Making Healthy Choices

This shop has been compensated by Collective Bias, Inc. and its advertiser. All opinions are mine alone. #RewardHealthyChoices #CollectiveBias ~ What’s your favorite way to stay active during the summer? How do you keep making healthy choices? We’d love to hear about your healthy lifestyle.  ~

The sun is shining. The birds are chirping. And I’m standing out in the middle of my backyard trying to figure out what to do next.

Many of my weekends are like this. Sometimes, it’s in the morning, and I have a cup of coffee in my hand and the dew is still on the grass. Sometimes, it’s at the end of the day, and I’m enjoying a cold glass of iced tea and trying to unwind from a busy day. Sometimes, it’s smack dab in the middle of the day, and I’m trying to hide from the sun while furiously reapplying sunscreen. Regardless of when I’m out in the yard, I’m always happy to be there. Because, for me, getting my hands dirty is the fastest way to improve my mood and any crankiness that might be lurking about vanishes once I get busy digging, clipping, or planting.

I don’t mean to get all super crunchy and granola on you, but it’s true. And many people feel the same way when they’re gardening, they just don’t know how to express what they’re feeling. I mean think about it for a moment. have you ever seen a cranky, dirt-covered child? Or are they usually screaming with glee as they leap, feet first, into a mud puddle? What about you, as an adult? Don’t you get all grumpy and moody if you’re cooped up indoors for too long? I know I do. That’s why I’m not a huge fan of the winter — I can’t be outside as much running, gardening, or swimming, and I’m forced to find alternatives ways to keep myself happy all winter long.

Gardening is a huge part of my life and I honestly consider it to be essential to my health and happiness. So much so, that I try to garden all year long. Whether we’re gardening indoors during the colder months (i.e. starting seeds in our windows or growing scraps in recyclables) or planting gardens outside int he warmer months (i.e. tips to get kids interested in gardening and let them pick out what to grow), we try to keep our hands in the dirt all year long.

Now that the last chance of frost has passed for our neck of the woods, I am once again able to walk about barefoot in the garden planning all sorts of projects for my husband and I to do. Unfortunately, as much as I love to garden – I am also very accident prone. I don’t know what my deal is, but I somehow manage to hurt myself all of the time. Whether it’s a stubbed toe or a sprained ankle, if there is something to be tripped over, my feet will find it.

Take the other weekend for example. I was suffering from a nasty case of rebound tendonitis and was refusing to stay off of my foot. It was our daughter’s birthday and she was begging us to make her a fairy house and I wasn’t about to let her down. We needed to cut back some overgrown ivy that had creeped up over the fence from our neighbor’s yard, so while my husband started building the house with her, I took on the task of chopping back the ivy with the hedge clippers. All was well in the world – and fairly Norman Rockwell-looking with Big Brother even coming over to help – when all of the sudden, as I was furiously chop, chop, chopping, the hedge clipper got stuck and popped me back in the mouth and split my lip open. Luckily, my lip was covering my teeth or I’d be toothless right now!

It’s accidents like these that encourage me to keep our medicine cabinet full of Healthy Essentials during the summer months. As much as I’d love to say that it’s stocked full of supplies for my children…it’s really not. It’s fully stocked for this accident prone Mom! Not a day goes by that I’m not digging around in there for some Benadryl to help relieve my allergy symptoms, some Neosporin to clean out a cut, or some Band-Aids to cover them up. It’s pretty funny…

As soon as school gets out, I also take the time to make sure that none of our over-the-counter medications are expired and if they are, I restock the cabinet with Healthy Essentials from our local Walgreens. They have really good prices of the products we need and I like to use their Balance Rewards for healthy choices app which rewards members like me for walking, weight management and more. Every time I log in and track my activity, I get points for my healthy choices. It’s pretty cool and easy to use; if you want to sign up, you can do so here: Walgreens.com/healthychoices.

So what is your favorite way to stay active during the summer? What products do you like to keep on hand for accidents and boo boos? We’d love to hear more about your health and fitness lifestyle, and you can always find more healthy living posts on our web site here.

Stay Healthy,

Denine

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