Quick Update

I'm afraid I may end up rambling around with this post.  I've gotten out of the groove of blogging after not having any internet for a week.

I'm still alive over here, though, and hope to get back into the routine tomorrow.

It's 3:45 pm, and as much as I love and appreciate my readers, you're not #1 on my list on priorities.  (Sorry to break that to you.)

My husband and I were talking a couple nights ago about how we can actively, intentionally reach some spiritual goals.  Instead of saying, “I wish I would spend more time reading and memorizing God's Word and praying; I wish I would be a better spiritual teacher to my kids, etc.”, we tried to come up with an action plan to actually fulfill those desires.

I also asked my husband if there is anything I can do to help him grow spiritually.

The main thing right now that would be the biggest help to him is to get myself well physically.  (I'm working on that, and praise the Lord I found some doctors who really “get it” and who will spend as much time with me as they need to in order to get these crazy hormones of mine balanced out and take care of the resultant autoimmune conditions, nutritional deficiencies and chronic fatigue syndrome.)

As the foreman at a cabinetry shop, he often puts in 12 hour days, then comes straight home to help me finish up housework and laundry and sometimes cook supper.  He's always worn out, and as I talked about in my last post about our healthy living journey, he doesn't always get a lot of nutrition from his food.  That doesn't leave him much time or energy to spend time with the Lord, even though he does make every effort to find times throughout the day to do so.  If I can get to where I can take care of all the household responsibilities again, he will have a lot of time in the evenings to spend with the kids, spend time with the Lord, and simply rest and be rejuvenated.

But today is not one of my “bad days”.  I am feeling fairly well.  I don't want to be sitting at a computer screen when I can be a blessing to my husband by getting a healthy supper cooked at a reasonable hour so he can be strengthened with food,  rest from the responsibilities of a long day at work, spend time with his children, and get to bed at a decent hour so that he can be awake and alert during his morning time with the Lord.

So, after a little rambling, I'm off.  Off to be a blessing to my husband, thanking the Lord for this opportunity today, and praying that soon this will be the norm.

I’ll Be Offline For a While

A curious little 18 month old turned off the power strip where the modem was plugged in.  When I turned the power back on, somehow it fried my modem.  I have no internet for the time being until I can get the modem replaced.  Be back soon!

Time, Money, Health (Part 6)

If you missed the other posts in this series, you can read part 1 here, part 2 here, part 3 here, part 4 here, and part 5 here.

You may have been wondering if I was ever going to finish this series!  There just always seemed to be something else that I needed to post!

I ended part 5 by telling you that things were going extremely well.  We were eating healthier meals.  Our grocery budget was lower than it had been in a long time, and I was ready to settle into this well-balanced plan for the long haul.

However, around that time I realized that the extreme fatigue I was experiencing was not going away.  In fact, I began getting worse.  I would have to sleep 10 – 12 hours at night just to function the next day.  I could do the basics of feeding and taking care of the kids, but by their naptime I was shot.

I decided that since the doctors weren't really doing much to help me, I was going to have to try to take things into my own hands.

My healthy eating must not be enough, I decided.

I determined that store-bought meat, produce, and dairy products must not be giving me the nutrition I needed.

I began purchasing all of these products from local farmers.  Our grocery budget doubled, but my husband and I decided that in the balance between time, money, and health, our health had to hold more weight.  (Plus, even with a doubled grocery budget, we were still only spending a maximum of $400 a month.  That's still not bad for a family of 5 eating organic, local food!)

I bought organic whole wheat flour and oats in bulk.  I began making our own bread and making oatmeal or eggs for breakfast.

I began making the drive 30 minutes away to pick up raw milk from a local farmer.

It was summer, so I was purchasing produce in bulk and canning, drying, and freezing things so that we could have healthy food available through the winter.

I drove hither and yon to get clean meat from whoever happened to have it available that week.

I read and read and read articles about how bad this ingredient is for you, and how good this food is for you.  I turned up my nose at certain items that I used to toss into my grocery cart without a thought.

I did all of this while I was still suffering from the extreme fatigue.

Soon, I was absolutely overwhelmed.  And tired.  Just plain ol' tired.  I couldn't keep up with the pace of living like this.  I was torn.  I wanted to keep toxins out of my body and put only the good things in, but it was so much work, and I just didn't have the energy!

It wasn't long before my husband's diet was worse than it had ever been.  The kids and I would scrounge up some cheese, yogurt, nuts, and whatever few healthy foods we had that didn't require any work.  I stopped cooking substantial dinners because I didn't have the energy to prepare it, but I didn't want to go back to the store-bought foods either.  My poor husband was hungry all the time.  He'd buy chemical-laden sausage biscuits at work for breakfast and get a candy bar out of the vending machine for lunch.  My healthy living plan was backfiring big time.

We had some talks, and I had to agree with my husband that I definitely had not achieved that delicate balance of time, money, and health.

We made some decisions and came up with a plan that would work for our family's particular situation.

Next week will be the final post in this series, and I will share with you what that plan is.

You may want to subscribe to email updates or follow along on Facebook so you don't miss it.

(In the meantime, I will tell you that all of that nutrition I was trying to get into myself was not doing making me feel any better because I have Hashimoto's thyroiditis.  All the thyroid-boosting things I was eating were being blocked by the disease.  I'm going to a specialist in Atlanta this week to start a program to try and help me overcome it.)

