Thankful Thursday

I'm thankful for short illnesses.  Although Kat has thrown up twice in the last two weeks, she only threw up once and not again thereafter (until two weeks later, that is).  I'm VERY grateful given my past esxperiences with long and drawn-out illnesses in/among my children!

Tricky Tuesday #9

If you've been learning about the dangers of our mainstream food supply (as i have), you may feel an urgency to change your food consumption practices.  If you do, you'll quickly find that eating organic via the grocery store is really quite expensive.  It is SO tricky to eat well (truly healthfully).  If you need to save some money (as i know i always need to!), you definitely need to look for an organic foods co-op.  If you live near me, i can connect you to a wonderful co-op (or two) that are REALLY reasonable to get into (do NOT cost an arm and a leg to start) and have GREAT prices!

If you have any yard or space in which to place pots, do a little food growing RIGHT NOW.  Even though it's late to start where i am, it's better to start late than not at all.  i'm only just getting stuff in the ground!  Seriously late, i know, but i TRULY believe better late than never!  Just make sure you buy heirloom seeds!

Meditation Monday #28

Today is day 318 of my meditation journey.

Lately meditation has consisted of about 25 minutes with Kirtan Kriya.  Sometimes i've been able to get an anger meditation (3 minutes) in, but those have been fewer than the majority.

During the process of my most recent checkup with my midwife, the baby's heart-rate was 120.  Never before have i heard such a LOW number for one of my babies.  (FYI: 120-160 is the normal range.)  My first reaction was to think it was a result of something, but upon further contemplation i realized it was probably because i had finished meditating only about 10-15 minutes before the heartrate was monitored.  So... perhaps this baby will benefit in some very specific ways from my practice.  It sure will be interesting to see!  Still have till the end of June to see... and then a  while of observation... so, i definitely won't know anything anytime soon.  :)

Super Sunday #1

Today is a day off.  It is a day of rest.  Today is THE day to observe the Sabbath and honor the Resurrection of our Savior, Jesus Christ.  This is my practice and belief.

So, as of yesterday, i've been walking daily (except for Sunday) for about a week and a half.  This new habit started one evening in reaction to some stress.  It felt SO good.  i felt SO good during and after the walk.  To this point, i have walked alone and enjoy some time to just think, sometimes "talk to myself" and a big chunk of time to listen to my favorite radio station.  It's definitely worth a listen if you're curious!  In the future, i may invite one of my two eldest daughters out to walk with me.  They both want to come.  Right now, i'm not willing to share this time as i know i really need it.

The day after i took the impromptu evening walk, i sorta popped awake earlier than i normally felt fully awake and just felt like i REALLY wanted to and HAD to go for a walk.  So, i did.  Again, i felt super during the walk and continued to feel better throughout the day.  The walk did, of course, take time and pushed my regular morning routine a bit outta whack, so i decided to try to get up earlier the next morning.  After a few days of getting up a tiny bit earlier, i was waking up at 615am and leaving by 625am for my walk (except for yesterday because it was raining when i first woke up... i left by 635am, instead).

My walks last between one hour to right around two hours.  So far, i've walked as little as 2.74 miles (that's walking for right around one hour) and as much as 4.19 miles (right around two hours).  Obviously, the longer walks are not as efficient as the shorter ones.  If you think about it, that makes perfect sense given that i'm SEVEN months preggie!  The length of my walking time is mostly dependent upon my husband's work schedule (when he has to leave for work), but i've also had to make alterations for an appointment of my own.

So, "Super Sunday" will be my day to regularly share how i've been caring for my physical self.  This could seem sorta odd, since Sunday is often a day to focus on Spirituality... but my meditation practice is my "newest" (though it's more than 300 days strong now) addition to caring for my Spirit and i focus on THAT via my "Meditation Monday" posts.  No promises on how frequently i'll update Super Sunday, but i will do it periodically!  ^_^

Thankful Thursday

I'm thankful for my funny children!  They've been saying some of the darndest things lately... and, of course, the way they behave is absolutely hilarious at times.

Did you know exquisite looks like it would be pronounced: ick-squeeze-it to a phonetic reader?  This information only came to me by way of hearing my second daughter say the phonetic reading of it and telling me that's how her big sister said it... all to describe a meal their Daddy made.  ^_^

Also, do you know the song Whom Shall I Fear ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qOkImV2cJDg )?  Well, as part of the refrain you hear: "The God of angel armies is always by my side."

