• Family Life,  Favorite Things,  General

    Abide, and sojourn

    / June 8, 2018

    Abide:

    To accept or act in accordance with, to bear patiently, to endure without yielding, to wait for, to accept without objection, to remain stable or fixed and my personal favorite to continue in place-sojourn.

    I honestly think I am the worst abider I know. I have an incredibly hard time doing all of the above, so is it any wonder that I get burned from rash decisions? I speak when I should listen, I run when I should sit, I plan and control everything within my reach without noticing nothing is working.

    Anyone else pick up the phone and call a friend when you really should just keep quiet?

    Have you said yes when you really should have said, I’ll need to pray about that first?

    I desperately want off this crazy cycle!

    Lord I want to abide in you. I want to accept that if I follow hard after you, you alone will be the answer to everything I need or want. Only by your grace can I wait for and accept without objection.

    In John chapter 15 the word abide is used 9 times. Three times a word or phrase is used in scripture and your antenna perks up, but 9 times and I am wondering why is this so important. To begin the chapter Jesus is talking about how He is the vine and that there are branches that can or cannot bear fruit. The branches that do bear fruit are pruned and the others are chopped off.

    How does a branch bear fruit? By abiding in the vine (“abide in me, and I in you” vs.4), and what about this fruit that we cannot bear without abiding? According to Galatians 5:22, “the fruit of the Holy Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, goodness, and self-control.” By this definition I cannot bear any of these without first abiding in Christ who is the vine, and abiding looks very different then what I’ve been doing lately. Here is what I can do.

    • To accept or act in accordance with: I am blessed to be a wife and mom and I am enough in my loving them well.
    • To bear patiently: I have dreams that do not include homeschooling all day long, but those will have to wait for now.
    • To endure without yielding: The mundane of housework can drive a person nuts but by the grace of God I will not trade it.
    • To wait for: My name to be called
    • To accept without objection: This amazing life we’ve made. The great and the not so great.
    • To remain stable: I will fix my eyes on the only one who can keep me stable, Jesus.
    • To continue in place-sojourn: I don’t need anything more or less then what Jesus has given me today.

    What an amazing life this is I get to live! In Jesus name, Amen.

     

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  • Family Life,  Garden,  Health

    Fresh eggs opened my eyes.

    / June 5, 2018

    Many of you have read my post about becoming a reluctant Vegan for health reasons, and here is the post to say why that decision will never work.

    There are so many decision to make in a day from

    • what time to get up,
    • to shower or not,
    • what to eat,
    • one cup or two
    • cereal or eggs
    • kids TV or not

    and the list can go on and on. As a reluctant vegan, one big decision I needed to consider was between farm fresh eggs in the morning and tofu. The question plaguing my was, “what is wrong with farm fresh eggs anyway!?”

    You see, my parents, have free range happy chickens and we get fresh eggs during the spring and summer. I’ve been cracking fresh eggs for my kids for months and drooling as I did it. These eggs are beautiful and I wanted to eat them, so I went on a mission to discover why eggs were bad.

    Truth be told eggs are bad for you, the ones that come from chickens sitting in their own filth and unable to move are bad. Go figure!! You are what you eat, as my grandma has said before. However the chicken eggs from my parents have numerous health benefits, which you can see for yourself here.

    I didn’t want to stop at just eggs I wanted to see what was wrong with everything else that didn’t seem to add up. How could processed food trump the real deal? What were my grandparents eating? The diet the American people have has never been done before in human history and so far it is killing us.

    YOU ARE WHAT YOU EAT!

    • If you want to eat animals loaded with antibiotics then perhaps you too will need antibiotics to fix whatever they gave you.
    • Low fat means they have put something else in it, and it came out of a factory.
    • GMO is an acronym you MUST educate yourself on. You would never want your kids drinking Deet.
    Kelli over at Groom and Style has written a comprehensive guide on the benefits of grass fed products.

    The Benefits of Grass Fed Products

    She breaks down the mystery behind the term “grass fed” and shares info graphics (like the one below) that make it easier to appreciate the importance of “happy animals” and a healthy body.

    I know for myself I feel better about eating humanly raised animals and my body is stronger for the rich protein and healthy fat from my parents chickens. 

    2013-01-19 11.34.55

     

     

    Here at our house we have been getting 100% grass fed beef from Butcher box, and right now you can get FREE bacon for LIFE! (This is an affiliate link, and I thank you)

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  • Family Life,  Favorite Things,  General

    Disneyland Hacks, from someone who has gone a few times.

    / May 15, 2018

    Our family recently visited the Happiest Place on Earth, aka Disneyland, and I figured out a few things that I wanted to pass on to you. These tips may not be unique to fellow Disney fans, but it may help you, the newbie who wants to look like you know what your doing.

    Disneyland ticket prices.

    I really can’t help you here but agree with you that they are high, so you either have to save your pennies or be incredibly blessed by someone with season passes (as we have been). I honestly don’t think we would go to Disney if we weren’t spoiled in this area. Thank you Nana!!!

    Food in Disneyland

    It is not a surprise to learn that Disney over inflates everything they sell to eat. A single slice of pepperoni pizza is $8.00 or you can buy the pie for $40.00. With prizes like that who can afford to feed a family of 4 lunch every day for at least 3 days? Not only would you be broke, you’d be hungry because one slice of pizza never satisfied anyone. So what do you do?

    As of today, May 15th 2018, Disneyland allows outside food, which means you can bring lunch and snacks into the park. Our lunch is usually a meat and cheese sandwich, apple slices, nuts, and hardboiled eggs. Truth be told, it’s not fancy, and doesn’t come with a commemorative cup, but we save a lot of money here and I have control of what my family eats.

