Made to Crave Challange: Day 3

So I heard about the book Made to Crave a while ago, and saw that there was going to be a challenge and I know that what I do is join that stuff and then not finish it after having announced on my blog that I was going to do it.  So I thought I won't announce it I will just quietly do it and go about my business, but it specifically calls for having accountability... so here I am, asking you for accountability!

If you have not heard of Made to Crave it is written by Lysa Terkeurst the founder of Proverbs 31 ministries.  She is speaking at Grace Community Church at the end of Jan but they are sold out!  I asked a friend who works there to see if she can buy me a tape of the night--fingers crossed!

Anyhoo.  Her THING is that although we were made to need food for our body we weren't make to DO the things we all do to our body-- we were made for GOD to meet all our needs, and we so often meet those needs through food.  At least I do-- hello stress eater!

I have to be honest with my struggles.  As she says I need to be gut honest, and kick my excuses to the curb.

I don't need food to comfort myself.  R.e.a.l.l.y.

Psalms 42--

As the deer panteth for the

water so my soul longeth after You.

Rarely do I long for God as much as I long for Sesame chicken or Rocky Road ice cream!

Here is a podcast she has out-- till Friday.


Here are the top 2 strategies top 5 choices the health person she has says you can make are to make the most difference:

strategies:
1. diet and excercise

2. accountability


health choice
1. reduce calories. 100 extra calories a day equals 10 extra pounds a year.   DUH. 

2. fiber- 25 grams a day.  your body will tell you that you are full.

3. eat fish.  (they list the best of course- salmon my favorite) at the least take fish oil.

4. polyphenols- super foods   blueberries, cacao, green tea

5. excercise- 25-30 minutes a day hard, heart rate pumping.


Here is an online Bible study: Melissataylor.org that sounds really neat... they post assignments, have a few special speakers, small prayer groups and lots of accountability!

The Made to Crave study starts Jan 15 online at Melissataylor.org  right now there are 6000 women signed up!



OKAY-- so we are supposed to pick one thing to choose to give up for 6 weeks-- to pick ONE healthy choice and I am going to pick water.  I will only drink water for 6 weeks.  AKKKKKK.  You all KNOW that is a hard one for me!  I might still have to drink it in Sonic cups!


I am BTW on day 3 of only water... and I have so far survived. BUT 57 days is a LONG day!

Letting Geese find true north...

I tend to have control issues and often find it hard to rely on God's providence or to believe easily His Hand on my life... but I do know it is there! I know that my steps are ordered by Him. I believe it.

photo credit: Texas Goose Hunting

I was watching a show the other day and a character on the show had made some artificial geese---but they weren't flying North at the same time as all the "real" geese and he was curious what he had done wrong in all his love and care of these fake geese. At the end of the show he realized that in building in a compass he had made it TOO sensitive and the geese were having a hard time recognizing TRUE North. His point was that in his FEAR that the geese wouldn't know what to do or not do that the right thing he had TRIED too hard to make them perfect ( i.e. made their compass TOO PERFECT).

I find I do this with my children. I am often fearful of the day that one of them "wanders" from the way of life Dave and I want for them, or the call of God on their life, or chooses to not perhaps make some of the same choices as we have for our life ( I don't mean repeat the bad ones!)... I want to control them-- NOT to be controlling but so that I can make sure they go the right way!

Imagine how God feels! Imagine GIVING your children COMPLETE and TOTAL free will and letting them go, free to choose completely for themselves?

We as parents don't even do that! I train, teach, retrain, reteach and retrain some more in hopes that they will choose the "right" path! We remember that they have free will but we often FIGHT the free will to conform them to the choices we have for them!

I am not advocating that we allow them to run of the house-- I am just saying we truly do not have any control over choices they will make when they are not under our authority.. we can train and teach them, we can raise them in a certain way, we can pray over them and do all the "right" things but they will go their own ways.

Some of them will find "TRUE NORTH" right away. Then there will be others who will turn off course and wander a bit before getting back on the right track and still others often don't find their way at all. We can't control this...

GOD is in control. GOD knows what is going on. GOD is a good GOD. I can worry and "control" and that is SIN on my part and it isn't helping anyone.

Here is to us raising AND letting our Geese go..regardless of their direction.

this is what I sent to the museum of fine arts about booking field trips....