Well, my second daughter thought it said, ""The god of anchovies is always by my side!"

How great is that!?

It's almost daily... the funny things they say and do.  I'm SO grateful for these children and hope and PRAY i will be blessed to bring a few more into this world.  Their light is so bright... and so sorely needed here!

Meditation Monday #27

Today is day 311 of my meditation journey.  i can hardly believe it!

i wonder when i'll feel like i should stop counting days....  hmmm...

i've added in a morning walk before meditation most days.  The improvements resulting (in my mind) from meditating continue and, i think, has been compounded by the addition of a daily morning walk.  What a blessing!

Meditation Monday #26

Today is day 304 of my meditation journey.

i've had a busy patch, so the majority of my meditations have been between 10-15 minutes.  I miss the longer ones, but i'm just glad, at this point to keep plugging along.

It's amazing to me that i'm in the 300s now!  Getting ever nearer to a year of meditation!

In the News

The title does NOT refer to what is in the msm run news.  I don't watch that... don't have tv channel reception of any sort.

The news to which I'm referring has to do with a few things you may not have heard about as yet.

Have you heard about the governors who have been threatened by the o in office?  Yep.  It's true.  There are 27 of them, I believe.  They are organizing state militias and the o is feeling antsy about it and has sent them a special letter letting them know that if they continue, they will be charged with treason.  Hmmm... interesting charge... that!

There are, additionally, Sheriffs facing similar threats because of actions of support for/of the Constitution.  How wack is that?  Pretty dang if you ask me!

Did you know the o signed a law into being that protects monsanto?  That company is among, if not THE, biggest of the evil agri-business giants and gmo guardians.  Do you know about the gmo issues?  The arguements against them?  If not, you need to wake up.  AND SOON.  Especially if you live in the USA.  Apparently, we are among the most foolish of nations in allowing gmo seeds and products to run higledy pigledy, while other nations prohibit them.

Those are not the only important things unlikely to be shared via any msm resource.  However, they are the most pressing in my mind.  RESEARCH, awaken, inform thyself!

BTW: Meditation Monday

Today is day 297 of my meditation journey.

It got to be pretty difficult to blog while in VA, thus the break between January and March.  Even though meditation was minimal most of the time, I kept plugging along - by the Grace of God, for sure!  I also maintained my morning and evening devotionals (prayer and scripture reading; sometimes another spirit strengthening reading as well).  The combination of these Christ-centered actions have kept me together when i would've surely fallen apart otherwise.  Praise God for His Love and Devotion!

While in VA, between January and March, i did miss 3 days.  In my opinion... that's pretty terrific!

P.S.
this is NOT an April-fool's Day post.  I think those tricks are pretty much reprehensible and do not participate.  Sorry if you think that's a party-pooper kind of attitude.

Happy Resurrection Day!

Praise the Lord for His perfect life.
                          for His perfect Love.
                          for His willingness to complete His task.
                          for His divinity.
                          for rising again.

Praise the Lord for His Atonement for my... our sins!

So I say: HAPPY RESURRECTION DAY!!!

I refuse the practices of this world... Easter.  Do you know who that's named for?  Not Christ!

I refuse the traditions of the world.  Did you know eating ham, bunnies, sunrise worship and MORE are all practices formed around the name-sake of Easter?

Yes, Christians have "owned" it.  But why not rename it as well?

It's not too late.

HAPPY RESURRECTION DAY!!!

What's Been Up

Well, lots of stuff i'm not going to share... just to get that out.

