February 28 was my birthday..  It was the same day I picked to mark a new journey... a lifestyle change.

I had read a book by Lysa Terkhurst, "Made to Crave".  It is a wonderful book, and I have since re-read a few chapters.

I'm not giving a book review, or anymore comments about the book, just my own decisions that came FROM reading the book.

I decided to give my all to Christ, and do things that pleased him, including what I put in my mouth and how I treated my body.  I have been a christian for 24 years, and never looked at my body from a spiritual perspective.  Even though I had read and heard all the verses about my body being "the temple" they were always directed towards drinking and smoking or tattoos. Never, had I thought that God would want me to make wiser decisions about what I eat and drink and how much I exercise.

SO, I made the decision to

• not bake other than for special occasions, or church functions, and ONLY if I can send the leftover goodies home with someone else
• not to buy snack cakes, cookies, chips, or JUNK
• to limit how many times I eat carbs... I decided to eat potatoes, rice, and pasta, each once a week
• only to cook and eat a FULL breakfast (meat, eggs, grits, biscuits/toast) once a week or if  Mr. Handsome or Monkey requested something. Otherwise we eat fruit, toast, or cereals
• to limit fried foods.. PERIOD.  
• Not eat fast food unless it can't be helped.
• to make fresh fruits and veggies available to everyone
• to drink ONLY water, with the exception of occasional milk or juice with breakfast. 
• nothing to eat after supper

Things have been going good.. until the last 2 weeks.
I started out at 263 pounds! YIKES!  I did have a baby in September, but I weighed this much before she was born..  I got down to 251, and then jumped back up to 254.
I had been having a steady 1 or 2 lb loss every week or two, and this gain of 3 lbs really depressed me. I hadn't paid attention to the calendar, and shortly I knew WHY I had gained weight, and after a week (Eve has ALOT to answer for) I checked the scales again, and was down to 245... but i seriously think I did something wrong, because that was a one day thing. The next day was 252, then today it's 253.

The problem is, I have begun slipping... Mr. Handsome bought some Krispy Kreme, and I helped eat them. I drank a Mt. Dew, we have had lots of family functions lately that require something sweet... and it goes on and on.

Now I feel like I have to start over!  I had gotten to the point where it was not so hard to say "no" to the not healthy stuff, but now I have returned to the bad habit of justifying it!!
I have to go back to making wiser choices and no more excuses!!

I bet God has the same frustrations with me!

After another DAILY nap time "fight" with Monkey, I was sitting on the couch rubbing my forehead, hoping that the headache would go away, and I began to pray.

     Lord, please give me wisdom to know how to deal with this child!  How many times do 

     we have to go through the same thing?  Over and over and over, He fights me about 

     the same thing. He fights me about eating, he fights me over bed time and nap time. 

     He refuses to listen and do what I say. His looks say he is daring me to act on the 

     consequences I have promised if he doesn't "DO" something I have told him a DOZEN 

     times to do.  He repeatedly does things that I have told him NOT to do! What am i 

    doing wrong, Lord! How long is it going to take for him to learn these lesson, like 

    obedience, and unquestioning trust?

Then I had a light bulb moment... I bet God thinks the same thing about me sometimes. 

How many times have i had to relearn the same spiritual lesson over and over again? How many times have I completely disobeyed the Lord on an issue?

Yet God, never gets frustrated with me. 

Now, I know I'm human, and a woman, prone to emotional upheaval, but i need to have ALOT more patience with my son. Afterall, He is human too, and has a fallen sin nature. I can't expect him to act like a godly little angel (all of the time!). Especially when he is just learning what right and wrong are, and their consequences!... I on the other hand am an adult! I need to work on MY obedience, and MY attitude, and MY rebelliousness.  

I still have to be a mom, and help Monkey work on these areas too, but at least I have a different perspective!  

TTFN

Our Unofficial-Official beginning to Home-schooling

 We started homeschooling unofficially-officially last week. I thought that doing a dry run would be a good idea, to get me in the habit of doing lesson plans, and keeping a journal. Monkey is only 3, and we won't really have to register him with a HSA or the state until he is 5, but he is like sponge and picks up so much, so easily right now that we wanted to get him started with a Pre-K program. We chose the Sonlight Curriculum to use, as that will be the curriculum we will try to use throughout their schooling  We are super excited!!  I have enjoyed planning and preparing for the crafts and the different lessons of the day. To monkey, it is just play or story time. To me, its more like spending quality time with my son!  I feel blessed to be on this journey.  

I didn't start this way though... 

It was a very easy for Mr. Handsome and me to decide to home-school our kids before we had them. The idea was still do-able after Monkey was born. We started from barely weeks old, singing the ABC's to him as entertainment, reading books to him as long as he would sit still, counting things, pointing out colors, etc. It didn't become frightening or overwhelming to me, until after Butterfly was born. She was more needy than Monkey had been. Now, instead of one.. I had two little people that needed my attention. Butterfly's infant needs, and Monkeys needs.. Monkey seemed to go backwards, which I know is normal when a new baby comes around. He wanted to suck her pacifier, he wanted to play in her swing, exer-saucer, swing, whatever ... So now, he too needed more attention, more one on one time than he had previously.  As his 3rd birthday approached and I began to seriously look at curriculum and requirements for home-schooling, I felt like i was about to climb Mount Everest without any gear!. 