    Around every corner in Disneyland there is something to tempt your tastebuds. Churros, doll whip, soft serve, pretzels the size of my head, popcorn with butter, cookies, candy, donuts, and so much more why waste money on deep fried lunch when you could save it for a treat later.

    I guess I should mention where our lunches come from because we don’t live in LA so we do stay near Disneyland in our Timeshare. Yes we are happy owners of a Worldmark Timeshare by Wyndam, and Anaheim is one of the many places we get to stay. Our Timeshare comes with a full size kitchen so I always pack our food in coolers for the 9 hour trip down. Now I know many of you don’t have a timeshare (but you might wish you did) nor does your hotel room have a full size kitchen, however most rooms can have a mini fridge which maybe just enough room for lunch items. I have also stayed in a hotel without a fridge but it did have an ice dispenser that I used to refill my cooler each day. Bottom line is that you use what you have and get creative if saving money is your goal.

    Dinner is our meal that we budget for and because we have been down to Disneyland often enough we know what restaurants are worth going back to.

    The Monte Cristo sandwich is a must eat, but you’ll need to make reservations before you leave for vacation.

    Souvenirs

    After every ride ends they cleverly exit you right through a gift shop enticing you to buy everything. It is simply unavoidable so I devised a plan for my kids that is simply genius. Our family rule is that we will buy souvenirs on the last day so until then we use our camera to take pictures of everything the kids believe they “must” have, so by the end of our trip I now have a catalog of all these things that they can now decide which one they can’t live without.

     

     

     

     

     

     

    Last Words

    You could spend all day searching for clever ways to save money at Disneyland so if you are reading this post I thank you. I don’t claim to know it “all” but what I’ve shared has been tested over the years to make our trips more magical and less painful on our budget.

    Do you have a tip that we could glean from for our next trip down?

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  • Fitness,  Health,  Schedule

    Six ways to add fitness to your day.

    / April 25, 2018

    I know what your going to say, “I don’t have time to workout!” “where do I start?” “I don’t like getting sweaty!” I completely get all of these excuses, but here are a five six ways to get moving more and doing something healthy for yourself and your family.

    1. Be accountable to someone. Last fall I bought a Fitbit so I could play along in the challenges my friends were doing. Every week my friends and I participate in a “work week hustle” on the Fitbit app which keeps me accountable to a whole group of people who can see how much or how little I’m moving. Now you don’t have to go out and buy anything, you could join an online group that is just for accountability, or you can start one yourself. Being accountable to someone other then yourself or your husband can be very motivating.
    2. There is no right time to workout. There are seasons in a moms life and those seasons dictate free time. I have tried every time and came to the conclusions that I hate morning workouts, and after lunch is to late in the day, therefore I had to come up with a system to fit in my workout and homeschooling. The best time of day for me is between 8-9am so I schedule my kids some independent work during that time and some days they do it without complaining and some days they are cleaning their rooms quietly until I’m done. Does this happen every day? No, but I try to get 3000 steps in doing one workout.
    3. Get your kids involved. Some days I can’t get a workout done alone so we lace up our shoes and head outside for a walk. Now the dog loves this and occasionally I get complainants from the kids but rarely so it is a win for me and my steps.
    4. Free classes. Who doesn’t like free? I have found some great classes on YouTube for free. BeFit is a channel that hosts all ranges of videos from Jillian Michales shred to ballet classes. When I need a kick start I’ll go there and just do something that looks fun.
    5. Just do it! Nike definitely has the corner on that truth, but it needs to be said more often. Just get moving. Moving more develops stronger bodies and stronger bodies are more confident. Bathing suit season is approaching and your kids need you to be in the water with them playing, and the fastest way to feeling better in a bathing suit is becoming a stronger person.
    6. Find something you love doing and do it! Even if your old, tired, etc…do that one activity you have been wanting to try or retry. For me this has been dancing. I have never taken an official dance class with pink tights and a black liatard because it was never an option. Thanks to social media and the ability to stream workouts I can dance without pink tights (because no one needs to see that) like no one is watching. I am addicted to Dancebody, which is a dance class online or if you live in New York they are there in person. Try them out for 3 days free (code is on their site), you will be so thankful you did.

    Now that you have Five Six ways to fit fitness into your life I hope that this weekend while your planning you will plan sometime to move more. And if you have tried and failed then try again. Change the time, change the workout, change who you are with, and get accountable to someone. Look forward to the process and less about the destination. Its in the process that we grow.

    Leave me a comment and tell me what you’ll do this next week to move more.

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  • Family Life,  Favorite Things,  Homeschooling

    Care to join me?

    / March 29, 2018

    I am hosting an Information Meeting for

    Classical Conversations

    May 1, 2018 from 7-9pm in Murphys, CA. 

    What is an information meeting you are asking? An I.M. (for short) is where someone from a CC community, a proud parent, a Director, a seasoned tutor, gets together with parents who would like to know more about our program in an environment that is free of commitment. The attendee can peruse a catalog, hold the curriculum, get some of their burning questions answered all without having to agree to anything.

    Those of us in Classical Conversations are passionate about the curriculum and we love sharing with anyone who wants to know more. We want our communities to grow so our children continue having a community to attend. CC is not a typical co-op, as we have trained tutors to lead the community day, but we relish relationships and surrounding ourselves with like-minded families.

    Are you a homeschooling mom or dad who is tired of doing this thing alone? Do you want others along side you to bounce ideas off of? Do you find it hard to stay accountable alone? Do your kids need friends who “get” them? If you have answered yes to any one of these questions then maybe its time to check out Classical Conversations and see what our community looks like.

    Comment below or register by clicking this link Murphys, CA 

    I look forward to meeting you!

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