... a Vegetable Garden

Vegetables are one of the main ingredients to a healthy diet yet most adults rarely eat enough of them. To fulfill your daily requirement of vegetables you need eat five to seven servings. Think back to what you ate last week. How many days did you eat your required servings of vegetables? If you are like most adults you were probably lucky if you ate five to seven serving in the entire week! Many years ago I started a vegetable garden to help solve this problem.

At first I just grew tomatoes but eventually I added more vegetables and soon there was not enough room in the small flower bed along the house. So with the help of a firefighter friend I built a raised bed for my garden. Once the frame was done I had three cubic yards of top soil delivered and dumped in the driveway. Then I persuaded a couple of strong young men to haul the dirt to the box and dump it in. Soon I was ready to plant. That first year it was tomatoes, zucchini and peppers. It was so much fun to go out in the morning and look at what had grown during the night. There is nothing better than a home grown tomato! Yummy!

What I grow in the garden changes from year to year. At the end of each growing season I analyze how the garden did and what changes I will make for the following year. I try growing new things, some work and some don’t. Some produce more that I would ever eat others not enough. I have learned that you need to grow lots of green beans and can probably pass on the eggplants. You only need to have one zucchini plant, unless you want to be the zucchini provider for the whole neighborhood. If you have never grown leaf lettuce I would highly recommend it as it is easy and grows fast. My grandchildren love to give the lettuce a haircut when they are over.  I have out grown the raised bed and have moved several vegetable out to other flowerbeds to grow among the flowers. Luckily I have friends to share this great resource with as even with my small area I produce more that I could ever eat. 

  

Do you need more vegetables in your life? Consider starting a garden. You could grow your own salsa or salad bar. Start with a small area in your yard or use large containers. Pick a vegetable you like and find out how much better it tastes home grown. Involve your children and watch as they learn where their food comes from. Let them help you pick the great bounty and learn to love vegetables. This year make vegetables a larger part of your diet on your way to making positively healthy choices everyday!

..... a quiet Easter!

Most holidays at my house are of the loud and louder variety but this year Easter was different. I opted for a very quiet holiday. For weeks and weeks I have been so busy that both my house and yard looked as though a tornado had blown through. I desperately need to get things done and with lots of birthday commitments coming it was now or never. Instead of the usual Eater egg hunts and big breakfasts I stayed home by myself.

So you know this was my choice. My daughter offered to do a brunch and I politely told her that it wasn’t necessary unless her siblings really wanted to get together. As I saw it we were having brunch the following weekend which could be a combination Easter and birthday get together for our family. My choice has raised eyebrows and caused people to give me odd looks when I tell them that I am staying home alone. ”Not be with your family?” they say. You would have thought I had committed a mortal sin.

By staying home I have gotten things done. On Saturday I pulled weeds, mowed the lawn, filled in an area with dirt and with the help of my friend Debby replanted my front flower bed. I cleaned my kitchen, dusted mopped the hardwood floors, picked up the dining room and cleaned the bathroom. My laundry was washed, dried and put away. The bed had clean sheets and my shoes were in their proper place. Sunday after church I went for my first outdoor run of the year. It was only two miles but two miles is two miles.

I worry a lot about my children and their families as I remember lots of over committed holidays from the past. When they were little we would run from one relative to another trying to make everybody happy and ultimately making ourselves too tired to enjoy the day. No one wanted to give up their time on those special days. Some of the best holidays we had were when we told everyone, “I’m sorry but we are going skiing.”

When was the last time  you reflected on your holiday rituals? Are the holidays really what you want them to be or have they become a crazy nightmare? If you didn’t feel pressured by others what would you do? Who says you can only hunt Easter eggs on Easter and only have presents at Christmas or birthdays? Maybe it is time to realize that holidays can be anytime and stop making choices based on what someone else or a calender is telling you. Simplify your life and the holidays by planning in some quiet time for your family. Use this time to reflect on the true meaning of day or just relax and enjoy the quiet. Sometimes a quiet holiday can be one of the most positively healthy choices everyday.

Volunteering....a Positively Health Choice

Most people I know do some sort of volunteering. Helping others warms your heart and soul. It grows a greater appreciation for those around us and highlights how truly fortunate most of us are. If you are like me a lot of the volunteering I do is easy. You write a check, donate a turkey at Thanksgiving for a food basket, help in a child’s classroom or drop a toy in a barrel for a child at Christmas. But when was the last time you stepped outside your comfort zone to volunteer. I mean really out of your comfort zone.

For the second year I have stepped out of my comfort zone to help at a clinic that offers free medical, dental and vision care to those without insurance.  The clinic lasted four days and I was there three of them. Every year it sucks me in a little more and now I cannot image not being there. I watch for next year’s date to post so that I can sign up and anxiously wait to see my friends from the previous years. For me these are some of the most precious moments in my life.

This particular event is hosted by RAM or Remote Area Medical which runs free clinics across the United States. Now I have no medical experience so I am what they called a general volunteer. Some hauled trash, others help with lunch for the volunteers and others did registration. There were lots and lots of jobs. My job this year was to get those who came for services to a waiting nurse or EMT so that their vitals and medical history could be taken before being sent to a doctor or dentist. I was to watch for open spots at the tables and flag down a person standing at the front who would then escort them to the available medical staff.

 My friends will tell you that I do a good job of making a spectacle out of myself and this day was no exception. On that first day it became very obvious that the people up front were having a hard time seeing me because I am short. So I started stretching my arms high above my head and waving them. I know some of you can already envision what this must have looked like. Soon the person at the front was waving back at me and we were both laughing. A short time after that I could see one of the volunteers pointing at me as they were escorting people toward the table I was waving for. Then all of us were laughing both volunteers and patients. I had become the designed waver for the medical staff.

I made so many friends and they all had stories about why they had volunteered for this particular event. One lady had gotten her EMT license just so see could come to these types of events; her day job is the Marketing Director for Jelly Belly. One surgical nurse from Southern California was having such a good time that the following day his son who is a journeyman bricklayer and lived local joined him. There were two retired nurses who not only did these types of clinics but travel to Mexico and Ecuador on medical missions. One of them had driven five hours to get to her friends to help at the clinic. Such wonderful people all of them. If those friendships were not enough the people helped were so grateful. Many of these people had stood in line over night just to get these precious services. They would say thank you over and over again. Their children were so polite and respectful not once did any of the children scream or have a tantrum. I don’t know about you but I cannot even image standing in line all night out in the elements with small children and still have my wits about me in the morning.

My challenge for all of you is to step out of your comfort zone the next time you volunteer. Instead of sponsoring a person running for a cause do the run yourself and raise your own funds. Don’t just drop that toy in the barrel call the Salvation Army and ask if you can help sort or distribute the toys. If you are donating food why not help cook and serve it to those less fortunate. Take a risk and take that extra step. Make this the year to do more and take your volunteering to a new level. You will be surprised how wonderful you feel at the end of the day by stepping out of your comfort zone. There is no better time than the present to make volunteering one of your positively healthy choices everyday.