It sure has been a busy month! I think half of our time was spent at doctor visits or sick 😛  Thankfully most of the doctor visits were good ones. I actually did very well on my goals this month. It really is helping to keep them simple and concrete. Here’s how it went.

1. Writing – I finished all of my writing assignments. Here is a link to my latest GRNL post.

2. Photography – I updated some recipe photos. Still nothing amazing, but a step in the right direction 🙂  Soaked Graham Crackers, Golden Grahams, Whole Wheat Graham Crackers

3. Healing – I got all of my test results yesterday. I have so much information to process now. It’s very overwhelming. I’ll give a full update in a separate post.

4. Homemade food – I had intended to work on crackers this month. I did make one batch of crackers that are kind of like saltines. But I spent a lot more time on cereal…even though we don’t actually buy cereal 😛  Oh well. It was so much fun! And so delicious.

5. Relationships – Justin and I got to go to Bible study together and have a baby-sitter put the kids to bed. We also went to a small group event with couples from our church. I talked to my sister. Rebecca and I saw a Little Mermaid show and went shopping together.

6. Rebecca – I have decided to not give any more updates on Rebecca for the time being. I will say that we are making good progress and getting some answers. We feel like we are on the right track and are so happy to see Rebecca grow and mature. She is so smart, funny and imaginative. She amazes her teachers with how quickly she is learning Spanish. And she is a constant crafter at home, always coming up with some new project to work on. Her most recent accomplishment has been reading Spanish…and understanding what she’s reading! Sometimes she truly amazes me. I started reading at the end of Kindergarten and was ahead of the game. Rebecca was reading English before preschool and is now reading Spanish part way through her first year of Spanish Immersion preschool. Crazy.

7. Crafts – I took a break from crafts this month.

8. Cakes – I am working on my nephew’s soccer cake. I am brainstorming ideas for cakes for my kids.

9. Declutter – I actually can’t believe how much of this I did in one month. I went through all of the toys in the living room (sort, put away, give away). I went through all of the toys in Rebecca’s room (sort, put away, give away). And I organized Abram’s drawers (put away clothes that are too small and restocked with current clothes). I also did a lot of random cleaning and organizing throughout the house. I’m not feeling quite so overwhelmed with “stuff” anymore 🙂

10. Acceptance – I’ve been reading Bittersweet when I have time. I still have a ways to go yet, though. I am enjoying this book so much!

I’ve also had some personal struggles with acceptance (of others and myself) that I’m learning to work through. God is really challenging me this year.

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January Links

I love this post about teaching children to be mindful and about meditation. I think this would be a great tool to use with Rebecca.

This is a very encouraging story about reversing asthma in a child with a real food diet.

I’ve been leery of stevia since I heard of it. Is it really a safe sugar substitute. Is stevia healthy? Holistic Squid gives some great information.

Washing your hair with only water? How frugal is that? Maybe some day I’ll be brave and at least try swapping my shampoo for something like baking soda and ACV.

10 awesome uses for coconut oil! I already use it for toothpaste and deodorant. I may have to try some of the others, though.

Of course I love any posts that talk about eating to restore health and heal metabolism. Eat for Heat 😉  Here are a few:
Cold Hands and Feet
Eat to Increase Your Metabolism
10 Reasons NOT to work out (guilty!)
Carbs are NOT evil

Here are my posts from January:

Salsa Bread
Homemade Cocoa Puffs
Lemon Poppy Seed Muffins
Quinoa Mac ‘n’ Cheese
Roasted Cauliflower and Cheddar Soup
Homemade Oat Squares
One Handed Honey Herb Chicken
Healing Hot Chocolate
Soaked Chocolate Covered Donuts
Sticks and Stones Ice Cream
Homemade Frosted Mini Wheats

2013 Goals

Do you struggle with planning meals? Would you like it if someone told you exactly what to make and what groceries you need to buy?

Check out eMeals! They now have options for diets like primal/paleo and natural/whole foods.

You can use tools like this handy grocery list so you aren’t going back and forth to the store all week. You’ll have your meals and your list and can make one trip. You’ll save time and money.

You can even get a 15% discount by using the code newyear.

If you’ve never looked into eMeals you should check it out. You can get healthy meal plans and save money.

It’s almost time to get back to life as usual. We’re finishing up our holiday celebrations/travel today. Justin goes back to work tomorrow. School starts up again next week. That makes me smile 🙂  I’m anxious to get home and get back to normal life. Holidays are fun, but they are also stressful. I’m ready for simple, everyday life again.

