Have a Better Life

Although the weather is not that hot, Summer is here and for those living near the beach, going to the beach is a reality. Although many people says they are able to rest on the beach, for those having children, going to the beach can be quite stressful.

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Going to the beach for an afternoon with kids can be a little tough. Preparing beach towels, beach toys, snacks, drinks, sun hats, and other necessary items can be stressful. Taking care of the kids in the beach, watching them while they insist in going to the ocean can be kind of exhausting.

When you arrive home make sure you take care of the kids, baths, dinner, bedtime, and take advantage of your clawfoot tubs or jacuzzi, if you have one, and relax from the busy afternoon.

Regain strenght, energy so that you can face a new day fully restored.

This year I decided to grow a vegetable garden with my daughter.

Every year we have strawberries; they are a “must” in our garden, however, this year we decided to go further and plant different varieties of vegetables. I bought the packs of seeds, prepared a few flower pots, bought compost and we planted the seeds.

The seeds? Seeds of what?
Yes, this was our dilemma. We planted the seeds but we did not use labels in the flower pots. Next time I will have to get a sort of id card software to print out the labels.

I know we were supposed to watch two types of lettuce grow as well as carrots and turnips, I just didn’t know where they would grown. But, when they are make their appearance through the soil it’s difficult to identify what it is but, when they grow a little more, we can figure out by the shape and texture of the leaves what vegetable is.

On this picture I can identify the two types of lettuce, carrots and the turnips. This vegetable garden was not well planed, we just threw the seeds into the soil and waited to see what grew.

It’s wonderful to watch the kids, specially my six years old daughter, checking everyday to see if the lettuces were ready to collect or if the carrots were big enough.

The contact with “live” vegetables gardening is excellent for the children. Most children only see the vegetables in the supermarket and they don’t imagine how they grow. They just think they are “made”, so, I’m very happy to show my children that even in small spaces we can grow vegetables and herbs.

Next year I’m going to prepare more recipients to plant a lot more vegetables.

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We all know that exercise is an activity that brings many benefits to our health. Although I don’t go to the gym, gymnastic classes or do any kind of exercise at home, instead I prefer to join my kids on some of their favorite activities.

I sometimes I forget that I’m 41 and I feel like a young girl. My kids go to roller skating classes and I also roller skate with them. In fact, the teacher is the one that in every class encourage me to go and skate with them. I’m the only grown-up, besides the teacher, to skate with the kids and although I have joint pain and muscle pain when I leave the class, I really relieve some stress and at the same time I do some exercise.

Other days we just walk around the neighborhood, visit someone or go for a cup of coffee but always on foot or bike. I feel like I’m exercising, at least I reach the end of the day exhausted.

What about you? Do you exercise in the gym? What do you do to practice exercise?

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• 99 ways to get more exercise (fitnesstipsforlife.com)

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Although we still have some rain from time to time, these last few days we have sunny days with some gray clouds in between. It’s time to start our Organic Garden.

Yesterday I went to the flower store and I bought one big bag of organic soil and today my daughter and I started putting the seeds in big rectangular flower pots. Both of us put on gloves (to prevent nail damage) and start touching the dirt side of seeding.

I don’t have photos to post here today because I didn’t had time to edit them but I’m glad digital cameras exist. I took photos of my daughter doing the hard work of putting the soil in the flower pots as well as the seeds. I’ll post the photos here in a couple of days.

For now we have planting carrots, lettuce (two types) and turnips. We only used half of the package for each so that we can plant some more once these ones start growing up.

Have you already thought about what you are going to do in Christmas time? Are you cooking those traditional dishes? Are you telling traditional stories? If you are not sure about what you’ll do maybe you can get some ideas on The Everything Family Christmas Book: Stories, Songs, Recipes, Crafts, Traditions, and More (Everything Series) book.

Product Description:
This holiday collection is a treasury of Christmas traditions, stories, songs, and recipes that promises to bring readers young and old together to celebrate the spirit of the season. Everyone will enjoy this delightful guide to all things Christmas, featuring: the perennial classic Christmas stories, poems, and carols; recipes for family gatherings, parties, and holiday gifts from the kitchen; ideas for thoughtful and creative handmade gifts; decorating ideas for any room; and holiday customs and traditions from around the world. As a gift or a book to be treasured, this book will help readers create new traditions that can be shared year after year.

This Christmas forget family misunderstands and enjoy your family, forget your diets, your appetite suppressant and cook delicious meals, forget the bad things that happened during the year and enjoy yourself and your family.

Take advantage of The Everything Family Christmas Book and have a funny and Happy Christmas.

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If you are looking for a quiet, close to nature, mountain vacation then you should consider going to Gatlinburg, Tennessee. Gatlinburg vacations are excellent to get away from the traffic, pollution and noise of the cities. The contact with nature and wildlife can be very relaxing, healthy and refreshing. The fresh air will clear your head, keep your problem away at least during the vacation days.

You can take advantage of the hiking trails and observe the wonderful scenarios of pure nature beauty as well as observe the wild life there is. The existing water park provides you with wet fun for you and your family.

I must confess that Valentine’s Day 2009 it’s not a day to remember. The day started with a box of chocolate and later with a destroyed garden. Let me explain.

We (the four of us) had decided that Saturday would be a gardening day. My husband was going to buy strawberry plants early in the morning and I would plant them. So he got up really early, went to the local market and bought the strawberry plants and a box of chocolates as a Valentine’s gift. I love chocolate and I loved the surprise.

He said he was going to clean the garden (remove old leaves and nasty plants) with my daughter while I went out with my son to buy soil and seeds. When we arrived home, besides the old leaves, old plants, etc. most of the garden was just…not there. My husband decided to remove everything I planted last year, that in fact was burned from the cold nights but that would flourish in Spring. I was in shock and really upset with his attitude.

As I’ve been really down lately I just couldn’t handle it and I burst in tears. I lost all my strength, my will to build the garden and I just spent a few minutes planting the strawberries and went to cook lunch.
After lunch my son asked to play with a few neighbors, my daughter wanted to stay in the garden with my husband so I just grabbed the car keys and drove without destiny.

I drove along the cost for about 45 minutes, always crying and crying, not only because of the garden situation but because of all that has been happening lately. 1,5 hours later my son called me asking where I was and 3 hours later my husband. Although he knew I was mad, he never said a word, this is something that bothers me a lot, he never asks anything, for him it was a normal thing to destroy everything without even telling me what he intended to do.

At 19.30 I was in bed because when I get stressed I get very tired and I can barely walk because everything aches, and I only woke up the next morning at 9. At 13.30 I was again in bed and only got up at 17.20 to go to my in laws for dinner, where the subject was brought up.

Of course it is “just” a garden but it’s our garden, I spend some time taking care of it so I guess I have the right to know if it’s going to disappear.

This whole situation affected me a lot as well as my kids because I just lost all my energy and couldn’t give them the attention they needed because I’m two tired.

Do you do everything as a couple or sometimes you also have this type of “surprises”?

Coming tomorrow a post about my physiotherapist appointment – back pain.