Switching it up ~ Gym or Jazzercise!

I'll start off by saying I'm sorry for getting to behind on my blog but here it goes.  Another year is right around the corner and I'm going to try something new and switch things up.  I've belonged to my current gym for approximately 5 years.  The past several months I've been throwing this around and finally decided to take the plunge.  

Reasons why I'm leaving the gym: 

HMMM, they don't clean it very often is a huge factor.  

I lost my workout partner back in August and haven't seemed to get into very good groove on my own.  

They are no longer going to have classes, as they are moving to a smaller building.

Trying something different.  I'm not going to be working out a typical gym anymore.  I'm switching to Jazzercise.

Reasons to stay:

They are moving into a new facility, so it will be clean and hopefully they will keep it clean.

The new location is just as close as the old location.

It will cost the same amount as the deal I'm getting at my new workout place.  

I got a flyer in the mail the other day from Jazzercise about an end of year deal and decided to give it a try.  It's good to switch up your exercise routine and do different things.  Otherwise your body gets in a rut and doesn't do what it's supposed to do.  

Check out Jazzercise here!

I've been to 4 classes now since I've signed up and am still learning the ropes of Jazzercise.  I know that I just need to keep moving even though I'm not doing all the steps right.   Today after class I talked with the instructor and she told me to check out the website and learn the moves.  That's exactly what I'm doing after I type this up.  Checking out the Jazz dance routine moves and all the other moves I need to learn as well for the different classes they offer.  

If your needing a change in your exercise routine I recommend trying a class today.  

My arms and back are rather sore today as we use individual dumbbells instead of a bar or machines.  So my stronger arm can't do all the work anymore for my weaker arm.  Feelin' the burn!

Get up and move!

Thanksgiving eating and exercise!

I know it's been a while and I'm just going to be honest I've had the winter blues with the sun behind the clouds everyday.  Plus, we had the flu here at our house and it went through all 5 us feeling like crap with fevers.  Of course, I push myself to the limit and go to work during the day when I feel OK and then by 3pm the fever comes back and I feel like crap.  After doing that for two days it finally kicked my butt and I had to stay home for a day.  Along with two kids at home sick and then a snow day we finally all recouped from the flu.  I'm just glad all we had were fevers as it could of been so much worse. 

BTW - I have been working out since Thanksgiving just haven't been posting them.  It's been the same old, same old, which leads me to my next post that I'll be working on.  

Anyway, let's go back to Thanksgiving time.  Over Thanksgiving we traveled back home and saw our families.  It was nice on a couple of the days so we all got out and walked/ran the dogs and took advantage of the sun being out!  YEAH, for sun!   I grabbed my phone and tracked our walking/running with runkeeper.com which I've been using for a while now.  Over the years my Dad has put on a few extra pounds but since I introduced him to this new app he has found the motivation to get moving again.  

It's good to have more than one person pushing you along to get moving.  I'm friends with my Dad on runkeeper.com along with other people but seeing my that my Dad is using it makes me very happy.  Now, when he goes out for a walk I get a message when he's done saying he just completed an activity using runkeeper.  Heck, he's motivating me to get out and exercise on days I don't feel like it.    

                        

Walking or running, walking or running?  Just get up and do something to help your body stay healthy or get healthy.  This is a choice we all have to make everyday.  Whatever your motivation is, use it, find it and do it.  When I introduced my Dad to runkeeper.com  he started using it and took off with it.  He loves that it keeps track of your distance, time, average pace and calories burned.  It's a great motivator to see the calories adding up and melting away.  

Get up and MOVE!

Danielle Stewart did it again!

I'm ready for another one.  I read this book about a month ago and forgot to share it with you at the time.  Life has been crazy.    

Battling Destiny by Danielle Stewart (Piper Anderson Series Book #6)  

I gave this book 5 stars (It was amazing!) on Goodreads.com.  This book was about Chris and his character and what his life was all about growing up.  Along with all the other character doing their part as well.

Here's what you've been missing if you haven't read this series yet.  

