Word Filled Wednesday: Wonder of Creation

Psalms 8:3-5 When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him? Yet you have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor. (ESV)

Sometimes, I think we just need to take a moment to look around us in wonder, and thank God for the beauty of His creation.  When I was a young girl, I loved to lay in the grass and look up at the moon and the stars, wondering what was going on in the heavens above me.  I did not worry about things like Intelligent Design, Evolution or Creation.  I simply believed.  I can not remember I time when I did not simply believe.  I saw signs of God's promises all around me, in every tree and flower, in each meal on our dinner table, in every heartache, in every second chance, in each smiling face, and in each gentle reproof.

Sometimes, I long for that childlike faith and wonder again.  As we get older, we get so caught up in the responsibilities of being an adult.  Work, bills, grocery shopping, dinner, dishes....we forget to be amazed at the One who makes it all possible for us.  So, tonight, before you finish the day, step outside, sneak a peak at the stars, and for a moment, feel a little bit of wonder.

The Plaid Shorts

I hate shorts.  It is pretty rare that I wear shorts, or pants of any sort, in the summer time.  Most of the time, in the summer, I can be found wearing dresses.  Usually light cotton sundresses, nothing fancy, just comfortable.  But, when preparing for my Ice Cream Social, I found the cutest blue and brown plaid shorts, so I got them, in the hopes I could wear them for the party.  Well, I hate to try on clothes, so I just got a size I hoped would fit, and brought them home.  The day before the party, which would have been the last day of July, I tried them on.  Bad news.  There was no way I could wear them.  I could not get them all the way on, much less buttoned and zipped.  I was so so sad.  I put them in my drawer, determined to be into them before the summer was over.

Yesterday, I wore those plaid shorts.  They fit me perfectly.  I was pretty stoked.  I am finally starting to see progress.  My first weight loss goal was to have lost 25 pounds by Labor Day.  I am confidant I will achieve that goal on time, if not early.  My biggest concern now is I know I am going to get to a point where I stop losing, but all I can do is keep trying.  And keep thinking about those plaid shorts.  Because the next time I go to put those things on, they had better be way too big for me.

Word Filled Wednesday: Acts of Charity

Hebrews 13:16 

Do not neglect to do good and to share what you have, for such sacrifices are pleasing to God.

One of the ways we can show our love of God and of mankind is to do acts of charity.  When one thinks of acts of charity, I think one often thinks of grand gestures, such as donating large sums of money, or volunteering one's time, and while these are wonderful acts, they are not always possible.  There are simple ways to perform acts of charity in everyday life.  Sometimes, it is a mere kind word, a smile, a thank you.  I am astounded how many people do not say thank you anymore.

My mom was always one to perform great acts of charity in ways you would not expect people to in this day and age.  A perfect example is this:  when my niece was a baby, my mom would go to my sister's house to take my nephew to the school bus stop, so my sister would not have to take the baby out in the cold.  She noticed a neighbor woman who had her kids at the bus stop, and none of the kids had hats or gloves.  My mom struck up a conversation with the woman one day, and the woman mentioned that she had fallen on hard times, so, my mom went and bought each child a hat and glove set, as well as a small toy, and wrapped them up for Christmas.  More than likely, those were the only toys those kids got that year.  What a tremendous act of Christian charity that was.  My parents always taught us to perform these types of acts of charity.


But, what happens when you offer such kindness to someone, only to have it refused?  Last week, this happened to Hubby and me.  Without going into too much personal detail, some people in our lives with whom we were not on the greatest of terms had a terrible situation befall them.  In the name of charity, we decided to set aside the differences, and offered to help in any way that we could, only to have this offer pretty much thrown back in our faces.  Were we wrong to offer?  I do not think so, I stand by my decision to offer assistance, particularly because there was a child involved.  I think it was a shame that our offer was refused in the manner it was, but there is little I can do about that.  I know I did the right thing by trying to help, as my parents taught me to do.

Hot new hair

Anyone who knows me knows that I am constantly doing something to my hair.  Cutting, coloring, something.  So, the fact that my hair stayed pretty much the same all summer is miraculous.  I guess that is part of growing up.  Yesterday, I went to get it touched up, and was going to do the same exact thing, but at the last minute, I changed my mind, and told her to stick to mostly the red highlights instead, and only a few blonde highlights.  The results?

My hair looks like flames.  It is flipping awesome.  I look....like a superhero.

What should my super hero name be?

In other news, my quest for healthiness continues to go well, yesterday I did my weigh in and had lost another 3 pounds, bringing the total to 21.5 pounds lost!!! I hope I can keep this up, because I am finally starting to see the difference.

I am going to my first ever blogger event on Friday.  From what I understand it is a pretty low key event, but I am still pretty excited, and am wondering if I will look like a big dork if I wear my custom made I love Tiffany's Blogs t shirt.  Thoughts?

My summer reading challenge is winding down for my book review blog, so hopefully that means I will have a little more time to blog on a regular basis.  Here is hoping!

Too Health Conscious?

Is it possible to become too health conscious, or at least too much too fast?  I had yet another moment of food revelation last night.

Hubby and I were out to dinner last night at one of our favorite places, in part to celebrate our anniversary of our very first date.  In fact, the place we were eating was where we held our rehearsal dinner for our wedding.  It is an awesome little Italian place.  We had both skipped lunch, because we had been busy all day, so I had an abundance of points to use up, and could have had pretty much anything I wanted.  Still, I ordered a steak salad, no cheese, raspberry vinaigrette on the side, with a tall glass of water.  Hubby ordered a sandwich and fries, and an appetizer of fried ravioli.

