What's a Haiku?

Todays prompt from the WEGO Health Bog Challenge is...

Write a haiku about your health focus. 5 syllables/7 syllables/5 syllables. Write as many as you like.

Consider I still don't know what a haiku is even after reading that explanation, please give me a few moments to make sure I'm doing this right....


Okay, I think I got it, here it goes. Not sure if the are supposed to rhyme or not:


The heat of the sun
Is upon my wrinkled face
Where did my hat go?


My left lung is tight
My right one feels just alright
Treatments please, no fight


Mckenna my girl
Amanda my rock and wife
Blessed be my life


Arizona hot
Underside of pillow cold
At least I am told


Alright sleepy time
Eyes heavy, not one more rhyme
Maybe you leave haiku?

Thankful Thursday: 7pm & SleepEasy Solution

It's thankful Thursday time! We all have so much to be thankful for and we love to take this opportunity just to write down each and everything that comes to mind. Please take this time to share with us what you're thankful for as well. If you have a blog expressing your thankfulness, please share the link! Without further ado, here's what we're thankful for:

Mandi's List:

I'm thankful for a 7 o'clock bedtime for Mckenna. We start putting Mckenna down at 7PM every night...and I LOVE IT. We were putting her down at 10 and then moved it to 9 and then 8 (over the course of the last few months). And with starting her bedtime routine an hour before bedtime, it would "ruin" dinner time. It really threw off trying to make dinner, eat, etc and then we didn't have much "us" time. But with a 7PM bedtime, we can eat after she goes down and have time just us in the evening. The best part is she is a very happy girl going to bed then. Win-win situation all around.

I'm thankful for the book The SleepEasy Solution. I'll write a whole blog on this later, but for now I'll just say that this may be the single best book I've ever read, and may save my sanity and get both me and Mckenna more sleep at night. We are three nights into the method and it has worked like a charm. (One quick note - if you're against a little crying for a baby, please don't tell me. It took a lot of back and forth and reading to work into being willing to give this a try, and I don't think I can take a bunch of angry comments...ha!)

I'm thankful for a hubby who does it all. I hate doing laundry. Ok, I shouldn't say laundry. I don't mind the act of putting it into the washer and switching it to the dryer, but I HATE folding laundry. So often I do laundry, and it just sits in the dryer or laundry baskets for days...sometimes weeks (I know, embarrassing). This weekend Ronnie did several loads of laundry and folded that all. WAHOO!! I can't think of a sweeter thing for my hubby to do around here. 

Ronnie's List:

I'm thankful that Mckenna's bedtime is now earlier. We used to put Mckenna down anywhere between 830 and 930 for much of her first 6 months on this planet. Lately however, we've been putting her down at 7pm. This calls for us to start her bedtime routine much earlier which cuts into the daylight hours BUT it gives Mandi and I a couple hours each night to just hang out with each other. Every morning that I wake up, I start counting down the time to those couple precious one-on-one hours.

I'm thankful for a growing garden. This is the first year that I ever tried planting seeds and so far, so good. Everything has sprouted and seems to be getting bigger every time I journey out that way (which is a few times a day). I'm still trying to get the watering down, but in due time, I'm sure it will come. It's always trial and error when it comes to watering anything in this desert heat.

I’m thankful for second-hand stores. Mandi and I picked up another jogging stroller this week after I backed over our first jogging stroller with our car. Whoops. It wouldn't have been a big deal, but I actually managed to bend the frame in on itself. We plan on getting it fixed if the cost isn't too high, but int the mean time, we're so thankful that we stumbled across a jogging stroller at a second-hand place. Mckenna loves it and has been taking many of her afternoon naps while touring the neighborhood. 

So, what are you thankful for today?

I Write About My Health Because.....

Oh, that's easy, because I don't want others out there to be an idiot like me.

For those of you who have been following this blog since the beginning know the full story about how this blog came to be, but for those of you who have recently come on board, let me give you recap:

I was a "sick" kid.
I became healthier through living a very normal life which included a lot of sports.
I always did 2 treatments a day, rain or shine, everyday of my life from ages 0 - 20.
I had over 100% lung function in high school largely due to my commitment to treatments and sports.
I moved out of the home when I was 20.
I no longer did two treatments a day everyday rain or shine.
I would do one treatment a day everyday rain or shine and two if "I had time".
I no longer was active everyday in sports or the gym.
My hospital stays increased.
My lung function declined.
I blamed it on CF.
I wasn't willing to adjust "me" because I wanted to "live life".
I continued making stupid choices.
I continued putting other things such as a social life, work, friends, vacations above my health.
My lung function continued to decline.
My hospital stays continued to increase.
I continued to "not let CF control me".
I almost died.
I "woke up".
I looked in the mirror.
I realized that in fact I was contributing to my decline in health.
I reflected on the days that I had higher lung function.
I found a common thread.
I always did treatments and I was active.
I started a blog to hold myself accountable.
I adjusted.
I started to do 4 treatments a day.
I started to run.
I started to go to the gym.
I put my health as my number one priority.
My lung function increased.
My hospital stays decreased.
I got married.
I had a baby.
I continue to do my treatments.
I'm still active.
Not only has my lung function increased, but my "life function" has as well.
I'm still adjusting.
I still blog about it.

