In My Anxiety, He Calls Me Beloved

Find the link-up party at The Gypsy Mama!

 

 

You’re not good enough.

You’re letting people down.

Who could you ever help?

 

The evil one’s lies curl me into myself and then I hear Him...

 

Beloved, you are Mine.

 

When I look in the mirror, dissatisfied with all I see…

 

Beloved, I have created you in My image.

 

When I cry over a bad day or a bad decision…

 

Beloved, I am here for you.

 

When I lose my temper with my husband or my daughter…

 

Beloved, you are forgiven.

 

When there are 36 hours of things to do in a 24 hour time span…

 

Beloved, rest in Me.

 

When I cannot take the difficulties of this world, when it’s too overwhelming, when the anxiety and depression are taking over my body, mind, and soul…

 

Father You pull me back from the precipice, with one simple word…

 

Beloved…

 

Beloved, I am here.  Beloved, rest in Me.  Beloved, I will never forsake you.  Beloved, you are My special child.  Beloved, trust Me.  Beloved, you are Mine.

Doing Enough in a DIY World

Been on Pinterest lately?  I have.  I have 26 pins on my Winter/Spring board related to today’s holiday of love.  I’ve seen so many Valentine’s Day pins, from decorations to heart shaped foods to unique ways to adorable valentine gift ideas for children to hand out.  Last night, my Pinterest board was lit up with valentine ideas galore!  I didn’t repin any, however.  I was busy cleaning up my pin boards and spent the evening organizing my Christmas board (didn't we just finish up a holiday, by the way??).  I often feel the pressure to make the cutest, most creative valentines with my daughter.  Since I am not the most creative, I am thankful for fun ideas on Pinterest, yet so many seem so time consuming and require a level of craft skill I haven’t yet achieved.

I realized that, although I want to DIY many things, DIY does not stand for Do It Perfect.  It stands for Do It Yourself.  If I’m going to Do It Myself, it’s not going to be perfect.  And that’s okay, just so long as I put some heart into it.

My daughter has 12 friends in her preschool class to give valentines to.  I have a hard time giving out little prepackaged paper valentines that are discarded the minute children arrive home.  I also struggle with the overwhelming amount of candy kids receive each year.  So, I opted for one of the more simple ideas I pinned, from Tutto Bella, the Cutie Valentine.

Quite simple, I made a tag on the computer that read, “I Think You’re A Cutie”, copied and pasted to fill a page and printed enough for twelve students. 

 

My daughter filled twelve Ziploc bags with two clementines (Cuties) each while I wrote the names of her classmates on the tags. 

 

She then wrote her name on each tag while I put the completed ones in the baggies and, voila!  A cute, simple valentine that was cost efficient, not wasteful, healthy, and fun!

(Please excuse the drugged look...she had the flu last weekend!)

Then came grandparent crafts…a bit trickier because they ALL want something super cute from my daughter and she wants to be done after the first one.  For the grandpas, I combined a couple of different concepts along with a VERY true statement…the men in her life are suckers for my little girl!

 

Finishing it off with something any grandma would think was cute…and we have a simple Valentine’s Day.

 

I instructed my husband to not waste money on marked up flowers (which I’m incapable of keeping alive) and we do a date night sometime in the month of February, just not necessarily on Valentine’s Day.

How do you cope with all the craziness of yet another holiday on your plate?

Groundhog Day with the Girlie!

Happy Groundhog Day!  Soon we will know whether the groundhog, Punxsutawney Phil, saw his shadow!  In the meantime, Little Miss and her preschool friends celebrated Groundhog Day on Friday this year.

 (I love this face, don't you??)

We started with the best part:  dessert!

This dessert was so easy!  I found it here:  http://littlepaperhouse.com/2010/02/groundhog-day/.

We crushed Oreos in a Ziploc bag and sprinkled them on top of a chocolate pudding cup.  Then, we put a Teddy Graham on the top for the groundhog.  The kids were so excited to learn about Groundhog Day and eat their yummy snack!

 

 

Then we moved on to a fun craft.  Before I quit my teaching job, I found this somewhere and for the life of me I can't remember where. 

 

 

 

Here is how it's made:

•  Cut a slit across the bottom of a paper cup (I used a dixie cup this time, but bigger cups work better for this activity)
• Draw a groundhog head outline on brown construction paper and add a face.  Groundhog should not be wider than the slit in the cup.
• Cut out groundhog head and glue to a craft stick
• After the glue has dried, slide the stick through the slit. The groundhog now comes out of it's burrow to look for it's shadow.

 

We spent some time playing with shadows in the dim hallway aided by a flashlight afterwards.  It was a great day in preschool!

