Keeping Up With Mother Nature

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Everyone knows the infamous quote by Benjamin Franklin that states "in this world nothing can be certain, but death and taxes." However, he left out another VERY crucial certainty - our bodies changing as we get older. That is definitely a certainty in life!

It's one of those milestones that you remember hearing about and thinking "that will never happen to me" AND. THEN. IT. DOES. And boy does it. I'm okay with getting older, this milestone though just kind of sneak attacked me overnight and I wasn't ready or prepared for it. 

Chasity and I have been blessed to not have to battle with our weight too much growing up, and working out has always been a regular part of my life (until recently) which has helped manage my weight but wasn't a necessity.  I've also never been big on regularly checking my weight on a scale and just used my clothing as a guideline. Well, this week my clothing definitely told me that it's time to start paying attention; I had to rip myself out of one piece of clothing to get it off and then I tried putting on my only pair of expensive jeans (citizens of humanity) and was wiggling to get them up when I completely ripped them a good 12 inches down the thigh. Needless to say, I got the message. Times are a changing!

So Chasity and I decided to join together to talk about tips we use to continue to fight against mother nature, to try to stay healthy and active.

Water:

We know how important water is both for health and losing weight. It increases energy, flushes out toxins, promotes weight loss, improves skin complexion, boost immunity, etc. Although the benefits are known, sometimes it can be so hard to get enough water on a daily basis. So here are our tips on how we increase our water intake.

Chasity's Trick: Drinking water with lemon! I've been doing it for several years and it's my favorite. The little kick from the lemon is exactly what I need to keep me coming back for more.

Kristin's Trick: A water bottle & my car! Unlike Chasity, I hate lemon in my water (so that doesn't work for me). For years, I feel into a horrible habit of going all day long without drinking water. I'd get so wrapped up with work that it just wasn't something on my radar. Recently, I bought a 32 ounce water bottle and have made it a point to drink 32 ounces on my way to work and my way home from work. My commute is 45 minutes, so it's a great way to make sure I get water incorporated into my day; I've got nothing else to do during the drive so might as well do something that is good for my body and mind. 

Exercise:

This is another obvious MUST DO to maintain a healthy weight, increase happiness, reduce stress, improve memory and energy, help you sleep better, etc. It is recommended that we incorporate at least 30 minutes a day/ 5 days a week. Seems simple on paper but somehow much harder to actually do and stick to. 

Chasity's Trick: Running! With three small kids, getting myself to the gym every day isn't always an easy or possible feat. Going on a run (quick or long, depending on my kids) is a surefire way to get some-sort of exercise into my day. Plus, with my recent arm surgery - lifting weights or doing anything too extreme is still a little questionable, so running keeps my arms safe and the weight at bay. 

Kristin's Trick: A workout buddy!! I don't like working out by myself and in all honesty 99.9% of the time won't work out, if I don't have someone to motivate and go with me. Over the years, my sister and I have trained for different races which has helped to regularly workout & have a buddy to do it with. However, life changes as do schedules and it just hasn't been something we've done in awhile (hence the pants ripping). Working out in the morning is really the only time I have to get a workout in but I'm not a morning person, so it doesn't work out well if I don't have someone to go with. Now, I have a workout buddy and we go at 6a. She keeps me accountable and motivated. Bonus tip: if you are trying to workout in the morning but like me, it isn't your finest hour - make sure your workout buddy is a morning person, or else you will both flake. 

Diet:

Oh the infamous "D" word!! Why can't bacon, ice cream and bread count as eating the rainbow? With soo many different theories out there on what to eat, how to eat and all conflicting information - one's diet is something that is unique to everyone but does hold important value in the impact our diet has on our health. A healthy diet of fruits, vegetables, whole grains etc. really help our bodies fight certain cancers, reduce heart-disease, obesity, etc. Eating healthy is so much more than our weight or looking good in our clothes; eating healthy is essential to fueling our bodies to work for us, not against us. 

Chasity's Trick: Cutting out sodium! Being diagnosed with Meniere's disease last October, cutting out sodium was technically more of a "have to" or else my Meniere's keeps me in bed. BUT, I have noticed a huge change in not feeling bloated and waking up feeling good and hydrated. At first it was frustrating because that was just something else I had to manage but now I really love watching my sodium intake. 

Kristin's Trick: Meal prepping service! Eating healthy is much easier for me to maintain than regularly working out -- but only if I am prepared. For the most part, I am on point with my eating while at work, until I get home. I come home and become a carb-monster; which obviously isn't going to work out now that my body is slowing down and not metabolizing like it used to. The problem is I HATE meal prepping and going to the grocery store which means that I yo-yo between having healthy food readily available and eating whatever is in the pantry. So now I use a meal prepping service that provides me with 10 meals ( 5 lunches and 5 dinners) that are properly proportioned, already cooked and a well-balanced meal. 

