Barefoot On Glass

Mark started a blog of his own. He already has some awesome stuff. Things that have challenged me and made me think. You should read it and join in on his discussion.


barefootonglass.blogspot.com

there is a link to the left of this blog page.

You will see much less of him around here and way more of me since this will be more of a Jenny blog and Marks will be ....well, a Mark blog.

Put both feet in....at the same time.

So as of today I have officially lost 11 pounds!! Woohoo! It is amazing how easy it actually is when you actually give a 100 percent and try. I always would try for a day and quit or a week and then quit and I would get so frustrated because it seemed so hard. But yet when I actually resolved to do it-it came right off.

Aren't all things in life that way? Aren't we continually surprised by how easy something is once we get past actually making the decision to do it. It inspires me in so many other areas of life. If I could just make up my mind to do the things I want to do would they actually turn out to be easier than carrying the stress of not doing them?

Another thing that was great about this is that I ate real butter most days and still had chocolate!

What do you always want to do but have never been able to convince yourself to put everything in all at once? Come on get both feet in the water, besides it might be easier than one foot in and one foot out.

Real Food

So, I have been reading a ton of blogs lately. All of them having to do with eating real, nourishing food. I really feel like we eat to much stuff, that is not really food. I desire to feed myself and my family what God created us to eat. Going from where we are forward is so overwhelming though. It is easy to begin cutting out sugars, high fructose corn syrup, white flour and other things of the like. But what is all this talk about soaking my grains? Or grinding my own grains? Drinking raw milk or pasture fed beef? It overwhelms me. I don't even know where to start nor do I know how much of a difference it really will make. The other part of it is it seems so expensive.

I have read a ton about Cod Liver Oil as of late. It seems like the benefits are great and lots of people recommend it. But as I start to research it more I am finding equally as many people saying that it can be harmful in a lot of ways. It has in some cases too much vit A and D when added to your normal diet and that it can also contain a large amount of toxins. What is one to do? How do we know what we should and shouldn't do? And how do we know when enough is enough and what is worth spending the time and/or money on.

All this while I try to lose the weight I have put on since moving to Cincinnati. Ugh. Too much all at once. Step by step guide, please, anyone?

January?

It's January and the birds are chirping. I also have been wearing flip-flops and no coat. AND I saw the sun today. This makes me thankful that I am not in Michigan. Im sure this isn't always the case here is Ohio but much more likely I am sure. Ohio I like you-Michigan I don't miss you that much.

Thats all I guess...

The Monday of all Mondays...

I watched Julie and Julia tonight. It reminded me that once upon a time I liked to blog and that I actually did it more than once every three months.

Tomorrow is Monday January 4, 2010. It is that wonderful day when everything goes back to normal after he everything but normal month of December. There is so much of me that is ready for something to resemble a routine again and to have the holidays behind me but there is also is this horrible list of things that must start tomorrow and it is staring and taunting me at this very moment...

those things include...

back on weight watchers
find a job
do laundry more than once every two weeks
think about working out again
begin cooking again
stop spending money

and the list goes on....


At this very moment i am cuddled up in a huge comfy popazon chair with a sleeping dog under my arm. I have a fleece blanket on me and a space heater next to me. The thought of life going back to normal right now...seems like death. But in the morning I know there will be some hope at the thought of counting how many points my breakfast is before I have even had a chance to open my eyes all the way. Im sure I will be sick of it all by Wednesday but I suppose such is life. But the good news is that I will no longer feel like I have eaten enough food to feed a small country, my morning time with God will return to the actual early hours of the morning, and life can once again get accomplished in a timely fashion.

I think God gave us breaks like these for a few reasons. For me I always need the chance to slow down and not feel guilty. My body needs rest and my relationships need quality time. And then when it all comes to an end I go back with a fresh attitude and am able to appreciate the idea of working hard and living in a routine because it is actaully missed during the holiday merry-go-rounds.

So tomorrow it is. the start of a new year.

this year God is my focus. And he comes before the dreadful list above.

Silence

Silence...do I know what silence is? Let's see...when I am driving I listen to music, when I a with Mark we (mostly me) are talking, when I am at work there is constant sounds of phones, talking and business, when I take a quiet bath or spend quiet time my mind is going crazy being loud with the thousands of thoughts that are running through my mind. I am not sure that I know what silence is. And yet I feel as though it is critical to my walk with God. How, if I am never quiet, do I hear God speak? How, if my mind is always going, do I experience true peace and restfulness?

I often feel stressed, overwhelmed and over stigmatized and have no idea why. And now I am beginning to wonder if it is because I never ever experience true silence. And if I am honest I might say that silence, true silence, is a little scary.

I talk a lot. And when I say a lot I mean all the time. Its habit I guess. It drives Mark crazy because he in fact likes silence and is good at practicing pure silence and me I am good at disturbing that silence. I find the constant need to tell him every thought that goes through my mind and I don't even realize I am doing it. This is something I have been working on for a while now. I want my words to be few and everything I say to be important and not useless. Anything else just gets me in trouble and annoys those around me. So if I could get this down silence may just come easier but really these are two very much related topics but also two very seperate topics...back to silence.

I want to try and spend time being truly silent each day. I will start off small maybe 3 min and grow from there. I think God calls us to practice and incorporate silence into our lives but what a struggle this is in our busy busy world. We are trained and raised to have overactive brains. We are always thinking, seeing, and listening and we don't really know any different. I suppose the only way I will pratice silence is away from phones, clocks, music, people, signs, books and anything else distracting. A closed room with nothing else going on. Quiet...oh how we all long for peace and quiet yet we rarely seek it and practice and take it seriously.

Today I will begin quieting my mind,talking less, thinking less, listening and seeing less....more Jesus please...

time flys...

Well....I don't know if anyone has hung around long enough to see if we still post blogs because it has been FOREVER! When we moved to Cincinnati and started looking for houses I guess we got busy and distracted and then since we have had the house we have been busy and distracted fixing it up, painting, setteling in and enjoying.


An update on our lives:

-Jen works at Starbucks still and is now a shift supervisor. She work between 38 and 40 hours a week.
-Mark is working at Chic-fil-a about 35-40 hours a week and is also working on a web design business.
-We are attending LifeSpring Community Church and are really enjoying although we are taking it slow getting connected and involved.
-We have really been enjoying the large amount of free time we have now that we moved to Cincinnati.
-We have loved spending time getting to know our neighbors and having new and old friends in our home.
-We love our new home and are so thankful for it....we spend lots of time doing projects around here and just learning how to take care of a home and make it ours.
-We love being with our housemates (aka family) Faith and John who are living with us, they live upstairs. Faith also works at Sbux (a different one) and John is looking for a job.
-Jen likes to cook and bake and spend lots of time reading :-)
-We are loving fall and that Cincinnati brings tons and tons of sunshine!!!
-So far we have gone camping for a weekend, been to Michigan for a weekend, gone to Atlanta for a weekend and will end the summer with another trip camping in Kentucky next weekend.
-We are overwhelmed by how good God has been to us. We are so thankful for where he has brought us...6 months ago we had no idea life would be as it is now but we could have never imagined!
-We feel like after 2 years of marriage we are finally actually beginning our life together...things just feel right and they never did before and we are thankful!

I can't beleive that we are already in October. Two years ago we had just gotten married and settled and were getting ready to launch Journey. One year ago we were preparing to leave Journey full of all sorts of emotions and not knowing where or what to do next and now here we are in Cincinnati and for the first time I think we can say we are home.