We have made it through the first month of the year, and things are going just as planned, right? Or have you already fallen off the path you started on?

After the holiday season took control of our eating and exercise habits we can take back our health in 2012 by making fitness a priority this year and forever. Here are some of the most commonly used excuses to avoid exercise:

A photo of my great-grandmother – her hair only grey, not the white I remember – stands in an apron with all her sisters and my great-great-grandma in the kitchen amongst simple pots and pans and ice-filled glasses ready for iced tea. That photo sits in my mother’s kitchen and I chose it for the dedication page of our family cookbook, “Family Eats.” In 2008, in a mad-dash to finish before Christmas, I set myself to the task of a family cookbook. I wanted to surprise my mother and my aunt with it.

As we look away from the rear view mirror at what was 2011 and look ahead to the road we are traveling on in 2012, a lot of hope is on the horizon.

How can we set goals for 2012 without looking back on last year? 2011 was a year of worldwide revolutions with varied success, including those involving health care and healthy lifestyles. So what lessons did we learn from 2011 that can help us start our own personal “revolution”?

The Lee’s Summit Medical Center Sleep lab will host an open house from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. on Jan. 11.

“Goals are dreams with deadlines.” — Diana Scharf Hunt

The holiday season is a time for celebrations and many will center around food. Whether it’s a traditional holiday recipe for a family meal or simply foods served at a holiday party, the NuVal system can help you make the holiday a healthy one.

Warren and Shirley Dew, Lee’s Summit, celebrated 50 years of marriage this year. They met as freshmen at Western Illinois University in 1956 and were married in Macomb, Ill., April 23, 1961.

The Lee’s Summit Symphony, under the direction of Russell E. Berlin Jr., spread the holiday spirit with the Holiday Magic Concert among the hundreds of concert goers. Beautiful holiday music featured great musicians, singers and dancers.

Christmas show and dinner

Howard Stewart, Lee’s Summit, and Cheryl Stewart, Indianapolis, Ind., announce the engagement of their daughter, Shannon Stewart, to Paul Vierthaler, son of Carl and Nancy Vierthaler, Dodge City, Kan.

Shop local, I personally can’t imagine why you wouldn’t. We want our businesses to thrive and if that is the case we have to support them. I have been guilty of being really upset when certain places leave but then I think about how I should have gone more. If we want the convenience of these places then we need to support them. I don’t know about you, but with the price of gas there is no way I’m going to drive to Johnson County or somewhere else when we have it here. Not just downtown Lee’s Summit, but at our shopping centers as well.

Kenneth “Sonny” and Shirley Paul, Greenwood, will celebrate their 60th wedding anniversary Dec. 21. Their family will host an open house from 2 to 5 p.m., Sunday, Dec. 18, at the Christian Church, 601 Oak St., Greenwood, Mo. Friends are most welcome to stop by.

I think my husband saw that crazy gleam in my eye as I pulled out a stack of new-found cookie recipes. I love baking cookies and candies at Christmas and I always have grand plans to do batches and batches. He of course reminds me of the first Christmas after we were married and how we were late to Christmas dinner because I was still decorating sugar cookies. We now have family cookie night when we decorate sugar cookies together because frantically icing on cinnamon buttons to a sad gingerbread man by yourself is no fun.