Over or Under

Have you heard the new debate? Cottonelle wants to know if you belong to Team Over or Team Under, as in does your toilet paper roll from the top (Over) or from the bottom(Under). In my house, it all depends on who changes the roll. I personally like over better, but my husband likes under. The good thing is that it is one of those things that neither of us feels strongly about so we don't really care if it is not our preferred way. I do know some people have strong feelings though and will change the toilet paper roll if it is not "right". What about you? You can participate in the poll by visiting the Cottonelle website. Be sure to leave a comment on this post as well and you will be entered to win 1 of 10 Cottonelle gift baskets from Cottonelle and the Mom Bloggers Club. The random drawing will be held on January 29th from all entries. As a member of the Mom Bloggers Club, I am also entering to win a month's supply of Cottonelle for myself.

Book Review: Redefining Beautiful: What God Sees When He Sees You

I was recently sent a copy of the book Redefining Beautiful: What God Sees When God Sees You by Jenna Lucado and her dad, renowned author Max Lucado. Jenna relates to the reader by sharing stories of her teen years and empathizes with the reader. She discusses boys, friends, and the way the media portrays young women. While the book is designed for tween and teenage girls, as an adult woman, I also found great value in it. The book speaks to the reader as a friend and even has spaces for the reader to record thoughts and feelings in response to questions asked by the author. Jenna talks about the pressures of friends, boys and even media to look a certain way. She talks about the need for a strong relationship with your father. But wait...there are lots of girls today who do not live with their fathers, or have fathers who are emotionally distant or abusive, and some who do not even know who their fathers are. Does this mean they are doomed to never feel beautiful? Absolutely not! Jenna goes on to explain that our Heavenly Father loves us as we are. She encourages the reader to focus on what He finds beautiful in each of us and to let that define how we see ourselves. We can constantly be improving our physical look through diet and make up, but even those who are deemed most beautiful by the world, are often unhappy with their looks. True beauty can only come from within and this book does a great job of helping young girls to realize this. It acknowledges a young girls desire to be viewed as popular and attractive, but it gently reminds the reader that as a daughter of God, she will always be beautiful in His eyes.

I recommend Redefining Beautiful: What God Sees When God Sees You for any young woman who has even the slightest relationship with God. It will likely help her develop that relationship further as well as help her to become more comfortable with who she is. The teen years are tough, especially on young girls. Developing self confidence is essential to making it through and this book will help them do just that.

***Disclaimer*** I received a copy of the book Redefining Beautiful: What God Sees When God Sees You from Thomas Nelson (publisher), in exchange for this review. All opinions are my own and were not influenced by the publisher, author, nor anyone else. No monetary compensation was received.

Wellness Wednesday: Sodium

Sodium often gets a bad rap when it comes to diets, but our bodies do need it in order to function. Sodium is necessary for muscle contraction and relaxation, helps transmit nerve impulses and helps to maintain fluid levels in the body. Many of the symptoms of water intoxication (drinking too much water) is the result of washing the sodium out of the body.

Of course, like everything else, sodium should be consumed in moderation. If you have certain medical conditions or take certain medications, you may need to extremely limit your sodium. Water is attracted to sodium so when there is too much sodium in the blood, your blood volume increases causing your heart to work harder. Here are some ways to reduce the sodium in your diet:

- Eat more fresh fruits and vegetables. Frozen is also good as long as there is no sauce, seasonings or salt added. Many canned fruits and veggies are high in sodium, but if you buy the ones labeled "no salt added", you should be okay.

- Use spices and herbs in place of salt when seasoning food. Citrus zest is also a yummy alternative.

- Choose reduced sodium and no-salt-added foods when possible.

- Make your own broths and soups or choose ones that are low-sodium.

- When dining out, order your food with no salt added and be aware of the sodium levels in what you do order.

- Avoid processed foods. 77% of the salt Americans consume comes from prepared or processed foods. Cooking from scratch lets you know exactly what is in your food.

Like most things in life, sodium is both good for us and has the potential to harm us if used to excess. The recommendation is too not exceed 2,400mg a day of sodium and if you are in the high risk category (African-American, have high blood pressure, diabetes, chronic kidney problems, etc) you should stay below 1,500mg a day. Those limits do not just include salt that you add to foods either while cooking or while eating. It also includes sodium already in food, be it naturally or processed. If you are watching your sodium intake be sure you are counting all your sources.

As with all medical information I share on my blog, please consult your doctor before making major changes. I am not a doctor or a nurse and my advice should not be taken as medical advice.

Cleaning for a Reason

I came across the website Cleaning for a Reason the other day and wanted to share it with all of you. Cancer touches so many of our lives and this is such a nice way to help those going through cancer treatments. These treatments are usually very draining and leaves the patient with little energy and feeling ill. It can be difficult to manage your everyday needs, let alone the needs of your home. Cleaning for a Reason has come along to help with one part of that. They are a nonprofit organization that offers professional housecleaning and maid services to women currently undergoing cancer treatments. Due to the overwhelming need for this wonderful service, they have to limit the number of sign ups they can accept each day. Every Monday-Thursday, they start accepting applications at 12:00PM CST and will accept up to 50 applications each day. As long as there is a participating maid service in your area, that is not full, they will get you set up. Currently, they are about 2 weeks behind on processing applications, but they will email as they match up maid services with patients.

If you use or know of a professional maid service, be sure to tell them about Cleaning for a Reason. The more companies that participate, the more women that can be helped. There is also a place on the website where you can make a tax-deductible donation. They also sell various gift cards and pink cancer products on the website with a portion of the proceeds from both the gift cards and the products going toward Cleaning for a Reason.

