My shoes are on!

So, there is so much to write here...but let's start here:  my shoes are on.  They were on at 7:00am this morning.  Why is that important?  Because it is the beginning of a journey.

God is so big and so amazing and so passionately in love with me.  That's an incredible truth.  And in light of that truth, and the plan I know He has for me, I have started with some changes in my life.  This blog has now become my journal that I share with others...my way of making my journey something that might help someone else.



I'll get into the whole testimony at some point, but I just want to tell you my starting points.  I will be sharing with you the changes I am making. 

At my women's Bible study, we are going through a book called "When Wallflowers Dance" by Angela Thomas.  One of the points she made last Friday was this:  we need to stop the chaos and restore order, both in our physical bodies and our physical homes.  I can't tell you how wonderful it was to know that the burden I have been under for sometime now is not just my OCD tendencies or some kind of self-made pressure I have put on myself.  God needs room to work in our lives.  And we crowd him out with work, hobbies, house, family, kids, soccer games, theatre, friends, football, church activities, Facebook, video games...basically, self-absorption.  So I have chosen to restore order in several places.

First, my home.  I will share with you pictures of my home as it is now and what it is becoming (along with the whole story).

Second, my body.  If you cruise down my previous posts on this blog, you will see that a significant change happened in my life almost two years ago and that had an effect on my body...but mostly my perception of my body.  I will share that whole story too.  A couple weeks ago, I discovered a very brave thing my friend, Allison, was doing.  She was challenged by our RADICAL study at church to do something radical about her body--she began a journey, as I am doing, to change in a radical way, in order to be ready for what God calls her to.  In this, she began to publicly post her weight and her progress.  What an incredible thing.  She is doing so well and I admire her.  I plan to do something similar, but I am not so much on a mission to lose weight (though I believe that will happen), as much as I am seeking to be in better shape and eat better and develop healthy eating habits that will make me ready for what God wants to do with me.  Again, I will share everything in another post.

Lastly, I am restoring order to my relationships.  The very first step in that is to put those relationships in the correct order, starting with spending quality time every day with Holy God.  That has been the biggest influence on what I am doing and where I am going.

So, my shoes are on, my sink is shiny, my heart is seeking and I am ready...set...go! 

I am such a slacker

So, here we are in 2010 and I have not posted but 2 blogs in the last year. That's sad.

I plan to start posting when I find an incredible deal at the store here...I began couponing last year in August. I am going to add up my total expenses and my total savings since then and post them here. I am excited to see what I have done. All I know is that I always have plenty of food and laundry detergent in the house.

I have also been dealing with the Lupus thing for the past year. It hasn't been awful, but I have had some really bad weeks. Just general aches and pains...things that make it hard to get out of bed most mornings, but when I do get up and moving, it's usually not bad. I praise God for that, because I know others who have it much, much worse.

The kids are growing like crazy. Caleb has discovered that Santa and the Tooth Fairy are not real, but it took it really well. I don't think we are going to even going to try it with Jack. He doesn't care about Santa anyway.

Jack is now taking on some of my sense of cleanliness. It's very funny. I say "some" because he will walk into a room and go, "This is very messy!" but then walk away. :)

Caleb is being tested for the intellectual gifted, and may be moved up into 3rd grade for a few classes. I don't want to rush him, but I don't want him getting so bored that he becomes a distraction.

Alright...back to other things now. But I wanted to say something for 2010. If I do no other blogs, at least I have done one this year. :) Hopefully, if I do more, they will be a bit more organized that this.

R