I’ve set my goals for 2013. Now it’s time to start breaking them down into manageable steps. Here’s the plan for January

 

1. Writing – Write articles for RFH and GRNL. Look into the details of creating a monthly newsletter.

2. Photography – Start reading my new book on food photography. Experiment and update photos of one recipe.

3. Healing – Get test results and decide how to proceed.

4. Homemade food – Try to recreate one of the boxed foods in our cupboard – crackers.

5. Relationships – One “date” with my husband. Call my sister once. Mommy/daughter date (TBD).

6. Rebecca – Lots of speech therapy and psychologist appointments – see what they bring and go from there.

7. Crafts – I will be taking a break from this in January. I might browse pinterest for ideas.

8. Cakes – I will be planning my nephew’s 5th birthday cake. I have had the honor of making his birthday cake every year. I can’t wait to get started! Possibly a cake for my parents’ birthdays.

9. Declutter – Organize Abram’s drawers/closet/clothes.

10. Acceptance – Read Bittersweet. I got it for Christmas. I think it’s one of those books that has come to me at exactly the right  moment and will be life changing. I got it a couple days ago and would gladly read through it in one sitting if I could. I’ve already read some. I feel like Shauna is telling my story through her story. Her sentiments are exactly what I’m feeling. I’ve had the privilege of hearing her speak in person. I’ve read her other book (Cold Tangerines). Her writing is so easy to read and so easy to relate to.

The book is about change, grace and learning the hard way. Life isn’t all sweet. There is also bitter. But the best is the bittersweet…experiencing them together. Accepting the bad and making the sweet that much sweeter.

I’ll end my post with a couple of quotes from the book. I hope you enjoy them and even these few quotes make you think a little differently about change and difficult times.

“If you dig in and fight the changes, they will smash you to bits. They’ll hold you under, drag you across the rough sand, scare and confuse you. But if you can find it within yourself, in the wildest of seasons, just for a moment, to trust in the goodness of God, who made it all and holds it all together, you’ll find yourself drawn along to a whole new place, and there’s truly nothing sweeter. Unclench your fists, unlock your knees and also the door to your heart, take a deep breath, and begin to swim. Begin to let the waves do their work in you.”

“When life is sweet, say thank you and celebrate. And when life is bitter, say thank you and grow.”

“I’ve learned the hard way that change is one of God’s greatest gifts and one of his most useful tools. I’ve learned the hard way that change can push us, pull us, rebuke and remake us. It can show us who we’ve become, in the worst ways, and also in the best ways. I’ve learned that it’s not something to run away from, as though we could, and I’ve learned that in many cases, change is not a function of life’s cruelty but instead a function of God’s graciousness.”

Happy New Year! Are you ready for the start of a new year? I am 🙂  I’m looking ahead to 2013 and trusting God will do great things and bring positive changes in my life. God is able to do more than we ask or imagine. So I’m excited to see what He has planned 🙂

In the past I’ve started the year with a LONG list of goals. I had so many things I wanted to change about my health and my life. This year is a little different. I’m starting at a much better spot.

Do I want change? Of course. But I’m not at a low spot just trying to catch my breath and completely turn my life around.

Do I want to lose weight? No. Do I want to try some new diet? No. Do I want to make tons of money? No. Do I want to start a new hobby? No.

So what do I want this year? I want to focus on a few things and let God lead the way. I want to live life. I want to let go. I want to be the person God created me to be.

Here is my Top 10 list for 2013.

1. Writing – I will pursue making my writing and my blog into my career/a business. I’m not sure exactly how it will evolve. Here are some thoughts: giveaways, newsletter, update the look, new platform, monthly link roundup. I will likely be sharing a little less about my kids. And I’m still debating about keeping up with the monthly goals.

2. Photography – Along with my writing I want to get better at food photography. I just got a book on food photography for Christmas. I’m very excited. My hope is to update pictures of some of my recipes. At the least the more popular posts. And continue to experiment and learn.

3. Healing – I will continue to pursue improvement in my health. I’m very anxious for my test results in a couple weeks and figuring out where to go from there. I hope to start getting more sleep this year (I need to make it a priority). I want to continue to improve my mental health/decrease my OCD. Ultimately I’d like to not have any special “diet”…no restrictions. I will focus on being healthy.

