FamilyNatural – Page 15 – Healthy Tips for Real Families

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Swish ‘n Swipe. Day 24 of Babystep Challenge To A Peaceful Home


Day 24 of the Flylady’s babysteps is when we meet the Swish ‘n Swipe, which is a fabulous tool for my bag of tricks in my quest for a peaceful home. Ya want another tool? Check this out.

The “swish” means you take a toilet brush which you keep upright in a container next to your toilet and do a quick once around your toilet bowl. No need to get out the cleaner–just keep some old shampoo or liquid soap in the bottom of the brush holder. It takes about 10 seconds.

The “swipe” means you take a rag of some kind and rub the spots off of the mirror (not “clean the mirror; just the spots!), wipe the counter off (after putting away whatever you’ve left out there), and wipe out the sink. It takes about 10 seconds.


Because I have little boys, I also take another 10 seconds and use a baby wipe to wipe down the toilet seat, top & rim, and base and floor around the toilet. When needed, I’ll spray this area with a bleach spray and wipe with a paper towel.

The whole thing leaves your bathroom nice and fresh (the shampoo makes the whole thing smell good), ready for company, in 30 seconds. It’s simple and part of my morning routine. Yes, that means I do it every day, and don’t wait until it gets stinky. I do my bathroom when I use it first thing in the morning, the boys’ bathroom when I do the laundry (it’s also the laundry room), and the downstairs the first time I use it later on.

If you have any tips for easily keeping your bathroom nice, please share!

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Eggplant Torte Recipe


I’m always looking for more recipes that do not include meat and are both easy and inexpensive to make. This is one of them.
Eggplant Torte a la Provencal adapted from The Occasional Vegetarian by Karen Lee

1 large eggplant sliced into 1/2 inch rounds
2 medium potatoes sliced into 3/8 inch rounds
2 medium tomatoes sliced into 3/8 inch rounds
1 medium red onion sliced into 3/8 inch rounds
1 medium zucchini sliced into 3/8 inch rounds

3/4 cup torn fresh basil leaves
1/3 cup olive oil
1 garlic clove, chopped
1/3 tsp dried thyme

  1. For seasoned oil, combine oil, garlic, and thyme, salt and pepper to taste.
  2. Brush eggplant with oil & broil for 2-3 minutes until brown. Remove from oven.
  3. Toss other vegetables to coat (but keep them in separate sections in your bowl or separate bowls.
  4. Layer vegetables in an oiled baking dish, tucking basil leaves between layers.
  5. Repeat until all have been used up.
  6. Pour any remaining oil over pan
  7. Bake uncovered for 1 hour at 350F

Serve hot or at room temperature. This torte can be refrigerated for 1 day. Reheat before serving.

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Time to Get MOVING!

We’ve heard about the two main things to change in our lifestyle in order to be healthy. We’ve heard these two things so much for so many years that they roll off of our tongues and we never really stop to think about whether we’re actually doing them…or we know we’re not doing them and we feel at least a little bit guilty about planning to start “later”, when the timing is better….

Diet and Exercise. Those are the two things.

Wanna guess which one I haven’t done regularly for YEARS?

Yes, I have good reasons. We all do.

I was not born into a sporty family. My parents did not play any kind of sports or exercise much, and I was not encouraged to do much, other than take up tennis a little. See, I was one of those girls everybody loved to hate–I could eat whatever I wanted and still had a good figure. So I didn’t really have the motivation to start something I didn’t like. In college I learned to walk and work out at the gym because everyone else was doing it, but I really never liked it. Same with chiropractic school, but I did learn to like it better. When I graduated and moved back to Florida, I lived on my own. I joined a gym and took early morning walks on the beach.

And then I got married, moved across the world to a different culture (without any family or friends), and had babies. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. Learning how to and now managing a home for seven people leaves things like exercising by the wayside.

And now that I’m 36 years old and have had five babies, well, my figure isn’t exactly what it once was. And my energy is…..lacking. To say the least.

It’s time for a change.

I need to walk the walk, not just talk the talk of health. After all, I’m giving tips on how to be healthier, right? I’m sure you’d agree that I should be a person who actually exercises regularly, not only for my own health but so that you can feel good about trusting me to help you on your path to health.