What i will share of what's on my mind and in my doings:

Gardening!  This is swiftly becoming a passion.  While I was away, numerous of my plants died.  So many heirloom seeds who only got a barely there taste of life and then went the way of all the earth.  The pain is over their loss of life as well as my unrealized monetary investment.  *sigh* 

A few plants were looking pretty sad and near-death upon my return.  It has been tremendously gladdening... uplifting... heartening... joy-filling to see my lovlies perk up under my care.  I honestly cannot convey to you the pleasure and joy that i feel about my plants... especially as they have flourished and improved since i've been back.  I'm so grateful God put a friend into my life to tell me that it was in opposition to my nature to be good at gardening.  Don't tell me something like that... especially if it's something my family needs to get along better than we otherwise could... it's a challenge to me and i rarely fail permanently when i take up a challenge.  :)  Fall flat on my face lots of times... definitely.  But i also happen to be pretty tenacious when i have a goal in mind.  ^_^

Maybe you'll think this is crazy, but i really feel a sweet connection to my plants... like i can almost feel them calling for me when they need some water or transplanting or something of the kind that they cannot do for themselves.  I DEFINITELY felt my sunflowers reach out to me in a real and extremely tender way after the miscarriage last year.  If anyone had told me such a thing was possible before i experienced it myself, i would've considered it with loads of scepticism... but i know it's real now!

Thankfully, death did not fall upon as many of our animal-types as upon my plants, while we were away.  Only 1 rabbit died while we were gone.

FOOD!  While I was away I spent some time learning.  Much of the learning was by way of documentaries.  Documentaries such as: Food Inc.; Sick, Fat, and Nearly Dead; The Gerson Miracle; and quite a few others.  As i was learning in this temporal manner, i also heard much from Father.  I was able to fully comprehend some things i'd been hearing for some time... it actually made sense. My determination to use Hippocrates statement more fully firmed up in my mind and heart.  He said, thousands of years before Christ: Let thy food be thy medicine and medicine thy food.  I felt led to move juicing into our consumption - which required obtaining a juicer.  It has been aquired and juice has been consumed daily since.  I'm very pleased with the experience and feel the results well-worth thte time investment.

I'm making a lot more from scratch... and i really feel like i was doing quite well in that area before.  I'm not buying bread currently (sure do miss it, though!) and buy much less meat than we were consuming.

I'm also dehydrating.  It's been really gratifying to see how much Jmy likes almost everything i make!  He's been the most accepting of the juices and RAW crackers.  The crackers he refuses are banana based, which is VERY odd if you know anything about this little guy.  He's loved the curry and tomato based "BBQ" chips (two different types).

I made pizza with eggplant as the "crust" today and even my most finicky (Ria) loved it!

Food preparation is also a paying gig for me now.  I'm making food for someone with whom i've bartered.  As a result, i'm saving/earning my family between two thousand and twenty five hundred dollars within three months.  It's not really good pay, per se, but it's definitely worth it to me.  It's been really great (motivating) to prepare vegan foods for this other person... encouraging my forays into more food prep with veggies for my own family.  We're not going vegan, by any means... just working to align more fully with the Word of Wisdom and the diet described in the Bible (particularly Daniel), though not focusing at all on Kosher.

Home maintainance and improving organization therein.  The house was a wreck when we returned.  Seriously.  I whipped it into shape (semblance of improved shape, anyway) inside of 30 hours and have been working to improve it more since then.  That first day of work really did me physical harm, though... my hip has been giving me some huge problems since... so frustrating.  ahwell... at least the house looks better, for the most part (even still).

Oddly enough, though, i still have not fully finished unpacking my suitcase.  A few clean clothes (most have been put away properly) and lots of books and random other things.  Most things have been unpacked, but it's difficult to find places for what is left - thus it's still in the suitcase waiting for me to figure it out.  :)

It took me almost two weeks to straighten the van back up the way i work to keep it (very orderly, which is MUCH easier to maintain in the van than the house because we do not live in the van!).  So, all i have to do in it now is maintainance sweeping once or twice a week depending on how dirty feet are when we pile in.

The play room, the laundry room, and the computer room need some concentrated attention to more fully organize them.  Hopefully i'll get to the easiest (? laundry room?) of those very soon.  We'll see.


That's pretty much it.  Probably sounds like little to do, if anything, but these few activities can (and do) take up a lot of time.  Numerous days i've stayed up much later than i planned or physically should have to plant seeds because i'm working to do that on good and best days based on lunar cycles.  It REALLY does make a difference!  Thankfully i've been able to get the most important things done... but little time to "play," thus no blog updates until yesterday.  We'll see how much i can get in from now on.  ^_^

Two New Babies

I find it interesting to think about birthdays.  In my immediate family, we have 1 January birth, 2 March births, 2 October Births, and 1 December birth.  The baby yet to be born is due in June.