4. Homemade Food – I want to make it a priority to feed my family less processed food. I make a lot of things from scratch. But I still reach for a box of organic crackers or fruit snacks sometimes for my kids. I’d like to get away from that. It’s so much fun to make homemade versions of our favorite snacks. Maybe I’ll go one by one through the boxes in the cupboard and recreate them.

5. Relationships – I need to focus on building relationships this year. I want deeper friendships. But I also want to make my whole family a priority (husband, kids, siblings, parents). I need to be intentional about making time for this and putting in effort.

6. Rebecca – I want to focus on Rebecca’s needs and make any necessary changes for her. We’ll be seeing a speech pathologist and a psychologist this month. Hopefully then we will have better direction. It’s still TBD if/when I’ll try any dietary changes.

7. Crafts – I love making crafts, but I don’t often have time. I’d like to find a few fun crafts to make at some point this year. It would be nice to start working on Christmas presents now so that I’m not scrambling at the end of the year. I always love giving homemade gifts, but I don’t think of it early enough. This could be sewing projects, but other types of crafts as well.

8. Cakes – I will continue to experiment with cake baking and decorating. I just got some drawing books for Christmas. So my hope is to work on my artistic abilities and then translate that into cake decorating. At this point I’m still not trying to make this into a true business. It’s a hobby that I enjoy. But I don’t have time to do it often with small children.

9. Declutter – After another generous Christmas I feel like our house is overflowing. We are so blessed. But all of our blessings sometimes give me stress when I see messes and “stuff” everywhere. So I’d really like to simplify and declutter. We need to purge some toys and plenty of other stuff. I’m hoping to get started right away in January working on organizing toys and getting rid of old ones.

10. Acceptance – I had a friend once that decided on a word for the year for her family. They focused on that one attribute the whole year. I thought it was a neat idea. Over the last few months one word has continually come to mind – ACCEPTANCE. God has been speaking to me about this. And I’m trying to listen 🙂  This is something I have a hard time with. But something I’m slowly learning. I need to accept myself the way I am and not compare myself to others or even myself (in the past). I need to accept my family members. I am such a perfectionist I tend to be very judgemental and critical of others. It’s not something I’m proud of. But it’s hard to control when it’s part of my personality. This year I want to truly accept others. Every quirk. Every habit. Whether they make choices or do things I agree with or not. I need to love and accept all the members of my family. And I need to accept all people. We are all so different. But we are all God’s creation. We all have different strengths and weaknesses. We all make mistakes. But we are all beautiful images of God. This will be my year of acceptance in all areas of my life. Instead of always wishing something was different, I will accept.

May God bless you in 2013. I’m excited for a year of moving forward and acceptance.

What are your goals for this year? Do you have a lot of changes you’d like to make? Or are you just looking forward to a year of loving the life you have?

Another year has come to an end. Time to look back and reflect on the highs and the lows. Time to see what goals I set for myself and what I accomplished. Time to see just how much things can change over the course of a year.

I was quite ambitious with my goal setting last year. Which means there were plenty of goals I didn’t even really work on. They were all good ideas, just a bit too much. I will give a general recap of the year but not comment on each individual goal (I copied the goals below).

In general I was at a rough spot last January. I needed to make a lot of changes…which is why I had so many goals. I’m glad that now I’m at the point where I can just focus on a few things. In a way I can move on. I’ve gone through a lot of changes and a lot of healing in the past year. I’m figuring out a diet that works for me. My weight is back to the normal range (at least 10lbs. difference). I’ve brought a lot of my vitamin and mineral levels back up. I have a lot more energy. I’m not nursing round the clock/feeling drained from that. In general my day-to-day anxiety levels are way down. My OCD has lessened.

I try to spend daily time in prayer and in the Word. I try to start each day letting go of any anxiety and reminding myself that God is in control. He loves me. He takes care of me. Worrying only makes things worse.

I am able to shift some of my focus from my own health to that of my children. Which is something I’ve desired to do for so long but was not able to. Yes, I take care of my children well. But I had to put me first. Now I can put others first. I want to give Rebecca as much of my love, support and energy as I can to help her succeed. We do have our daily struggles. But I can better keep things in perspective and try to see things from her point of view. And do what I can to help instead of hinder. She has come a long way and matured so much in the past year. It’s funny to see something like potty training on last year’s list. That seems like so long ago. Now we’re thinking about that for Abram instead of Rebecca 😛  One thing we started last year that I really enjoyed and want to continue is monthly Mommy/daughter dates. We both love them. Meal times are still one of our biggest struggles. But now we are working with a speech pathologist to help Rebecca chew/swallow better. It’s too bad we didn’t realize earlier that there was a true physical problem she was dealing with. We’ll start with working on that. Then maybe we can figure out how to get her to stay in her seat and take bites 😛

I pretty much ditched GAPS over the last year. I do think it’s a great, healing diet for some. But it didn’t work for me. There is value in a lot of the diet guidelines. And it helped me not rely so much on grains. I was able to find new ways to cook traditional foods. And I figured out how to make our food more nutrient dense. It got me out of a rut and made me more creative in the kitchen.

