Tips for a healthy Farmwife-life

Now that I am working from my home office, I can take my coffee break in front of the TV once in a while. Last week I caught some advice on how to fool your body into thinking you are 20 years younger. Now, I wouldn’t want to be 23 again for anything. But I do like to learn about healthy living. So I took notes. And planned to try the tips out on my unsuspecting husband.

Apparently we are supposed to do 4 daily things to slow down the aging process.

Number 1: Cleanse your skin. That’s a no-brainer for me. I’ve been doing that for years, because I love the feeling of freshly-washed, toned and moisturized skin. However, if you go anywhere near the Farmer with a lotion or potion, he runs screaming. I think we’re going to have to skip this one for him. I will try to spray some sunscreen on him before he heads out for a day of fishing.

Number 2: Get 8 hours of sleep per night. This should be a pretty easy one for us. We are usually in bed by 10 and up by 630 or so. On weekends, that whole thing moves back a couple of hours, but we are still pretty good about sleep time. The problem is we don’t always get quality sleep, because the Farmer occasionally gets restless leg syndrome. He jiggles and shakes in his sleep, making it a rough night for both of us. Someone once told me an old wives’ tale that this old wife might eventually try: slip a bar of soap under the blanket at the foot of the bed to get him to stop wiggling. Will Lever 2000 do?

Number 3: Exercise a total of 300 minutes per week, minimum. Or 5 hours. That’s an hour a day if we allow two days off a week. Not gonna happen. I’m wondering if I got the number wrong. We’re too exhausted after our farm chores to do any exercise. I do yoga in the morning, but that’s just to get the kinks out. We recently received pedometers, so we can count how many steps we take around the farm all day, but neither one of us can get through an hour without accidentally resetting the darn thing. Here’s hoping our hay pitching and manure forking is enough to get us into shape.

Number 4: Eat more of these three things: eggplant, sweet potatoes, and blueberries.

I didn’t hear the disclaimer, where you aren’t supposed to serve all three of these in one meal. I made Greek moussaka (sort of an eggplant lasagna), sweet potato home fries and blueberries for dessert. No, they don’t exactly go together. I’m not a very intuitive cook, but you won’t starve in my house. The Farmer was wondering why there was no meat involved in his meal. After dinner, he looked at the dog and said, “the next time you see her going for the television, hide the remote.”