I just read this and was really convicted.  I was tiny until the middle of college, when I put a few pounds on, but was still a size 6 when I got married.  3 children later, I am not even close to that, and find myself needing to lose about 60 pounds to fall into the middle of the healthy weight range for my height.  I gained a HUGE amount of weight with my first baby, and on the high end of normal with both boys.  I am carrying a large amount of the excess weight right around the middle, which is very unhealthy, and I know that even though I have no related health problems yet, it leaves me at high risk.  Also, my dad is not overweight and yet he had a bypass at 53.  So, I need to lose this weight.  I have gone through kicks, diets and exercise kicks, but Tammy is exactly right in saying that what has been missing is self-discipline.  I know what I need to do, I just haven't done it yet. 

So, here is what I need to do, in a nutshell:  1.  Eat less.  2. Exercise  3.  Get enough sleep.  Of course, I could get really detailed with it all, like I need to eat more veggies, less carbs, make a lot of rules, etc.  But really, it boils down to those three things. 

I can't imagine living on a strict diet the rest of my life, counting calories.  I can't imagine that I will continue to do a diet or exercise that is complicated and hard to follow for long with all that I already have to do.  So, it boils down to keeping it simple and just simply being self-disciplined to eat less, exercise, and get enough sleep.

I should make a goal to report my progress every week on my blog.  Let me think about a day of each week, and I will do it for accountability.

162.                Elephants

163.                        Cheerios

164.                        The pampered chef pan scraper thingy that scrapes the cheerios off the floor

165.                        The snores kitty cats make when they are sleeping

166.                        Airplanes

167.                        Stars

168.                        Sun

169.                        Moon

170.                        Fleece

171.                        Jeans

172.                        Crocs

173.                        Advair (for my asthma)

174.                        Pulmicort (for children’s asthma)

175.                        Pets

176.                        Stickers

177.                        Colored paper

178.                        Crayola markers

179.                        Our church

180.                        The Church/ Body of Christ

181.                        Great worship songs

182.                        Great Hymns

183.                        Singing

184.                        Dancing

185.                        Trampolines

186.                        Football  games

187.                        Marching bands

188.                        Kids light-up gym shoes

189.                        Caramel

190.                        Cotton

191.                        Great smelling body wash & lotion

192.                        Bath sheets

193.                        Flannel sheets

194.                        Polarized sunglasses

195.                        That quite a few illnesses only last 24 hours!

196.                        When someone helps without being asked

197.                        Repentance

198.                        Conscience

199.                        A really beautiful day

200.                        Diamonds

201.                        Crock pots

202.                        Sign language

203.                        The Christmas Tree

204.                        Nativity sets for kids

205.                        Candlelight

206.                        Sharing a special secret with a friend

207.                        Homemade baby food

208.                        Petosky stones

209.                        Seashells

210.                        Quill pens

211.                        Old-fashioned traditions

212.                        Old-fashioned values

213.                        The U.S. Army

214.                        The U.S. Navy

215.                        The U.S. Air Force

216.                        The U.S. Marines

217.                        The U.S. Coast Guard

218.                        Police officers

219.                        Fire Fighters

220.                        All others who serve our great country

221.                        Really old saints who graciously pass on their wisdom and disciple others

222.                        That eternity is written in the hearts of men

223.                        Little boys

224.                        Little girls

225.                        Teddy Bears

226.                        Stand alone freezers

227.                        Sybil, who taught me how a Christian lives

228.                        Mary Engelbreit art

229.                        The Declaration of Independence

230.                        The United States Constitution

231.                        Curls

232.                        Gift bags

How's that for totally random?  I think I am going to start doing themes, now that I am nearly 1/4 of the way through, I am seeing how hard this is going to be!

1  

Remember her... "practically perfect in every way" ??

This morning we started a message series at church called "Soul Revolution" where we are taking a look at some of the lies that hold us captive and keep us from living the life of freedom that God wants us to live.  This morning, aptly enough for me, was on perfectionism.