So this is my plan so far:

  • I’ve been doing about 5-10 minutes in the morning on the floor which includes stretching, stomach crunches, push-ups, and back extensions. Not a lot, just a little and I will increase it as I gain strength.
  • This morning I took an early morning walk after my floor exercises for about 20 minutes. It was wonderfully energizing. I’ll try to do that most mornings plus the floor workout from 6 to 6:30 AM.
  • Hubby bought a home gym machine for weight training. I’m not sure when I’ll fit that in, but probably in the afternoon during nap time. I’m always sleepy and it will help wake me up. It’s getting delivered at the end of the week. I’m excited that we’re in this together.
  • And a mini-trampoline. It’s in the living room. I can certainly put on some fun music and dance for a few minutes each day. I hope we can find some place to keep it when it’s not in use…

Just like everything that’s good for you, exercising is part of a lifestyle change. And changes need to be approached in a way that is simple and most importantly DO able. That means to take babysteps so that you don’t crash and burn.

I think I can realistically commit to 1/2 hr each morning. I don’t think it’s realistic to commit to an hour. So I won’t. I want to be successful in reaching my goal.

I think I can probably commit to about 15 minutes each afternoon, but for this week I’m going to focus on the morning habit. Every little bit counts.

Jonathan Roche coined a term I love. It’s the No Excuse Work Out. (NEWO). No excuses, because it can take only 6 minutes. And everyone has 6 minutes! You can listen to his weekly BlogTalkRadio show here.

I can use all the encouragement I can get, and I’d like to cheer you on too. What’s your exercise routine or challenge?


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My Afternoon Routine


One of my favorite tools from the Flylady is the concept of routines. A routine is something you do every day, and putting it in a specific order helps you to remember and learn it until you don’t have to think about it. And having a little checklist, either on a post it or in your Control Journal can help.

In my recent post about keeping up with the laundry, I shared my morning routine. It looks like this:

  1. Make my bed
  2. Get dressed to shoes
  3. Feed baby
  4. Wake other kids
  5. Start a load of laundry
  6. Prep & drink smoothies (hubby usually does this)
  7. Prep school lunches (hubby usually does this)
  8. Cleanup kitchen/empty dishwasher
  9. Baby to nap
  10. HANG CLOTHES OUT TO DRY/laundry “reboot”

My late morning routine looks like this:

  1. Cleanup kitchen if it’s not already done
  2. blog post/computer work/desk work 1/2 hr
  3. declutter 15 minutes
  4. daily mission/detail cleaning/weekly home blessing as needed
  5. outside time or other activity with children
  6. prep lunch

And my afternoon routine (babystep #23), looks like this:

  1. Serve lunch/feed baby/eat lunch myself
  2. Lunch cleanup
  3. prep snacks for school children
  4. put toddler to nap
  5. welcome school kids home/give snacks
  6. story time with 4 year old (and anyone else who wants to join us)
  7. put baby & 4 year old to nap/bigger boys to quiet reading
  8. MY QUIET TIME! computer/reading/nap if I want.

It really is helpful to do it the same way every day; it helps me to not forget anything. Since I’ve been doing it for a while, it does come automatically so I don’t consult my control journal, but if I were new to this or found myself leaving things out, I certainly would.

Flylady gives her routines as examples. Use any of these to give you ideas; just remember that you need to make it work for YOU.

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Tomato Basil Salad with Goat Cheese

This salad is simple, elegant, and delicious. It’s good for date night and yet my kids can’t get enough of it.


Tomato Basil Salad with Goat Cheese

2-3 large tomatoes, sliced
fresh basil
goat cheese
extra virgin olive oil
salt & pepper


  1. Arrange tomato slices on a serving dish.
  2. Drizzle with olive oil & sprinkle liberally with salt and freshly ground pepper.
  3. Cut ribbons of basil & sprinkle on the tomatoes.
  4. Sprinkle goat cheese

Don’t tell anyone how easy it was!

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"Nutrition 101: What Would You Know If You Didn’t Know Anything?"

If you didn’t have a million research studies, nutrition books, and diet experts to tell you….

If you hadn’t had the “4-food groups” chart, health class, and your gym teacher in school to advise you…

If everyone from your mother, to your doctor, to Oprah wasn’t instructing you….

How would you know WHAT, WHEN and HOW MUCH to eat?

