I put out a monthly newsletter for women. The main emphasis is Bible study. If you'd like to view a sample of the newsletter, please send an email to the email address below and put "free newsletter sample" in the subject line. If you'd like to subscribe to the newsletter, send an email to the email address below and put "subscribe to newsletter" in subject line.
"Older women likewise are to be reverent in their behavior, not malicious gossips nor enslaved to much wine, teaching what is good, so that they may encourage the young women to love their husbands, to love their children, to be sensible, pure, workers at home, kind, being subject to their own husbands, so that the word of God will not be dishonored." Titus 2:3-5 (NASB)
~ 2009 Theme Verse ~
"Faithful is He who calls you, and He also will bring it to pass" I Thessalonians 5:24 (NASB)
"If you would like to join me in having a theme verse for 2009, click below.
•Praying God's Word Day By DayBy Beth Moore
•The Bible
•For the Children's Sake: Foundations of Education for Home and SchoolBy Susan Schaeffer Macaulay
•Munich SignatureBy Bodie ThoeneFrom The Zion Covenant Series
Just curious - how many are starting back to school tomorrow? We are. I've spent this past week trying to get everything lined up for term 2. All is pretty much done for what I am doing. I just have to write out the regular assignments for Romeo and Juliet for my teen. He'll begin that next week. So I have time to finish that.
It's been a pretty good day. Although, I find that right now, I feel tired and am craving some junk food. I had to run to the store to pick up a few things. So I decided to pick up one of those healthy energy bars. I didn't want to give in to those junk food cravings. Oh no - that would only make it worse! After I got into the car, I got the bar out and gave it a try. Not too bad. Although it wasn't as chocolatey as I was hoping. Still - it wasn't too bad. And it was the perfect snack for me. I think I might try to find a recipe for a really good healthy homemade chewy granola bar that doesn't use much sugar. I can substitute my organic evaporated cane juice for the sugar in a recipe. That way, I'll have a healthy quick snack that packs just a little sweetness. So if you have a great homemade chewy granola bar recipe, please share it with me! I would surely appreciate it!
My hubby volunteered to tackle our older daughter's bedroom. That's no small task you can be sure! When he was finished - wow does it look so much better! I was planning on trying to work on her room this afternoon. But hey - since he volunteered - I certainly wasn't going to turn that offer down! What is it with children that you organize and clean their rooms, give the "speech" (you know the one - "Now that your room is clean, I want you to keep it like this. Put stuff up where they belong" etc. etc. etc.), and then find yourself cleaning and organizing the room AGAIN and giving the SAME speech? We seem to go through this routine every month or so! It seems no matter how hard I work at staying on top of things and trying to keep my daughter to keep her room clean and organized, it ends up looking like a tornado went through it! Just makes you want to pull your hair out! What blows me away sometimes is when her room looks like the last cyclone visited it - she'll comment and say that it's not THAT bad. She'll work on her room a little and then say she's almost done. When I can't for the life of me even figure out what in the world she did that whole time she was in their "working." Because it sure doesn't look like she did much! Of course, it's not like this every single time. But we're talking probably 80% of the time. Soooooo - since I'm working on a routine slowly, I have decided to add something in the mix for my daughter. I'm going to try to find out a good time each day for her to do pick up in her room. I probably need two times a day! :) Seriously! Tomorrow she'll be starting the day with a nice and clean room. We're going to work on it STAYING that way.