I freely admit, I am a perfectionist.  I certainly don't at first glance fit the mold you may think of, though.  I am no organized, clean freak, every-hair-in-place Desperate Housewife Bree VanDeKamp Wanna-Be.  No, I am more like Susan Meyer... totally disorganized chaotic and prone to disaster, the sort who can't find my keys 99.9% of the time in 3 tries, who has to dig through the piles of paper 43,984 times a day to try to find 3 crucial pieces of paper, whose house could most days evoke a, "Ma'am, your home has been ransacked and we are so sorry!" respose from a happening-by police officer who unknowingly knocks on the door... get it yet?

But, many perfectionists are like me.  We procrastinate and live in chaos and piles of unproductivity because in some odd way, it feels better not to start than to possibly do a thing to less than the best it can be done.... especially when it really matters.... like in making a home for my family or educating my children.  Deep down I can fear my best will not measure up and be good enough, so at least if I don't try, I have an out from the very real pain that would come from knowing that I gave it my all and my all was not good enough.. that I gave it my all, everything I had, and failed.

That is really hard to swallow in front of the world, even the small microcosm of the world who reads my blog.  (I by no means am implying that you are insignificant, only that my blog has very, very few readers :) ) 

Home-keeping, marriage, homeschooling, parenting, spiritual walk.... these are the things that REALLY matter to me.  And yet, they so often get pushed off... if I were to write my top 5 areas of procrastination, I suspect we would see a very similar list to this.  Why?  Because I know I am not going to be perfect, but that is very hard to face!  If taken as more than a mere cliche'd, "Nobody's perfect," it means that I have to sit down, look myself square in the face, and admit that not only may I miss perfection, I might not even be any good at all!

Yet there is a powerful truth that, if I let it, can replace the lie that I'm not good enough, that I don't measure up.  We saw an incredible video about Dick and Rick Hoyt - I know I should be really savvy and be able to insert the video here, but I can't.  To get to the story from church, click here, then click for video from 1/7/2006, then run the time clicker to about 52:00 minutes in to the service.  The video feed is not real great, but I promise it will be worth your while to check it out.  Watch all the way through the video with the song, and Dave has a few comments after it.  (Be prepared to cry, though.)

So if you have watched it, you will understand...  Just like Dick with his son Rick, our Heavenly Father will take me, little me, so far from perfect, maybe not even any good at all...maybe totally unable... and He will be my strength.... even when I can do nothing at all to "help" Him along, He will do it all. 

Because He loves me.  Because I measure up in His eyes, and I am enough for Him.

Yes, I am going to let Him teach me how to do things that I want to do better.  I just won't be practically perfect in every way... but then again, I'm not Mary Poppins...(and she doesn't exist...)

Thankful that

I am happy to report that, indeed, I have been folowing through on doing some small things, and they have actually made a dent in the big things!

I started with the practical.  My house was getting the best of me... the mess was just piling up everywhere, and I would look around and just feel total despair, because how on earth would I ever get it to an acceptable level?  Well, I just decided to start with the picking up and do that, one room at a time.  Then once that was done, I went on to the cleaning (wiping, scrubbing, etc) one room/job at a time.  Now, it is not totally spotless, by any means, but after just three days, the livability facot has gone up tenfold! 

I am learning that perfectionism can really backfire and actually stand in the way of the goal.  Sometimes, all that is needed is to do just a little and it will help fuel the momentum in the right direction towards that goal!

Here it is the end of October and I never did post a series on The Call (message series our church was doing.) , and now it is over.  It was a very important and timely series for me... I have been dealing with a lot lately.  Basically I am feeling overwhelmed, underequipped, and inadequate for just about everything in my life recently.  I have also had a MAJOR case of writer's block, probably because writing from an unenergized, somewhat depressed state is not at all my usual style and I just didn't want to bring my blog down with the rest of me.

But actually, something my pastor said on his blog yesterday was probably the best part of the whole series The Call for me.  Go on over there and read it, then come back and read the rest of this... it will make much more sense that way.

The part that really hit me was this:

"I wish I would have had more time to unpack the evolutionary process of God’s call. I wanted to spend more time talking about how surrendered obedience is usually done in very small steps. I remember when the little book Don’t Sweat The Small Stuff came out; I wondered if it was actually just the opposite: go ahead and sweat the Small Stuff…because the Big Stuff is usually way out of your control anyway.

I think we all want the long touchdown pass or the grand slam at the bottom of the ninth. But moving the ball ten yards at a time or advancing the base runner will do the job just fine.

