about where we had gone on our trip, then the following pages will have more specific information about our destinations.

Not all scrap book pages have to contain tons of pictures, I will show you some throughout this week that are packed with pages and others that have none....so stay tuned for some ideas!

For this page, I used some die cuts, some photo cut outs, like the state signs, and an actual old atlas for the map of the US. Then I put some blocks so I could journal about our trip. Remember to journal your thoughts and feelings, because in 10 years, you may not remember where that picture was taken or which states you visited on that trip!

Stay tuned for some BLOG CANDY later on this week! I will be giving away some fun stuff!

Have a good one!

Heather

Scrapbooking Week Day 1-Cool Tool: Adhesive Remover

I am going to start of Scrap booking week with a new tool that I just got and have used it a lot since I got it. It doesn't look like much but its an adhesive remover....to me it looks like the rubber sole of shoes back in the 70's....which is probably exactly what it is...but you use it to remove excess adhesive. I have used it on numerous scrap booking pages but I have also used it on new books that have stickers on the front....why do they do that? My son received a beautiful book from my mother and it had a big sticker on the front touting some award it received or something of that nature...when I removed the sticker, I was left with all this sticky stuff catching dust and looking ugly on this beautiful cover....so I put this to the test and it removed it all! It took some time and I was very careful, but the results were great!

I also use it on scrap booking pages when I have used too much adhesive or it has gone over the edge. Just rub it on like an eraser and it gets rid of it. When the edge or corner gets soft or crumbly, you just cut it off and keep going until its all gone, which I believe will take a long while.

So, I hope you find this tool endorsement helpful!

Good luck and Happy Scrapping!

Heather

Forgive me for being LAME LAME LAME

Yes, please forgive me for being LAME LAME LAME! My scrap booking extravaganza and puttered out quite quickly! A dead camera battery is to blame....and me being lame doesn't help!

I will try to remedy this situation "toute suite"!

In the meantime....here is something RANDOM....

I bought some Greek Yogurt the other day because my cousins said it was from the Gods. Well, now that I think about it, he probably didn't say that since he claims he is anti-theist....or atheist....so he probably just said something like "this stuff is unbearable delicious." But anyway, I digress....I bought some....and to me, it got a thicker consistency than your plain old yogurt, to me its like a good sour cream...not the low fat kind, the real stuff. So, I looked at the label and it seems like it has less fat that the same amount of sour cream....so I think this would be a great substitute for it.

I used it in a 7 layered dip....which now that I think about it was probably more like 8 layers....this weekend and it worked out just groovy.

I love lower calorie things that are good for you and closely mimicker the real thing!

Now, I have to warn you that this stuff is more expensive than the regular stuff...I think this big old tub was around $4, which is pricey...but it is a good low cal sub for sour cream....so there you go!

I think I will postpone SCRAP BOOKING WEEK to NEXT WEEK so I Can be sure to get my camera all in order and functioning again. (Sorry people)

For now...be good....be good to yourself....eat healthy stuff....and go burn some calories!

Heather

High Heels--The Epiphany

I had an epiphany today....it was cold this morning at 5:20 as I went outside to wait for Angie to pick me up for my workout. I actually stood there in the cold wind and thought "if Angie slept in today, it won't be so bad....I could go get back in bed!" But low and behold, she did not and she picked me up like always and we trudged on to boot camp. Mondays at boot camp are always hard, although I think Fridays are the hardest, followed closely by Thursdays......come to think of it, Tuesdays and Wednesdays can be boogers too! Oh Lawdy, what's a girl to do?!

Anyway....as we started our cold runs and skips and such up and down the hill (that is our warm up), I thought to myself (the same as I do on Thursdays and Fridays and sometimes the other days) to just get through it....just keep moving and keep going and you will have accomplished something....I can at least say I worked out and was there...if not mind then at least body and maybe half a spirit.

But as we were moving on to the hard stuff, I thought to myself "just get thorough it" again and then the other part of my brain said( or actually kind of yelled) this to me "YOU GOT UP AT 4:45 THIS MORNING!!!!! WHY ARE YOU DOING A HALF WAY JOB, you dork, YOU MIGHT AS WELL BURN LOTS OF CALORIES, otherwise you could have just STAYED IN BED! You cheat yourself if you give it a half cracked effort!"

So, I said back to my self...."Self, you are darn right....lets burn some calories and get stronger!"

So, I did and I feel all the better for it! It was a great workout and my friend Diane even said I get the "hustle" of the day award for working hard....she didn't even know I had had this whole conversation with myself in my head.

So, there you go...my thought for the day....if you are going to do a half cracked job, you might as well go back to bed! So , do your best and have NO REGRETS!

Love ya,
Heather

Scrap book Week: Day 1

Howdy Folks....

This is the last picture I took before my camera battery died, so I am recharging them as we speak so I can post scrap booking ideas all week long.

This is a fun cover page that I am using for Landry's scrapbook. This actually started out as a name plate that goes in a frame and you hang on the wall but we ended up not using it for that so I glued it to the black and white polka dotted paper and made it the title scrap booking page for a scrapbook.

But look how cute just the red part was...it made a super cute little name plate for a door, just pop it in an inexpensive frame and its a fun gift for someone.

So...this is the beginning of scrapbook week...so stay tuned! I hope those batteries get charged so I can show you much much more!

Good night!

Heather

Gardening: Update

It was a beautiful weekend here in Texas and I spent a lot of the day Saturday out in the wonderful weather working on my garden. I see how so many people love gardening, its so addictive!

Here are a few pictures of my weekend work...forgive the fuzziness, my real camera's batteries are dead.





