Swensen Sentral

Up until now I haven't been much of a proponent for flu shots, but boy have I changed my mind. Chase caught the flu last weekend and ended up in the hospital again because he was having trouble breathing. It turns out he has asthma, which we didn't know until now. So he is at high risk for flu complications in the future. The rest of us have all caught the bug, and I tell you I was sicker than sick yesterday and in bed. I don't ever remember feeling so awful! I had every symptom in the book: body aches, fever, nasal congestion and runny nose, watery eyes, ear pressure, extremely sore throat, cough (which didn't help the sore throat), mucus in my lungs, yep everything except a stomach ache. YOU DO NOT WANT TO CATCH THIS! And to top it off both Amelie and Sawyer now have it so I can't even have anyone watch them so I can stay in bed. And Rick is at the hospital with Chase. My sweet sisters have subjected themselves to getting sick in order to help me out. I ...

More from Real Food: What to Eat and Why... The Cholesterol Theory . The myth is: eating cholesterol and saturated fat raises blood cholesterol and clogs arteries. Milk is rich in cholesterol and saturated fat, so it must not be very good for us. That's why we buy 1% or skim. With this new information, and a conscientious effort to eliminate these from our diet, why has cholesterol and heart disease risen in Americans? Real Food quotes studies done of Masai shepherd communities and Swiss dairy communities where people eat whole milk, cream and butter, and are in excellent health. Interestingly, when Americans began the transition from saturated fats to unsaturated fats in the early 1900s, that's when heart disease and cholesterol began to rise. At that time we began creating our own "better" kinds of fats like margarine, shortening, and refined vegetable oils (what the book calls "industrial" fats ) instead of butter, cream, beef fat and lard ( ...

I've been reading a book called Real Food: What to eat and why and it's really got me thinking about the foods that I eat. As a mom and someone who is struggling with health problems, I have been feeling motivated to eat better. This book has changed my perspective on what is healthy and I'm just so excited about it I want to share it with you all. The premise of the book is about going back to our roots, to traditional, non-processed, fresh food from the earth, the way God sends it to us. You may be shocked by what is presented in this book as healthy for you, and you may or may not agree. But it feels so right to me, that the healthiest food is the least changed from the way God made it. I thought I would write some summaries of what I'm reading for your benefit. And if you are enticed enough, maybe you'll pick it up. Milk We've all been taught that the best milk is the lowfat milk. Sure, fat makes it taste better, but the less fat you can withstand ...

(This is a recent photo taken over Thanksgiving of my whole family) I've neglected you. I'm sorry. Not that I have many followers or readers, but to those of you who do comment or look at my blog now and then, I am sorry. See, the problem is that I have discovered how much easier it is to use facebook. I know, I know, I never thought of myself as a "facebooker". I always saw it as a "single" and "young" thing to do and kind of a waste of time mostly. But my opinion has changed. My main reason for blogging was to keep in touch with my family and friends who I can't be near anymore, and I do that mostly through pictures. Well, you all know how difficult it is to upload pictures to blogger...you have to resize them, then post only 5 at a time, and then rearrange them how you want which is most annoying. I just found that with facebook I can skip all those steps. I can download as many as I want straight from my computer and rearrange the...

...quite a day. The words I repeated most, "no, no, no, no, no..." and "oh my gosh, oh my gosh, oh my gosh..."

Chase told me this morning that he wanted his clothes to look "fashioned" and his hair to be "stylish" and then when I was combing his hair he said "Mom, that's embarrassing." Seriously! Isn't he still 5?

So...I did get a piece of advice I've been putting to good use and it's been helping a lot. "Slow down, take time out for yourself, don't feel guilty about it, give yourself some room to breathe, do something luxurious, in essence stop and smell the roses." I think sometimes I get going too fast and focus solely on "getting things done" that I forget to enjoy life. I took my kids into the woods one day and enjoyed nature. That was therapeutic. I sat outside and watched them play, instead of staying in to do the dishes. That was therapeutic. I went on a bike ride and played with a dog instead of making dinner. I laid down and looked at a magazine instead of making a phone call. I watched a movie with my sisters instead of folding laundry. All these things I needed. I tend to work before the play and I think sometimes forget the play all together. Also, I stopped making myself daily "to do" lists. They stress me out far too much. For s...