Tell me your thoughts!  Where is your family on your healthy living journey?  Have you ever tried to be so healthy that it backfired on you?

Results of My Anti-Procrastination Year

Many of you have been following this blog long enough to know that 2012 was my year of Anti-Procastination.

It originally started out just to be something that would help me get little annoying things done around that house that always seemed to get put off.

And it did.

But it turned into so much more than that.

I learned  a lot about myself.

I realized just how short this life is, and that the time to be busy about the Lord's work is now.  I don't want to hang my head in shame when I meet the Lord and have to apologize for all the time I wasted.

One very huge life-goal that my husband and I saw come to fruition was the production of our first CD.

We realized that we could keep saying forever, “We really need to do that,” but that it would never actually happen unless we…you know…did it.

We knew it would be an expensive and time-consuming project, but it was a good thing we didn't know just how expensive and time-consuming it would be, or we might have continued to make excuses for putting it off.

Right away, I took the first step and booked an appointment with the recording studio so that there would be no backing out or changing our minds.

Then the real work began.  I'll spare you all the details, but I will say this – if you want to do anything for God's glory, don't try to keep it a secret like we did.  Both my husband's parents and mine have always bugged us to record a CD, and we thought it would be special if we could keep it a secret and give it to them as a Christmas gift.  The problem was that as soon as we embarked on this project, the devil did everything he could to stop us.  From scratchy voices the week of recording, to a broken down van when it was time for us to make the 1 hour trip to the studio, to lots of red tape with copyright permissions, there were a lot of obstacles to overcome.  I wished people knew about our project so they cold help us pray about it!

Anyway, I'm so thankful it's finally done now!

We had only one goal in mind when we recorded this CD – to use our talents to bring glory to God.  100% of the proceeds will go directly toward expenses for our next recording.

We'd love for you to  purchase our CD for yourself, give it away as a gift, and help us spread the word about another resource for Christ-honoring music.

We pray it will be a blessing to you!

15 Minute Tasks for the Week

If you’re just joining us this week, this program is set up so that you can jump in right where you are!  You may want to subscribe to email updates or follow along on Facebook so you can keep up with each week’s new tasks.

This week we'll be working in the bathroom.  If you only have one bathroom like me, this week will be a little easier for you.  If you have two bathrooms, I've tried to make each day's task easy enough where it shouldn't take much more than the usual 15 minutes if you do both bathrooms.

Monday

Check the corners for cobwebs and knock them down.  Dust and disinfect shelves and counters.  Check out my non-toxic disinfectant recipe if you need one.

Tuesday

Take down the shower curtain and put it in the wash.  You may want to wash the liner with bleach to get rid of mildew.  Put rugs and any other linens in the wash as well.  Climb inside the tub and spray down all the walls and shelves with cleaner.  Use a scrub brush to scrub them, rinse well, and use a squeegee to knock off the water.  Don't worry about the tub itself today; just the walls.  Put the linens back up when they're dry.

Wednesday

Fill up the tub with bleach water and let it soak for a couple hours.  Come back with a scrub brush and let all the water out.  Scrub the tub, rinse well, and use a squeegee to get as much water off of the bottom of the tub as you can.  (If you use a squeegee after every bath or shower, your tub will not get slimy nearly as often.  You're constantly putting soap into the tub, so it should stay clean.  It just needs to be rinsed well and stay dry.)

Thursday

Clean the mirror, sink, and toilet thoroughly.  Empty the trash.

Friday

Scrub the door frame, door handle, light switches, cabinet knobs, etc with disinfectant.  Gather bathroom cleaning supplies to keep somewhere in your bathroom – rags, disinfectant, toilet bowl cleaner, etc.  From now on, you should keep them at arm's reach, and wipe down the sink and toilet every day.  Your bathroom will stay spic and span all the time, and only need a deep cleaning every so often.  This is what Flylady calls a swish and swipe.

Saturday

Sweep the floor and scrub it with disinfectant.

Be thinking of bathroom organizing ideas.  (Check out my Organizing board on Pinterest!)  That's what we'll be doing next week!

Did I leave out anything important?  Please tell me how your house is coming along!  I hope this is helping you get your house in shape!

Make Homemade Non-Toxic Disinfectant in 60 Seconds

I had several people ask about my Non-toxic disinfectant recipe, so here it is:

16 oz. water
3 tbsp. liquid castile soap
30 drops tea tree oil
Mix together in a spray bottle.

Isn't that easy?  You can throw it together in about 60 seconds and use it for pretty much anything!

Below are some other ways you can make a non-toxic disinfectant if you don’t have these ingredients on hand.

Other non-toxic products with disinfecting properties:

• Vinegar water (50/50 ratio) (do not use on marble surfaces)
• Hydrogen Peroxide (3 percent; if you want to spray it, you must use a dark spray bottle or screw the nozzle from another spray bottle directly onto the original peroxide bottle.)
• Thieves Oil
• Grapefruit seed extract

Update March 2020: These days my favorite way to clean is to use an e-cloth (see my review here) to clean up any actual messes, then I spray the surface with plain peroxide (so cheap!) Let it sit for 6-8 minutes, and it kills viruses! I get the ecloths as well as these lovely brown spray bottles for spraying the peroxide from Grove.co (sign up for a Grove.com account through this link and you'll get a free gift.