I started back to running today.  This time last year, I started C25k and within a month I was easily doing 5k and in 2 months, 10k.  I know my body can do it.  Since this time last year I have shed nearly 70 pounds.  I still have around 50 to go.  What has changed is my mindset.  

The reason I love running is because once my body subjects itself to the torture and relinquishes the endorphins over, my mind clears and I can focus on finding an answer to something that's plaguing me.  

Today, it was food.

I know that God provides us with everything on earth we need to survive and more.  Our nourishment and answer to our health problems is found within our food.  However, so much is being done to what God made perfect that it is becoming harmful to us.

I know that God provides us with what we need to survive but we over stock our fridge and pantries with things that will go to waste.  It's okay to store up in planning ahead but without a plan it is wasteful.

I know that I lived to eat.  I love food, flavors and textures.  I love a colorful, full plate but do I eat it all, should I eat it all?  That depends.

Today, I thought of gluttony!!

Gluttony is what leads to obesity.  It's what led me there.  Gluttony is severely frowned upon in the Bible just like other lifestyles that are not of God.  A person who is a glutton is a disgrace to his father, lazy, becomes poor, and it is better to put a knife to your throat than to become a glutton.  That sounds harsh but becoming a slave to food is a slow painful death even with the pleasure the food gives us.  Proverbs 23:2, 21, 28:7, Titus 1:12.

The mindset must change.

We must re-educate ourselves on what is healthy, portions and we must learn to eat to live, not live to eat.  The changes are gradual sometimes and sometimes we dive right in.  My body is a temple and I should treat it as such.  I should respect that God created it perfectly and that He gave me the tools to better health.  I strive to buy food in a manner that is not wasteful and clean as well as growing our own.  I am eating leaner to become leaner and to have the energy to have the clear mind to become closer to Christ so that he can continue to show the way.

Boys, they just could care less how good they look when they go out the door...well, at least mine could care less.   My oldest (8) can not manage to wear  any appropriate coordinating colors.  I can not count how many times he's said he's ready to go only to be wearing his brown t-shirt with red and black basketball shorts.  (gag!)   My middle child (4) has started dressing himself and pulls his clothes from the "play clothes" drawer only.  Yesterday he put on his purple baseball shirt with his red and blue 70's style gym shorts.  (double gag!)  NO MORE!  Let me tell you, this little extra bit of effort on my part was worth it.  

So, I LOVE trips to Wal-Mart.  They are the highlight of my shopping experience.

(note my sarcasm please).

Picture me at Wal-Mart with my husband and 3 boys.  All we are buying is 3 packs of Kool-aid squeezes.  I am in line with all 4 boys, they are being good, including my husband.

Evan starts to run over to this really cool quarter machine that makes your money do tricks and you get nothing in return.  He just wants to look, Cooper takes off after him...a whole 3 feet away, so that he can boss Evan around.

Checkout Lady at Wal-Mart: "OH, and there's ANOTHER ONE!  Girl, you've got to put a stop to that."

(Meaning, I should NOT have anymore kids. Seriously, that's what she meant.)

Me: "Don't worry!"
(I manged to make my lip bleed trying not to bite her head off.)

Isn't it wonderful that checkout ladies know so much about family planning!?


I love my 3 sons!

So, the next time someone says something like that, what should I say? 
Give me some good ones please.
They are going in my "book".

I almost burst into hysterics at the ball field one afternoon.  It's not bad enough that my middle boy does the pee-pee dance when up to bat...every s i n g l e time!  I think he must get nervous because we take him to pee before every game.  I guess it doesn't help when the game starts late.  

Anyway, there is this one little boy on the team who is just about as cute as they come but he could care less about his position.  His dad yells, his mom yells and sometimes even his baby brother yells...but the one thing that almost had me in stitches was...

Charley isn't his real name of course. 

Let me tell you, around our house if a tooth is loose that is WAY more important than holding down the bases.  That might not be the case for everyone's boys but for mine, a loose tooth is a distraction for months.  My oldest has had a loose tooth for almost 3 months now and my husband tells him it's about to fall out and I tell him it isn't ready to pull yet.  So he keeps wiggling.  Sorry, but if this mom is going to pull a tooth, it's going to be dangling.  I can only handle one cracking sound, not two.    The blood I don't mind or the empty hole, that's okay, it's just the sound or the feeling, or that I can't get a grip on the tooth.  

So, to hear a mom yell over and over, "Don't worry about your tooth, Charley" as if he's actually going to forget about it, is funny.  As a matter of fact, he probably should just sit it out.  Because the ONLY thing that little boy was worried about WAS his tooth. 

Can't you see it though, I'll be the mom in a few weeks screaming the same thing at her kid from the bleachers, hoping that my voice carries right to middle field and straightens my kid up.  But it won't so I won't and here's to all little boys who are wiggling their tooth/s on the ball field.  :)

...it's so hard to not strangle your own kid when he's mean to someone.  Why is it that kids don't always have compassion?  Why do they take a weakness of someone else and make them feel bad for it?  Why do they take something special about another child and turn it into something that's "wrong" with them?

Several weeks ago Cooper had been picked on during breakfast at school...I contacted his teacher to let her know and to express that "Cooper would never do that to another..."  now for the last week, I've gotten reports of him making "crazy faces" and "making fun of another child's' lunch box" to the point that that child had to get a new one.

So, I'm sitting here wondering why???  Is it because it happened to him?

Right now he's writing apology letters.

I've cried over this...I mean cried.

Prayed

My husband and I don't treat people that way, we don't treat our kids that way.

I know it's part of growing up, learning how to love and interact with others.

However... I just want to make sure that I don't fail my children.

We are careful who he plays with, we take him to church, we teach him right from wrong and we pray over him.  I know that we can expect slip ups in life.  Cooper is the kind of kid that if I said he would "never"...I meant it.

I love that kid!  He's a good boy with a tender heart.

So, when I lose my temper a little, I regret it.  Hateful words may escape when he says "I don't know why?" over and over.  

I said to him..."DOES IT MAKE YOU FEEL GOOD, to hurt anothers feelings?"  "DID it make you feel good make fun of that little boys lunch box?"  After asking these questions and several more like them...

little

tears

in

his

eyes

appeared.

THERE!  That's what I'm talking about!

On his behalf...he did write this last night...it did make me smile.