Costly Distractions

I have found that I don't do well on eating healthy and exercising when I have a week's full of distractions. And, I don't mean distractions are necessarily negative things in my life but distractions just mean that I'm having a really crazy week with appointments, preschool, work, etc. I have a had a few of those weeks with distractions lately but last week was a good one because I lost 1.2 pounds when I weighed in on Saturday. Yeah!

Now, to get to the costly distractions of the weekend. By that I mean, some big damage to our mini-van. Yep...I did it. Backed out of our garage right in to my father-in-laws Silverado pick up. It didn't do much damage to my father-in-laws truck but as you can see, I hurt our van pretty bad. I'm sure none of you can relate to this but here are the distractions I was experiencing..."mom, can I have a drink?", "mom, will you turn it up?", "mom-where are we going?", etc. (and that was before I put the van in reverse).

So I'm trying to be more diligent as I drive especially since Caiden keeps asking when we can "crash" again. For some reason, he thought it was the coolest thing. I'm still not getting the rush of it. All in all, its nothing that $3,000 can't fix. Ugh!

Running, huh?

I haven't blogged much about my weight loss lately - mostly because there is not much to tell. We didn't weigh in last Saturday because of Easter weekend and I had gained .2 pounds the Saturday before that. Needless to say, I've been a bit lapse and discouraged in the losing weight department.

Regardless of all that, I've recently taken up running. I needed to add more intense cardio to my exercise routine. The exercise just wasn't affecting me anymore and wasn't helping with my weight loss. I had hit a wall. So I started running a mile on the treadmill at 4.3 speed. That isn't much but it is more than what I'd been doing. After doing this for about a month or so, I have such a zest for it. I want to go to the Y to run all the time. The crazy thing about this is that I've always had a hard time running (childhood asthma, overweight, etc.). Now, after having 2 babies, I have taken up the habit. I still run slow but at least I'm enjoying it for a period of time and I'm finally getting the cardio I need - now, let's get the rest of this weight off!

Easter = Unity

If you get a chance, check out this post by Pace Hartfield here. I couldn't have say it any better myself but here is it in a nutshell. Isn't it utterly insane that for this one weekend, Easter, the church is totally single-minded, a truly unified body, with everyone working and serving as each should in the body of Christ. I pray with Pace that God uses this unity to further His Kingdom this weekend. I further pray that we could be more unified like this more often during the year including Easter weekend. Can anyone say "revival?"

Believing

I know there are several people close to me that are going through valleys right now. Even though I don't know all the details of every situation, I know there are some of my friends and family just making it through each day one second at a time.

I wanted to give you some encouragement and reference a Barlow Girl song, entitled I Believe in Love (album: How Can be Silent). I saw them in concert last night and this song just touched my heart. I hope it does yours too. Here are the lyrics to the chorus:

I believe in the sun, even when its not shining
I believe in love, even when I can't feel it and
I believe in God, even when He is silent

So even if you can't hear God right now, cling to Him. He'll never fail you. Just make sure you are listening because you just never know when you'll hear Him speak.

The name of the Lord is a strong tower; the righteous run to it and are safe. Proverbs 18:10

Just Stinky!

I'm really stuck and it stinks! I have very little motivation right now to exercise. I weighed in last Saturday and found I gained about 4 pounds while I was in Michigan. And, to top that all off, my throat has been sore and my nose is all stuffy, which further contributes to my lack of exercise.

All in all, I know I'll get over this hump but I've been on a plateau for a while now. I haven't seen the scale move too much over the last 2 months. And now as we approach Easter, I totally dread all the candy that will be in our house. Although as crazy as Easter weekend is when you are a staff member of a church, I might not have time to even stop and taste any of that yummy chocolate. Back to the point, I need to do something drastic, like only eat chicken for the week (I'm not entirely sure why that came to mind). Any ideas?

Our BIG GOD

I read a devotional about a month ago (on February 8th) and it has just stuck with me ever since so I thought I would share it with you. It comes from Every Day with Jesus Bible (copyright 2004, Holman Bible Publishers, Nashville TN) with devotions by Selwyn Hughes.

Read: The heavens declare the glory of God. Psalm 19:1

Selwyn Hughes writes:

...In today's passage the psalmist tells us that one way we can focus on the greatness of God is to consider His handiwork in creation. All around us in this wonderful world, we see evidences of His sublime sufficiency. Consider, for example, the vastness of the universe. Scientists tell us that in relation to the myriads of other celestial bodies in outer space, the planet we inhabit is like a tiny speck of dust in a huge railway station in relation to all the other specks of dust around it, or like a single grain of sand among all the sand on all the seashores of the world. They tell us also that if the earth were to fall out of its orbit and spin away into space, it would create no more disturbance than the dropping of the pea into the Pacific Ocean!

Such words, inadequate as they are, do nevertheless help us form some idea of the greatness and power of our God. Who can meditate on the vastness of the universe without experiencing an expansion in their conception of the majesty of God? Why did God construct the universe on such a grand scale? My conclusion is: He did to show us that He is gloriously sufficient, unchangingly adequate, and abidingly faithful. (my emphasis added) How wonderful to contemplate such creative enormity!


Isn't that incredible to think about...how very insignificant our world, our earth is compared to the vastness of the universe that our BIG God created. But, He is still actively working in each of our lives and seeking us out to do awesome things that will forever glorify Him. He cares for my small problems, even though He looks over all of this incredible universe that surrounds us.

I haven't been able to get this off my mind all month long. Praise be to God that He can't get me (or you!) off of His mind!

Snow!

Caiden, Dawson, Grammie (my mom) and I taking the boys for their first snowmobile ride.

The family (absent my husband; we missed you honey!) goes tobogganing!

I apologize for not blogging for over a week. My two boys and I went to visit our family in Michigan last week. We got some good spoiling, enjoyed the home cooking (that I didn't have to do, thanks mom!), loved the great sleep without the normal routine and played a lot in the snow. I didn't exercise much last week but I think the winter activities that we did made up for most of that. We'll see when I weigh in at the end of this week.

So, now we are home and back in to our routine. How does everything fall back in to place so quickly? The good and the bad habits.