Mr. Handsome and I had prayed many MANY MANY times about the decision to home-school. We KNEW that we KNEW that we KNEW that the Lord wanted this for our family. Although I fully believed that whatever God called me to do, He would equip me to do.. I still felt scared to death.. I STILL FEEL scared today!!  I mean, here are two little souls that I am responsible for educating in the normal math, reading, science, and other subjects, but also in spiritual things as well.  Even though I knew I wasn't alone, that Mr. Handsome would be as supportive as he could be, and that God almighty would be right there beside me each step of the way. In my mind, I held their fate in my hands!  If they were gonna succeed in the world, go to college, dream BIG dreams, reach for the stars, become well educated, well rounded adults, then I had to teach them. If they were gonna become giants of the faith, godly children/adolescents/young adults/adults, then I had to  teach them!... 
The fact was though... I was giving myself too much credit on one hand, and not enough on the

other. 
God has asked me to home-school our children. That means, God will give me what I need to do it. Patience, Wisdom, knowledge, love, time, materials, resources,  and the list goes on. Not only that, but if I give HIM my best and my kids my best, then He will bless my efforts!!  Beyond that, God holds my children's fates, not me!  I can do my best, my kids will make their own choices, and its all in God's hands!  

More on the home-school journey later!  

TTFN

It's been an uneventful weekend. Monkey spent Friday night with Mr. Handsome's parents, and I spent the day being lazy! I had great plans of cleaning and sewing, but the gray day and all the rain made my couch beckon me to lounge on it all day!  and that's what I did!!  :-)   Sunday, was MORE rainy than Saturday had been! It was Mr. Handsome's weekend to work, so I was by myself to get the kids and myself ready for and go to church. This is VERY hard for me, I'm not gonna lie!. I know there are TONS of people out there that have MORE kids than I do, more issues, more reasons to say "this is tuff" and I admire that they have it all together and can get their kiddos to church well dressed, with every bow in place, clean, and on time.  But for me, by the time is step through the children's department door, I feel like I look like a frayed wire!  And to top it off this Sunday, it was raining!!!

 I really really don't like going to church in the rain, alone!  Trying to hold Monkey in one arm, and the umbrella in the other is a balancing act worthy of the best gymnastics team. Then to go back for Butterfly and get her and the diaper bag on one arm, and the umbrella in the other.. while she is trying to EAT said umbrella, is more along the lines of a circus act than anything else!!  Anyone that would have walked up at that moment to check out what I was doing, would have laughed their head off as I was holding the string from the handle of the umbrella in my mouth to keep the wind from blowing it away, while it was balanced on the car roof, as I was buckling the car-seat around Miss Butterfly. Looking back now, it seems pretty hilarious!  In the moment however, it normally would have been enough to reduce me to tears.. it has many times.  If shed many tears, ruined a pair of shoes, and felt like I was gonna go completely to pieces many Sundays.  The effort is richly rewarded, as worship is always great.  However, I KNOW that it's all just an attack from Satan to try and get me to give up!  Sometimes I have. I have just thrown up my hands and say "Forget it! We're not going!"  But I keep trying, and I'm gonna keep on trying! God is with me!  Satan will NOT win!  

My reason for sharing this, is hopefully encourage some other mother, who is trying her best to get her little ones to church, trying her best to pull it all together, and thinks that everyone but her knows how to do it and has got it all down pat. Or for that mom that is thinking about giving up and throwing in the towel..  Satan is lying to you! YOU can do this! Romans 8:31 What, then, shall we say in response to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? ..  Is it easy? NO WAY!  Is it worth it! YOU BET!  
To paraphrase what David said in I Chronicles 21:24, I will not sacrifice unto the Lord that which costs me nothing.  Sometimes worship is more sweet when it has cost us something. 
Keep you head up, keep up the good fight! We are all in this together!!

TTFN

   

I've been thinking about starting a blog for sometime now. Then I read another blog about sharing, and began to think that maybe the Lord was giving me this idea. Maybe someone else was going through the same things we are, and needs some encouragement or just needs to know that we are all in this giant boat together!   I hope that this will be a great experience. I hope I can keep up with it! HA!  
BUT... being the wife of a wonderful, godly man... and the mother of two beautiful children, and trying to home-school, Keep a relatively clean house, cook meals, and many other things... sometimes things get left out... 
My purpose for doing this, is like I said, I want to share... I want to share my life experiences in day to day living. I want to share recipes. I want to share craft ideas, and home-school ideas and triumphs. But mostly, I want to share my Jesus!  :-)

It's not easy being a Christian in this day and time, and it's even harder to try and raise godly children and maintain a godly marriage and home, with all the "junk" going on today. But God said with HIM ALL things are possible! I'm so thankful that I am not alone in this!! I'm so thankful that God has got my back!!  

So now, a "brief" biography! 
This is my little family! :-)  From as far back as I can remember, I have wanted to be a wife and mother, and a SAHM (stay at home mom) at that!  God has RICHLY blessed me with this. My husband of 5 years.. (we'll call him Mr. Handsome), has a great job that allows for me to be able to stay at home with our children... Monkey (an ALL BOY child who just turned 3) and Butterfly (a  sweet baby girl, who will be 8 months in 2 weeks).  
I have been a Christian for 24 years (add 10 and you get my age) and my husband became a Christian about a year before we met, so about 10 years.   We love the Lord and try our best to follow His ways, and do things according to His will. Which, I will be honest, we fail sometimes!  (SHOCK!!!!  Really, does that shock you?!  A Christian who admits she isn't perfect, and fails the Lord?  I hope it doesn't!)

I'm not gonna bore you with endless details of what was, because as Mr. Handsome says... let the past stay in the past. Besides there is nothing really interesting there anyway! :-)  When things come up, that I need to share something from the past to make the statements in the future make sense, I will share them then. 

In the meantime... Miss Butterfly is awake from her nap, so... Duty calls... I'm thinking leftover steak would make a great steak sandwich for lunch... hmmm..  We will see..

More later!
TTFN!