The Cost of Eating

Sometimes it's really easy for me to say "we'll just get something out to eat." I come up with reasons why-

"It's so much faster" 

"It's not that much more expensive than buying it and making it at home." 

"I don't think it will hurt every once in a while."

and the infamous "Let's treat ourselves."

But really, are any of these points valid?

Lets deal with each one in turn:  

"It's so much faster" Do you know where I live? I'm in the middle of nowhere. It takes at least 10 minutes to drive to the nearest town and the choices there aren't all that great. No one in the family wants fast food, so we have to drive a few towns away. Lets say I drive 20 minutes one way (a very conservative estimate from here), order my food (even if I already know what I'm getting it still takes a few minutes to do this). Non fast food restaurants take about 20 minutes to prepare and package the food, then another 20 minutes home. I've spent an hour getting food that's not even hot once I get it home, another 5 or so minutes to un-package it, etc... You get the idea.

What about when I lived in town? Still, a few minutes to drive, 20 minutes to get the food and a few minutes to drive back home. So let's say half an hour? I have seen "Meals in 20 Minutes" cook books. But really, who says faster is better? I'm almost always at home to cook slowly if I want to.So I guess that excuse is out the door !



Next time I'll tackle "It's not that much more expensive than buying it and making it at home." 

New Year, New Day

Well, 2011 is coming to an end today. We celebrate the flipping over of a calender with anticipation of new and exciting promises to be better, make ourselves better, and the world better.

I find it a strange custom for us to do as Believers in the One True God, Creator of the universe and of time itself. Our systematic counting of time has no real meaning if we forget that He is always faithful and His mercies are new every morning (Lamentations 3: 22-23). It is no accident or gift of time that we wake up in the morning. God's time is always perfect. Remember how He gave us an example by doing Himself of how to treat time in the very beginning before there was no sin? Back when He told us the way to count days? There was no written calender. Let me remind you with His own Word:

“By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work. And God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done.” (Genesis 2:2-3)

and later in the law:


 “Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work. But the seventh day is the Sabbath of YHWH your God. In it you shall not do any work, you, nor your son, nor your daughter; your manservant, nor your maidservant, nor your livestock, nor the stranger within your gates; for in six days YHWH made the heaven and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day. Therefore YHWH blessed the Sabbath day and sanctified it” (Ex. 20:8-11).

Now, I know that we are no longer under the curse of the law (read this about the law), but I am talking about keeping time.

 Are we to make promises of being better only when a year has passed? Are we to only recognize YHWH's goodness when we awake tomorrow because we've lived to see "another year?" Or is it that we ought to be grateful because we awoke this morning and all the other mornings before this? He tells us in His Word to be thankful for all things and pray always (1 Thessalonians 5: 17-18), so should we not do this every day? I am struck by the fact that our Lord wants my genuine thanks- my first thing in the morning- haven't opened my eyes yet- morning breath- stumbling down the hall towards the bathroom- praise and prayer. It's not just the anticipation of changing out my old calender with a new one- it's the all the time anticipation that this world is not my home- that He will come back to get me- that I will be able to spend eternity in Glory- and that I will answer face to face for even the foolish words I have spoken while not thinking (Matt. 12:36). Imagine then the idle way I have spent my unredeemed time (Ephesians 5: 16)! Do not wait another moment to live as imitators of God (Eph. 5:1) just because it's not a "new year." We are not promised another day at all (James 4: 13-17)!

Praise God, from Whom all blessings flow;
Praise Him, all creatures here below;
Praise Him above, ye heavenly host;
Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.

Trading in "Good" for "Best"

We have decided after prayer and discussion that our girls will not be continuing with their Thoughtful Thursday classes. Yesterday, I sent the emails to their teachers about it. I felt a little heartbroken to do so. It is not something that is in our best interest to continue to do, though not a bad thing of course. Isnt' life funny like that? Sometimes you have this thing you think is great only to find that it's merely good and you're missing out on the great because of it. Does that make it bad? I don't know that it is bad- just bad for us. 

Part of our inability to go has to do with the fact that we have wood heat. It’s bitterly cold in our house when there is no one here to keep the fire. This is an od drafty house that needs constant care.

We are also continually working on the house. We have yet to replace the roof (which we’d hoped to have done by now) due to finances. What seemed like only $30 per week really became more like $100 after gas and being so far away from home that we were only able to have one meal before leaving home and getting back so very late. Really we probably could have put the roof on the house by now had we chosen not to do TT  and saved that money instead. 

We spent many years just not leaving the house except for basics like grocery shopping  and doctor visits for Scott’s Mom that I just wanted the girls to do something different and fun (hence going to TT). Of course retrospect is 20/20 and many of the valuable lessons we learned during that time of trial were the best things and nothing a book nor a class could teach us can compare. 

In keeping with the “plan” we feel the Lord has given to us for our daughters, the art and music lessons, which entertaining and fun, are not “best” but only “good.” None of us should be willing to give up the “great” for merely “good” although sometimes it’s hard to tell which is which. The girls have both expressed a desire to continue classes, but also to fulfill their life plans, and so are ambivalent. Last night they spent at a friend of the family's home in order to help the Mother today with chores and childcare. After feeling tired from not sleeping well, they worked hard today. They came home tired but feeling fulfilled having helped this family. I think they have realized their calling in life if greater than the fun they have been having in classes. I am grateful.  Another lesson the Lord has provided!

Thoughts on the house and my Honey

This morning, my Honey said something to me that really spoke to me: "It will take time but it will all come together." He was referring to our halfway demolished house.

The one in which we need a non leaking roof. The one in which we have to change our sediment filter every few days because our well might be drying up, pump going out, pressure tank may be too full of mud, etc....