Hello, my name is Carrie Thompson and I have just received confirmation for my Learning Through Art tour- Feb 28 @ 10:15.   I just wanted to verify some information... I have read the PDF file and will just begin with saying that I have set up multiple guided tours in the past 6 years but have had so much trouble in the past two years that I literally do not WANT to set up a field trip and literally have panic attacks on my way to the field trip. :0) I find it very stressful. So in order to hopefully stave off such need for panic I thought I might head off some problems early on.




Here are the reasons why the PDF file information doesn't work well for us: (homeschoolers)



1. Your Pdf (system for field trips) are set and based on a school group from a school coming with students and teachers. It is not really accommodating of a home school group with multiple families, ages and vehicles, especially in the area of meeting, parking, dropping off, chaperon numbers- and payment.



2. your workers-- some of the door people and ticket people in other areas of the museum have zero tolerance for school tours, children and do not know or care to have explained your policy for school tours. (i.e. I have had more than one lady ARGUE with me that I had to pay for all the students.)



3. As for my own group we are not only a home school group, but we also have a wheelchair and have in the past had both tour setter uppers (I know not a word!) and docents tell us in advance to meet in the Beck building vs. the Law building (I might have those switched, but the point being the one that most school groups DID not meet in generally) and the people (see point 2) have been unbelievably rude to us telling us we are doing the wrong thing to the point of us calling down the head of departments. (I might even be on a wanted poster in some one's office!")



4. There is a lot of confusion in the payment system. 1:10 ratio to me says that we get ONE chaperone in free for every 10 students we have-- and we would gladly pay for the other parents. I have had  people (see point 2) argue that we pay for all chaperone's because we are not "real" teachers (and yes that was said at one point. :0) and I have had people argue that we all get in free (and weirdly I tried to argue that we should pay for those not in the 1:10 ratio number count)-- the pdf does say chaperones get in free with students and technically DOES not specify how many chaperones you can have-- so are they all free?



5. I went to a meeting once where I was asked and asked questions-- I forget what it is called---my husband informs me it was a focus group but they were trying to change policy and wanted input. Nothing got better for home schoolers.

I have had conversations with multiple persons at the museum and nothing has gotten better for home schoolers. I love that y'all tried to do home school Thursday and understand that it did not work out well... I LOVED the home school day at Bayou Bend (amazing!).  I am a field trip girl-- schedule them ALL the time! But I just have to say that the MFAH is difficult.



I am hoping this note is turning out more like a funny rant,  I am trying to be sarcastic and not rude--- because it is NOT intended rudely. It is intended to express a lot of frustration coupled by an intense desire to do field trips at an amazing museum without panic attacks. :0)



If there are now systems set in place since my last visit which was more than 6 months ago I believe- I would love to know if you can tell me where to meet as a home school/ wheelchair group and make sure that people know we are going to meet there so that I don't have to have more darts thrown at my wanted poster. :0)



Thank you very much from-- a person who loves the art museum and loves to visit without panic.

Everybody was Kung Fu fighting....

Okay. 

obsessed.

I

admit

it,

I

am

addicted

to.

but fyi don't watch other Cee Lo Green videos.  :0)

But my obsession is not with the song, although it has always been a catchy tune, but with a fat,

 black and white bear named Po.

Watch the clips, they will make you smile.

Project 365.... 2012--Day 1-7

Okay-- gonna do it.

One picture, every day of the year.  I will post the weeks worth on Mondays....

So here is Jan 1-7

Jan 1

New bathroom faucet.

Jan 2

Emily's new bedroom--excited girl

Jan 3

Kirsten built herself.  lol.

Jan 4
um danger Will Robinson, danger.

Jan 5
Shall we dance?

Jan 6
broken in move, mended by mom. I. was. a. hero.

Jan 7
coffee. no. other. words. needed.

So there is week one!  Only 51 more to go!

Weekly Wrap Up: day 73-78

So I am looking back and my last weekly wrap up with a day number was October 28. I don't have my days of school marked since then.. so I gotta round it out and just "guess". I pretty much can say we did zero "school" work in December although we did plenty of learning so I give us 7 days of school-- trust me we were learning stuff! Going back to November we did do a fair amount of school but not a lot of full days, loads of half days... so I am going to go with 10 days. How does that sound to y'all? Fair enough. NOW we do lots and lots of learning even when we are not schoolin-- trust me!

So this weekly wrap up will be day 73-78. This puts us finishing up our 180 days in the year 2015. :0) No, really... we should finish the second week of June and that is with ample breaks. As long as we finish this year by the end of June I am a happy camper. We will take most of July off and start August 1 for the new school year. So good with that!

