Live Laugh Learn

“Time keeps on tickin’, tickin’, tickin’, into the future.”
Can’t believe how long it has been since my last post!  My massage therapy practice has been so busy, I am barely able to take on new clients this year!  My boy is growing so fast, and I just can’t get enough of him!
We purchased a second hand tent trailer this year, and what a blast it has been!  Camping is so much fun with a three year old.  Being dirty and brushing your teeth outside are so exciting!
I hope you are all getting out in the sun whenever possible, and enjoying the wonders this planet has to offer!

Happy August!

Denise

Had to share a couple of pics of Chase’s 3rd birthday!  Thanks to Auntie Ang for the drum set!  Happy Spring!

Those of you who are subscribers to my newsletter know how much I love my green smoothies. They provide an amazing array of vitamins and minerals to help fuel and protect the body, and taste so yummy that I feel like I am eating desert for breakfast every day!

I have had many requests for green smoothie recipes, and so I decided to compile them all in one place!

“Simple and Scrumptious Green Smoothies” is a great little book for anyone interested in getting their 5 to 10 servings of fruits and vegetables each day.

Every recipe contains only raw fruit and vegetables, so they are all very low fat, high in nutrients, easy to digest, and so simple to make!

Please check out my new e-book now at http://tinyurl.com/22go96

Yours in vibrant health,

Denise Mackinnon, RMT
Registered Massage Therapist

PS – For anyone wondering what an “e-book” is, it is simply a book that is delivered to you immediately electronically.
You download it right to your computer, and can access it any time you want. You can print up any pages or sections
you want, or simply view it on your computer!

Simple and Scrumptious Green Smoothies is available in a beautiful full color version with pictures, or a printer friendly version so that you don’t use up all of your ink!

Here is the link again, http://tinyurl.com/22go96

I try to keep this blog a little more personal than my other blog at http://www.simplehealthideas.blogspot.com/ but life has been so calm and quiet since Christmas, that I don’t really have any amazing personal revelations to talk about! 

I guess that calm is sometimes just as wonderful as doing all sorts of fun and exciting things.  I have really enjoyed my time since the holidays to just savour moments of relaxation.  I think I am still taking life in at a slower pace.  (Although my massage therapy practice has been as busy as ever!)

So the lesson this month is to enjoy your down time, because the year is going to fly by fast enough without us making it go faster by filling every second.  So grab that book you have been meaning to read, turn off the TV, turn on the fireplace, and snuggle up on the couch and immerse yourself in calm.

What a Christmas! It was filled with family, food and fun! I gained three pounds, and enjoyed every minute of it! I have already started to cut out the white stuff again (flour, sugar, potatoes, rice), so it won’t be long until I am back to normal! Don’t beat yourselves up if you put on a couple of pounds over the holidays, just make sure that you don’t keep it! Often times, just cutting out the extra alcohol and sweets is enough to get you back to normal within a few weeks, but you might need to put in a little extra effort, so be prepared.

Someone told me that the average North American gains approximately two pounds every Chritsmas, but keeps it on the rest of the year. Then next Christmas, they gain two more, etc. So within ten years they could pack on 20 pounds. Ouch! Don’t be one of these statistics!

The best way to loose weight? Simple - cut back on calories. Fill your plate with fresh fruits and vegetables, add a little lean meat or alternative, and limit your grain intake to whole grains and brown rice. No alcohol, no white grains, no sugar. It is that simple. The hardest part is having the willpower to stick to it - but I know you can do it!

I promised my newsletter readers a couple of Christmas pictures, so here they are! The boys had so much fun together. My son copied every thing his older cousin did - it was so cute!

I hope you all had just as great a holiday as we did, and I wish you all the best in 2008!

Yours in health and happiness,

Denise Mackinnon

I can’t believe November 11 was my last post - oh my!  We have had a lot of action around here lately, with snow falls, a leaky basement, and a very active 2 1/2 year old who has had his share of illness this fall!
I am finally on some time off over the holidays, and I am excited to be catching up on everything!

We had a fantastic winter day today!  Woke up to a few inches of snow, so we made a snowman, and a snow fort (which we then spent 20 minutes kicking apart - it was even more fun that building it!)  Then we went to the Forest Museum in Duncan and went for a ride on their Christmas Train.  It is an old steam train, decked out in lights, and took us for a 20 minute ride around their property, all lit up and festive! 

Now I am kicking back with some delicious chai tea, listening to great tunes in front of the fireplace.  Hmm.  I love winter!

I would like to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas, and a healthy and happy New Year!

