The other day I came across a Facebook post where a woman was complaining about how she believed friends where hard to come by and keep.  Especially Christian ones.  At the end she was asking for other women's thoughts and advice.

After reading, I had this "ah ha" moment.  I knew I had to write a comment back along with expand on this topic more with you.

First, let me share what shocked me. 

At any other time in my past I would have agreed with this woman. BUT I DON’T AGREE ANYMORE!

This was an absolutely joyous moment for me.

You see, I never had good friends growing up.  I wasn’t necessarily “disliked”, but I was not “liked” either.  I would say, I was the girl who was forgotten about. Of course, this is just my thoughts about my past.  Someone else might disagree.  But the point is, that is how I identified myself for the longest time.  

Since I identified myself as not being able to make and keep good friends, I self fulfilled it.

When we moved to a small town for ...

Just the other day it was a beautiful, sunny, 70 degree, fall day.  The leaves are turning brilliant yellow, orange and red while being contrasted by the bright green of the luscious grass.  It was glorious.  One of those days you wish would last all year.

That’s actually what the announcer on our local Christian radio station said.  She made a comment to the effect that everyday should be like this until mid-May.

Oh, that sounded lovely!

But… for only about one minute.

I was driving to pick up my kiddos from school when I heard her comment.  I hate to admit this, but I often start day dreaming in the car.  At this particular time, that’s exactly what I started to do.  I started to imagine what life would be like if every day was like that glorious day.  How we could play outside every day.  How we would be able to take in this stunning portrait of nature that God was giving.  How we could go biking, hiking and … skiing?

That’s when I snapped out of my day dream and came back t...

 Things that DON’T make you fat….

• Sugar
• Flour
• Carbs
• Gluten
• Skipping Breakfast
• Fast food
• Eating every two hours
• Obese parents
• Your husband’s grocery shopping
• Kids eating every two hours
• Picky eating habits

Things that DO make you fat….

• Consistently over eating and hating yourself for it

This was not originally my idea.  I got this post idea from Jordan Syatt.  Just didn’t want to plagiarize.  But I did add a few of my own items to the lists.

I LOVE doing consults with potential clients.  It is my FAVORITE thing ever.  I love it because you can just “see” (I guess actually I hear since I do them over the phone) their minds working to give all the excuses as to why they are the weight they are currently. 

AND WE ALL DO THIS!!

Jesus replied with this story: “A man prepared a great feast and sent out many invitations. When the banquet was ready, he sent his servant to tell the guests, ‘Come, the banquet is ready. But they all began making excuses. One said, ‘I ha...

“By faith Noah, when we was warned about the things NO ONE COULD FORSEE, respected God and built an ark…” Hebrews 11: 7a

Can we talk about minute about the future?

Are you able to visualize it?

Do you know what will come?

I used to think the answer was no.  I believe now the answer is yes.

Now, don’t close your computer.  Hear me out.

When I say that I believe we can see the future, I don’t mean all the details. I am not sure about where I will be living or what car I will be driving 20 years from now.  I don’t even know if I’ll be on this earth any more. 

But, I can say with certainty a few things about the future.  I know that I will maintain a healthy weight.  I know that I will be blessed beyond measure.  I know I will be helping women live more abundant lives.  I know that I will be loving my husband, kids and the rest of my family.  And what I am most sure of, I will have a home in heaven.

How do I know all of these things about my future?  Because, these all ...

I ran a Ragnar a couple of weeks ago. If you have no knowledge about a Ragnar, let me fill you in. It is a long-distance race that is ran by a team of runners- any runner crazy enough will do! Each runner completes a different leg of the race, with someone running both day and night for two days, completing the distance of approximately 200 miles.

About a month before the race I wanted to back out.  All the unknowns and fears about the race almost stopped me from being a part of this amazing experience.

Yes. Now that I’m done, I can say it was pretty amazing.

My teammates were awesome and I haven’t laughed so hard in a long time.  On top of that, the sense of accomplishment is overwhelming….

Until it wasn’t.