When the fried ravioli came out, he looked at me, frowned, and immediately apologized for tempting me.  I said, honey, it is fine, I can have 1.  And that is what I did.  I had 1.  And I savored it.  I ate it in 6 slow, sumptuous bites, dipped in a bit of ranch dressing.  It was 3 points, with the dressing, and totally worth it.  A tiny splurge, which I allowed myself.  And I stopped after 1.

While waiting for my dinner salad, I noticed people sitting at a table near us being served their dinner course.  They had already eaten ranch dressing laden salads.  Now they were eating large cuts of prime rib, baked potatoes with butter and sour cream, butter laden green beans, pasta with meat sauce, and bread. That menu was repeated for EACH PERSON!!!  It made me a little bit nauseated, actually, how much food was brought out for just 3 people.  Probably more points were on that table than I consume in a whole week.  Hubby noticed a frown on my face, and asked me what I was thinking about, and I could not help but blurt out "I am thinking about how many points they are eating".  I did not say it loudly, and I let it go, but in the car ride home, I decided to clarify, and this is what I explained.

How other people eat is totally their business.  But it really hits home to me now how badly I have been eating for so long.  I did not put this weight on or develop these bad habits overnight, and the situation will not reverse itself overnight either, but I am almost appalled at how terrible I have eaten in the past.  Knowing that in the past one trip to a fast food place would equal the same about of nutrition I now can account for over the course of a whole day is almost shameful.  I am starting to really learn to think about what I am putting into my body, and why I chose to put those things into my body.  And to be honest, I enjoy the food I eat so much more now, because it makes me feel so much better. 

I asked Hubby if he thought it was weird that it bothered me how many points those other people were eating, and he said no, but it would have been weird if I had said something to them about it.  I do not think I will ever get to that place, at least I hope not, because it is not my business what other people do, it more bothered me how it made me reflect on my past behavior.  Where I am at right now is I am actually struggling to force myself to get all my points in each day.  I have a tendency to store my points up and have a lot left over at the end of each day.  This week I have been using more than I had in the past and as a result, I am losing a lot slower than I had been in previous weeks, so it is frustrating, but everyone is telling me this is what I should be doing, so I guess that is what I should do.  All I can do is keep plugging along.

Word Filled Wednesday: Husband As Head

Ephesians 5:23 For the husband is the head of the wife, as Christ also is the head of the church, He Himself being the Savior of the body. (NASB)

It never fails to baffle me how angry people get at me for choices my husband makes.  As if my husband has no mind or will of his own.  In case people do not notice, my husband is a grown man, with free will.  If he makes a choice, it is with his free will, that he makes this choice.  To assume that his choices are my doing, by my feminine wiles alone, is to accuse my husband of being weak.  My husband is not weak.  My husband is the head of my household.

I think that people often mistake kindness, or being easygoing, as weakness.  But everyone has a breaking point.  And as far as my family, meaning me and my husband, goes, he is in charge.  Never for a moment think otherwise.  Because, seriously, if I had my way, we would have at least ten times the pets we do now, including this adorable little puppy that I desperately want to adopt and name Chocolate Chip Nixon Harkleroad (Hubby says no).

But I digress.  My point here is, my husband is the head of our household, the head of our family.  He is the decision maker for himself.  He is the joint decision maker for our family.  When it comes to things that affect us both, like finances, and household decisions, we discuss them, though we are almost always in agreement.  But when it comes to him, he makes his own decisions.  I might make suggestions, like, gee, don't you think you should get a hair cut soon, or, would you like to go away next weekend, but I never say, hey, you, DO THIS.  So, if he decides to not go somewhere, or not attend some function, or not wear some piece of clothing, or not drink alcohol, or not eat some type of food, that is his doing, and nothing I am going to do or say will change it.  Trust me.  I will never, ever, in a million years get this man to eat sushi.  I will never ever get him to put gravy on his mashed potatoes.  Stripes will not be entering his wardrobe.  Rest assured, he does things by his own bidding.

I see this all the time, people blaming wives or girlfriends for the choices men make.  I was unaware there was such a widespread epidemic of weak minded men out there.  Maybe there are a lot of men who let their wives make all their decisions for them, but, sorry to tell you, my husband is not one of them, and that is the way I like it.  He makes his own choices when it comes to him, I make choices when it comes to me, when it comes to our family we have a partnership, and at the end of the day, he is the head of our household.

And I will always stand by his choices, after all, he chose me.

Summer Discovery: Grilled Peaches

A few weeks ago, one of my friends mentioned on facebook that she and her husband were grilling peaches.  I had never heard of such a thing, and she assured me they were delicious.  I did not give it much more thought, then today, I was at the Farmer's Market.  I try to go every Friday, and every Friday, I seem to get something different, plus my standard dozen ears of corn.  Today, I among the things I got were some peaches.  When I get produce at the market, I am never sure what I will do with it during the week, but on the drive home, I decided to try grilling peaches, or at least looking it up to see how involved it was.

I found several different recipes online, some complicated involving blue cheese and balsamic vinegar (which sounds amazing but I had neither of those things), and some fairly simple, so I decided to just wing it.  I took two peaches, cut them along the cleft, twisted them apart, and pitted them.  Then I sprinkled just a bit of brown sugar and cinnamon on them, then put them on a warm grill, cut side down.  I grilled them, cut side down, for about 7 minutes, then I turned them over, and sprinkled them liberally with more brown sugar and cinnamon.  I then let them grill for another 15 minutes or so.  Look how awesomely delicious they look!

I decided to serve them up with some chocolate ice cream, since we do not like vanilla.

Hubby got the be the first to try it and he pronounced it pure deliciousness in a bowl!