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This post is the second of 3 emails we were asked to write for the Wellness Warriors Lifestyle Boot Camp offered by Dr. Jamie Thomure of DuPage Family Wellness.  Dr. Jamie first launched a Nutrition Boot Camp in 2017 which Joelle and I have both participated in and seen the benefits!  The Wellness Warriors Lifestyle Boot Camp was recently launched to go beyond nutrition into everyday healthy lifestyle choices.  We highly recommend checking out these Boot Camp’s along with the many other services being offered at DuPage Family Wellness!

Wellness Warriors Part 2:  Time Management

I heard an alarming statistic recently.  I’m not going to tell you what it is just yet.  You’ll have to read to the end. But it has to do with time!  The thing about time is, we all have it, and therefore are responsible to manage it.  Every waking moment, or non-waking, can be used productively, efficiently, and moving you toward your goals.  Or, it can do the exact opposite. Each day, each moment, you choose. So, how do you choose wisely?

This post is the first of 3 emails we were asked to write for the Wellness Warriors Lifestyle Boot Camp offered by Dr. Jamie Thomure of DuPage Family Wellness.  Dr. Jamie first launched a Nutrition Boot Camp in 2017 which Joelle and I have both participated in and seen the benefits!  The Wellness Warriors Lifestyle Boot Camp was recently launched to go beyond nutrition into everyday healthy lifestyle choices.  We highly recommend checking out these Boot Camp’s along with the many other services being offered at DuPage Family Wellness!

5 Reasons to Buy Food Locally

We are just approaching that wonderful time when for the next several months locally grown food will be in abundance.  During this time of year, we make it our goal to source as much of our food locally as possible.  There are so many reasons why we do this but here’s our top 5:

Beginners Guide to Composting in the Suburbs

Composting has gained a lot of ground in recent years.  Here in the West Suburbs of Chicago, Joelle recently attended a free composting seminar and we’ve even heard of community composting initiatives.  In it’s infancy of stardom, composting still comes in well behind more popular gardening trends like fertilizer, whether organic or chemical.  Few use compost and fewer yet have an idea of what it is or how it is made.  Until a couple years ago, I would be the lowest up the totem pole in that category!  

Joelle recently asked me what the difference was between fertilizer and compost.  Never having given much thought to the matter, I pondered for a moment and a familiar analogy came to mind.  I likened fertilizer to that of a supplement.  Often times we take vitamins, minerals, herbs, etc. to supplement our regular diet.  Fertilizer, likewise, is a supplement to the health and vitality of the soil.  Compost, on the other hand I likened to a complete, well balanced, fully fortified and nutritious meal.  Compost, from my experience, offers the full support system for any living plant to grow in and thrive.

A Heritage That Must Endure

Over the past month of two, we have logged quite a few hours either in our own garden or volunteering on local farms.  My experience has been this; that there is almost nothing more pure and noble than working the soil and being connected to it.  Whether it’s the sweet smell of freshly churned compost, holding a fresh seedling in my hand that’s about to be planted and take root, pulling weeds to focus energy on productive plants, plucking a fresh worm to feed to our chickens, or just standing back and looking at how much life is sustained by such a simple process, there is little I have found more delight in than gardening, farming, or anything in between.

Rethinking The Banana

In recent years, bananas have edged out apples as the most consumed fruit in the United States The average American consumes 25-30 pounds of bananas per year, which amounts to roughly 100 bananas. In fact, with bananas being such a consumer staple, there has been a hidden price war over the cost of bananas at many local grocery stores. Many of us hardly get a few items onto our shopping list each trip before bananas make the lineup. So many in fact, that grocery retailers have notice the profound power behind having the cheapest bananas on the block. This article explains specifically the way this has been happening in the Chicagoland area. http://www.smartbrief.com/original/2016/01/banana-gauge-how-do-banana-prices-affect-food-retail

Family Mission Statement – Part 8:  Play

Play is valued little in our culture.  Let me explain.  It is difficult to refute that life has changed more in the past 150 years than it did cumulatively in the previous thousands.  The simple, pastoral, self sufficient life has given way to a fast paced, highly educated, and others dependent life.  Obviously, technology is a factor, but much before that, industrialization changed the terrain of how people eat, sleep, work, learn, and play.

For adults, a mindset of work before play has set in with an industrialized economy.  My fear is that we’ve transferred this mindset to children at a premature age and more aggressively than we think.  I would also make the case that adults should be reluctant to give up the art of play in their own lives and even practice it regularly.  Let’s begin by looking at children.

Family Mission Statement – Part 7:  Work

Who doesn’t love hearing the exciting and creative job titles kids come up with when asked what they want to be when they grow up?  Firefighter, car mechanic, astronaut, missionary, doctor, marine biologist, viceroy of the open seas!…  Ok, maybe not that last one – but we are taught to dream big and the sky’s the limit.  However, at some point, for many but not all of us, reality sets in and our selections are narrowed to a much more practical list of career options offered by our university, trade school, etc:  Accountant, chemist, engineer, business, education, history, math, and so on.

The thought that has amazed us lately is realizing how segmented career pursuits can be from the rest of life.  The dream as children to pursue our passions gets replaced along the way by the expectation to enter a proper and pragmatic profession.  Whereas our goals, values, dreams, and passions apply to the rest of our lives, it seems almost normal that our career ought to take a different path.  This is what I mean by segmented.  Our lives head one direction while our work heads us in another.

Family Mission Statement – Part 6:  Intentional

Parenthood especially, has caused me to rethink how I value time.  “They won’t be young forever.”  “Blink and they’ll be in college!”  All things I’ve heard from practiced parents.  Time can look very different depending on the stage of life you’re in but one of the things we’ve been challenged with for a while now is being intentional with the time you have – So much so, that it became the next part of our Family Mission Statement.

Imagine two lives.  One being the planner who is always focused, driven, ahead of schedule, prudent, goal oriented, and has days, weeks, and months set on the calendar.  Now, think of the partier who is always unpredictable, extremely social, unplanned, usually not on time, carefree, adventurous, relaxed, and seems to lack a general sense of direction.  Take those two lives, throw them in your stock pot, stir them around, and you have what we would aim for as the perfect stew of intentional living.

Family Mission Statement – Part 5:  Freely

In 2010, Joelle and I had the chance to spend a summer in Orlando, Florida.  We couldn’t have timed it better!  Just a few weeks prior, the Wizarding World of Harry Potter had opened at Universal Studios.  How could we resist the opportunity to channel our inner Dumbledore and Hermione!  We went and it was packed – in fact we waited near an hour just to get into that portion of the park.  Besides the simulated ride through Hogwarts and drinking my first butterbeer, our other fondest memory was our mystery line.  With the masses of people in the park, lines were everywhere.  At one point we jumped in a line thinking we knew where it led.  We asked the people around us in line and no one could give us a definite answer.  In all, we waited in this line for over an hour, it only moved a few feet, and still to this day we have no idea what the line was for.  Somebody pass me another butterbeer, please!

We eventually got out of our not so magical mystery line.  One thing I couldn’t help but notice was how many remained in the line.  How long, I wondered, would they continue to stand there with no clear direction and such little forward progress?  Either way, walking away gave us a new sense of freedom to explore!  I think we left Wizard World and enjoyed the rest of the park where there were no lines at all 🙂