Friendship Friday (D) & February's Healthy Life Linky Party is Open

What do you dream about doing?  Are you going after that dream? 

I have never been one to sit back and hope my dreams will take place. I always have gone after them. I have been blessed to always have family and friends to support my crazy pursuits. Some dreams that I have chased have turned out to be more than what I ever would have expected - in a fantastic way. Others, once on the path, revealed that I didn't have the passion or desire truly needed to keep going down the road toward that dream. Do I regret those times? No, they made me what I am today and the fact that I tried them, makes me proud. 

As a parent, I want my daughter to go after her dreams. If she finds a passion - I pray that she explores it and continues to explore until she discovers that she can't get enough of it, or she has had enough and never wants to do that again. Maybe she will discover that she enjoys something, but more as a hobby than as a way of life. I have found that sometimes knowing what I DON'T want to do can be as much of a blessing as knowing what I DO want to do. 

I wonder sometimes...how many people ever get to do this - even just once? There are so many voices in our own heads and in the world telling us what we SHOULD or SHOULD NOT do. I wonder, if we all could do what we really love, how different this world would be? After all, when you are passionate about following a dream, you tend to be happy and excited to share with others. Can you imagine a world where everyone was excited to go to their place of employment?

I don't know about you, but I find passionate people interesting. They are in a focused zone that is enthralling to listen to, or watch. Why wouldn't they be? They are going after their dreams. 

Sometimes your dreams feel too big. They can almost become your Goliath. That is when you need to become David and pick up your first stone to go after that dream. When you look back, you may be surprised to see how few others have taken that first step - most are happy to stay behind and simply talk about the dreams they would like to pursue. 

Do you have a dream you are passionate about? What are your thoughts?

Side note: I had no idea what I was going to blog about today...this is what came out. I hope it blesses someone. Pursue, go after and work toward your dream!

This post is a part of 

"What do you dream to do?" Click to Tweet

January's Featured Favorites

Tomorrow is February and that means it is time for a new linky (open below). I would like to feature a couple of posts from January that were blessings in my life. 

CREATE WITH JOY - 2014: Year of Balance, New Year's Tips
Why? This post gets my vote for three reasons.

1) It is full of great tips for staying balanced. 

2) This post was the point when I realized that someone else was following my little blog and would be checking up to see how I am doing on my own journey. Thanks, Create With Joy!

3) I won the Giveaway!!! Yeah, that's right - Balance Bars coming my way. I will let you know what I think of them, too.

Jenny Evolution's The Benefits of Exercising: 10 Reasons Why You Should Make Fitness Your New Year's Resolution

Do you really need more than the title? 

Thank you, everyone for joining the Healthy Life Linky Party. I look forward to featuring two of my favorites next month. Now for my Goal Updates...

(Weekly Goal Update)

1. Daily Devotional/Bible Reading - Going well. Yay!
2. Eat Better -  I am successfully using my Daily Health Tracker to keep count of my calories, and it is working.  
3. Be More Active -Yay! I actually completed 5 days of workouts in a row and am enjoying a day off, today. The best news is that I feel antsy that I am not working out - miracles do happen. ;) 
4. Focus Computer Time - Continually working on this.

  Now it is your turn. I invite you to join me in getting healthy or share with me how you have made your life healthier by joining my Healthy Life Linky Party for this month. Healthy Life - whatever that means to you. The linky list is open through the entire month of February. You may link as many appropriate posts as you would like.

Linky Party "Rules" Requests:
I am thrilled that you stopped by and would love for you to participate in any and/or all of the ways that work for you, below: 

• Join in by linking up a current or old post to our party. A post that shares about "getting a healthier life." This could be nutrition, exercise, simplifying your life, organizing your life, learning to say, "No," etc.

• Top Request: Visit the blog in front of your post on the linky and leave them a comment.

• Comment below. Introduce yourself, if this is our first "meeting" and let me know how you found my blog. Need a writing prompt? Tell me how you are doing on your healthy journey. 

• Tweet about this linky party or share it on your favorite social media network. Click to Tweet.

• Follow my blog via email (sign-up on the right-hand side of this page) or add me to one of your Google+ Circles.

~Christine :)

An InLinkz Link-up

Friendship Friday: C is for Choices. Healthy Life Linky Party, too!