Okay lets get to what we ACTUALLY did on day 73-78..

Well we unpacked loads of these...

which is math, geometry, measuring, logistics, PE, Reading and character training.

Then we watched lots of this...

which is geography, drama, character training and world view.

After which we did some real learnin' about the Civil War during history on Monday. We are at the battle of Shiloh presently. Grant is almost handed his walkin papers for the number of losses and although the confederate army retreated they are still sitting on cloud 9.

We played this game that I picked up at Fort Pickens in Pensacola. It is awesome. Civil War memory game but loads of ways to play AND secret missions to accomplish for whichever side of the war you were on!

We started our Little Women Unit Study-- I loved this book growing up, however I will say that as an adult with a little bit different worldview now I see how very liberal it is.  There is LOADS of good.. great moral to a lot of it and a heartwarming story of family... but still the suffrage movement and feminist movement is carefully woven throughout the pages.  One of the questions in my unit study actually talks about the distribution of wealth during the late 1800's vs. what it is today and the huge gap between the wealthy and the poor.  (um.. hello middle class-- not because of distribution of wealth but because of opportunity given from the LAND OF THE FREE)  okay soap box over.

We are doing character studies of each girl: listing her traits, character, physical description, likes etc.

We read Pilgrims Progress two years ago and because it is talked about a lot in Little Women I thought it would be good to tie in with "resolutions" for the year.  So next week I am going to have the kids each put their "sin problem" in their bag and carried them around for a while, until they drop off.  We will find verses to help combate whatever "sin problem" the kids pick for themselves.  So update on that--

Kate had region practice on Saturday for FOUR hours.  It was really the first time in her life that she has been surrounded by public school kids.  She knew ONE girl- the other girl who was in her choir.  She was probably one of a VERY SMALL handful off non public school kids there.  The girl who she was next too and talked to said she didnt even know home school kids could be in choir-- I told Kaitlin she is breaking down the myth!  Dave stayed the whole time and just sat in the back-- pretty much the only parent out of HUNDREDS of students.  Next Saturday at the actually regions I seriously doubt we can stay... but we are just moving on.  Kate will have her phone.  I will spend my week in prayer, say a prayer for me too!

this is just the girls.

this is just all the girls singing their part.


I am going to start doing my "weekly wrap up" on Sundays and I am going to call it Sunday Sum up... I always feel rushed to do it on Friday because I am still DOING Friday- and since I rarely link it up anymore I thought I would change it up.. feel free to join me if ya want to!

Word of the year (2012)....

Okay everyone in the whole entire blog-o-sphere is picking a word for the year, well, maybe not everyone! Anyway, I decided I shall play a long because it does truly seem beneficial to me. Our school motto this year was Do everything you do to the Glory of God with this Steven Curtis Chapman song as our theme song--




and I love it! So with going with that them I think I will simply choose DO.

 

DO say yes to my kids.

Do the things on my planning list.

Do give.

Do be kind.

Do save.
Do make amends.
Do love people.
Do set a standard.
Do live up to the standard.
Do share His love.
Do shine.
Do train my children.
Do be a wife to my husband.
Do stay on track.
Do let my yes, be yes and my no, be no.
Do be honest.
Do be friendly.
Do be active in church and activities.
Do forge into the unknown even though it scares me.
Do be wise with money.
Do help others.
Do cook most meals at home!
Do chores and errands when they need to be done.
Do (not) procrastinate.
Do spend time with my family.
Do meet my kids needs.
Do make time for special things.
Do spend less time doing unimportant things.
Do pray.
Do thank God.
Do please Him.
Do read and learn.
Do teach my children.
Do accomplish tasks set before me.
Do pick up my cross daily.
Do learn something new.
Do not be afraid.
Do trust God.
Do let things roll off my back
Do be more easy going.
Do (not) allow anxiety to rule.

Do. Do. Do.

Loss.

I just found out that a friend lost her husband last night.  It was very, very unexpected.  He had no conditions. He had no warning signs.  They were watching the Iowa returns and she went to bed, he said he was going to stay up a while.  She got up later to check on the kids and the light was still on and she found him dead.

I am in disbelief.

I just cannot imagine... my heart is grieving for her.  I don't understand how you do that.  I mean I can say the right words about God and faith and peace and all that and I believe it ALL.  I can quote verses for others, but I just think unless you are in a place like that you just can't know.

