Janet's Blog

I have been counting the days since last week's oral surgery, until I am allowed to exercise again. Today's the day! When the weather cooled off a little this evening, I was out the door with Jackson to walk the neighborhood. In the summer, the best time to walk is often just after the sun sets, when the air is cool and still. It's only been the last three or four years that I've been making a conscious effort to walk regularly. At first, I used the Health App on my phone to track my steps, but I have been more motivated since Bill brought me a FitBit from some convention he had attended. This time of year, I walk more than 10,000 steps nearly every day. It's become a habit now, except when I'm sick, or when the weather is nasty. When I was growing up, first in northeastern Nebraska, then in Fairbury in the southeastern part of the state, exercise was not a priority for most people, probably because it just wasn't necessary. Farmers and their families got pl...

New Year's resolutions? Who takes time for that? Certainly not me, not ever. But every so often, I do set some unofficial, personal goals. Here are ten of my current goals, in no particular order: 1.     Walk at least half an hour each day, and at least 10,000 steps a day, four or five days a week, weather permitting. 2.     Eat mostly healthy foods. 3.     Spend quality time with my friends and family. 4.     Reach out to the people I meet, especially those  who need love, encouragement, and support. 5.     Finish writing my untitled mental health handbook, targeted at people who work with kids with mental health disorders, and submit it for publication. 6.     Submit my newest children's book for publication. 7.     Continue to write, edit, and  record Christian songs. 8.     Keep writing this blog, and get back ...

I was twelve, the first time I went to the ranch, on the Pine Ridge in northwestern Nebraska, with my family. But I heard about the swing several years before. Dad first hunted at his uncle's ranch with his Dad and brothers as a young teen, and continued after he and Mom were married. Mom and Dad went with their parents and siblings, almost every fall, to hunt deer and turkey. I was pretty young when they came home and told the story of how Dad and (I think) Uncle Lee hung a swing high up in an old Cottonwood tree, so they could swing out over the Wounded Knee Creek.  When everyone gathered at the ranch for a week of maintenance and repair, and the kids were finally allowed to come along, we could hardly wait to try out the swing. Oh, we hiked, and fished, and roasted marshmallows over the fire, and rode horses by the hour. But the swing was something special. There is nothing like flying high, over the water below, on a warm summer day. I have seen pictures of my pare...

It was probably a year ago when Bill brought me a free Fitbit that he picked up at a convention. A Fitbit is an exercise tracker, in bracelet form, that works with your computer to keep track of the number of steps walked in a day, how much sleep you get, how long you exercise, and how many calories you burn. Some models of the Fitbit do even more, but mine, as a freebie, is the most basic "Flex" model. My new Fitbit sat in its box, on my nightstand, for several months before I asked Bill to help me set it up. (He reads fine print better than I do.) I had already been using the built-in health app on my phone to keep track of my steps, but it was only useful to let me know how far I went when I was purposefully walking for exercise, since I don't typically carry my phone around at home. Someone has arbitrarily decided that 10,000 steps a day is a good goal for most healthy people. I don't know how many steps I accumulated when I was teaching preschool, but I suspe...