The one that is hazardous in certain parts of the "deck" outside because if you walk on it the rotten boards might give way. The one which has no electricity in the laundry room-soon-to-be- bathroom and I'm using an extension cord to do laundry and have a light in there. You know, the one we live in.

He is such a patient man. Perhaps it has been the years living with me that has helped him to develop that quality. He is known for saying "It's how you eat an elephant: one bite at a time." I am not so patient. I get easily overwhelmed. I often say "yes" to things that stretch my time beyond what is humanly possible. My Honey sets me free from obligations I need to be freed from ( Numbers 30) I see the large projects we take on and panic a little bit. He calms my fears that it will overtake me. I just realize on a pretty regular basis how very blessed I am. YHWH has shown me grace in marriage as well as my salvation. I have not deserved a good husband who really loves me, but I got one anyway! I have not been such a wonderful wife, but he has continually been a wonderful leader in our household. Thank you Honey!

Sabbath Preparation

Today is Sabbath prep day for us. God, before sin and the Law of Moses- before there were the Children of Israel and separation- before Mankind knew good from evil, commanded us to rest and even gave us the example to follow.

How do you stay at home or......

This evening on Facebook a lady asked this question: "What are some things that you do to make sure you don't spend more time reading or writing about your home ministry than you spend actually ministering? Let's share ideas!!!"




Here is my response:




I used to go to this great ladies Titus 2 Bible study. Sometimes I would come home with these great ideas from the group that my husband just thought weren't for us. One day I realized I spent so much time there and studying to be a good wife without implementing anything I'd learned (like obeying and reverencing my husband) that I just felt foolish and stopped going. When asked why I didn't come I told the ladies that I needed to start practicing some of the theories I had learned. LOL

I also have come to realize that the Lord places us where He wants us to minister. Here I am in the home with my daughters, homeschooling them (now teenagers) and teaching them what kind of future wives to be! I'm all for spreading the Gospel to the world, but I have a family that the Lord has given me to care for here. If He brings others into my home then this is the place for me to share in. Also, it's not a "do as I say not as I do" thing. The Gospel, hence the Christian life, is one of love (not defined as mere affection but the kind of love that as CS Lewis wrote: But Love is not mere Kindness. "Kindness cares not whether its object becomes good or bad, provided only that it escapes suffering", while Love "would rather see [the loved ones] suffer much than be happy in contemptible and estranging modes". How can I love my family if I only want them to always "be happy" by placating them with toys and entertainments? I cannot. Thus it is my job to serve them and teach the children in this precious time that I have them here with me to love the Lord. That is my ministry.

Again the Lord Provides!

I am not a winner. I enter contests all the time but I rarely win. Whenever I competed in events at school I hardly ever won. I was always surprised when I did when I ran track. I never won running events- only jumping. Of course there weren't many jumpers- sometimes none but me so I won by default. I once won a door prize- the coffee table that's in my living room right now. I also won some fabric as a part of a shop hop online at quilt websites. I think in 38 years of entering many contests and competitions, winning only a few times is pretty good. Today I won something too!

Example pot- not the pot I won

I entered the Baraka Neti Pot drawing for $100 worth of free products and I won! I entered at the last minute really, and although there were several chances to enter over the summer so I'm sure others entered several times, my one lone entry got picked! It's really just in time for us too because it's been a bad allergy season for us. We've been doing demolition here and kicking up dust and mold spored and animal droppings and who knows what else! I have caulked around doors and such, but it still gets in. My poor Dear Honey has suffered the greatest out of all of us- working tirelessly on his days off to remove dilapidated parts full of nasty allergens in the heat and up on the roof even! I have really appreciated all that he does for us- and it has been so very evident as of late. He's so good to us! The least I can do is get him a nice manly black matte neti pot made in the USA!

We have had great success with sinus rinsing to combat inhaled allergies. Today I took my Eldest Dear Daughter to have allergy testing and found that she is, like me, allergic to something from every category except foods. Of course they test for common allergens- not the bananas that have hurt her stomach since she was five. We just avoid them now. Really she has had such a time with allergies all her life- and asthma. I have only recently discovered my own allergies and asthma which have gotten worse, but my poor Baby Girl- she's woken up with gunk in her eyes, coughed through many nights, had a constant itchy throat, years of eczema, and hospitalization with asthma. After all of that and many prayers said on her behalf, we finally can say we know the causes of her miseries and combat them. I'm not much on pharmaceuticals. Anyone who knows me will know that I hate taking medicine myself, let alone giving things to my family that will be full of weird side- effect symptoms. Years ago, my Honey went into anaphylactic shock taking NSAIDs (you know- Tylenol, Ibuprofen, Aspirin, etc...) and had to be rushed to the hospital twice in a week for it! The first time he was given adrenaline and an antihistamine and sent home once the symptoms subsided (because of the meds). Once that was out of his system, his symptoms came back again and he was brought by ambulance to the hospital. He spent months on steroids and have since had to be very careful what he takes. NSAIDs are in everything from indigestion relief to sports cream! After all of these years avoiding conventional medicine, it seemed that the best thing to do was to just embrace them and put myself back on allergy medication. Currently I take Quercetin every morning for the more mild allergies, but really I needed something more for fall. I have considered Zyrtec again but I'm going to see if the Neti Pot won't help me out more without side effects. I really believe that the lot may be case in the lap but the Lord is the one who determines the outcome! No, I am not advocating gambling, but I do know we have a Father who sees and who is active always in our lives. He is not absent and I know He answers prayers! Who knows? Maybe winning this contest is an answer to prayer!