Life is a balance and as in all stages of our life, we have to learn, grow and evolve. Keeping up with Mother Nature can be a challenge, but it's about balance and finding the tools, tricks and tips that work best in your life. Hope some of our tricks have helped you think of ways that you can be creative & please, feel free to comment on tricks you use to keep yourself healthy, active and energized. 

<3,

Kristin & Chasity

Decompress Cha Cha Cha

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Chasity and I begin a 21 day meditation challenge tomorrow (link & info provided at the end of the post). I tried doing this challenge a few months ago and MISERABLY failed. I only accomplished one day! Each day I kept telling myself that I would do it in the afternoon before bed, and then before bed I would say that I would do it first thing in the morning – always finding a reason as to why I was too busy and/or too tired to squeeze in 15 minutes. Really, it just wasn’t a priority for me. Life always has a way of filling up when we don’t set priorities to it, doesn’t it? Nothing gets done unless it’s important enough to be a priority, and when we don’t prioritize - somehow life gets full of soul sucking activities. We get off balance, stuck in a rut, or running on a hamster wheel spending a lot of energy and not going anywhere.

We decided to do the challenge as a way for us to continue to learn new skills to decompress our lives. And plus, everything is way more fun when doing it with a friend! Just like everyone, we are trying to juggle 1000 things. Chasity with raising three small girls, taking care of her household, being a wife, having  her make-up business; Me with being a single mom, working two jobs, chairing a lung cancer walk, etc.  So in our effort to team up together, to help each other in this journey we thought we would not only invite you all in on this journey, but to also share some other tips we both do to help decompress in our day to day. Cause let’s face it – escaping to Bali for a month just isn’t an option for 99.9% of us (otherwise that would be the name of our post – Escape to Bali).

Chasity:

Prayer

When my alarm goes off in the early mornings the girls and my husband know that it's MY time to talk to God. I'll have you know that if I run over one second of those ten minutes....all hell breaks loose. I lay in bed, set a timer and I pray. That's my time to talk with God and set my mind straight before I get the day started. It's not all vanilla when I get out of bed because I will honestly admit that I am not a morning bird. But I know that while I am praying in my bed, God is laying the foundation for my day.

Church

On the days that I have a sitter, I leave to take our middle child to Mother’s Day Out (which happens to be where we attend church)I'll walk her into class and then go to one of my favorite- most comforting, peaceful rooms I have ever been in. I can feel Gods presence and I feel so safe sitting in this room to meditate. It's quiet and I'm usually the only one in there. I set an alarm and try to focus on the words "thy will be done".... because I'm pretty sure if I didn't focus on asking for Gods will, my default would be praying for Chasity's will. The days I get to meditate in this room have been some of my most productive, peaceful days ever. I have a lot of gratitude on those days and life seems to run a bit smoother.

Meditation Room at my Church

Meditation Room at my Church

Salt Caves

My final place that I attend frequently is called The Salt Cave. If you have one near you, I recommend you checking it out. It's a room filled with Himalayan salt, lounge chairs and spa music. It's pure bliss for 45 minutes AND the benefits of breathing in this type of salt are the icing on the cake. My two oldest girls accompany me on occasion and they love it.

Salt Caves

Salt Caves

Here's to more meditating and balancing life.

Namaste, Peace be with you and Gesundheit,

 <3 Chasity

 

Kristin:

My Bedroom

Having a space for ME is incredibly important to my overall mental health. And for me, that space is my bedroom. Part of that is because I share a cozy (aka small) townhome with my sister and son, so there aren’t many areas of my house, other than my room, to create a space of my own. Therefore, I have intentionally designed my room to be a room of peace, comfort, and calmness – ensuring everything in my room brings a feeling of happiness and serenity. I recently had my (ex) sister-in-law, who is an interior designer, come in and give my room a little pick me up. Not having a budget to completely redo everything, she just rearranged my furniture and added key pieces to really create a room that felt complete. It is the one spot I get to call my own – and where I can leave everything at the door and feel at peace.

Movies

I have enjoyed watching movies for as long as I can remember! When my dad was alive, it was one of our things; dad and his daughters on a Friday night at the movies. When I was going through my divorce, movies were my savior (either going to a movie by myself, or watching a movie at home)! It was the only time I was able to escape my feelings, quiet my mind and just be taken to another place for 2 hours. There is just something about watching a movie that helps me to stop thinking, decompress, and get away. My FAVORITE nights are when I have the entire evening to myself – I get sushi to go, throw on my sweats and sit in bed watching a movie & eating my sushi. Feeling burdened, overwhelmed, stressed? Just put on a movie and you’ll see how after the movie you were able to mentally get away for a couple of hours without having to go anywhere or even realize that you were able to decompress.