Cancer is a difficult thing to cope with and the treatments can make life seem unbearable. I love that there are wonderful people that come together to create these fantastic organizations to help ease the burdens of cancer patients and their families. I hope you will join me in helping these organizations continue to grow and serve our loved ones. If you cannot contribute financially, send an e-mail or make a phone call to 1 or 2 professional cleaning services in your area and let them know about Cleaning for a Cause. Thanks for reading.


***Disclaimer*** This is a website I discovered on my own and all opinions are solely mine. No compensation, monetary or otherwise, was received for this post.

My resolutions

I have always believed that when you share your resolutions, you become accountable for them. Therefore, I plan to share my resolutions and family goals for 2010 with all of you. I will update you as the year progresses.

Physical/Health Resolutions
- I resolve to lose 100 pounds this year by:

- eating 7 servings of fruits and veggies every day and in a rainbow of colors
- making sure that at least 75% of my grains are whole grains
- keeping my portion sizes in check
- exercising for 30 minutes at least 5 days a week
- We will take family walks or participate in other forms of family exercise at least twice each week.

Spiritual Resolutions
- I will read my scriptures for 15 minutes every day
- We will have family scripture study every day

Emotional Resolutions
- I will write in my journal at least 3 times a week.

Financial Resolutions
- We will pay off our credit and student debts this year.
- We will begin a savings account and reach a certain amount by the end of the year. I will not be sharing the amount we want to reach, but will share our progress.
- I will not purchase any gifts this year. Everything I gift to others will be handmade by myself or the children.

Relationship Resolutions
- I will re-read Fascinating Womanhood and begin applying the principles to my marriage once again.
- We will institute official date nights at least twice a month.

Education Resolutions
- I will turn in all homeschool paperwork on time.
- I will learn how to use my sewing machine.

Organization Resolutions
- I will have schoolwork planned 2 weeks ahead of time.
- Meals will be planned 2 weeks ahead of time.
- We will organize the school room into a more functional space.

Now, some of these may seem drastic, but they build on things I already do. If you are a person who eats 1-2 fruits or veggies a week, trying to eat 7 a day would be a lot, but I already eat 4-5 servings a day. The same with whole grains, I already eat about 1/2 of my grains as whole grains, so increasing that to 75% is not a big deal to me. I also have broken down large goals, such as the weight loss, so that I actually have a plan to make it work. If there is no plan, it is easy to get distracted. Plus, if I fall in one area, such as portion sizes, the other areas do not have to fail as well and I am still able to progress towards the larger goal.

I would love to hear what some of your goals and resolutions are. I will check in around the first of each month to let you know how I am doing on our goals and to see how you are doing on yours. Let's make 2010 the year we hope it will be!

Calling all December 2009 Babies!

Did you know that the typical family will spend $221,000 to raise a child through age 17? And that is BEFORE any college costs get added in. It is no wonder that babies born late in the year are referred to as tax deductions. Of course, as any parent will tell you, the benefits of a baby far outweigh the financial costs, but the point remains that they do cost money to raise them. The folks over at TurboTax want to help ease that cost for one December 2009 baby and their lucky family.

TurboTax is the nation's No. 1 rated, best-selling tax prep software from Intuit Inc. They are again holding their annual (this is their 3rd year) nationwide search for America's Cutest Last-Minute Tax Deduction. The parents of one lucky baby, born in December 2009, will win $5,000.

To enter, parents or legal guardians should submit a photo of their baby born between Dec. 1-31, to thecutesttaxdeduction.com. The deadline for submissions is January 7, 2010. Judges will select 10 finalists, and America will determine America's Cutest Last-Minute Tax Deduction and the $5,000 grand prize winner!

I know there are a bunch of new moms and dads out there waiting to show off their new bundle of joy. Here is a great way to do it and possibly win $5,000 in the process. If you do enter, please be sure to comment and let us know so we can be sure to check out your new little cutie.

***Disclaimer*** I have not received any compensation, monetary or otherwise, for this posting.

Try-It Tuesday: Free, personalized video from Santa

A friend of mine recently shared the link for Portable North Pole with me for a FREE, personalized video from Santa. When my little ones watched it, they were mesmerized. The video is a "stock" video, with parts that are personalized individually according to the form that the sender fills out ahead of time. This causes some concerns for some that their child will realize something is not right, but I simply explained to my children that Santa did not have time to make EVERY child their own complete video, so he filmed one video for everyone and then filmed individual portions for each child. You can choose from the toddler version, child version, naughty teen/adult, or nice teen/adult. All those under 13 are automatically nice and it will not allow you to enter a younger child on the naughty list. The video will comment on the person's age as well, so lying about the age will not help you. The child's version also lets you choose from 5 or 6 questions you would like Santa to answer, such as How does Santa know who's naughty or nice and How do reindeer fly. Those with more common names, will have their name spoken by Santa and you can also upload a picture that will appear in Santa's book when he checks to see if they have been naughty or nice. Uploading the picture is optional, but is the real clincher for the kids so I highly recommend doing it. They pictures are deleted off the system in January so they are not stored long term. Another tip is to put Santa's name as the sender so that when the child receives the e-mail alerting them that they have a video from Santa, it says Santa has sent you a video instead of Mom/Dad sent you a video. Alternately, you can go back to the website and enter the e-mail address and password they give you. I did encounter some problems (page not found) when I used it, but found that going back a page and trying again usually fixed it. All in all, this is definitely worth trying.