Yes YOU Can!

SUMMER official starts on Sunday, June 21, 2015! Spring and summer months bring lots of activities to the Extension Office. Needless to say the last three months around the Extension Office have been busy for this Family and Consumer Science Agent (along with everyone else!) and we’re heading into summer with tons planned for you to get involved with!

Today I started doing my quarterly reports recapping the last few months and BOY it’s been busy around here! And I realized that I haven’t updated this blog lately. OOPS!  Over the course of the past few months I have gotten to participate in some awesome activities and projects along side of my co-workers and hardworking dedicated volunteers.

• We’ve hosted a week of “Body Walk” at Horn Lake Intermediate School.
  
• I got to speak at the Mississippi Master Gardener State Conference on “A Taste of the Tropics”.
  
• I have taught fcsUcate youth to make jam, be creative, and to crochet.
  
• “Farm Fresh” started. Farm Fresh is an FCS monthly outreach booth. Join me May-October the last Saturday of the month 8:00 a.m. to 10:00 a.m. at the Hernando Farmer’s Market at my FREE “Back to the Basics” BOOTH of family friendly recipes, fresh food tips, demonstrations, samples, and much more! 

 

• I have started presenting an Introduction to Safe Food Preservation (library lectures at each of the 5 DeSoto County libraries) and began planning future Hands-On Food Preservation Workshops for July-October.
  
  
  
  
• This spring I sharpened my sewing skills, made a dress and much more at my Sewing 101 in-services, so stay tuned for sewing workshops to be offered here!
  
• I've been a photographer for a week at the Northwest District Horse Show.
• Yesterday, I helped judge at the Northwest 4-H Project Achievement Day.
• AND I’m sure I’ve missed tons in-between there that I am forgetting at the current moment.

You have three more opportunities to still attend “An Introduction to Safe Food Preservation” at a library near you. Tomorrow I will be in Southaven at 11:00 a.m. at the M.R. Davis Public Library. And next Saturday I will be at the Hernando Farmers Market on June 27 from 8:00 a.m. to 10:00 a.m. with Farm Fresh and then I will skip over to the town of Wall, MS to present a library lecture on “Safe Food Preservation”.  I would love to see you at one of these events!

Safe food is always important, but so are healthy foods and having a healthy lifestyle! Lately I’ve been eating on the go tons and running from activity to activity and my waistline, my health, and my activity level have suffered! My choices have not been the smartest. Honest confession of a FCS Agent, wife, and mother to a 4-legged dog named Lucy (who has been deprived of her nightly walks)! I have let life and busyness be excuses. So changes need to start being made again in my life so that I can be healthy for years to come. 

Are you in the same boat as me? I’m thinking about starting up a new round of Walk-a-Weigh again (a weight loss healthy lifestyle program we offer here at the DeSoto County Extension Office). My goal with re-offering Walk-a-Weigh again would be to help others who have the same challenges as me and hold myself accountable! So if you are interested in this weight loss program let me know at lara.angel@msstate.edu. I would love to hear from you about when you’re available to meet and if you’re interested in participating.    

So if you are like me and have tons of things going on around you…remind yourself that “Yes YOU Can” do it! Whether it be Safe Food Preservation….Weight Loss...Eating Healthy…managing your family…finding financial peace….or whatever life throws at YOU, Yes YOU Can!