Delayed Living Well - Ain't that the truth

Here I am, not on a Wednesday, trying to fit in some 'living well', which is just too fitting because I took a vacation from dieting as well last week (but not exercise) and now I'm trying to get back on task and focus because I want to fit into a cute dress for Christmas. Just that added bit of motivation to get me going again.
I wasn't that horrendous on my diet, only 3 times did I eat 'fast' food, but I did indulge in a lot of chips and sugar. So, I'm thinking of doing a bit of a detox for a week, no meat and no gluten products, cleanse myself of the foods that clog the arteries, get rid of some toxins, adding in some anti-oxidents and such (yum, blueberries!), so I'm looking for some vegetarian recipes that are so good you don't care there isn't any meat in them. I have already created a wonderful vegi lasagna (I know, that's an easy one, everything tastes good smothered in tomato sauce and cheese) with all vegis, tested it out, and even my hubby loved it. If anyone knows of some tried and true recipes they'd recommend, feel free to share, I'm very gung ho about this detox idea, and the recipes I've collected so far make it tempting to do a week of this once a month. We'll see how it goes.

As for weight, I did have to face the music, I had gained 3 lbs from my diet vacation, on top of the stress 4 lbs I gained the few weeks before, I'm now only at 20 lbs lost in total. I was SOOOO close to that 30 lb mark, but I will get there, and soon! I can do it! : )

Oh, and since it's no longer at Live Well Wednesdays, I changed the link at the top.

Stay-cation

For the last 9 days we've been on our vacation, or stay-cation because we just stayed at home and did as little of anything resembling work as possible. The goal was to rest up and get relaxed. I took a vacation from the computer, cooking, and cleaning (for the most part) as well, and it has been very nice! I'm surprised I managed to stay away from Facebook and blogging as much as I did, but it was a much needed break because I'm already at a computer all day at work, my back and neck really needed this.

I got mostly caught up on setting up my craft room, I just now have to put everything in it's place. Same with the guest room. I'll have pics once it's all done. We got our first Christmas tree too! Yes, this is our 5th Christmas living together and we still have never had a tree, so I'm very excited to have my tree in all it's splendor. I attempted to start a tradition the first year we were married, to make an ornament every Christmas of our marriage, but having no tree kinda put that on the back burner, but this year I am back at it, I'll post the pictures once I'm done, I have 3 more to make.

It was nice not to have to cook, but Sean and I did a bit of non-work cooking. I don't know if I've ever mentioned Sean's cooking here before, but he's a bit of a lazy cooker, he'd fry up meat, cook rice or noodles, then mix them all together with a cream of something soup. So I just told him he doesn't have to bother cooking anymore. Well just recently he gave some input into a dish, together we improvised and created a really nice casserole. Then, while having soup on our date this week, he again decided to start verbally creating a stew, and again, after some collaborating, we created a very yummy stew. This kind of cooking I love, creating something delicious, and together, that made it even better. I posted our recipes in a cookbook on recipezaar, and I hope we will continue to keep adding more.

It's been a great week and a half, and I'm very glad we decided to do a stay-cation this time, it's been the best one yet.

I'm not a can of soup, so labels are bad

I don't really use labels to describe my faith or the way I think about God. I have faith in God and when I seek Him, He shows me where He wants me to be in life, who He wants me to be, and how He wants me to be. I think that's the way it should be with everyone. I don't have to label myself in such a way that I would fit in at my Church because God has shown me that's the community I belong in. I don't need to label myself as evangelical, or that I have an apologetic theology, because I just try and be the person God has designed me to be, He will use me as He sees fit and I'm not the deciding factor in someone's decision to become a Christian.

I actually do find apologetics interesting, mostly the science interests me, so when I found books about history, science, archeaology, etc. that backs up what I already believe, I find it fascinating, but I didn't look into it to evangelize, although I know of people (mostly athiests) who have become Christians because of it. I think God knows the ways to reach out to people, He knows what they need to hear, see, understand, in order to finally feel His presence, and if He uses what I've read about science to reach someone then He will do that, it's not something I intend to use on purpose. He may also use my experience with Richard, or use my strong family ties, or whatever. I think Christians are just called to live their life the way God asks us to live and He will use our lives to reach those who don't believe in Him.

