Would You Ignore A Child Abduction?

This video will SHOCK you! I was so blown away by the reactions of the bystanders in this situation. This is EXACTLY why I control where my kids are as much as possible. Every parent should see this video.

What would you have done? What are your feelings about the bystanders?

Meet My New Pal!

For those who are sick of hearing about diets and what to do and where to go and all that jazz, this is where you need to be.  I struggle so much with a lot of the weight loss programs out there and I just feel like they feed off of the fact that people just don’t think they can do it themselves. Well, guess what? You can and I have proof!

Here is a little tip for health hopefuls that is not only simple and informational, but FREE!  Yep! Free…

Meet My Fitness Pal. It’s a real simple way to go about informing your self, managing your own diet and exercise, PLUS… here’s the good part… All you have to do is put in your information and it tracks everything for you! You just enter foods as you eat them into your food diary and it fills in the rest.  The phone app is really cool because you can scan the bar codes with your cell and make it even easier!

It’s so simple that you will really feel like you are using minimal effort to keep on track.  I look forward to entering my foods and seeing how many calories I have left for the day.

Another feature I really love is the exercise help.  It actually allows you to enter in how many minutes you work out, from walking to intense workouts and in turn, it tells you how many calories you’ve burned.  At the end of the day, when you total out your days activities, it tells you approximately how much weight you will loose at the current rate.  It is WONDERFUL for keeping reasonable goals, no matter how high or low they are!

Something you need to know about me is that I am not a huge calorie counter kind of person.  I originally started this just to prove that I was already doing it right. We eat pretty healthy in our house and I just thought there was something sneaking in my room at night and causing me to eat all those extra calories! Nope, it was me!

Eating is not bad…

And God said, “Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit. You shall have them for food. Genesis 1:29

Abusing our body is…

But I discipline my body and keep it under control, lest after preaching to others I myself should be disqualified. 1 Corinthians 9:27

I may be new at this and I may not be the best health guru to talk to but what I can tell you is that there are real results happening just in my being more conscious of what foods and how much foods I am sticking into my mouth every day.

Here’s a HUGE bonus! You can do it with your friends and family and you can even blog about your journey.  This is all on ONE website and right at your fingertips, so go check it out!  Here’s the address!

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/

Now go have fun with this!

So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God. 1 Corinthians 10:31

If you are already using My Fitness Pal, please let us know what your experience has been and offer some good tips!

Happy Days!

Angie

A West Coast Must See!

   As we near Spring, I know a lot of you are trying to decide where to go for Spring Break, so here is just one suggestion that I strongly recommend, great for adults and children alike!  The Tillamook Air Museum, is located just off the Oregon Coast Hwy, in Tillamook, Oregon.

   The Museum was not at all what I was expecting.  When you first enter, you are greeted by the front desk which also serves as the gift shop check-out. We were greeted by a smiling face and all I had to say was, “We are new.” and we didn’t have to ask another question the entire time we were there.  He advised us to first go watch the video, telling the history of the museum and boy, was that great advice! It really highlighted the entire self-tour!

   

There is a lot of WWI, WWII and Vietnam memorabilia and so much detail about where these planes served and the heroes who flew them.  It was impressive how many photos they had and it made the experience seem so intimate. The story of a mascot receiving a formal burial because he was so loved was so moving that I had to take a picture of the story!

(Please excuse the photography. I am just learning how to use my new camera.)

   While there is much to see outside of the aircraft, they truly are an amazing sight to see, and there is absolutely no way not to see them! There are small aircraft…

Large aircraft…

Foreign Aircraft…

And Aircraft that can ride the waters…

It didn’t stop at aircraft either. There were rigs and motors and props and all sorts of things to look at! The list just goes on and on.

Don’t forget to grab a bite to eat and visit the gift shop before you go!

   Oh! I almost forgot! While you’re in the area, you may want to go visit the Pacific Ocean. The best path is the Scenic byway on the Netarts Highway due west out of Tillamook. Beautiful drive!

Happy Traveling!

Ready To Love Home Again!

   Your laundry room is where cleaning happens so why on earth is it always such a mess?! There is just something about when you walk into someone’s home and their laundry room is clean and smells wonderful that just makes you want to slap them and tell them they suck.  Well, that would be terribly rude of us, so instead we must decide… Do we make a million excuses why we long for that, yet never seem to care as much when it is time to clean it, or do we take it on and protect it like a our lives depend on it?!  How was that for a dramatic beginning?  I know, nice, right?

   Okay, but here is the real me.  I love my home being clean and when I have time, I love cleaning it, but there is something really weird that has happened to me over the years.  When my youngest daughter had leukemia, our home was insanely clean.  I was so freaked out about her coming into contact with germs that we maintained a hospital like sanitized environment for  a very long time.  When she hit remission, the doctor made a joke knowing how I had become, about not sterilizing the door knobs every day anymore.  Some weird switch in me said… Relaxed housework symbolizes everything is okay.  It sounds ridiculous and I have really struggled with the way my own mind glitched on me, but it is the honest truth.  That’s what we do here, remember? 🙂

   So, I allowed that mentality to grab hold and within a couple years, I was in big trouble. I had let my house go, I was taking on tons of projects and jobs that consumed my every moment, and I had decided to keep, EVERYTHING! Moving into town was the final straw. I was completely out of my element and depression was sinking in.  I didn’t even know it. One friend after another expressed concern about my changes and how they felt it was affecting me.  At first, I was totally pissed.  I was so mad that they knew all the things I had gone through and thought that I didn’t have control over my own life.  Really, what they were saying is that I was trying to be in control of my whole life!  Even in the areas I needed to surrender, and even in the areas that I needed to say “No”, I wasn’t.  I wasn’t even interested in hearing what they had to say.