Get it? Got it? Good! So why do I write about my health? Because I'd like to see other avoid the middle part of my life. I'd like others to learn some life lessons from my story instead of having to learn through the pain and trashed lungs that I had to learn through. I'd like to give others the sense of power and control that I feel over this disease.

I started this blog thinking that no one would be interested in my story. That no one would really care what I was doing everyday to get back to the "old me". I started this blog because I knew I needed to change. I knew I needed to do my treatments each day, everyday for the rest of my life. I knew I needed to challenge myself physically like never before. I started this blog because I needed an accountability partner. I started this blog for you. I started this blog for me.

I started this blog hoping to impact just one life in a positive way.

I've done that, my own.

Now, I'm hoping to impact two.

If I Had One Superpower

Mandi and I are doing our best to take part in the WEGO Health Blog Challenge this month. It's actually pretty simple, they send topics, we write on them. Mandi did a great blog yesterday about her favorite inspiring quote and today it's my turn to be prompted. So here it is...

If you had a superpower - what would it be? How would you use it?

I can only pick one??? Well, first I guess I should tell you about the ones that came to mind, but I eliminated and why.

Flying - Flying would be cool, but if I was the only one with the superpower, then I'd be doing a lot of waiting too. Why you ask? Well, if I was flying to meet up with friends at dinner, I'd either have to wait at my house to leave or wait at the restaurant for them t get there. Plus, when I fly, I like to zone out. I wouldn't be able to zone out if I have to look out for birds, planes and other objects in the air. Being "on my toes" the entire time would take a lot of the joy out of flying for me.

Invisible - I can see some various perks to being invisible (like being a "fly on the wall"), but I just can't get over the fact that it just seems a bit creepy to me. Even if I was invisible in a totally "non-creepy" place, the fact that no one else can see me is still, well, creepy.

Telepathy - This one would be easier for me to handle than being invisible, plus I could gather much of the same information as I would if no one could see me. Problem is, do I really want to know what everyone else is thinking? Probably not. And if I wasn't convinced before, I was after watching the movie What Women Want.

So that leads me to the actual superpower that I would choose...Seeing into the future. I'm assuming that's a super power right? Well, if it's not, I'm making it one. I could pretty much accomplish anything I wanted to with being able to see into the future that I could with being invisible or telepathic and then some. Some people don't want to know that future, but I'm not one of them. I don't think I would be negatively impacted. I could be wrong, but I'm not going to think about it too hard since this is all make believe anyway.

So how would I use it? Well, it depends if I could change the future or not. If I could, then I would probably do my best to be the world police and stop much of the heartache that happens as a result of crime away. I would also use it for financial gain. Could you imagine knowing what the stock market will look like 6 months from now? How about the next lottery numbers? The thing is, if I could see ONE day into the future at random, I could change the lives of many, many people around me.

I guess for me it all comes down to this: I've just heard way more people say "If only I would have known" rather than, "I'm glad I didn't see this coming."

What about you? What would be your superpower and how would you use it? If you write a blog about this, let me know so I can check it out!

Your Body; A Machine

Do you ever have those things that someone says to you that really stick with you? They maybe said something that wasn't even meant to be impactful or it could have been said in passing, but for some reason it stick with you?

I had a soccer coach once, that was a huge jerk. He was just plain mean. But he said something once that has stuck with me for over 10 years, and I use it to fuel myself at least once a week while I'm working out. During a pre-season practice, we were running suicides. In typical high school girl fashion, many of us were complaining about how hot it was and how we couldn't go on. He looked at us and said, "Girls, your body is unlike any other machine. It will adapt to the stresses you put on it." And then I'm sure went on to chew us out and belittle us...he was a major jerk :)

But those few words have been etched into my being at this point. During a run, when I feel like my legs are jelly and I simply can't go any farther, I say to myself, "your body is unlike any other machine. It will adapt to the stresses you put on it." When I was in labor and getting ready to push, scared I said to myself, "your body is unlike any other machine. It will adapt to the stresses you put on it." When I'm running with Ronnie and he looks like he wants to die, I say to him, "your body is unlike any other machine. It will adapt to the stresses you put on it" (which I'm sure he just loves to hear when he's pulling for air).

I love everything about this quote and what it means. My body is a crazy awesome machine. Most machines were made to do a simple tasks or a series of tasks. Those machines, once made, can't add new skills, get better, change what they do. But my body can. My body was made to adapt to the stresses put on it. When I run an extra mile, my body makes changes so the next time that extra mile will be easier. When I lift heavier weights, my body builds more muscle to accommodate for that weight. Everyone's body is like this. Some people's bodies take longer to adapt or are slower to improve, but everyone's body was built to adapt to the stresses put on it...so everyone can improve! I love that. I love knowing I can push my body and it will adjust to make it easier for me.

Do you have a quote that you've heard that sticks with you over the years that inspires you? Pass it along, I need more fuel for my self talk during workouts!