As Jesus put it: “Unless you are faithful in small matters, you won’t be faithful in large ones. (Luke 16:10a New Living Translation). The small things are incredibly important.

Think of these Bible stories: the widow’s two small copper coins…a little boy’s two small fish…faith as small as a mustard seed…the small gate and the narrow road. Or as God spoke to the prophet Zechariah: “The people should not think that small beginnings are unimportant.” (Zechariah 4:10a New Century Version)

It's small things done with great love." (taken from Dave's blog)

That is SO TRUE.  I have been feeling so down because it just feels so overwhelming when I think of EVERYTHING that needs to be done, fixed, addressed, completed, started, addressed, etc.  But somewhere along the way, I lost the ability to see that all of these huge things break down into very small pieces, and that if I am faithful in those small things, the big things will start to get addressed.

It's like the cliche about eating an elephant one bite at a time.  Kind of a "duh" thing.  But I really needed that... I have been sitting here thinking lightning better strike and get me caught up or it would never happen! 

So here I sit, knowing without a shadow of a doubt that I am called to train and teach my children, love my husband, create a safe, warm and ordered home for my family, reach out and serve in my community, all for service to the Lord and for His glory.  I am going to remember those stories from the Bible, and start just doing the things, small as they are, that I can do with great love.  And I will pray that as I do those small things with great love, that eventually they will add up and change the world.

Will you pray for me, that I will stay outwardly focused on others and that I will be faithful and focused on doing the small things?  I have been totally hit over the head with the fact that my overwhelmed feeling came from a selfish place of being totally focused on ME and my own needs/wants/ desires.

Create in me a servant's heart, Oh Lord!

Thank God that

This morning's message at church was the third in a 6 week series entitled "The Call", which is taking a look at God's unique call for each one of us.  Talk about timely for us right now!  The worship was unbelievable...it felt like I was standing on holy ground and I didn't want to leave!

It stirred so many thoughts in me, that I thought I would start a series on this blog entitled The Call, which will basically be some of the information contained in this series and in the book by the same name.

Song, hang on and visit often as we learn and dream together about God's call on our lives! This is exciting stuff!

I will leave you with the lyrics to just one of the wonderful worship songs we sang this morning.  If you want to listen to the worship band doing it, click here and then scroll down to Sept 17, and click on the video link.  Let it download a little while, and then start listening at 19:00 if you want to go straight to this song.  A very worshipful and energetic chorus, I highly recommend it!

Great is your faithfulness, Great is your faithfulness,

You never change, You never fail, O God.

True are your promises, True are your promises,

You never change, You never fail, O God.

So we raise up holy hands to praise the Holy One

Who was and is and is to come.

Yeah, we raise up holy hands to praise the Holy One

Who was and is and is to come.

Wide is your love and grace, wide is your love and grace,

You never change, You never fail, O God.

Wide is your love and grace, wide is your love and grace,

'Cause You never change, You never fail, O God.

(chorus)

You were.

You are.

You will always be.

(repeat)

(chorus repeats)

That's it.  Simple.  True.  His faithfulness is GREAT.  His love and grace are WIDE.  His promises are TRUE.  He NEVER changes, and He never fails... He was, He is, and He is to come!

I hope your worship time was a blessing to you today, too!  Please hop over to quietcajun's blog to read her beautiful post about her son's baptism today and celebrate her joy in seeing him baptized.

And stay tuned for thoughts on The Call!

Posted in honor and memory of those who lost their lives on September 11, 2001, and in thanksgiving for all those who have given their lives for our freedom.

Today, we went on a field trip with our homeschool group to a castle... a REAL castle!  In fact, it is the only authentic Norman castle anywhere in the world.  It was amazing for many many reasons, but one thing really struck me.  The WHOLE thing, including the castle, terraced gardens, flood plain, retaining wall, fire pit, graded road, and terraced hillside, was made by one man... by hand.  Sir Harry Andrews made, stacked and mortared every brick, hauled every rock out of the Miami River, dug shovelfuls of dirt out of the ground to prepare and flatten the hill, ALL by hand, by himself.  It took him 52 years.  In that time, he also managed to teach for 30 years, edit textbooks 30 hours a week during his retirement, publish over 900 writings, run the Knights of the Golden Trail, and much more. He worked on it up until his death at the age of 91.  Every detail of the castle is an authentic 10th century Norman Knights castle.  All of that makes the castle all the more amazing.  (And a VERY worthwhile field trip if you are ever so inclined to visit me in Cincinnati, I will go with you!)