I learned to relax more about my diet thanks to Matt Stone (180 Degree Health). I stopped trying to find the perfect diet that someone else came up with. I focused on what works for me. I highly recommend Diet Recovery and Eat for Heat to everyone! No matter what the status of your health or diet is.

And then there is the ongoing battle with miralax 😛  Unfortunately I still haven’t won it. I got my dose quite low…then was off it for about 3 weeks. Then my surgeon put me back on after some problems arose. Someday I will be done with this junk. Hopefully after more healing. But for now I don’t stress about it.

I can’t forget that I’ve had a full year of fun in the kitchen!! I’ve tried tons of new recipes and have come up with many of my own. I’ve gone from having one helper to two.

I have also become a freelance writer…something I never dreamed of. But I LOVE it!

It’s been a year of learning and maturing. A year of change. A year of letting go and acceptance. God has opened doors that I didn’t even know existed. I praise God for guiding me through another year and showing me his love, mercy, grace and peace each day. I have a long journey still ahead, but I am on the road to healing and accepting myself.

Thanks for coming along with me on this crazy ride of 2012. May you be filled with God’s love and peace in the coming year.
_________________________________________________________________________
2012
GENERAL GOALS*Take more time to listen to God – spend more time in the Word and in prayer.
*Teach Rebecca to be confident in who she is – let her make mistakes, let her be more independent.
*Be more encouraging – take time every day to encourage at least one person.
*Be more patient, especially with my husband and children – think before I speak and know when to step away from a situation to refocus and calm down.
*Give up control – GOD IS IN CONTROL
*Be more creative/use my God-given gifts – work on cakes and sewing. Long term – make a go of my business – but not until my kids are older/in school. I spend most of my time getting things done, keeping up with things. I want to take a little more time for things I enjoy.
*Be a better wife and mother.
*Live life to the fullest – make more friends/let people into my life – not let ocd control me. Have more playdates and social events.
*Organize the house/declutter/simplify
*hair cut
*work on relationships – make more effort to talk to my sister more often
*work on my marriage – Justin and I would like to spend more time in prayer and devotions together.
*have a fun summer vacation…without stress/anxiety/ocd. Possibly go camping.
*run a race – I’m not sure about this yet. Every year I think it would be “fun” to do the 5/3 River Bank Run (a 25K race). The last couple years it was not even an option with fertility treatments and pregnancy. But I’m considering training for it this year. It is on May 12. So I need to decide soon. I have to start training if I want to do it since I can only run about a mile these days 😛 I used to run daily, but have not for about 2 years now. I bike and walk, but don’t run. We’ll see.
*continue doing our monthly PERKS activities.

REBECCA

*potty training – night time
*continue with Kindermusik. Do swimming lessons, soccer?, figure out preschool
*Try a daily task chart again.
*Continue with homeschool preschool until the summer.
*Let Rebecca make choices daily. Give her options about the things she eats, wears, etc. so she learns to make decisions. These have to be decisions that she really needs to think about/process, not yes/no choices. If it is a yes/no choice she either won’t answer or will automatically say no.
*first hair cut
*once a month have a Mommy/daughter date where Rebecca and I do something just the two of us.
*Change strategies for eating/meal times. I need to offer her the food and let her be in control beyond that. Rebecca really needs to learn to eat well. If she has to go hungry a few times to make that happen then so be it I guess.

ABRAM

*Work on developmental milestones – standing, walking, talking.
*Continue baby wearing and on-demand feeding.
*Solids.
*Start him on cod liver oil.

BLOG

*more reflective posts
*be more open about my OCD
*view it as a resource for others, not just an outlet for myself
*make money – really make a go of this.
*update the look

FINANCES

*budget – keep tracking spending
*be on the same page with Justin/take more interest in our finances – we have agreed to sit down once a month to review the finances. This will really help me stay on budget, especially with food spending. Plus it will give me a much better understanding of our finances and give me more peace about it.

