10 Ways to Stay Healthy When You are a Parent in School

I often hear the complaint- "It is so hard to be healthy when you are a parent in school." Yes, yes it is.

When you are focusing on your education doesn't mean that you want to ignore your health, because you really can't afford to get sick. You have school and family obligations that don't go away when you need a sick day. However it can be really hard to squeeze those healthy habits in with your responsibilities that are tied to parenting, schooling and/or work.  Here are a few ideas to stay healthy while taking on school, parenting and generally trying to be awesome.

1. Set realistic expectations- You don't have to do all the healthy things everyday. There are so many hours in a day and you have school work to do. Don't beat yourself up that you don't have a six-pack while you are writing your thesis or that sometimes your kids are not eating enough vegetables. Make reasonable health goals for yourself and realize that it's ok if you aren't perfect at all the things all the time.
2. Find ways to multi-task- Get your exercise in while you chase your kids at the park. Do sit-ups while you listen to an online lecture. Prepare your meals while you listen to a recorded presentation. Listen to a relevant audio book while you run. Multi-tasking can be overdone, but it can work if you can combine something mindless (exercise, chopping veggies) with something that you have to think about.
3. Commit to do something for your health everyday. It doesn't have to be running 10 miles. It can be drinking enough water, eating a salad and walking around the block. Small steps forward are better than no steps, or steps backward.
4. Get yourself a water cup with a straw Keep it full of water and next to your computer/textbooks, so you can sip it constantly while you study. Water is an amazing substance that is cheap/free. Being well-hydrated helps prevent a multitude of ailments. Water literally enables all of your cells to function better. It reduces headaches, helps you focus, curbs appetites and cravings and gives you more energy. If you want to know how much you need take your weight in pounds and multiply it by 2/3. That is the amount of water in ounces that you should drink everyday. (Possibly more if you are exercising a lot or depending on the weather.)
5. Ditch your chair. Sitting in a chair for hours is bad for your health. If you have to sit, try an exercise ball. Sitting on an exercise ball does a few things for you 1) It reduces back and hip pain. 2)It forces you to use your core muscles more than sitting in a chair does 3) Can help improve your balance. Standing at your computer can also be a good option if you can adjust your screen to make that feasible. Try reading your textbooks while laying down. Switch it up.
6. Plan healthy meals- Don't leave what you eat for dinner up to whatever you can forage at the end of the day. Even if you don't have time every day to cook, commit to have 4 balanced dinners each week, or whatever you think you can handle. Over the weekend make a plan of what you will eat in the next week. Include some salads. Make sure you have the ingredients available so your plans don't fall apart while you're trying to prepare given healthy meal and your kids are demanding food and attention. When you are prepared it takes less will power to make healthy choices.
7. Take exercise breaks After I have been studying for several hours it helps me to stay sane to walk away and exercise for 30 minutes. When the outside weather is unpleasant I like to do a 21 Day Fix Extreme workout at home. Other days I go for a run. Find whatever exercise you enjoy and go with it. You can find a short workout on Youtube or even just do a set of jumping jacks. Taking exercise breaks can make your study time more effective.
8. Plan healthy snacks- If you have healthy food available that is what you will eat. Some easy examples: carrot sticks and hummus, apples with peanut butter, string cheese, grapes, yogurt with granola, etc. Sometimes it helps to prep healthy snacks (chop veggies, put in containers or baggies) on the weekend, so that they are convenient for you throughout the week.
   
9. Find friends that support you in your goals- Find friends who are also in school and trying to eat healthy and exercise. If you don't know anyone in real life there are plenty of Facebook groups where you can find support and recipes.
10. Take a few minutes to meditate- Take 5 minutes to take deep breaths, remind yourself that you can do this and that in the long run many of the little things that are causing you stress will not matter.

To all you parents out there who are also in school, I salute you. Don't give up!

Recent Races: Mapleton Fun Run and Harry Potter 5K

In Utah some people celebrate the 24th of July by dressing up in 19th century clothing, some celebrate by consuming pie and beer, but in our family it is another excuse to do a race together, followed by crazy amounts of fireworks in the evening. This year we did the Mapleton 1 Mile Fun Run. Except certain children who shall remain nameless were uncooperative about getting out of bed and getting to this race, even though they had enthusiastically agreed to this event before hand.  My child who loves running the most is the same child who hates mornings the most. This is somewhat of a conflict of interests. We got to the race, long after it started and by the time we finished the finish line was taken down to start the 5k. But it was at this race that my kids got to meet one of their new cousins for the first time, so everyone could be cheerful about that. I felt like the tech shirts and snacks were decent and I would probably do it again when my child who hates mornings is old enough to left at home alone.