She has a young 3 year old and 6 month old twins. 

Isaiah 55:8-9

8 “For my thoughts are not your thoughts,

neither are your ways my ways,”

declares the LORD.

9 “As the heavens are higher than the earth,

so are my ways higher than your ways

and my thoughts than your thoughts.

Love your loved one.  Don't let moments go by.  We shouldn't need reminders like this....

Wordless Wednesday

Doing, doing, doing... yup.

Okay-- still unpacking, rearranging, cleaning out, putting together furniture, changing closets, moving boxes.

Yup.

It's all good.  I found a library book-- guess I can take that 20.00 off my VERY. LARGE. FINE.

Yup.

I walked out of my room to find hot wheel track going from the stairs, to the fan and into the kitchen.

Yup.

Emily told me the first night in the house (that we have been living in for three plus months, but now it is minus my mom and dad) that since it was the first night in this strange new house could she sleep in my bed.

Yup.

Dave took the kids to Petsmart to buy crickets and to Walmart to return a present ----with a grocery list.  He came home with no groceries.  {{{amature}}}.

Yup.

I have 7 boxes of various zip lock bags and no gallon size.

Yup.

I can't tell the difference between most the silverware owned be myself and my mom because we both have like 4 different kinds.  {{{need. new. silverware}}}

Yup.

I plan to join up on a bunch of Project 365, 52 week DECLUTTER Project, 90 day Bible reading...because I have time like that.

Yup.

Today my son used the word battering in a sentence about a return---"I don't want this box to take a battering so that I will still be able to return it mom".  Thank you Star Wars series.

Yup.

I havent gone to bed before 12:30 in about 3 weeks.  However there are 8 seasons of Law and Order on Netflix.... I am on season 1 episode 8.

Yup.

I also got introduced to Shutterfly-- scrapbooking. 

Yp.

If you have every watched Storage Wars (addicting) you know that YUP sounds like this.




YUUUUUP.

USS Alabama- the grand tour.

We had stopped at the USS Alabama on our way to Orlando but there was only an hour till closing and with not enough time to tour everything we opted to return on our way back-- even knowing we were coming back Dave and Matt walked the grounds for almost an hour looking at the planes and tanks.

When we arrived for our tour-- which I opted out of (small places, narrow stair cases are not for me- not to mention that the kids would have more fun without my anxiety... :0) Dave ended up only taking Matt and Emily on the tour.

They started out on the USS Alabama and ALL the following pictures were taken by David (some of which he even laid down on the deck of the ship to get the right "angle" for ME--

{{{sigh. be. still. my. beating. heart.}}} true love)

after the ship, they toured a submarine, another building with more planes and stuff and then the rest of the grounds... all in all we spent over 4 hours and Matt could have kept going! 

They didn't even tour all of the ship!  Wow--- Matt was having a blast and Dave was reveling in the Daddy/ Son talk.  Here's to all the soldiers...we salute you.

Ringing in the new ..... throwing out the old.

We stood outside at 11:59 last night all five of us together and as the clock struck 12:00 we whooped and hollered.. Dave and I smooched (as Emily reported) and we rang in the new year.... we have a very low key new years eve... no party, no games, no themes!  We had my friend Becky over and some Mamma Mia's pizza and that was IT.  I was so good with that!

But I am even better with it being NEW YEARS DAY.

 I don't suppose there are many ways that you can physically ring in with the new and throw out the old besides MOVING.  We are all up to our necks with ringing in the new and throwing out the old!  Everything either has, is or will be moved!  Closets have been emptied and are now slowly being filled again.  New routines and methods must be formed- quick!  Change, change, change.

I am excited.  I mean of course for the space, of course for having all my stuff unpacked, of course for the kids getting their own rooms.. but mostly because it means settling and routine.

We have had pretty much zero routine since September.  We got here and settled in best we could and we did school, I made a chore chart we designed a place to hang coats, put our shoes.... but it is not enough.  I CRAVE schedule, routines, meal plans, coupon savings, budgeting sheets, school days, curriculum being finished, a place to put everything, organization...

I. am. so. excited!

Today however is all about the cleaning, moving and arranging.  I also need to finish printing out a few worksheets for their "worksheet" week and pick up a few things for our Little Woman unit study for this week...

I am making lists.  I have three ongoing ones right now and about to start a fourth plus one for each of the kids and a HONEY DO list for Dave.

