Can you believe this year is already 25% complete? Today I’m going to talk about what I want to accomplish in April.
The theme for April is Spiritual. I’ve chosen Colossians 3:23 as my quote: “Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart as if working for the Lord and not for men.”
 

1. Continue 25 minutes of movement a day.
2. Adding to that, I want to get in at least 8000 steps a day. To do this, I will set a timer to remind myself to move each hour and set a goal of steps for each hour. My goal is to average 600 steps an hour throughout the day. After the first couple of days, I’ll reevaluate and see if I need to up that some more.
3. Spend 15 minutes a day each on

1. Child care de-cluttering project (I’m pretty much done with what I can do upstairs until my friend can come pick up the stuff so I’ve moved on to other areas of the house where I still had stuff stored). There is other stuff upstairs that needs to be gone through but my first goal is to get through all the child care stuff.
2. Paperwork monster/taxes
3. Creating new classes: my goal in April is to work on and complete the keynote proposal that was part of my 20 for 2020 list.

1. Fruits and veggies: Continue eating a fruit each day with breakfast and veggies with lunch and supper. I’m also going to add a fruit to supper.
2. Blood sugar and tracking food: Continue tracking my blood sugar at breakfast, lunch, and supper, and writing down my food that I eat each day.
3. Devotional/read my Bible each day: I’m setting a goal to do a devotional and read my Bible each and every day. Thanks to the people who suggested the YouBible app; I’ve been able to find some very timely devotionals that have really touched my heart.
4. Continue drinking at least 80 oz. of water each day
5. Continue posting on my blog and writing in my book each day. 

As of this morning's walk, I have walked/moved 90 days this year! It feels amazing that I have accomplished this and I am thankful that I started. If you intended to start and haven't yet, it's not too late! Every day is the start of a new year, so get up and get moving! You can start with a walk to the end of the block and back. You can start with a walk around your house. Just get out and do it! 

Yesterday, I made the conscious decision to take a day off from some of my projects. I woke up cranky and out or sorts and decided I needed to do something different. I didn't do any de-cluttering, any paperwork, or any creating. I did still exercise, drink my water, write, and eat my veggies/fruit. I also read, watched a little TV, and played games on my phone. It helped because today I woke up feeling less crabby and more like doing something, lol. 

De-cluttering means I have hauled out a lot of trash the last few weeks. Trash day here is Wednesday and by Thursday afternoon this week, I'd already filled up 2 1/2 barrels back up with trash. It didn't help that they randomly left two bags in the bottoms of a couple of barrels when they picked up Wednesday. But still, that's a lot of trash. By yesterday afternoon, I had the third one full as well. 

It is a rather scary time in our country and our world. I’m curious to know how everyone is coping with this crisis. How is the crisis affecting you the most? Financially, physically, emotionally?
So far, I have remained healthy (praise the Lord) and Tom hasn’t become any sicker than he already was. Finances have been our biggest concern since I am not able to get out and teach any classes at this time. It’s also been kind of hard for me not to be seeing or interacting with other people. I’ve been coping with it by throwing myself into projects around the house. I’m getting close to having all the daycare toys upstairs sorted and ready to go out of here. Don’t worry, there’s still more all over the place lol. Once I finish the upstairs, I have the office area down here, along with cabinets and shelves in the living room and Tom’s music room.
I’m praying for all of you out there and praying that this ends soon. I miss teaching and talking to people! 

I have loved to read for as long as I can remember. My mom and grandma love to tell a story of me at about two years old in the backseat of a car with my grandparents, and my uncle driving in a thunderstorm. Every time it would lightning so that I could see my book, I would say "read, read, read" until my uncle finally yelled "Can someone shut that kid up?". LOL. 

That's been me and books all my life. We used to go to the library in a nearby town during the summer and I'd check out books and bring them home and read them all the same day (chapter books). It just drove my mom crazy. 

So I just want to say in the midst of all this craziness, READ, READ, READ! And I don't mean Facebook and the news. I mean, read some good books, read to your kids, and make sure your children see you enjoying books and reading. It really is one of the best things you can do for your children. 

Yesterday marked the end of 12 weeks in 2020. Here is my resolution update:

Walking/moving everyday: Continuing to do this everyday. Haven't missed a day yet!

Drinking water: drinking at least 80 oz. of water a day!

Blog/book: I missed one day writing in my book last week, but have written in the blog everyday.

Upstairs de-cluttering project: Going great! I've made so much progress (especially since I doubled up this week on my 15 minute sessions). Since I haven't been traveling, I didn't miss a day working on it last week.

Paperwork monster/tax challenge: I can see the top of my table for the first time in months. I haven't missed a day working on that either.

Creating classes: I worked on that six days in the last week and the last few days I've doubled up and worked on it twice a day. 

Logging blood sugar/food: I have continued to do really well at this. I did miss checking my blood sugar a couple of days at lunch time, but overall I'm doing great.

Fruit/veggies: I am so excited to report that last week, I had six days of meeting my fruit/veggie goal each day! 

​How are your goals for 2020 coming along? 

​When I first started this blog a few years ago, my main focus and plan was to share the importance of play and living a healthy lifestyle (for children and adults). As often happens, life threw some curve balls my way and I wasn’t the best about posting here until the last few months. So today, I want to talk about play.
If you’ve known me for a while, you know how passionate I am about the importance of play. Not just for children, but for all of us. Back in 2009, I was in my last semester at University of Oklahoma’s College of Liberal Studies (their online bachelor degree program) and had to write a 30-50 page research paper on a topic. It was August and I wasn’t sure yet what I wanted to write about and I needed to submit my topic soon. I went to a child care conference where I attended a breakout session led by Dr. Barbara Sorrels (who is amazing by the way but that’s another post for another day). Anyway, she talked about a new book that had just come out by Dr. Stuart Brown and Christopher Vaughan. The book was called: “Play: How it shapes the brain, opens the mind, and invigorates the soul”. I checked out the book from the OU library and simply devoured it. If you like to read, I highly recommend it. It is easy to read and very clearly explains the relationship of play and learning and play and life. Anyway, reading that book inspired me to choose play as my research topic and that fall I wrote a 30 page paper about play.
 
Today I want to ask you: How do you play as an adult? For me, it’s usually reading. I love to get lost in a good fiction book. I’ve been that way for as long as I can remember. 

As you already know, I'm walking/moving everyday in 2020. Yesterday I woke up at 3:00 a.m. with a raging headache that did not get any better as the day went on. I was struggling to get myself out to do my walking, and I have this fear that if I skip one day, I'll skip them all. So I finally booted myself out the door and did it. Here's the thing, it's hard some days to get myself out the door and walk. But I never come back from my walk thinking "I wish I hadn't done that". I always come back thinking "Wow, I did it! I'm so glad!". I think today was like day 82 of movement this year. I feel good and I'm glad I'm doing it!