It's Been A Long Time Coming

It's been a while since I have come here and I am not going to begin with any excuses or justifications about why I haven't written in two plus years.  At least not here.  I don't expect any readers or comments but what I do want to do is begin again.

The last time I left this place I was in the first and worst writer's block of my life.  It lasted two years!

Writing for me is a challenge because it takes F O R E V E R!  Anyone ever feel like that?  With all the editing and word structure and changing and editing and ... whew, the list goes on and on.  So this time, today, I am just going to get my thoughts out and see where it takes me.

I would like to think of myself as beyond new year resolutions but as this year got closer I realized that indeed there was something special about a new year.  It is hope for a new beginning and I really did want to make new resolutions.

I like that some people pray for God to give them a word for the year and they keep that word in front of them all year.  I prayed too, and asked God for a word but I can't really say that I got just one word.  What I received was a phrase, "Are you willing to work for it" and "learn to suffer well."

Whaaattt?

God knew what was on my heart and that I want to be all that He has called me to be and with that comes the desire to be fit.  So my two phrases are going to deal with first, my weight and level of physical activity or lack there of, and then we'll see what He has in store for me after that.

First things first. Am I willing to work for it, like with my muscles because let face it, new years resolutions usually have something to do with what you didn't do last year.  Am I willing to put forth the effort to do something I don't want to do because I am lazy and I am I willing to do it again and again even when my muscle are sore and I don't want to because, hello, lazy.

Today, I have joined Proverbs 31 Ministries on-line Bible study "Made To Crave."  One of the last stories I wrote here on Salty Sister was on this very book and the subject of weight.  Be that loss or gain.  Gain.  We'll just stay with that.  In the years since, I went to a doctor's clinic and got on their weight loss program and lost 40 lbs.  WOW!  And gained it right back.  Boo.  So here I am again.  Chronicling my life.

Today, I identified what my "monster" looks like.  You know if you were to visualize your cravings to be an animated thing that moves and talks what would it be?  And if I could have a conversation with said craving thing what would it say to me and what would I ask it?

My craving monster looks like water.  Why?  Because, as my Dad use to tell me, water follows the path of least resistance and that is what my cravings feel like.  So, I asked, what do you "water" have to say to me?  Answer: Your easy.  Why can't I resist you?  Answer: Because you don't want to.

Hmm.

Truth.

Ouch.

Made to Crave is about recognizing and replacing your God given cravings for Him with Him.  Satan uses that against us.  Just like he did with Eve in the garden. Now to get to the bottom of what I am really craving and why, and to "recalibrate" my thinking and desires.  I don't want to be easy and I don't want to lose this battle that rages within - again.

1John 2:15-16  -  Do not love the world or anything in the world.  If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For everything in the world - the cravings of sinful man, the lust of his eyes and the boasting of what he has and does - comes not from the Father but from the world.  NIV

1John 2:15-16  the Voice - Don't fall in love with this corrupt world or worship the things it can offer.  Those who love its corrupt ways don't have the Father's love living within them.  All the things the world can offer to you - the allure of pleasure, the passion to have things, and the pompous sense of superiority - do not come from the Father.  These are the rotten fruits of this world.  vs 17.  This corrupt world is already wasting away, as are its selfish desires.  But the person really doing God's will - that person will never cease to be.

Now to break that down.  The word worship really stuck out to me because when I overeat and eat foods, (read that as sugar and starchy things that turn to sugar and deposit itself on my hips and thighs) just because I want to. I am counting them as higher, more important than my body.  This God given body, designed by Him, created for Him, breathed life into by Him.  I am worshipping sugar.  Gross.  Looks and feels pretty gross too!

In verse 17, the phrase selfish desires gets to me too.  That really is what overeating is all about for me.  I am feeding selfish desires to replace what is necessary with what is easy.

* Cravings - meeting physical desires outside of the will of God.
* Lust of the eyes:  meeting material desires outside the will of God.
* Boasting: meeting needs for significance outside the will of God.