  The seed was planted though and God began to work through my heart. Slowly but surely, I began to actually feel burdened by all that was happening and all that should have been happening, that wasn’t.  I came home from a large event for the organization I run here and I thought I had been robbed!  It sounds so funny but it was almost like I was seeing the disaster for the first time.  It was nuts!  That week, I spent the most time connecting with the friends who had expressed their concerns and let them know, YES!, I finally saw it.

   To make a long story just a little less long, I got rid of crap.  Every time I went to town, I took things to donation.  I made sure that no matter how much garbage we had, the trash can was always full.  It took a while, let me tell you! That year, we had more deaths and tragedies in our family than we had sustained in our lives entirely.  It was a very rough year. Just when I was finally getting a grip on surrendering, we got a notice that the owners of our home needed to sell. While it seemed like such a catastrophe considering that my husband and son were working three states away, one child had moved out and it was just me and the younger two girls left to do the packing and the moving.  I got rid of more stuff and finally said, “Enough! I can’t focus on this anymore.” I was so irritated with God that here I was… ‘getting IT’ and now this is thrown into the mix!  I was determined to do it on my own.  My husband didn’t like that idea.  He called our church.  I was sure no one would want to come move our family of 6, plus an organization, plus a home school, plus put up with my exhausted butt!

   They came… they loved on us, they moved our crap, they brought us lunch and went through a couple very difficult situations with me.  They came… God was there… I got ‘IT’ again.  I was doing good until I tried to be in control of my own surrender. I know… what a dork, right?  Yeah, I agree. 🙂

   Anyway, the point of this is that now, we are back in the country, (God made sure of that) and what was already in progress has continued in shorter spurts.  I donated 10+ more boxes of stuff while unpacking in our new home and I continue to get rid of things on a regular basis.  I have 2 boxes in my car right now and another box I am in the process of filling.  I wish I had thought to blog the process of going through our office area and bookshelf… it was invigorating!

   Now… I’m here… with you.  I have officially gotten rid of enough stuff that finally, I can start living again and organizing with pleasure and joy in my heart!  I, my dear… AM READY TO LOVE HOME AGAIN! 

So!  here goes!…

Here is my laundry room BEFORE.

Sorry the pictures are terrible from my phone… This is my bookshelf made into shoe rack and ‘organizer’ for quick grabs from outside.  This is the first thing people see when they walk in this door.

 

This is our pantry in the same room.  The space is good but the organization is not.  Behind all those plastic bags are cloth grocery bags that I always forget to take to town on shopping day! 😦

 

We eat mostly fresh or frozen foods unless I can it myself, which hasn’t happened for 3 years! I need to make room for that because we are building a garden this Spring, you and me. 🙂

 

There were OVER 100 plastic bags in my pantry!  These puppies have GOT to go!  Right to the food pantry!  (Anytime you get overloaded on plastic or paper bags, donate them to your local food pantries.  They love them because they store well and hold a lot of food.)

THE TRANSFORMATION…

The reason it is so important to take everything out of the room is because it allows you to really understand how much stuff is in the room, it is SO much easier to clean the room thoroughly and it gives you a clean slate to work with.

 

I have this insanely high shelf in the top of my pantry that goes up to the ceiling and allows for a lot of storage.  This is the perfect place to store these tall boxes of dessert mix!  We bake goodies to go with dessert that our Small Group serves at our local homeless shelter once a month. (If you really want to help your homeless community, serve often at a homeless shelter and really get to know them.  You might be surprised who learns more.)  See that space to the right?  That is going to have 20 boxes of brownie mix (The guys’ favorite) after Saturday.

 

To save a lot of space in your pantry, after cereal gets down to 1/4 of a bag, roll it up and write the kind of cereal on it.  

 

Drop them in, writing side facing the wall of the container, side by side.  You can identify the cereal without pulling them all out.  Keeps the cereal fresher too!

Hot cereals stay fresher longer in plastic ware as well.  Cut the directions off the box and slide it down the side.  Refill and toss the box upon every purchase!

 

Only 20 bags in that laundry bag converted grocery bag holder!  When it gets bulky, we will make another donation!  No more bags on the floor!

 

I labeled the shelves because my family is great about unloading groceries… Now, they can actually put them where they belong because they have a well marked location!

 

These recyclable grocery bags are going into my car! I shoved all the smalls into the big.

Portable insulated bags, coolers and lunch packs now fit on the floor in the pantry!

I actually had extra space even! And look! Nothing on the dryer!

Shoe rack now is able to hold our dog grooming bucket and has a place for everyone to put there gloves after working outside!  On top is ready for coffee mugs to be set on while boots are going on!  This is the country, yes, we really require this.  I even put a yummy smelling candle on there that I lit and now has made that whole part of the house smell wonderful!

  My laundry room is small, but it is still part of my home. There were muddy boots coming off in that very room just an hour after I took these pictures.  But now, it is just a wipe and sweep away from being clean all over again and I can do it in about 2 minutes!  

   It’s about making your house work for your lifestyle, not adjusting your lifestyle to fit your house.  I had so much fun doing this and I loved knowing that I could share this with you guys to encourage you to start even if it’s small and learn how to make a small space work for you!  Hope you had fun reading!

See you soon!

Angie