This is our fam right now (minus one sister-in-law)

Then to celebrate Harry Potter's birthday we did a 5k to support the Salt Lake City Children's Justice

Finishers medal and some of those who dressed up

Center, put together by Geeked Out Running. This race was a lot of fun. Tons of runners and staff were dressed in costumes from the Harry Potter films. The medals were also fun and my kids have loved wearing their race shirts. There were so many great costumes that I did not manage to take pictures of because I was too busy trying to get my kids through the race. After the race there was a large snake that the kids could touch (that was my youngest's favorite part) and owls that you could take picture with. I also liked the Harry Potter themed motivational signs along the way like "I solemnly swear that I am running for lots of good." Downsides: the path was not very wide considering how many runners were on it, and the race didn't start until 9 am and it is summer, which means it was already getting very warm and all my kids were pretty grumpy by the end. The race was in a park in West Jordan and we ran around it four times. My oldest wanted to go faster so I ran with her and was hoping that we could lap my husband and the younger kids, except she lost motivation as it got warmer. So my husband ended up by himself and at one point was carrying our middle child on his back while pushing our youngest in the stroller, until he figured out how to squish both kids into a one-child jogging stroller. Seriously props to him. It was fun, but I wouldn't do it again unless it started at least 30 minutes earlier in the day.

The albino Burmese python and a couple owls (and my animal loving girls)

A picture of the whole fam (or those who were there) and my husband the hero

Authenticity

 This semester I am taking advanced nursing research. Part of that is discussing the qualities that define good research. One of those qualities is authenticity. Authentic research means that everyone

had a chance to give their input. This input leads to insights and improvements. Authenticity leads to increased understanding of self and others. That kind of introspection leads to more thought and all of these insights and improvements lead to action.
 It's obvious why authenticity in nursing research is important. (I have dozens of mind gears turning of how I can use this in my future practice, but I'll save those ideas for when they are more fleshed out.) If we skew results to what we think we should find instead of what we actually find we can not effectively address problems. And really, what's the point of doing research that is inauthentic? To produce dishonest  and inauthentic research is not only wildly unethical, it is down right dangerous and it minimizes the validity of evidence-based practice. (The one study linking MMR to autism that was proven to be fraudulent comes to mind. ) That is why it is important that nursing researchers consult with patients other providers to hear their opinions. That is why peer review is an essential step in the research process.
 As I was reading about what makes authentic research, I couldn't help but notice that authenticity is also important in organizations and relationships. If you have a company that listens to their customers and employees they are able to use those insights to improve their product, to think about what that feedback and use it to get a better result. The same goes for a family. If you are in a place where you can be honest about who you are and how you feel, you are more likely to connect with other family members. When you are authentic about who you are, you are quietly giving other permission to do the same. When everyone can be really honest and listen to one another, it improves communication and it helps everyone to be more effective! Sometimes I feel in relationships we don't address issues because we feel so much pressure to be perfect 'I'm not supposed to be upset about X'. This leads to people not talking about it and not trying to solve the problem. Ignoring problems usually doesn't make them go away. In the past couple years my husband and I came to a place where we decided to be more authentic with one another and our relationship is a hundred times better. We are better partners and we are better parents. We as a team are getting more done and life is more enjoyable too. (Not that things are perfect, they're not. Stressful things still happen and there is that whole graduate school business that I deal with on a daily basis.) Authenticity is powerful.
 Being authentic can be really difficult, especially if you are living in a culture that has so much pressure on you to be very different than who you truly are. Or if you made yourself vulnerable in the past and the result was that you were hurt by the person that you were sharing with. But life is too short to spend it trying to be someone other than who you are. To paraphrase Brene Brown, in order to be successful and love others, you have to love yourself. You have to BE yourself. Recognize that you are loveable and go out and share who you truly are with the world.

The Series of Misadventures and Failures that was Living in Colorado

 I think I have been asked hundreds of times why we left Colorado, so it's about time that I just blogged about it. It makes it easier for everyone.
Last August we moved to the Denver area so I could attend graduate school at the University of Colorado. (Which was an adventure in and of itself.) When we arrived we discovered that our apartment was 650 square feet smaller than our contract stated. In fact apartments as big as our contract stated did not exist. They gave us one that was 50 sq ft bigger than the first and a free garage and storage unit to put our stuff in. As there was a housing shortage and we were there with our moving truck, we didn't have a whole lot of options. The apartment was brand new and the location seemed great so we took it.