Lately I have been overwhelmed with the enormity of my dreams, goals and projects... one in particular, but others too.  The one that really overwhelms me is our financial freedom goal... it is so important to me to get out of debt, but the debt seems so huge to me that I feel like it is near impossible a task to conquer.  So I dream about ways to help us get free of the debt, like growing my business, starting another business, etc... and I take steps like budgeting, frugal living, etc...but eventually the enormity of the debt returns to stare me in the face.  I start to feel like the tiny results I am achieving are not even close to enough to put a dent in it, and I start to feel myself give up. 

God impressed a lesson from the 10th century on my heart today.  My dream of financial freedom and of "changing my family tree forever" like Dave Ramsey says, is a huge dream, a lot like the dream of building a 10th century authentic Norman castle.  And the debt is the huge hill and the river that was there when Sir Harry first began to dream of building his castle.  I would love to get the equivalent of a bulldozer, crane, and a team of builders with power tools to just power through the earth to flatten it and terrace it, build the flood wall, retaining wall, terraced gardens and the castle.  It would go much faster.  But, just as Sir Harry valued making the castle truly authentic and thus did it all by hand, our dream is to get out of debt while still doing the things that are the most important to us... things such as me being at home with our children and homeschooling them, and doing our work and business in a God honoring manner.  Thus, we cannot use "power tools" such as me getting a full-time job, fast easy unethical money schemes, or robbing a bank.  We have to do it shovelful by shovelful, brick by brick.  And most days, that feels nigh to impossible.  But I saw with my own eyes today a huge CASTLE, built brick by brick and laid on earth terraced shovelful by shovelful!  I don't know if Sir Harry ever got discouraged, I bet he did.  But he kept on going, pulling rocks off the riverbank and carrying them up that hill, until those rocks, homemade bricks, and riverbank mud-mixed mortar became the castle he dreamed of.  And if we keep on going, even though each rock, shovelful, or brick seems so insignificant, we will certainly be able to achieve the dream of financial freedom we so earnestly desire.

And that is my lesson from the 10th century for today.

If you are so inclined, comment and share a castle-dream of your own with me!  I will pray for you if you do!

'Twas the night before school started,

and all through the home,

The schoolroom was clean and shiny,

and ORGANIZED, the great point of this poem.

OK, so I am not a poet, but...

I AM ORGANIZED!!!
at least for the moment.

A few more things late tonight,

and I will be all ready to get started with school tomorrow!

Also, I printed out the Clean Heart, Clean Home Challenge planner...

And the Motivated Moms planner...

and a whole lot more and more...

plus some I made myself... so, let's just say I should be good to go LOL!

(for those of you who are worried at this point, let me stess that I am not going to be using them all, just looking at them to figure out what I DO need...)

Ok, gotta run... I  have to talk to my husband about this movie we are watching that just totally made fun of stay at home moms, homeschooling families, and direct sales consultants all in a span of 30 seconds... REALLY.  UGH!  (In case you haven't figure it out yet, I am all 3 :) )

EDITED TO ADD: The movie just now also made fun of Christians and guitar players...I am one and husband is both of those...wow, great movie!  If you are interested in a lot of fun, may I recommend "RV" with Robin Williams... NOT.

AND NOW EDITED TO ADD:  I stayed til the end and I agree that the homeschoolers did end up being the heroes of the movie, in a way... it was kind of funny, but a very predictable and "stock" plot.

It finally hit me today... I am a project girl, and I am always taking on big projects to move towards my goals.  One example is the organization thing.  Another is getting out of debt, a really big goal/struggle that is a HUGE part of my life.  I have a business I love and am working to grow, plus homeschooling and all of the projects that go with that... as well as all of the mini-projects that I get sponteaneously inspired to do.  Also, spiritual and character growth is an ongoing project, althogh it sound weird to define it as such, just like being a better mom and wife... they are heart and life matters, but still categories I can write about.

So that is what I want to write about here... all of my many projects and how they are going, what resources I am utilizing, what I am excited about, and my victories as well as my struggles and failures, in the hopes that I might encourage someone else who is struggling with the same things!