I've never really felt denominational ties in any direction, but as I've grown older and more experienced with different Churches, different beliefs, I've become more aware of how denominations like to seperate themselves and ostricize other denominations (which is one big reason I like being in a non-denominational Church, the core of people there are not like that), and it really burns me up that someone can be made to feel ostricized for not doing something God doesn't call everyone to. For example, in my small town, the majority of people seem to be evangelical and so people who live there who aren't evangelical can be made to feel they aren't 'real Christians'. Yet, I think that's more of a calling than a denomination. I think God rarely calls people to intentionally go out in the world and try and convert people. He calls people to live in Cameroon to translate a Bible so they can actually read His word, He calls people to Guinea to help build medical buildings and orphanages, and live among people who don't know Him and be an example for Him, He calls people to China to make His teachings available, despite laws against it, He calls people to inner city Winnipeg to love the homeless, and make chapel services available for them, He calls people to open a Christian book store in Northern Saskatchewan, near reserves, but He doesn't call people only to convert people, just to be a vessel for Him to work through.

God never intended for us to try and use our intellect to dicipher every thing in the Bible, just for us to get the big picture of who He is and what He wants from us, and that is a relationship. He will then use that relationship to reach out to us in the scripture, and He may not have each verse mean the exact same thing for everyone (i.e. body is a temple for me addresses my addiction to food, for some it's lust, for some it's cigarettes), in fact one of our pastors said this very thing at the end of his message last week (Oct.26th). Yet we humans then try and create cliques of people who all found the same meaning. God wanted the Word to bring us together because the important thing we have in common is that we believe He saved us through Jesus. We have way more beliefs in common than we disagree on. It really irks me that people start putting God in a box, 'this is the God I want to believe in, and if He's not that God I don't believe in Him'. People who want spirituality without the Bible say the Bible's God is not the loving God they believe in, the loving God they believe in wouldn't ever punish. How many loving parents do you know who have never punished their child?

Sometimes it all makes me wish I could call myself something other than a Christian so as not to be identified with the kind of people who would do that....but that's just another label, another division, and that's not what's important. So, I try to think 'outside the label', and not care how people may stereotype me, and I try not to stereotype others.

Birthdays

Last weekend was a celebration of birthdays. We tend to lump all birthday celebrations together because there are so many in groups. There is the summer group, Tami, Kellin, myself and now Landon. There is the fall group, Sean, Brooklynn and Avery. Then there is the winter/spring group, Dad, Jodi and Mom. So last weekend was the fall birthdays celebration.
October 8th - Sean's 28th Birthday!
October 18th - Brooklynn's THIRD Birthday!
October 24th - Landon's Three Month Birthday!
November 24th - Avery's SECOND Birthday!

Here are some photos from the festivities.

Sean's Birthday at Flea Whiskey's

Jodi threw the girls a double party. Landon only stole a little attention, even the attention of the birthday girls couldn't stray away from him for long.

It's interesting with Landon because he was 3 weeks early, so he doesn't seem like he should be 3 months old already, but I think because he was born early he thinks he is older than he really is - holds up his head, stands when held up, rolls over....he's in a hurry to catch up to those sisters of his!

What a great celebration of life these past few weeks have been!

I'm back....kinda of

The wonderful thing about blogging is the ability to save posts, and edit them, working on them bits at a time before they actually get published, so I've been working on a few posts over the last few weeks and finally have time to finish them up today and post them, yeah!

Quick update before I do though. I think as the last Wednesday I did Living Well Wednesday, I had gained 2 lbs, but this week I lost 4 lbs, so now I've lost 27 lbs in total, yeah! Almost at that 30 lb mark, which is getting me hugely motivated again....and there is extra halloween candy in my house that I need motivation to avoid!