These are the tools Satan used on Eve and these are the tools he uses on me.  When something works why change it, right?

I don't like being an easy a target.  I think of myself as being a much stronger person (boasting) than that, but truth has just jumped up off a page and hit me right in the heart.  SMACK!

Now what am I going to do about it?

Do what Jesus did.  When he was in the desert and after fasting for forty days and forty nights, Satan came and tempted Him.  Jesus used scripture to defeat temptation.  That is what I am going to do.

My memory verse for this week is;

Psalm 84:1-2

How lovely is Your dwelling place,
O LORD of Heaven's Armies.
I long, yes, I faint with longing to enter the courts of the LORD.
With my whole being, body and soul,
I will shout joyfully to the living God.    NLT

So now...drum roll please, I am going to lay our the facts!  ( don't read that as Si saying, just the facts jack or I will smack you!)  No not really, I love Si.  I just get that stuck in my head and the truth is I read that exact way.  Let's continue shall we.

The facts" 5'6" tall, weighing in at 175 lbs, size 12 jeans (my fat jeans) too tight,
size large panties -  too tight (you know you are in trouble when your panties get too tight)  This is just all girls club right?  Guys don't read that last sentence!  Assuming that there is anyone reading of course.  Oh I make me laugh.

I think that is enough about me.  No need for measurements.

So, there it is, my first post, again.   Hope you are finding the strength to achieve and be all that God has called you to be.

See ya.  

Louie Giglio Mashup of Stars and Whales Singing God's Praise

Hello Twenty Twelve

I just like the sound of that, twenty-twelve, it rolls off the tongue real nice.

I, like most of us, have resolutions for this year.  My number one resolution is to improve my photography skills, to learn to use photoshop and to print pictures.   I am well on my way to printing pics, because along with the tripod my husband gave me for Christmas, he also gave me a printer.

He has been bugging me for days now to print something.  Yesterday I came up here (craft room) and downloaded the software, hooked up the printer and printed a couple photos.  I noticed that the photos are printing with horizontal lines through them and I also noticed that while the picture looks great on the computer screen that didn't automatically transfer to the printed picture.

Sooooo, I'm off to the first and most important, and totally out of my comfort zone, resolution - improving my skills, which means school.  I have taken the first step to getting started on that.  The local community college is offering classes and I'm diving in.  Stay tuned for that.

My second resolution, is organization and really this is a lifelong process.  To date I have purged and reorganized the kitchen pantry, Christmas decorations, and closet.  My side of the closet though, as the husband doesn't like it when I do that to him.

When we first got together, we lived in a double wide trailer house and the closet, though large for that type of housing, was too small for all of his things and mine too.  To remedy that problem I purged his closet.  It was easy to do since most of his clothes had dust on the tops where the hanger was.

I spent the time doing my homework, paying attention to what he actually wore, and then proceeded to make a large pile in the floor of all the things he never touched.

He was not a happy camper, to say the least, when he came home for lunch that day.  He rushed to the clothes pile and started pulling out the things he wanted.  Like, for instance, the perfectly preserved brown, double knit suite complete with the white stitching from the 1970's, pointy lapel and all.

We went through the clothes and picked some things out that he wanted to keep and let go of the rest and I happily unpacked my clothes and we hung together in one closet.

Ahh, blissful co-habitation.

One thing that I do know is, that to stay organized, you must purge.  Get rid of all the things you do not use, do not wear, and for the kids, do not play with!

When I was a young mother, keeping a clean house was really hard for me.  And really it was a time in my life when I had a lot of things to let go of, both materially and spiritually.

During this time I would wonder, "when will I get my life back"?  It seemed so out of control.  I would cook but not clean, I would wash the laundry but not fold and put up.

Needless to say, the state of my house reflected the state of my heart and mind.

The funny thing is, I grew up in a home that was immaculate.  Beautiful even.  My mother is beautiful, she is the best cook EVER, and our home was always clean.  Her kitchen never held a day's worth of dirty dishes and her laundry never made the kind of piles mine did.