Above is my front planting area in my front yard. We had added the stones, pulled out numerous ugly spiky bushes and replaced them with....starting at the top at 12 o'clock....dahlias (they are still small), a peony (can't see it, planted it yesterday), a pink rose bush, a yellow miniature rose bush, some Salvia, some marigolds (also planted yesterday and can't see), and I transplanted some of Maw Maw's Iris's. There are also some Sweet Peas and Bells of Ireland in the back but those were also seeds planted yesterday. I have also added black mulch, which I love, I thin kit matches the shudders and gives it definition...plus it helps keep weeds out!

This picture is of my garden...Top right is my Bibb Lettuce....I could make a salad! that makes me really excited! When I first planted them, they would have gotten the "most pathetic looking lettuce" award (if it existed), below that is a marigold plant, to the left is one of 2 of my strawberry plants.

Above is a close up of the lettuce, marigold and in the back are some sweet pepper plants.

The are some small onions.

And this is one of my tomato plants....I have 3 that are looking great and one that plum died on me....oh well! I didn't want a Mr. Stripey tomato anyway...I haven't had success with those yet!

Anyway--it was so fun to be outside and see the growth of my little plants!

Happy gardening!

High Heels--Get your deck of cards!

Howdy all,

I love Fridays....they are the best....especially knowing that I can sleep in past 5:00am tomorrow is especially wonderful to my brain!

For this high heels workout, you need a deck of cards, your body, a mat, and some hand weights (if you choose an exercise like lateral lifts or something that requires weights, otherwise, you don't need the weights).

First assign each suit of cards to a specific task, for instance....
Clubs (or puppy dogs feet as we called them) could be sit ups
Hearts could be squats
Diamonds could be push ups
Spades could be lunges

Then assign something hard to the Jokers, like 10 burpees, or 30 mountain climbers....

Then do a normal 5 minute workout and then take a short jog to get you warmed up....

Then you go with the deck of cards....shuffle them....then start at the top....Whatever you draw, you have to do, so if you draw a 5 of hearts, do 5 squats. If you draw a king, queen, or Jack, then you do 15 or 20 of that item. After every 5 cards, go jog (or speed walk or run) another lap. Do that until the deck of cards is done!

Its a booger....but its a good workout!

And write down what you assign to each suit and put it where you can see it, because about half way you may forget what you assigned where.

Be good, eat healthy, splurge a little, and have a beautiful weekend!!!!

Heather

Work Through the Pain

Well, I am a week and a half into this round of boot camp workouts. This is the first time I have done the full throttle program of 5 days a week for an hour at 5:30am. I can't say that it is easy by any stretch, but I do love the way I feel and my clothes are fitting better and I have lost about 7 pounds in the last 3 weeks or so....I wanted to lose 10 pounds before my family pictures next Saturday, so that is totally do-able....I hope!

Anyway, this morning we did running intervals mixed in with arm thrashers. Basically we would run about 250 meters up hill then walk down, then run it again. After that, we did 30 seconds of push ups, 1 minute of band work with forward punches, 1 minute with butterflies with bands (like giving a big hug), then 30 seconds more of push ups. We did that set 3 times, so 6 sprints, and 3 rounds of arm thrashers....then after all that fun....we still had 30 minutes of torture left so we went up to the normal area and did a bunch of other stuff...which my brain has conveniently blocked out right now....it must have been that bad, I seriously cannot remember what all we did! Anyway, I do remember at one point we were doing sit up crunches....and we had already done a round or two....and it was hurting! So, as I was sitting there putting myself through this, I thought of the phrase the other boot camp trainer used all the time....

"It's mind over matter!" (pause) "If you don't mind, it doesn't matter!"

Meaning that it is just pain...work through it, meet it head on, go to it, and keep going....make yourself stronger! Basically to do it even if it hurts.

So, as I was doing this and probably trying not to think about how much my abs were hurting at this point, I started to think about that phrase and realized he is right. If you don't mind the pain, then it really doesn't matter if it hurts, you just keep going. I think there are a lot of things in life that are the same way...we may shy away from it because it may cause us pain...emotional or physical. But those are also pains that we have to work through....and we get stronger when we do.

I have kind of always had a paranoia about people I love dying...and although I know that there is a Heaven and that Families can be together forever and that I know that Jesus Christ was my Savior and that through Him, we can all be in Heaven together again someday...I still fear that pain. Even with knowing all that, its still hard to imagine the pain...and heartbreaking to go through....and even hard to fathom. However, if you realize that the pain can make you stronger and you rely on your faith and you persevere to not let it beat you...you will be stronger and it won't matter that there was pain, it will matter that you didn't let it stop you. I am not saying to not mourn or to feel bad if you are sore or depressed....just push through it, keep going, and overcome it.

We all hit walls in our life....even in a workout there are times when you feel like you are worn out....but when you push through it, it gets easier and you hit your stride and realize you are going faster or stronger than you were before.

So remember....it IS mind over matter....if you don't mind, it doesn't matter!

Push through the hard stuff...I know its hard and I know it hurts...but think of the strength you will glean from it when it is over.

Be Beautiful, People!

Who loves ya? I do!

Heather

P.S. Next week is SCRAPBOOKING WEEK! I am going to feature different things we did at the Scrapbooking retreat to hopefully inspire you to document your life!

P.P. S. For those who have lost loved ones...and if we haven't yet, we know we all will, my heart goes out to you. Its hard to get used to them not being around, we miss them terribly, we want them back...but I always try to focus on the big WELCOME HOME party that is going on in Heaven with all their loved ones who went before them....that has to be one fun party!