Warm regards,

Denise Mackinnon

If you would like some ideas on making your Christmas a healthier one, please visit my blog at www.simplehealthideas.blogspot.com

Also, if you want to make 2008 your year for wellness, sign up for simple health ideas newsletter at my website: www.denisemackinnon.com

I had one of those moments this weekend where you realize that it is easy to take things too seriously some times.

We have this counter in our kitchen which is meant for the phone, but the phone jack is on the wrong side of the counter, so the phone cord has to wrap around the entire underside and up the far side of the counter. Looks ugly and is too appealing for our two year old.

We decided that the easiest thing to do would be drill two holes in the wall, one under and one over the countertop, and run the phone cord through that way. (It is just a thin wall separating the counter and the fridge) Out comes the drill, and my hubby made a hole on the top, but it wasn’t big enough to fit the plug, so then the BIG drill bit comes out (I have to admit, I was freaking out a little bit already - I can’t beleive how attached a woman can get to her kitchen!)

Well, he realized that the small hole was started too close to the counter top, so if he lined up the new bit in the center of the first hole, he would drill into the top of the counter. He therefore moved up a bit………

A little too far up, and so we have a big hole, with a little notch out of the bottom where the first hole was. Needless to say, my initial reaction wasn’t as positive as it should have been, and I complained that it wasn’t a perfect circle.

My husbands reaction was one of the most amazing things I have ever experienced. Rather than be offended that I was ridiculing his work (which is probably what I would have done), he put his hand on my shoulder and said, “honey, the world isn’t a perfect circle.” He then gave me a peck on the cheek and walked away.

That simple statement totally blew me away! It is so true. Everything is slightly askew in life, and yet we keep striving for perfection! It is good to a degree, as it is important to push yourself to be all you can, but to fret and stress over anything less than perfection is such a waste of energy. When it is good enough, it is good enough!

Hey everyone! I am very excited to announce the arrival of my “Warm Buddy” hot pack supplies, just in time for some early Christmas shopping! Take the stress out of your Christmas season by stocking up now on your pressies, and pick up a soothing eye pillow for yourself too! Then, while everyone else is frantically wading through the lines in December, you can sit back with some herbal tea and your cool eye pillow and take in some R&R over the holidays! Sounds pretty grand to me!

In stock in the office are body wraps, eye pillows, slippers, neck wraps, puppy and kitten hot packs. You can check out the warm buddy product line on my website at https://www.denisemackinnon.com

What a weekend!  Saturday was a blast - We went to our local farmers market for a hay ride to the pumpkin patch, where my boy picked out a pumpkin for himself.  They had a pumpkin contest also, and the winner was over 1000 pounds (I didn’t add an extra zero there, 1000!)  That beauty would make a lot of pumpkin pies!

Then we went to a park with lots of maple trees, and played in the leaves - I cannot tell you how much fun it was!  Who would have thought you could have so much fun just playing with a pile of dead leaves!  Got in some quality time on the swings, and then home for the last barbeque of the season.

.

It was an absolutely beautiful fall day here on the west coast, so we decided to drop all of our chores and just spend the day playing, and it was awesome!  It did make for a busy Sunday, however, as we still had to get those weekend chores done, but it was so worth it to have the entire day just playing in the sun.

So the next time you find yourself in the middle of a pickle because you have a schedule to keep, but something truly wonderful comes up, be flexible with yourself!  If you can change things around then do so, and enjoy the moment!

Here in Canada, we just had Thanksgiving, and what a wonderful long weekend it was!  My hubby and I also celebrated our anniversary, so we had extra celebrating to do!  Our boy had a sleepover at his grandparents, and we had some quiet time to ourselves!

I sure do miss my little guy when he is away, but at the same time, I think the break is good for all of us.  I am sure he gets tired of listening to his mom and dad too!

It can be difficult to maintain a happy healthy relationship with your partner when their is a busy 2 year old around (not to mention full time jobs, a dog, and the rest of life’s little “have to do’s”.  Sometimes a little mini holiday is just what is needed to rekindle things.

We just couldn’t justify spending a few hundred dollars to stay at a hotel for a couple of nights, so we decided to “go away at home” for the weekend, and it was great!

The phone was turned off, the television remote tucked away, and we pretended to be somewhere else.  We slept in, and relaxed with coffee in bed, chit chatting together.  We went for walks together, did some window shopping, and ate out.  We basically did everything you do when staying at an hotel, except we didn’t have to pay the bill, and got to sleep in our own bed! 

It was a fantastic time, and our relationship is as strong as ever, thanks to our little “getaway”.

My friend Mark Romero has put together a program for healthy relationships.  You can check it out at http://tinyurl.com/29nopj