Join WellWithU on BlogTalkRadio TODAY (Monday) at 2pm EST for “Nutrition 101: What Would You Know If You Didn’t Know Anything?”

I’m looking forward to the show. If you miss it, you can also listen to the archives by clicking the above link.

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Menu Plan Monday-June 21


Sunday-Eggplant Torte

Monday- Creamy Celery Soup and Tomato Basil Salad with Goat Cheese

Tuesday-Scrambled Eggs with Veggies and Hash Browned Potatoes

Wednesday- Baked Potatoes with grilled Mushrooms and Onions, steamed vegetable.

Thursday – Lentils of some kind

Friday-Baked Chicken, Steamed Broccoli, Apple Sauce, Black Bean Brownies

Saturday- Raw “Granola” with Almond Milk & fresh fruit, Leftover Celery Soup

Sunday- Burgers. (We moved Father’s Day to this week.)

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Making It Work For YOU


Today is Father’s Day in the US. (Happy Father’s Day!)

But we live in Israel. It’s not Father’s Day here. And although we continue to celebrate most of these American traditions, it’s something that we do within our family because we want to, certainly not because of any type of social pressure.

My husband has lots of extra work he wants to accomplish this week, and the idea of taking today off (remember, Sunday is a work day here) was adding stress. So, we decided to MOVE Father’s Day. We’ll celebrate it next Sunday, in one week. With a family fun day and burgers. Yum.

Moving our Father’s Day celebration a week works for us. And this Making It Work For YOU concept is a really good one.

Almost every good idea is just that: an idea. A concept. Whoever made it found that it helped him or her, but that doesn’t mean it will work for you exactly as it is; you might need to tweak it just a little. And that’s OK!

Figuring out how to take good ideas and make them work for you will make your life much more manageable. It will save your sanity.

So, the next time you hear an idea that sounds interesting or even great but you just don’t see how it so could work for you, don’t dismiss it easily. Give it a little more thought and you just might come up with a variation that works for your family. After all, there’s no one just like you!

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Laundry. Day 20 of Babystep Challenge To A Peaceful Home

We now have seven people in our home. SEVEN! Seven people wear a lot of clothes. Especially when one of them is a baby who sucks her hand between spoon-fed bites and then holds her toes and the food goes everywhere in between….and four of them are of the little-boy variety who play hard, in dirty things, every day.

So, we have a lot of laundry. I remember when I was in college & in my single days when I could go a week (or more!) without doing my laundry. Those days are long since done, and the habit I’ve learned would have been helpful even then.

What is that habit, you may ask? How do you stay on top of the laundry when THERE’S JUST SO MUCH OF IT!? You make laundry part of your routine. Which just so happens to be Flylady’s babystep #20.

This means that I do laundry EVERY DAY. Well, 6 days a week. It’s just part of my morning routine which looks like this:

  1. Make my bed
  2. Get dressed to shoes
  3. Feed baby
  4. Wake other kids
  5. START A LOAD OF LAUNDRY
  6. Prep & drink smoothies
  7. Prep school lunches
  8. Cleanup kitchen/empty dishwasher
  9. Baby to nap
  10. HANG CLOTHES OUT TO DRY/laundry “reboot”

I do this every day, with slight variations. If I do one FULL load each day, it’s almost enough. Add an extra load or two for towels & sheets and we’re good to go. In addition to this, we do a load of cloth diapers each night. In the morning they are dried and ready to put away (this job belongs to my four year old).

My biggest challenge with the laundry is not the washing and the drying. Even the folding I’ve gotten a new system for: since I’m line drying, I realized that I must handle each piece of clothing separately as I take it off of the line. So, I add a few seconds for each one and FOLD IT AS I TAKE IT OFF THE LINE AND PUT IT INTO THE BASKET ALREADY FOLDED! I was excited when I realized I could save time like that.

No, the challenge is putting the clothes away. I do have a time in my schedule that is supposed to be for this, but I’ve gotten behind most days and needed to skip this step. And, the drawers are so full that there’s no place to put things. So everyone lives out of the laundry basket. It’s no good.

Today, I’m going to actually use the time that’s supposed to be set aside for putting away the laundry to fold and put away the laundry. That will mean that we must eat our lunch on time and stick to the schedule I worked hard to put together. Then I’ll be able to see this.

Which feels good.

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