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- I have read this post from Andrea from For the Love Of about a 100 times and each time I get more motivated to make a commitment to my families health and wellness.

The first 7 food items I banned from the house were Nutella, Coffee Mate, Eggo waffles, Country Crock margarine, frozen chicken nuggets, Cheez-Its, fake maple syrup. These items were the biggest offenders in our household because they were filled with sugar, artificial colors, additives, preservatives, MSG, and hydrogenated oils. And we were consuming them on an almost daily basis. My biggest break through in all of this came when I started to see these as “fake foods” which were made to mimic real products, and offered no real nutrients. 

- I desperately need to follow these tips for getting more done each day from Living Well Spending Less. For me, it's not necessarily that I run out of time. It's that I run out of motivation.

Take 10 minutes to list your priorities and to examine who or what is important to you. Keep this list in a place where you can look at it frequently, and make sure the big stuff comes first. Think of your life as a jar you want to fill with rocks & sand. If you put the sand in first, the rocks won’t fit.  The amount of time you spend on things should be somewhat relative to how important it is in your life. Life is short and moments are precious.  Don’t waste time on the things that don’t matter.

- On a similar note, I love The Shabby Creek Cottage's tips for decluttering your life. She's speaking truth directly to my heart!

Getting organized brought to light a fairly new habit at our house – gimme 20 minutes. Every day when my girls get home from school we crank up the music and clean for 20 minutes. You’d be amazed at how clean you can keep a house in only 20 minutes a day. No more days full of cleaning – no more yelling at them to pick up their things. And the music helps to make it fun. If we spend those 20 minutes cleaning, then we have the rest of the afternoon (or day) to spend together doing things we enjoy. And bonus – most days we’re done in less than 15 minutes!