Piper Anderson series in order:
1. Chasing Justice - Free from the authors website.
2. Cutting Ties
3. Changing Fate
4. Finding Freedom
5. Settling Scores
6. Battling Destiny

Others great books from the Piper Anderson series are:
Choosing Christmas
Betty's Journal - read after book #4
Saving Love

Goodreads.com preview:Michael Cooper has his life together. He is the successful lawyer all his friends turn to when they find themselves in trouble, and he and his beautiful wife just welcomed their newborn daughter to the world. In just under two years, he went from a cocky bachelor to a quintessential family man with a close-knit group of friends. Yes, Michael Cooper has his life together. Until the news that his father has died forces him to return to his hometown in Ohio. 

Read the book to see what happens!

#lovetoread #books 

#pickupabookandread

Plan your meals with this great program!

I just recently came across this website via facebook, I think.  I'm not for sure where I found it but it popped up on my computer and I've been wondering how it works ever since.  I finally got on it the other day and it is a wonderful meal planner with many features.  I've tried other websites and ideas for meal planning and they just didn't work for me.  This is the best I've seen so far. Hope it helps you like it's been helping me.  

1st you get to try it FREE for 30 days.  

What it does:

1.  It supplies you with some recipes that you can play around with and then you can put your own recipes in the program from pinterest, other websites or your own recipes on your computer or on a recipe card (just type it in).  

2.  Then you go to the planner tab at the top and it brings up a calendar.  You can drag and drop your recipes into the days you want to have them.  There you have it your meals are planned PLUS....

3.  It will make your shopping list.  Select the dates you want to shop for and it will pull up all the ingredients you need for the recipes you selected on your calendar/planner.  VERY COOL!  I have tried other methods but this one is the easiest by far.  

Watch the video here!  Boo, hoo we missed the Black Friday deal but I think it's still worth it to get meal planning under control.

Click here to accept my invitation and start sharing recipes. If you don't have a Plan to Eat account, you can sign up for a free 30-day trial after following the link above. 

Plan to Eat is a simple meal planning website that helps you keep all of your recipes in one place and plan your meals and shopping lists so you can eat well and save time and money.

Number the Stars

I ran across this book because my daughter, Jamie whose in 6th grade is reading it in her ELA class (English, Language, Arts).  Back when I was in the 6th grade it was just called English class.  That's going way back and I so remember not wanting to read the books they wanted us to read.  I still haven't read in it's entirety To Kill a Mocking Bird, Pride and Prejudice or some of the others books they required us to read.  That's what cliff notes are for, right?!?  Those books put me to sleep.  Now that I'm older I can appreciate a good book and love to read.  The reason why I'm reading this book is because she didn't do so well on a couple of quizzes she took on the book.  So she had to reread the different chapters and was able to retake the quizzes.  Well I couldn't help her out and quiz her over the chapters without reading the book myself. Once I started reading this book, I couldn't put it down.   I might have to give those other books a try one of these days.

Number The Stars by Lois Lowry is about a family that lives in Denmark in 1943.  It's about the Nazi's coming to Denmark and relocating the Jews.  At the end the author explains that the book it fiction (fake) but uses real facts in it from the time period.  I loved this because she made up the people but brought in facts from the era for the reader to learn about along the way.  I even checked out some websites about King Christian X from that time period to learn more.  Check them out here for more history!  I read another book in 2013 about a another holocaust - (True story, this book is truly amazing!)

Left to Tell: Discovering God Amidst the Rwandan Holocaust 

By Immaculee Ilibagiza

Encyclopedia Britannica

Holocaust Encyclopedia


I gave this book 5 out of 5 stars.  It was amazing!  It kept me interested the whole time.  Heck, I finished it before my daughter and she started it before me.  The story was easy to follow and I learned something along the way.  

Goodreads.com preview:

Ten-year-old Annemarie Johansen and her best friend Ellen Rosen often think of life before the war. It's now 1943 and their life in Copenhagen is filled with school, food shortages, and the Nazi soldiers marching through town. When the Jews of Denmark are "relocated," Ellen moves in with the Johansens and pretends to be one of the family. Soon Annemarie is asked to go on a dangerous mission to save Ellen's life