How I Lost Twelve Pounds in January

 

Losing weight is hard.  I’ve been working on it since I was twelve.  As a woman who has struggled with her weight since childhood, believe me, I KNOW everything there is to know.  Doing it, however, is another matter.  So, as the New Year began, I decided to start small.  Let me introduce you to my journey with weight. 

Okay, I am fat.  Let’s put that out there right now, I am a very obese person.  Medical issues as a tween/teenager led to excessive weight gain and I graduated high school at almost 250 lbs.  From age eighteen to twenty-two, I maintained 250 pounds.

When my husband and I met, I began going out to eat with him a couple times a week and slowly moved up the scale.  In two years I had gained forty pounds.  Then, I got pregnant.  Pregnancy actually caused me to lose weight and I gave birth at 275 pounds.  After I went back to work, I was waking up 1-2 times a night with my daughter and working 50 hours a week during the day.  I was eating every meal out.

I eventually found myself staying up half the night when I began graduate school.  At that point, caffeine became my best friend.  Not coffee, I never could bring myself to drink the stuff.  Rather, I turned to diet Coke, three to four times a day, 64 ounces each time.

I was burning the candle at both ends and so very heavy, I’m ashamed to put the number out there for the public.  I finished graduate school in June of 2011.  However, I was working close to 60 hours as the demands on my job grew.  Then I quit.  My family needed me whole.  After a summer of playing and a fall of figuring out how our new life was going to work out, the holiday season was upon us. 

Finally, I made a HUGE step.  I eliminated caffeine.  December 29^th, 2012 was my last soda.  Today marks 33 days without caffeine and I feel so much better.  The first couple weeks were awful.  However, one week after eliminating soda I had lost EIGHT pounds!  I made one other step as well.  I tried the pantry challenge Jessica Fisher had over at http://lifeasmom.com.  With little exception, we ate all meals from home, made from scratch, for the month of January. 

Twelve pounds and one month later, I am a much happier woman.  I was out of bed and productive for four of the last five mornings.  I am sleeping more regularly.  Greasy fast food does not even sound good.  My caffeine cravings are gone.  And I am ready for the next step! 

Mashed Potatoes...From Scratch??

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Okay, I admit it…I am addicted to Idahoan Potatoes.  You know the dehydrated ones?  Just add water and in five minutes, you’ve got creamy…well creamy something!  We used to buy these in bulk when they were on sale, in all sorts of flavors:  loaded baked, four cheese, roasted garlic, buttery homestyle, you name it! 

However, going on this healthy food journey requires making changes, even if they are sometimes difficult.  So, I bit the bullet and began teaching myself to make mashed potatoes from scratch.  It wasn’t easy.  I am REALLY bad at mashed potatoes, apparently.  Hard, lumpy potatoes were served to my family too many times to count.  Over time, though, I began to get the hang of it. 

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With the holiday season rapidly approaching, I thought I’d share a few tricks I learned about making smooth mashed potatoes:

1.    Letting the potatoes boil on the stove long enough is VERY important!  I have never been patient waiting for water to boil, so I have to walk away sometimes until the water is really rolling.  Then I set a timer for 35 minutes and let the potatoes simmer on the stovetop.  This is longer than most cookbooks will tell you, but I take no chances for lumpy potatoes! 

2.    Keep the potatoes in the saucepan.  I’ve found this helps because saucepans have flat bottoms, while most mixing bowls have rounded bottoms.  The flat bottoms help with the mashing.  I use a hand masher and then a hand mixer to get those smaller lumps.

3.    Add the milk slowly and mash well in between each addition.  This allows the milk to help break up the potatoes.  If you allow the milk to run to the bottom too much, you’ll end up with lumps between runny milky potatoes.

4.    Add the butter, then use the hand mixer.  This helps break up the smaller lumps.

When I make potatoes, I follow my trusty Betty Crocker Cookbook!

·         Approximately 2 lbs of peeled or unpeeled potatoes

·         1/3 to 1/2 cup milk

·         1/4 cup butter, softened

·         1/2 tsp. salt

·         Dash of pepper

·         *I add some garlic powder to mine because I love the flavor!*

à Place potatoes in 2-quart saucepan; add enough water just to cover potatoes.  Heat to boiling; reduce heat.  Cover and simmer 20-30 minutes (I do this for 35!) or until potatoes are tender when pierced with a fork; drain.  Shake pan with potatoes over low heat to dry.

à Mash potatoes in pan with potato masher until no lumps remain.  Add milk in small amounts, mashing after each addition.

à Add butter, salt and pepper.  Mash vigorously until potatoes are light and fluffy.  If desired, sprinkle with small pieces of butter or sprinkle with paprika, chopped fresh parsley or chives.