Back to the food.....Can you tell I'm ramblin' on here?? I notice that when I have my "cheat" day each week, if I eat much processed stuff at all - I find that I crave it more. And actually I crave sweets more. But when I am eating whole foods and healthy throughout the week, I have a lot less times of craving sweets. On Friday, I was very good. We needed to go to a couple of shops to pick up some things. And both places were 15-25 minutes from our home. So we headed out and decided to have a treat - eat lunch out frugally. Since I eat such smaller portions compared to what I used to eat, my hubby and I usually share a meal. A lot of times, he'll order some sort of dinner that includes a salad and I will eat the salad and a few pieces of the meat he orders. It works well and it's frugal. We don't get to eat out much but when we do, we try to spend less. I did really well. My hubby ordered a meal that included two meats and two sides. He got a 6 oz. steak and a grilled chicken breast, caesar salad, and twice baked potatoe. I ate the caesar salad with the chicken breast. It was really good and right in line with how I'm trying to eat. So I walked away from lunch out - having stuck to my eating routine. Yesterday on the other hand, was my "cheat" day. I did splurge and have two cups of coffee. However, I used half and half for my creamer and organic evaporated cane juice for my sweetener. So it wasn't too far off the mark. I did well for lunch - whole grain homemade tortilla with black bean and chicken filling topped with fresh veggies. My hubby and daughter ran some errands in the afternoon and came back with a burger thing from a local fast food place FOR ME. My hubby knew it was my "cheat" day so he was trying to bring me a treat. So sweet of him. However, I really didn't want to eat the bun part of the sandwich because I was afraid I'd start craving the junky stuff. I actually didn't want to eat the burger at all. But I couldn't do that because my hubby was so sweet to bring it home for me. So I compromised and ate half of it and gave the other half to my hubby. Not too bad - tasted pretty good too! So by that point I hadn't done too bad for the splurging end. We then headed to my parent's house for dinner. My Mom made her wonderful chicken-n-rice soup and served it with bread and salad with a homemade dressing. I ate salad with the dressing and a small serving of soup. After I finished that - the bread was just sitting there in front of me inviting me to enjoy a piece. So I did - and then I enjoyed a little more. Then my Dad just had to mention a blizzard at DQ. Yum did that sound good. So when hubby and I left, I splurged and split a blizzard with my hubby. I then went ahead and ate a couple of Oreo cookies. That was it - promise. I didn't keep on and on with the junk stuff. I did thoroughly enjoy the blizzard. But I have to say, I have had to battle the cravings today. And I'm left thinking - is it really worth it? Is it really worth battling the cravings to enjoy a little bit of the junky stuff? The thing is - it doesn't even have to be what we consider junky stuff that can promote the cravings. One thing I've noticed since I've changed our eating habits is this. Many of the processed stuff has white flour or white sugar or corn syrup or all of them! And I'm talking about things many think are fairly healthy - rice mixes that have long grain wild rice in them and many brands of yogurt. Stuff like that. I think that those ingredients along with maybe other processed ingredients just cause a person to want more of the same stuff. I've seen that already with myself. As I have changed my eating habits, when I am eating the whole foods, I don't crave the processed stuff nearly as much. In fact, I have actually not craved it much at all! And that's a huge thing. Just ask my hubby. I have LOVED sweets up until recently. So the fact that I'm eating very little sugar at all (natural sugar included) and have stuck to it is HUGE! I've tried to cut back on my sweets in the past only to go right back to my old eating habits within a short time of trying. We are now a month into this new change in our eating and I am still sticking to it. I feel better! I'm losing weight! I'm getting healthier! All very good reasons to keep it up. Just this week I was able to fit into two dress jackets that I haven't been able to wear in years! YEARS people! Is that not awesome or what?! I may not be able to weigh what I did when I was in my early twenties (I have had 5 children......) but I definitely will be happy to lose a little bit more and be healthy! It's such a good feeling to put on clothes that I've worn for awhile and find that they are TOO big. I am seriously going to have to go shopping before too long because I'm finding that quite a bit of my clothing is getting too big for me. YAY!!!! Okay - so I guess I've rambled on just about long enough on that subject!
Speaking of food.....I'm starting to get hungry. Hmmm....I wonder what I could eat......
The ultimate goal of Christian home education is to train children to impact the world for God. We want our children to not only hear and learn God's Word, but also be doers of God's Word. Therefore, we strive to teach them:
SERVICE - How to serve God and others
ACHIEVEMENT - To do the best they can in all they do from academic subjects to chores to serving others and more
LOVE - To love God and one another
TRUTH - To live their lives based on the absolute Truth of God
The name of this blog is the acronym for these four areas that we strive to teach our children:
S.A.L.T. - Service, Achievement, Love, Truth
