Meet Shannon

Shannon - My birthday shirt!

Hi there! My name is Shannon, and I'm a 40-year old wife, and a mother of six amazing kids. I have three girls and three boys, ranging in age from 8 to 22 years old. When I have rare free time, I like to write, read, and watch movies. Yes, I really am that boring, haha!

My daughter, Hannah, encouraged me to contribute to this blog with her, just to give another perspective on this health journey we are taking together. Although I've never been what most people would call "heavy," I am absolutely addicted to food and struggle with making healthy food choices every single day. I've noticed in the past year that I just don't feel as perky as I used to, and my body is changing shape. My goal for the body aspect of this journey is to significantly improve my overall feeling of health by consuming lots of veggies and fruit and drinking more water. I'd also like to lose 10 - 15 pounds of fat and be able to run 5 miles.

It's funny because we never intended to start this blog until this morning when we were running around the lake near our house. Both Hannah and I were excited to get started on "DAY 1" and talked about how nice it would be if we had someone to mentor us. We knew that this would just be a trial and error thing for us, haha! But we thought it would be fun to document our days, and wondered if seeing our mistakes and victories might help someone else who wants to take a similar journey, or make some of the changes we will be working on. You'll have to be the judge of that!

No laughing! This was after my run on Day 1

I like the idea of "balance" that Hannah talks about between our bodies, minds and spirits. She did some pretty hard things in Chile (and some pretty wonderful things too!), and she learned a lot about how it feels when our mind, body, and spirit are all working well together. Before I turned 40 at the beginning of this month, I had some big plans for making this my healthiest year ever. Those plans sort of fizzled out with birthday cake, celebrations of Hannah's homecoming, Valentine's Day, etc....you know how it goes. It never really feels like a good time to start! I am the queen of procrastination, especially when it comes to making wise food choices. Oh boy, I can't tell you how much I love my treats!

So, here I am, working on this blog with my adorable daughter, and not feeling very eager to bare all my "nasties" to the world. Oh well, I guess it's good to be humble and real. Here goes nothing!!