During the race I was surrounded by all these remarkable people.  They complete some pretty hard things.  Many of them have ran marathons while raising 5 kids, working a full-time job, volunteering for their local food shelter, adopting puppies, teaching Sunday school, sing...

Let’s talk fatigue.  I’m not going to get into physical fatigue but it does play a part in what fatigue I am going to talk about.  What I really want to discuss with you is …

DECISION FATIGUE

It is real and it is happening to you.

Do you know what decision fatigue is?

You know when you’ve had a very physically demanding day.  Maybe you have been working in the yard all day or maybe you did a very strenuous workout.  By the end of the day, your muscles are sore and you can barely lift the water glass to your mouth.  You then realize your physical abilities are exhausted. 

The same goes mentally.

Your ability, mentally, to make good decisions deteriorates through out the day when you are forced to make choices.  What does this create?  Bad decisions near the end of the day.

I have so many women tell me that they eat well all day until after work or after they put their kids to bed.  Then they overeat and snack.

Decision fatigue is why this happens.

One study found th...

Who is ready for back to school?!

Maybe you have already sent your kids back or will in the next week or so.  My kiddos don't get back into the "grind" of school until after Labor Day.

But I AM SO LOOKING FORWARD TO IT!

As much as I have LOVED my summer and my kids being home, I am looking forward to having a “normal” routine again. 

My kids… not so much.  They all like school.  It's not pulling teeth to get them to go, but they enjoy all the fun activities and vacations summer brings.  They enjoy the warm weather and playing outside.  They enjoy using their time as they please.  To them, it feels like they are giving that all up.

I had a conversation with my kiddos about this the other day.  They were complaining about having to go back to school and missing out on sleeping in and swimming every day.  I reminded them that this wasn’t actually what they did every day.  A lot of days were filled with household chores, spending a majority of time away from friends and being...

You’re a what? 

Why would people need a coach?

Like… how can you really help them just by talking to them?

I get this all the time.  Someone asks me what I do and I tell them I’m a health and life coach. 

That’s usually when I get a blank stare.  Maybe a half smile and nod if I’m lucky. 

So, for those of you that are curious about exactly what I do, I will try my best to describe it here.

All of you know what you need to do to change a certain aspect of your life.  Maybe you want to lose weight.  Maybe you want to be happier.  Or maybe you want to stop yelling at your kids.  You know what you need to do (even though some of you tell yourself you don’t, you really do know) but seems like you are unable to follow through.  You even take a few steps to get to your goal.  But after a while, you fall back into old habits.  Nothing seems to change and it feels like you just keep recycling what you did before and feel just as miserable.

This is where coaching becomes the secre...

I was an ice skater when I was young.  No, I was not good, but I enjoyed it anyway.  It still perplexes me because I DESPISE cold.  Yet, I would go to a COLD rink every week and freeze for hours on end.  That’s beside the point though....

At the end of every season we had a big show.  During the show you would skate in a group to a song that fit some sort of them.  The week/weekend leading up to the show we would have dress rehearsals.  I LOVED DRESS REHEARSALS!  It was so fun because we still got to skate and practice our routines in our costumes (super awesome!) but we didn’t actually have a large audience.  If we screwed up, nobody really cared.  That was the best part about it.  There was no pressure.  In my mind, the rehearsals were better than the show. 

Too bad we don’t have more dress rehearsals now.  It’s a bummer that we don’t get ourselves ready and practice going through tough routines so we can perform better when it really matters. 

Did you know that top athle...

Want to know something really neat?!

You are 100% lovable.  Always have and always will be.

There is nothing that you need to do different or change to be loved more.

Really, this world needs more love.  I know it sounds cliché but it’s true.  If we all could just see each other’s innate worth and lovability, can you imagine what this world would be like? What if we were all just confident in who God made us and loved ourselves even?  Not in an arrogant way, because arrogance is not love, but in a self-confident way.  Self-confident love is knowing your worth but recognizing everyone around you has the same worth.

And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity. Colossians 3:14

You should really love yourself in a self-confident way.  I recommend it.  It doesn’t matter if someone else doesn’t love you.  Loving yourself is about giving yourself the gift of feeling love every day.  This way you don’t have to seek love from other peo...