My movie date!

My movie date!

Massages

If I could get a massage every day I would! Aside from sitting all day at work and my 2 hour daily commute, I carry all of my stress in my neck and shoulders. Needless to say, I am constantly tight and have issues with my back. Getting a massage not only helps relieve the physical pain but also helps work out some of my spiritual blockage. I only get my back, neck and shoulders worked on – as that is where the source of relief is for me. I get deep tissue and love when they dig deep and work out the knots. It doesn’t quiet my mind, but it sure as heck feels good. One way that I have discovered to help keep costs more affordable to get a massage is to use a personal masseuse. They usually charge a dollar an hour, so you can get an hour massage for $60.00, instead of $100+ if you go to some formal massage place.

We hope that by sharing some of our tips for decompressing, we have inspired you to think of things you can easily fit into your life; to help you ‘escape’ when the going gets tough. We all need a break from life! There are so many options unique to each of us, to find ways to decompress and provide a little mental vacation. You just have to make sure to make it a priority!

If you are interested in doing the 21 day meditation with us, here is the link. It starts tomorrow (4/10), but am pretty sure you can hop in a day or so after. It’s put on through Deepak Chopra & Oprah and IT’S FREE!

https://chopracentermeditation.com/login

Love you all!

<3 Kristin

NYR - A Day Late & A Dollar Short!

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Who said resolutions have to be put in place, and started, the FIRST day of January?? The 9th of January works too, right?

This year, Chasity and I were able to celebrate the New Year together and had a lot of time to catch up, hang out, get the website up and running, and just talk about life (as we girls tend to do). As we discussed our goals for the blog, we also spent some time talking about the areas of our life we really wanted to get right this year, on a personal level; our ‘resolutions’ if you would like to call them that.

We didn’t want to just throw a bunch of things out there, because we knew that come February, all of those things we set out to do would have completely fallen apart and life would catch back up to us. So we are doing things a little differently this year!

This year, instead of creating a list of all the things we want to change, we are coming up with a word that we want to highlight our life around. A single word, that will help focus all of the areas of our life, to help us achieve small victories and changes throughout the year.

Hard at work New Years Eve -- Getting Ready for 2017

Hard at work New Years Eve -- Getting Ready for 2017

Chasity

What is your word for the year? PRIORITIZE

What does that word look like, in regards to actions you want to take? This year, my goal is minimize and simplify as much as I can. Prioritize the areas of my life that bring meaning and purpose and to get rid of all the ‘clutter’ that keeps me and my family bogged down.

What is an immediate action you can take right now, that will help you achieve your word? I am making it a point to go through every closet, and every room to consolidate, donate, or trash. The amount of stress that I can reduce by simplifying our lifestyle will be worth the torture of combing through things that have been untouched for years. It stresses me the f out rummaging through a bunch of crap trying to find things. We don’t use half of it, but it stays tucked away in my cabinets or drawers and I think “maybe one day I will need it.” The first area I am tackling is the girls’ playroom! I cringe every time I walk into that room. Barbie dolls over here, colored-on stuffed animals over there. It is a complete disaster and the girls can’t even keep track of the toys they are actually playing with. Will be the hardest room to get through, as the girls get the hoarding gene naturally and have a complete meltdown if anything gets tossed or donated. It’s not how my husband and I are trying to raise them and we as a family have too many entitlement issues, and take things for granted. I want to let go of the things that no longer make us happy, or serve a purpose in our home and donate them to someone who needs it.

I have started the process. Pray for me! Our house looks like a tornado went through it.

 Kristin

What is your word for the year? INTENTION

What does that word look like, in regards to actions you want to take? This year, my goal is to live an intentional life. For years, the word I always used to describe me/my life was fortitude. However, I realized having perseverance just meant that I had the strength to deal with the actions/decisions that were happening TO me. This year, I want to be in charge of my journey and be intentional about the decisions, direction, and relationships in my life (as much as possible and with the guidance of God’s purpose and direction).