I am putting things in place- knowing things might be changed around again as we find better ways of using space or a different need arises.... but for now things are being put in PLACE.  Slowly.

I do feel overwhelmed, but it is almost a good overwhelmed... does that make sense?  I kindof like that there is so much to do. I will get tired of course and the "overwhelming" good feeling with turn into something else... but right now we will stick with GOOD FEELING.  :0)

I have great plans for this year- I always do!  Out of the plans change will come---some plans will come to fruition.. some will NEVER get off the ground, some will fizzle out.....  but regardless change will happen.

Well here's to change--may it be the change I am looking for and may it be productive!

We spend January 1 walking through our lives, room by room, drawing up a list of work to be done, cracks to be patched. Maybe this year, to balance the list, we ought to walk through the rooms of our lives... not looking for flaws, but for potential. ~Ellen Goodman

more vacation pic--- Clear Water Marine Aquarium (Winter the Dolphin)

Earlier this year we took the kids to see Dolphin Tales.... amazing movie!  So we were very excited to learn that the marina was only 1 and 1/2 hours from Orlando and immediately made plans to go visit Winter!

When you pulled it it was EXACTLY like in the movie---

which was very cool (in fact a lot of it still looks like it did after the hurricane!)

after paying some exorbitant entrance fees (for a hurricane riddled, partially operational aquarium with two large tents and a trailer as the ticket office and port a potties at the "facilities") we got to learn what REALLY happened to Winter!  For instance he did not bang against the side and break the model to pieces... dramatic flair!  He did however let them know in his calm, dolphin "esq" way that he wasn't down with the thing touching his skin that sheds like once an hour verses OURS that sheds like every three days.  So the good doctor came up with the sock-- which has bolstered many other awesome medical advances since then!

We saw the trap that harmed Winter and learned that it took days and days for the tail to break down and til they finally amputated and was really very painful for the dolphin.

We walked up rickety stairs into what in the movie we saw as the entrance (grand hall-- remember where the boy met the Pelican, who by the way DOES NOT LIVE AT THE AQUARIUM) and it is all gift shop.  and it is NICE!  State of the art... and then you walk out of the gift shop into old, worn down pretty much yucky facility.  Good thing there was a cute dolphin there!  :0)

They kept announcing all the "ways" you could add expense onto the exorbitant entrance

fees over the loud speaker-- it was great.

Okay so on to the reason for the visit-- and the good part. 

WINTER, the Dolphin.

It was worth the drive to Clear Water-- especially all the cool water ways you go to go over from Tampa

and it was worth seeing Winter and well that's all folks.

Rent the movie-it's great. BTW-- oh and no Harry Connick Jr. at the aquarium either, bummer.

Curly Girly....

I bought some of the cheap foam rollers for Emily's hair. So today we put on Tangled-- because it's all about the hair--and went to town.

When we took them out I could not believe the curls!

Emily hated it. She just thought she looked stupid.... I don't think she will go for it on a regular basis-- I said we could just use the large rollers and get a different look, we will see.

I promise I am not going all Toddlers & Tiara's on you.  :0)

I want a hippopotamus for Christmas...

but instead...............................

I got.

a Keurig Coffee maker from Hal and Vickie-- TOTALLY unexpected and awesome!

and a starter bracelet from my mom....

I want to say although there were other things I could have used, or would have loved, but

 these are the two BEST presents I could have gotten! 

 They were both unexpected and complete surprises and

are BOTH very, very loved and appreciated!

We had a wonderful Christmas... plenty of giving and getting.  Family and togetherness.

 

I am ready for what this new year brings... hesitant to imagine or set goals

that I never feel I achieve, but still holding onto the hope that I can. 

 I have a few quiet personal goals and of course the

normal lose weight, save money, blah blah goals! 

I guess I can just take the year one day at

a time... do what's right and move on.

We are packing up mom and getting our own stuff ready to remove around the house once mom and dad are moved.  The movers come on Friday.... I feel slightly overwhelmed.  I want to start school but know that getting the house set up will take some priority of the next couple of days... so I will probably start school on
Jan. 2, but we will go light and start with math, reading, language and a LOT of books. 

 I have a unit study of Little Woman to do during this week which will be fun.

  The following week of December 9 we will hit it head on full force! 

So I have two weeks to pack, unpack.. lesson plan for the next 6 weeks and school some.  No problem. 

It's all okay.. this is the year of tackling challenges head on...