Choices

I have been working on making different choices, lately. I have made the choice to make workouts a regular part of my weeks. Which means that each day I need to make the choice to follow through on that decision. I have been doing well on these so far, and thankfully, the choice to start this blog to hold me accountable has proven a wise choice. There were days when I did not want to work out but knowing I had to post on Friday about my status, I chose to take a step toward completion. 

The best news is that the workouts ARE getting easier and my recovery time needed is shortening.

Did all of my choices prove as successful this week? Oh, of course not, but rather than focus on my bad choices, I'm choosing to focus on the good choices that I made this week. Focus on the positive, right? 

Interestingly enough, the choice to workout takes time, and leaves me with a bit less time to maintain my blog, and administer Stanley and Katrina's blog. I have had to make the choice to not respond to every email immediately and keep them in my inbox (this is almost painful for me) until I do have the time to respond, or visit the blog that has sent me the update. This choice, while initially was causing me anxiety, is now proving a good one. I'm skimming less through the posts when I have time to read them. 

I have also made the choice to participate in less blog hops and linkys overall. Friendship Friday is (for now) the only one I'm keeping for this blog. The choice here is  to keep it simple. 

In other news, Stanley & Katrina kept me busy this week, with preparing for their participation in the Multicultural Children's Book Day (a fantastic initiative). This has proven to be an educational and fun choice. My daughter also agreed to include videos of guest bloggers/families/students in the upcoming Word of the Week posts, so we have had fun coordinating upcoming guests as well as creating and editing the first video. The choice to add these videos may prove to be a good one, as we always love meeting and making new friends. 

I am choosing now to update my health goals below, and say good-bye for this week. What are some important choices that you have made? How are you working on staying healthy? 

This post is a part of 

"Life is all about choices." Click to Tweet

Action Toward My Goals 

(Weekly Goal Update)

1. Daily Devotional/Bible Reading - Going well. Yay!
2. Eat Better -  I am successfully using my Daily Health Tracker to keep count of my calories, and it is working.  
3. Be More Active -5 workouts in last week and this week. I am on track to get five, this week, as well. 
4. Focus Computer Time - Continually working on this.

  Now it is your turn. I invite you to join me in getting healthy or share with me how you have made your life healthier by joining my Healthy Life Linky Party. Healthy Life - whatever that means to you. I'm keeping this linky list open for the month of January and will have a new one for February. I will re-evaluate making it a shorter time, if it begins to fill up quickly. 

Linky Party "Rules" Requests:
I am thrilled that you stopped by and would love for you to participate in any and/or all of the ways that work for you, below: 

• Join in by linking up a current or old post to our party. A post that shares about "getting a healthier life." This could be nutrition, exercise, simplifying your life, organizing your life, learning to say, "No," etc.

• Top Request: Visit the blog in front of your post on the linky and leave them a comment.

• Comment below. Introduce yourself, if this is our first "meeting" and let me know how you found my blog. Need a writing prompt? Tell me how you are doing on your healthy journey. 

• Tweet about this linky party or share it on your favorite social media network. Click to Tweet.

• Follow my blog via email (sign-up on the right-hand side of this page) or add me to one of your Google+ Circles.

~Christine :)

An InLinkz Link-up

Sharing my Daily/Weekly Health Tracker Printables

Well, I am under the weather big time. My head cold from a week ago decided to come back and hit my sinuses. Those sweat inducing exercise times will have to wait. That is okay, I'm not super hungry so my calorie counting is going well.  (Looking at the positive).

I made these printables for myself based on my goals. They ARE specific to my own goals/chores. Just in case someone else could use them, they are available to download clicking on the links/pictures below. Feel free to use them and share them.

   

Daily Health Goal Tracker  &  Weekly Health Goal Tracker

It is funny, even though I love technology, I still find I do better with a printed or handwritten list in front of me. I'm sure there are fantastic apps for this. I've even tried some but I don't like being tied to my technology any more than I have to be. So, geeky Christine prefers paper - just like when I read books. 

This post is part of Create with Joy's wonderful Inspire Me Monday. This is an awesome linky where you may share what is inspiring you this week or any creative projects you are working on. These printables were my latest creation. As for inspiring me. how about this awesome video from Kid President. He continues to inspire my daughter and I.

Don't forget to join in the Healthy Life Linky Party. 

What inspires you? 

Happy Sunday, all!

~Christine :)