 I checked out the elementary school for our kids before we selected our place. It seemed very close in scores to the one my kids attended previously. But my kids were bullied, so I started volunteering in their classes so I could be more aware of what was going on. I felt like their teachers were great, I LOVED their teachers. However, there were other factors that made it hard, like a very large number of kids in their classrooms who didn't speak any English, and an unusually high percentage of kids with special needs. As great as these ladies are, they can only do so much.
 In November I was notified that I was a possible match to donate blood stem cells to someone with leukemia through the Be the Match program. That was super exciting.
 In December my son's 1st grade teacher quit. It was hard and she decided it wasn't what she wanted to do.
 In January I started a temporary nursing position that I was super excited about. It didn't work out very well. After a month I requested that I be oriented as much as they had promised, and they fired me. It would have been nice if they fired me the week before we bought a second car instead of the week after. :/
 A week before my winter semester started I began having intense abdominal pain. After a couple days of that, I went into the emergency room. They found a hemorrhaging mass (cyst) the size of an

orange on my ovary. They told me it might be cancer and if I needed more pain meds before I could see  a specialist I should just come back to the ER. I know that sounds completely ridiculous, but I am not making this up.
 A few weeks later, the OB/GYN said that the cyst appeared to be gone, but they would do more follow-up in 6 weeks. The upshot was that after a couple months they said I don't have ovarian cancer, (yay!) and the problem with my ovaries isn't worth treating unless I am winding up in the ER on a regular basis. (So far, so good.)
On the day that I went to the ER we also discovered that my son was failing every subject except math. Between having a string of substitute and potential replacements, he and most of his class were failing. The longer we stayed the more miserable my daughter was. There was one week where she cried everyday on the way to school, she hated it so much. We had tried to get our kids into the gifted school, but we were told that you have to live in the district for a year and then there was a long application process. So we were waiting to hear if our kids would be accepted to the gifted school for the next year.
 In February I was notified that I was indeed the best possible match for the person with leukemia. They drew a 19 large tubes of blood for diagnostic tests. I walked out of the office pale and with blue lips. I went home, fainted and hit my head in my kitchen. Be The Match decided that it was probably best to go with the second closest match. Between my hemorrhaging mass and all the blood draws I was pretty anemic, meaning finding the energy to do my homework and keep my kids alive took all my will-power. I was grateful that they had a back-up match.
  The day I was scheduled for my ultrasound I also took a practical exam that I failed. 85% was required to pass. I was nervous and I missed just a few too many points. So even though I still had an A in that class I failed the whole course by default, and I'll have to retake it later.
 Meanwhile no one wanted to buy my big beautiful house in Utah. We put a ton of money into upgrades. No offers. We dropped the price by enough that we would lose at least $20K. No offers. Nor could we

rent it for enough to cover our costs. And Colorado kept getting more and more expensive. During 2014 Denver tied with San Francisco for the highest inflation rate.  Lots of people wanted to move there (for marijuana and various other reasons) and the housing supply did not match the demand. We were paying almost twice as much for our tiny apartment as for our large house that had nearly four times the space. And in the 8 months that we were there the market value of our apartment went up 30%. We heard all kinds of crazy stories about people struggling to buy houses and the longer we stayed, the more we realized that the prospects of us getting into a place that was both big enough for our family and near a good school for our kids were not very good. The final straw was when our daughter was accepted into the gifted school and our son was put on a waiting list. Not good enough. Even though our place was convenient for me, staying right there was not a good option. We couldn't ignore the fact that his academic needs were being ignored. I may be a lot of things. I'm a nurse. I'm a student. I'm a runner, I'm a coach, but first and foremost I am a mom and I can't go after my dreams at the expense of my kids.
 So we moved back to our big beautiful house in Utah. My daughter was immediately accepted into the local gifted school and my son will be there when he is old enough (Here the gifted programs don't start until 3rd grade).  The longer we are here, the more it is evident that this was the best move our for our kids. Our kids are more free to run around and make noise. We have enough living space (and then some) with reasonable lighting. They have more friends. Within 3 weeks my son was reading at grade level. All of our expenses are less, which takes off some stress. We LOVE it here, even more so than when we lived here before.  My husband and I have great friends here.  We have easy access to lots of hiking and outdoor play. I can do most of my classes online, and the rest gets complicated, but I will make it work.