Do you do anything special to your mashed potatoes?  What tricks do you use?

The Original Time for ME Tuesday!

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Welcome to Time for ME Tuesdays!  As women, with the many different hats we wear at one time, life can get overwhelming and women tend to put themselves on the back burner, whether life is hectic in your family life, in your social life, in your work life, or in all three.  So, Time for ME Tuesdays will be a weekly reminder to take care of yourself so you’re around to take care of others!

 My Story

When I got married almost five years ago, I was very much a give person.  I gave all I had to my husband, my job, my family, my daughter.  We’ve taken in those who didn’t have a place to live twice in our married lives.  But I didn’t really give to myself.  I was too exhausted. 

At one point, I was doing a full time master’s degree while working 50 hours a week, with a three year old running around.  I would get up at 6:15, shower, dress, get my daughter dressed (or yell at my husband to do it), run through the drive thru for a large Diet Coke and a McMuffin, race to drop her at daycare and get to work.  I’d work all day teaching kindergarten (at this point, I had a very difficult class), often consuming two more sodas and a school lunch to boot. 

If I didn’t have class that night, I would work until 4:30, making a 9 hour workday, pick up my daughter and some fast food, and head home.  If I did have class, I would hop in my car as soon as I got the kids on the bus, race through another drive thru (and yet more soda!) and drive an hour to school.  After class, I would hit one more drive thru on the way home (with an extra large dose of soda).  Once home, I would put my daughter to bed and head to the computer to either accomplish homework or work that I’d brought home.  Between midnight and 3 am (depending on what HAD to be done that day) I would fall into bed.

I was killing myself to please everyone and in the process, I was making everyone around me AND myself miserable.

If you noticed, the only interaction I had with my husband was negative.  The only interaction I had with my daughter was getting her up in the morning and putting her to bed at night.  Granted, we did have a bit more time to love on one another during the weekend, but I was killing myself to please everyone and in the process, I was making everyone around me AND myself miserable. 

One day, I received a project back from a professor with some feedback.  At one point, one of the edits she said needed to be fixed (an extra space between paragraphs) was caused by the edits she had typed in earlier in the paper.  After reading the third “Remove Extra Line Space” on this project I’d spent seven months on, I wanted to throw the computer across the room.  I began to cry because I was so frustrated, exhausted and miserable.

Moments later, my husband and daughter were giving me hugs.  As I cried and clung to my loved ones, I realized, “This is what matters.  Not obtaining high degrees.  Not working so hard at my job that I neglect my family.  This is what matters, right here.  These arms around me are worth more than my job or a degree.” 

 

Ultimately, the key to peace and happiness lies with the one who makes the home…the mother…the wife…the nurturer.

While I finished out that final term for my master’s degree, I just did what I had to do to finish.  I went to bed at a decent time.  I made time for my husband and daughter even when other things went by the wayside.  I vowed to make life happier in our household.  Because ultimately, the key to peace and happiness lies with the one who makes the home…the mother…the wife…the nurturer.

This week, I wanted to share my story of spreading myself too thin.  Next week, I will begin sharing ideas for how to take care of YOU!

I plan on ending each week with three goals for taking care of myself:

1.    Drink 8 cups of water daily

2.    Read one book for pleasure

3.    Spend time in devotions at least four times

What do YOU do to take care of YOU??

Farmer's Market Freeze

 

Carrots, apples, peaches, celery, lettuce, spinach, tomatoes, strawberries, even a melon!  Look at all that produce!  Not just produce, but eggs as well!  On a recent trip to the local farmer’s market, I quickly found all the produce I needed for the upcoming two week period and then some!

Now, I’d like to say that all this produce was put to good use.  Unfortunately, I’m not always as quick with my produce as I’d like to be and time mixed with late summer heat does not help me out.

Too often, I find my peaches have gone moldy when I wait a day to dice them or make jam.  My strawberries get mushy quickly…if they’re not too mushy they’re okay for jam, but often I am unable to bring myself to can strawberry jam with berries that have started to turn.  Sometimes we can’t eat a melon fast enough and close to a quarter of it ends up down the garbage disposal.

 

I’ve started to freeze things as soon as I get them and deal with them as I have time.  It’s easier that way.  I can also save time down the road.  If I buy a half flat of strawberries every two weeks for six weeks, at the end of that time I have a flat and a half.  I can make a much larger batch of jam at once instead of three smaller batches over the course of six weeks.  I can also choose to do it on a day that works well for me instead of a ninety-five degree day.

Check out my Pinterest board, Food Preservation, to find more ways to keep the harvest fresh and avoid waste.

What difficulties do you have in preserving the harvest?