DIET/HEALTH

I have been eating grain free and doing GAPS since April 2011. I think it has been very helpful for me. I would recommend it to anyone struggling with health issues – both physical and mental. But after 9 months of GAPS and more research I’m considering going down a new path in terms of food/health now. It will not be a radical change. I will still follow a lot of the GAPS principles, like still eating broth/stock regularly. And focusing on nutrient dense, healing foods, including probiotics and ferments. I do still have some gut healing to do. However, over the last 9 months I’ve learned to really listen to my body and what works for me. Some of it coincides with GAPS, some of it doesn’t. I also think that I need to focus on dealing with my OCD more directly now that I’ve started addressing the gut issues. I have learned that some of my gut issues are truly physical…issues I’ve had for as long as I can remember (some of my childhood anxieties make more sense now). And I have to accept them. So now I continue doing what works for my gut and shift my focus to dealing with the OCD. I will go into more detail in a separate post discussing food/diet, mental health, myself and Rebecca. But I still want to list my goals here. Some of them are general food/nutrition/cooking goals. Some are much more specific.

*cookbooks – I very rarely actually use any of my cookbooks. I’d like to get back into the habit of using them and trying new recipes. I especially want to try more recipes from Nourishing Traditions…and maybe re-read it. Such a great resource.
*water – find a water filter that removes fluoride?
*nourishment – make sure I am properly nourishing my body for healing and breastfeeding. We just got a new scale. And I now see that my weight has gotten quite low. My BMI is below 18…which means I’m underweight. I need to be sure I’m eating well for myself and for Abram.
*continue with full GAPS at the moment – changes will probably start in February.
*introduce properly prepared grains – I want to experiment with grains. See Cheeseslave’s post about this. I will start very slowly and see how my body responds. I think I could use some more carbohydrates in my diet, and this will help. This is related to both digestion and mental health.
*introduce more dairy – I seem to be doing quite well with dairy lately. I will gradually add new items throughout the year. My hope is that at some point I can drink raw milk regularly.
*cut out sugar – This is a big one for me. I really struggle with sweets. I think this will be more of my new focus instead of always worrying about grains so much. I need to focus on cutting out sweets. That is what really messes with my gut and my whole body. This will include experimenting with being totally sweet free – even honey and possibly fruit (not permanently, just to see how my body responds when all sugars are removed). I need to starve the bad bacteria and get rid of them!
*magnesium – I have already started taking magnesium supplements. I want to experiment with different forms and doses and see what works best for me.
*vitamin B – possibly start taking extra Vitamin B.
*focus on battling the OCD.
*remove miralax – I have gotten down to 1/3 dose or less daily. I’m hoping by the end of this year to be done with it completely.
*experiment with my Vitamix.
*start juicing.
*eat more raw food.

Experiments with foods/supplements and quantities to see how various things are impacting my gut (starting in January after I get my system back on track):
week 1 – reduce sugar/sweets
week 2 – lemon water
week 3 – magnesium
week 4 – stomach acid (I have been taking Betaine HCI w/ Pepsin once a day again lately…I want to see how that is really impacting me)
week 5 – lower miralax
week 6 – introduce sprouted or soaked grains
week 7 – introduce sourdough
week 8 – no honey
week 9 – no fruit

The end of December. We made it 🙂  Did you have a good Christmas? So far we have…but we’re still celebrating 🙂

This month was quite busy with the extra demands of the holidays. Plus we had some extra doctor visits. Despite all of the to-dos I did pretty well with my goals. And I mostly accomplished my main goal of focusing on my family and trying to enjoy this month. I did have some major anxiety when it came to the extended family celebrations and travel. But I made it.

Here’s how the month went.

FOOD

1. Rebecca’s Recipes – Rebecca still loves to help plan meals and come up with ideas. We didn’t have time to try many of them, though. Hopefully next month.

2. Baking – I did plenty of baking this month. I didn’t quite get to all of my projects. Oh well. We were more than well fed 🙂

3. Rotate Food – So far so good with this!! I truly believe that rotating food and just getting more variety in general is a very important part of a healthy diet. I wish someone had told me that many years ago before I built up an intolerance to so many foods. I am a creature of habit. But I have to break that habit when it comes to my food. It’s still a work in progress trying to always remember this.

