By Nicole

My fitness, like my blogging, has been sorely neglected lately. In true perfect timing form, Fit Approach and Lorna Jane started an Active Living Challenge!  August is seriously our craziest month of the year, with 4-H obligations at the county fair, a birthday, football practices beginning, and the prep for back to school and church activities starting up in September.  Not to mention gardening and harvesting and canning.  But I am gonna keep on keeping on and this challenge has been a great way for me to think about fitness and healthy food every day! Day one got me planking again. Day two was a great dinner - all home grown and harvested.  I followed the instructions in one of the Costco cookbooks for pan frying the steelhead.  The green beasn were sauteed in garlic and olive oil.  I splashed in fish sauce and soy sauce somewhere during the saute process.  They were amazing. Day three we went on a family run.  I love family runs. ...

The only reason I know the last time I blogged was because my posts are dated.  If I was an awesome blogger with a ton of followers, everyone would have thought I had met a tragic end and been worried. Thankfully, it appears no one is worried, and my sudden split from social media didn't seem to impact anyone at all.  Looking back, I know I have this pattern.  Every year it seems I take an unplanned vacation from all things bloggy.  This year, that break happened to include Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and whatever other media I have as well. My break has been a good one, and I don't think I'm fully back yet.  I just needed to remember what it felt like to sit up late at night in front of a glowing computer screen, hearing nothing but the tick tick of the keys and the humming of the fish tank pump. I'm on a ledge. Life with my kids and husband has been number one.  Work sucks a lot, and it takes all my energy to get through that and still be on the ...