You know the piles, dirty clothes in the floor in all our bedrooms and in the laundry room, clean clothes in piles on the couch and left in the dryer.

Our mornings were chaotic.  My poor little children were whisked off to school after a morning that was crazy stressful, it's a wonder that they ever made it through.  Poor teachers.

Anyway, back to the subject matter that I really want to talk about, organization.

I spent most of my time looking at Better Homes and Gardens, dreaming about a home that would look something like those and then I would get up and look at my house and just feel so depressed.

But then, God ... don't you just love a story that has that phrase in it?  I had been searching for that thing that made it all okay.  That piece that made all the wrongs moves right, that thing that made sense out of the senseless.

That "thing", the missing piece, was Jesus.  Truly.  Jesus made all the difference.  After I gave my life to Christ, He, in turn, began changing my heart and my mind.  He showed me that God was a God of order, not of chaos.

And thats when I decided that I was going to have a house that looked like the rooms I saw in the magazines.  I was going to, at least, make it the best that it could be.

I noticed that with even my best efforts to clean, the house wouldn't stay that way.  I would clean the kids rooms but when they went in there to play, it turn right back into the disaster that it was always in.  I noticed that they had to empty their toy chest to get to the toys they wanted to play with.  And I couldn't keep the rest of the house clean either.  There was just too much stuff.

That is when purging and I became best friends.

My plan was simple.  I bought the biggest box of black trash bags I could find, backed my car up to the back door, and left the trunk open.  As I filled the trash bags, I would go to the back door and fling it into the waiting car.  When the trunk was full, the kids and I drove to town and found an empty dumpster, where I promptly filled it up.  I did this over and over and over that day and by the end of the day, I had a new house and I was a new woman.

That's my history with organization.  Purging is key to keeping things neat and tidy.  It's freeing really.

So this bring me to today's story, a continuing struggle to keep a certain room clean and efficient, my craft room.  I have posted several times on the before and afters of this room and folks I am back in the before position again and these pictures are taken after I cleaned all the trash up.  This is clean!  Hello.

These pictures give me a headache.  Clearly I have a systems problem.  This is one of those "it's going to get much worse before it gets any better" organization adventures.  Yea, lets call it an adventure.  Truly, perseverance will be key here.

There is only one way to work a job like this and that is to break it down into small steps.  I realize that in order to break this into small steps that I should break the room up into work zones like you do your kitchen.  So, the plan is to make a list of all the activities that go on in here.  The ones that actually happen, not the ones I wished happened, or the ones I hope to do some day.  That is step one, get a plan.

Step two, get started.

No step two, get boxes, keep, donate,  and trash.  Yea, that's it.  I need some boxes.

Maybe this should be a black trash bag kind of purging.  Just do it, no looking, no sorting, blah, blah, blah.  And then like presto it's done and I have all kinds of empty storage to work with!

Eh?

Maybe an inspiration picture or two would be nice.  I could do that first.  Yes?

Hmmm.

It's gonna be okay, I can do this.

I know I  can

I know I can.



  

Shot of the Day

My honey bought me a tripod for Christmas.

I love it.

Hahahaha, honey can't hide from the camera anymore.

Okay so this last photo shows how the truth of how we live.  See the stairs in the background?  Yea, that's Christmas decorations that haven't quite made it upstairs yet.

Hope you are having a beautiful winter's day.  Stay warm!

See ya.

2011 Christmas Home Tour

The Nester, Kelly's Korner and Hooked on Houses are hosting Christmas home tours, because I love decorating and I love Christmas decorating, I'm joining in the fun.

note to self - buy pretty fireplace screen!!!!

For to us a child is born,

to us a son is given,

and the government will be on his shoulders.

and he will be called 

Wonderful counselor,

Mighty God,

Everlasting Father,

Prince of Peace.

Isaiah 9:6

Merry Christmas everyone.