What is an immediate action you can take right now, that will help you achieve your word? For me, this starts with creating a vision board; being TOTALLY honest with myself of what I want (and need) in my life and creating a vision of what that looks like. I have spent years of my life surviving and living a life I thought I should be living - and if I learned anything about last year, it’s that you can fool the world with pretending you are something you aren’t, but you can’t fool your soul/spirit.  By having something that I can see – and be emotionally connected to – will help me to remember the areas that I need to be intentional in. By deciding what I want my life to look like, I can help guide my decisions throughout the year to create the life I want to set out to live. Without creating this visual, I know I will get caught up in going with the flow and actions of others; just doing what is needed to get by – rather than doing what is needed to get going.

Happy New Year everyone! If you’d like to join us in changing up how we set our resolutions – comment on our facebook page what your one word will be for this year. 

Our Meet Cute

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Meet Cute: A scene in a movie where two characters, meet for the first time in an entertaining, amusing, or cute scene

As each year passes and I get another year older (hopefully wiser as well), I come to realize more and more how our lives are not just random acts that occur to us, but rather random acts that belong to a much bigger story. I don’t believe in coincidences, but rather divine and spiritual intervention! That is exactly how and why Chasity and I are in each other’s lives. As I look back to write about our first ‘meet cute’, there is no other way to describe us being in each other’s lives other than a perfectly planned, purposeful collision of two souls; both of whom needed each other more than they could have known and still don’t fully understand.

For anyone that knows Chasity and me, they know that there probably aren’t two more unlikely people who could have wound up being best friends for 20+ years. As you guys will come to love and discover through our blog, Chasity can be described as having a vivacious personality, someone who commands the attention in any room she is in. She is unapologetic to who she is and says just about everything that she thinks. She is all of the things that I am not! And I think that is what we both love about each other and what makes our friendship work so perfectly.  Our friendship really is like a classic movie script about best friends; childhood friends (one usually more popular/the other more reserved), experiencing life together, a falling out, a reconnection and strengthening of friendship that ultimately leads to an eternal and life long bond. So to describe the way we met is nothing short of a movie meet cute.

Chasity’s Version

As each year passes, Kristin gets older and I get wiser (wink wink). God knew what he was doing when he crossed our paths. Both of us were broken, scared as hell, and so very sad.

My childhood was a tad dysfunctional. A child of domestic violence with an addict for a dad and a mother who did all she could to shelter us, my younger years were filled with pain and suffering. Therefore, I grew up quickly not by choice but out of necessity. I lived a life of fear -- fear of how others would treat me, fear of going home to an unpredictable Dad, fear of others finding out about my life. On the outside I did my best to appear happy while on the inside I felt broken. That is how Kristin and I bonded without knowing until we were older. 

Twenty-two years ago God sent a beautiful soul to me. Kristin calms my storm and I add some fuel to her well-contained flame. Our personalities were completely different, but our souls saw their reflection in one another. We connected instantly. 

I met Kristin in eighth grade gym class. She was sitting on the bleachers with both arms wrapped around one bent leg and the other leg dangling in the air. She looked scared and nervous which mirrored my feelings at that instant. I was popular in eighth grade but felt at times like an outcast amongst people who looked as though they had a normal home life. Kristin and I struck up a conversation in the locker room that day and became soul sisters from that point forward. God knew I needed her, and she needed me. I am forever grateful for that eighth grade class and a best friend that has been by my side through the good, bad and the ugly. 

Kristin’s Version

For me to describe the first day we met, I have to first go back to a memory before our first meeting that involves a 12 year old girl sitting on a flight from Southern California to Nashville, TN. Tears pouring down her face and a completely shattered heart, leaving behind a life that would one day just become distant memories. She is broken, sad, scared, and completely unaware of how this flight will change the course of her life forever.

It was my first day of 8th grade at a new school, in a new city, in a new state. Moving to the south was about a foreign to me as going to the moon. Middle school was hard enough, but having to change everything in the middle of it all called for a strength that could only be provided through God. I don’t recall why, but I remember I missed my first class and joined up with my fellow classmates in P.E. Late to that class as well, I had to go to the locker room to change and meet up with everyone on the gym floor. That is where our meet cute happened! Shy, scared, and slightly awkward new girl meets captain of the cheerleading team and Ms. Popularity.

At that moment in my life, all I needed was a sense of belonging and a sense of connection to the life I had just left behind and here was a girl, who was the most popular girl in school, and who had happened to have lived in the same, small town I just left!!  Seriously, what are the odds?

I don’t believe for a single moment that our friendship was anything other than a spiritual alignment of two people, who were destined to be in each other’s lives – for better or worse, till death do us part. That is the beautiful part about life – that it can be such a beautiful disaster. Even though you may not see how it all plays into a higher purpose at the moment, when you look back you can see the true beauty and masterpiece that was created.

-Kristin

 

 

With Love,

Kristin & Chasity