CONGRATULATIONS to my sister, brother-in-love, brother and sister-in-love!!!  We look forward to meeting your girls!!!  ^_^

In my extended family (my immediate family and my family of origin and those related), we have (including the ones listed above): 1 January birth, 1 February, 5 March (TWO within the past two weeks! ^_^), 3 April , 4 June (to become 5 with the baby i carry), 2 August, 2 September, 4 October, 2 November, and 1 December birth.

It gets even more interesting when you look at the dates of those births (date including or exclusing years).  For simplicity, I'll list dates without years... also, those tend to be most interesting to me, anyway.  :)

January: 18
February: 13
March: 10, 12, 13, 16, 27
April: 3 on the 11th!
June 2 on the 10th, 27, 28 (the gestating baby is due at the end of the month)
August: 8, 9
September: 9, 13
October: 9, 10, 25, 27
November: 22, 24
December: 16

Maybe it's just me... but that's just INTERESTING!  Throw in my husband's side of things... well, that's only another 6 birthdays, but still interesting!  :)

My Life

It is what it is.  And what IS it?  Well, a whole lot to me, but not all that much to many.

Can I be any more vague?  Perhaps.  Perhaps not.

I've learned a great deal, recently, about what IS... also, a great deal about how much I can actualize/change in my little world.  I guess "can" is different from "allowed to," really.  So, perhaps I should rephrase: I have learned a bit about what I am allowed to change and how very limited my choices are in some areas... if I desire to be obedient, of course.  And, since I do... I am limited.

Limits are, generally, good.  I can see this clearly in a logical way.  Not so much emotionally.

So I come to see ever more clearly my cross.  This whole disciple thing is pretty much a whole lotta torture at times.  *sigh*  I'm a whiner.  Obviously.  Too bad you don't understand the details... you might commiserate... or, at least, radiate compassion toward/about me.  But, alas, I am learning I must needs stop sharing as is my nature to do.

I have been learning much about what, in my nature, I must leave behind.  No easy task... especially when many parts I am meant to leave out are parts I considered of value.

Because I Wanted to Save It

I love pintrest for the ease of saving things online.  But sometimes, for reasons unknown and really unknowable to me (since I am not THAT techie minded), I can't get it to stick to my pinterest board.  DANG!  Well... now is one of those times.  I want to save some recipes, but cannot get the dang thing to accept my links.  And it's not because the pictures are too small, that's for sure!

So, I'm going to include the links here and then plug this post into my pintrest board.  Hopefully it'll work!  ^_^  It should... so long as I can get a picture in here.  ;)

just a picture so I can put this on pintrest



Beehive Banana Muffins: made with a strussel topping (using honey cheerios)

Carrot Cake Cookies: with oatmeal, nuts, and spices.  can't go wrong!

Crunchy Granola Muffins:  just looks yum! 

Because It Matters to Me

I wondered, when I experienced miscarriage last year, if the baby's estimated due date would be upsetting at all.

Since today is that day, and because it matters to me, I wanted to share how I feel.

I feel better.

I am super grateful to be pregnant on this date.  I think it would be a more difficult un-birth-day if I wasn't.  Truly.  If I wasn't preggie, I would only mourn and not be sure I would have the opportunity to look forward to holding a new little person.

Since lots of ladies I know have shared that they are glad to hold others' babies, but equally glad that they won't have to deal with one of their own, I can only imagine that I will feel similarly some day.  However, I am NOT there yet.  I ache to hold, nurse, and feel even more fatigue (assuming this new baby is like my girls) than I do now.  Obviously, I'm not done having babies!  And since I'm preggie, I don't have only mourning on my mind.

God's wisdom is far greater than my own!  At the time we conceived, I did not want to get preggie.  I was feeling overwhelmed by certain things going on and didn't think I could emotionally deal with a pregnancy only 3 months after pregnancy loss.  Well, in a way I was right... but in the longer-term, I was definitely wrong.  I'm so glad God is able to know the end from the beginning!!!

Given the above, I'm WAY better today than I was in the early months of pregnancy.  Being half-way through and not knowing when I'll get home is pretty interesting.  I want to clean my nest and cannot... so I'm trying to satisfy myself in my parents' nest.  ;)  I sure am glad God knows how this will all play out!