Sargento's Thin-To-Win Challenge

The folks at Sargento Cheese have come out with a new product, their Ultra Thin line of cheeses.  While getting the word out about their ultra thin cheeses, Sargento decided to sponsor a 45 day campaign to "thin out" our lives.  Lucky me, Sargento and TheMotherhood.com have asked me to be a part of the fun.  We are talking about thinning out all sorts of the things, like household clutter, stress and schedules, all in addition to our sandwiches = our bodies ;0}

Some of my favorite challenges posted on the Facebook Page so far are:

Challenge 9-carve out 30 minutes of your day for "me" time

Challenge 11-Find a workout buddy

Challenge 14-De-clutter one room in your house!!!

That leads me to my personal assignment...

"Thin-Out" my bookshelves!

I was asked to "Donate old books to find new shelf space"...And that, my friends, is just what I did :0)  

Actually, I need to tell you a small-ish story first.  Our family knows a very handsome boy scout that has been working feverishly the past 6 months to earn his Eagle Scout Award.  As his Eagle Project, he chose to help a local woman in her efforts to bring books directly to families.  She does this by bringing books to cafeterias during the summer free lunch program at our local schools.  I will post again with details on this organization, but for now, know that this fine young man has been working like a dog, car washing on weekends and fundraising to provide necessary equipment and books to the organization.

When I found out about the project I gladly donated {I won't tell you how many weeks it took me to finally go through my book shelves}.  One rarely productive afternoon of cleaning gave me the opportunity to scan the shelves and lighten our load a bit.  The books were packed into bags and delivered to the collecting site.

That all happened about one week before I received the "Thin-To-Win" challenge :0)  

You might say that we are book collectors.  We like, no, LOVE books...but we tend not to re-read very many chapter books and have far more children's books than should be legal.  Thanks to the Sargento challenge, and having a worthy cause to donate to, I decided to get rid of a few more books.  Once my fingers started walking, there was not stopping.  I had piles, apparently almost 100 books more, ready to bag and be donated.  

Oooops, missed some!

Sargento is so right!  Thinning out is totally rewarding.  I feel thinner already :0}

 Here is the playroom book shelf  after my second gleaning.  Don't even begin to think this is all the children's books we have.  It is just a nibble compared to the shelves back in the bedrooms. 

And just to give you a clue about what it looked like before {since I was so excited to get started I didn't take a before picture}...

It looked something like this.

And now it is this...

See!  It is magical!!! 

The kids got in on the action.  We bagged the books and loaded them into the car.

 Ding-Dong!

Special Delivery :0D

Here is our handsome boy scout.  His poor mother!  They have had these boxes filing slowly into their front room for months.  I think I would have gone totally crazy by now with all these boxes hanging around.  They believe there to be about 1500 books so far.  

I find that the best way to "thin out" is to find your purpose first.

I was able to part with more books once I discovered the cause my books would benefit.  Whether you are cleaning out your closets or your re-structuring your body, if you can find a "cause" or a purpose to drive you, I believe you will have a far greater success.  

How does this all relate to Sargento's new line of Ultra Thin cheeses???  

Well, using these yummy, portion-regulated slices of heaven are a great way to thin-down your meals without having to cut cheese out completely!

Each slice has only 45 calories or less!

Fabulous. 

Just in case you are curious, I checked out Sargento's website and found all the different cheeses they make, including the Ultra Thins mentioned here today.  Not only that, but you can look up the nutrition facts of each product, recipes you can follow for some yummy looking meals, and a tool to guide you to the closest retailer near you that carries their products.

Be sure to check out their FaceBook page and enter the daily challenges.  Each challenge has some fun prize up for grabs.  Previous prizes have been TVs, tablets, $500 in work out gear, or mp3 players.

Check it out, enter for the prize and start Thinning-Out your life!

***Disclaimer***I received products and compensation from Sargento Foods Inc. and TheMotherhood.com as part of my participation in this campaign.  While I was compensated, all thoughts and opinions expressed in this post are totally my own :0)