 Colorado is beautiful and there were lots of fun things to do there. We made some really fantastic friends there who we miss, but unfortunately Colorado was not a good option for our family.
 In some ways the experience felt like a big expensive and painful failure. (We had several other smaller failures mixed in that adventure, but those were the highlights.) But we learned things. Do we know where we are going to be when I am done with school? No, not really. Would I do it that way again? Probably not. But I am stronger than ever and I learned lessons that I'm not sure you can put a price tag on.
 Moral of the story, sometimes things don't work out as planned, but we keep going, we learn and we find things to be grateful for along the way.

Lucky Laces 5K in Denver 2015

Last Saturday, my in-laws, my husband and kids ran the Lucky Laces 5K in Denver City Park. It was

my older two kids first 5k race and they did a great job! Both of them placed in the top 30 for their age category (although my daughter was actually in the wrong category, but whatever). I was proud of both of them that they tried hard and ran the race with very minimal whining.

 We had a rough start. Of course we were struggling to get everyone out the door. Then after we packed the minivan it wouldn't start. So we split up between our car and my in-laws. While we were still trying to find parking, they pumped up our stroller tires and one of the inner-tubes popped. Fortunately, I had an umbrella stroller to put my toddler in instead of carrying her, but it's not really great for running. After all of that we got to the start line as the tail end of the main crowd had just past.

 The weather was brisk, but not too cold. And the park is beautiful to run through. The path goes past multiple statues and the lake (pond?), and for sections of it there is a good view of the mountains. Being able to see the mountains always inspires me to keep running, and do it with a smile on my face. The support was good, the post race breakfast was great and the kids were very excited to have their own racing medals. It's also the fun kind of race where people get decked out in St. Patrick's Day trappings. (I had a good excuse to wear my piranha plant pants, but really does one need an excuse?)

Denver City Park Statues & the Finisher Medal

Denver City Park and the mountains in the background

 If anyone is considering doing this race next year, I would recommend it. (There is also a separate fun run for younger kids.) We had a good time.

2015 Goals/Resolutions

It's a new year. Here are my goals to help me be a happier healthier person.

1. Wake up at 5 am- 6 days per week I want to be able to get my workouts done before my kids
   
   get up.
2. Pay off debt- I have specific plans on that, but most people will probably find them boring.
3. Run 4 fun races this year with friends or family- Because exercise is more enjoyable when you do it with someone you care about.
4. Keep up my good grades- I like my GPA where it is, and I want to maintain it. Keep doing my homework. Keep reading my textbooks.
5. Take a vacation with my family- Take a few weekend getaways or day trips too. Make some good memories with my kids. 
6. Keep up the good exercise/eating habits that I have developed over the past few months- I've made some great changes to my habits in the past little while, now I need to MAINTAIN.
7. Try a new exercise program or two.- I'm going to try the 21 Day Fix. I've heard good things about it and it looks fun. And sometimes you need to mix up your workouts to prevent boredom. (Plus it's on sale this month.) This will help me do #6. And if anyone wants to join me, it's going to be AWESOME.
8. Get rid of stuff-  We have too much stuff. Last year I had 2 yards sales, sold stuff online, gave away mounds of stuff, donated mounds of stuff. We still have too much stuff, we need to cut it down. It's amazing how much stuff you accumulate with 3 kids. I plan to get rid of toys and clothes that the kids have outgrown and get rid of things that are boxed up and we don't use. The less stuff we have, the easier it will be to keep our place clean.
9. Read 25 books- I'll count audio books for that too.
10. Continue to volunteer at my kids school- I started doing this in November because my oldest was getting bullied and I wanted to be aware and involved in what was happening in the class room. Then my middle child felt left out so I started going to his class too. It seems like a simple thing for me to be there helping their teachers, but I have found that it is really important to my kids. I want to make sure that I set aside an hour each week so I can keep doing this, plus it's fun. :)
11. Take time everyday to be grateful for something. Last November, many things in my life were not going my way and I did not have the best attitude about it. So I thought I would jump on the Facebook wagon and share something that I was grateful for, and it really helped my attitude. I really felt better when I was focusing on the good instead of inwardly grumbling about the bad.

So there we go. I may tweak some of these, but that is my plan for the year, more or less.  I think 2015 is going to be a great year. What are YOUR goals and plans?