PERSONAL

1. Writing – Continue to write for Grand Rapids Natural Living and Real Food and Health magazine. I forgot that I haven’t posted the links to my GRNL articles recently. In case you are interested:

GRNL October
GRNL November
GRNL December

2. Purpose – Check out my recent update post on finding purpose.

3. Sewing/hobbies – I did it. I finally finished the aprons I was working on! Just in time to give them to Rebecca and her doll (and me 🙂 for Christmas. They didn’t turn out quite as well as I would have liked. But they are pretty good. A very old sewing machine (from my grandma) and lots of double fold bias tape do not cooperate very well 😛  Time for a little sewing break again. But I do hope to continue to make time for crafts more often. Cake/birthday season for our family is about to begin. So that’s on the agenda next. Time to start brainstorming themes/ideas for the kids.

4. Clean/organize – I cleaned a few more things out of my closet and finally did a little shopping and got some clothes for Christmas. I still have a few items to buy, but I finally have some up to date clothes that actually fit.

I did actually work on Abram’s drawers…but then about a week later he grew and we got more clothes from my SIL (thanks, Sara!!!). So now I need to do it all over 😛  All of his clothes are sitting in a laundry basket right now.

5. Christmas – I did all of the necessary Christmas shopping, baking, sending cards, etc. Now we have to deal with the aftermath…the toy overload. Definitely some purging going to happen next month.

LINKS

Here are some links I want to share/that I think are worth reading.

I absolutely love Matt Stone’s new book Eat for Heat. Definitely worth the money. I think it might even be on sale yet today. Hurry!!

A very important read for everyone about how to be healthy in the coming year from Weed ’em and Reap – no dieting, no restricting…just eat REAL food.

How to make almond paste from Nourishing Joy. I have to try this sometime! Even if I don’t like it, a good Dutch girl has to make banket once in a while. And it would be great to have a homemade almond paste to use.

Perfect for the holidays and the whole winter – homemade egg nog from The Polivka Family.

Not so sure I’d be up for this challenge, but it looks good – making elderberry wine from And Here We Are.

A Good read from Small Footprint Family about how much land you need to be self sufficient.

Important information about why margarine is bad for you from Cultured Palate. I can’t stress enough how bad it is to use fake butter.

Finally a host of other great links from LittleOwlCrunchyMomma.

And a few repeats of my own post on finding purpose., homemade go-gurt and homemade caramels.

Over the last year I’ve been struggling with finding purpose. It’s something I pray about daily. I have a variety of passions, gifts and experiences. But I also have many hindrances.

I have an electrical engineering degree. I love math. I love playing soccer and being active. I’m passionate about food and health. I love to cook, bake and decorate cakes. I like to make things from scratch, sew and be creative. I’m blessed to be a mother and wife. I’m interested in mental health and how the brain and body work.

I’ve dealt with anxiety, OCD, infertility, IVF, digestive problems, tests, treatments, surgeries.

My day is largely dictated by my anxiety, OCD and digestive problems. Which makes it hard to do all the things I want to do. I’m very introverted and have a hard time meeting people and making friends. I tend to just stay home and stick to my daily routine instead of pushing myself and getting out.

I have two small children that keep me busier than I sometimes think is possible. And they leave me with little time to do much besides just take care of them.

What do I do with all of that?

I give it to God and let him lead the way. In fact I think He answered my question before I ever asked it.

I’ve been blogging for four years now (me, the person that NEVER dreamed of writing). My blog is called Homemade Dutch Apple Pie. If you look just below the title, though, you’ll see a few key words that sum it up – Faith, Family, Food. I’ve had direction all along. I just didn’t have the details.

No matter what issues I write about or deal with my faith is first. The purpose of any Christian is to spread God’s Word and share his love.

Next is my family. My kids are little. They take up most of my time. And that’s fine. They are my priority. If I have to put other things on hold for a bit (like delaying a post because of an early riser or waiting a few years before seriously thinking about cake decorating) that’s ok. There is a time for everything. Right now I need to enjoy my kids while they are young and while they are still home with me all the time. I also need to give my husband plenty of my attention and energy.

Finally we get to the food. God has given me a passion for Real food and health. After years of struggling with my physical and mental health and my own hang ups about food, I now love to tell others about true health and nourishment. Sometimes I think God has to use a megaphone to get through to me/for me to listen. This year I was contacted by the editor of Real Food and Health magazine about becoming a contributor. Hello, Mary…are you there? Do I have to spell it out for you? 😛  I was also asked to contribute to Grand Rapids Natural Living. Then I was invited to join the West Michigan Bloggers. And I was accepted as a member of the Village Green Network (a social media network of real food bloggers).

The funny thing about VGN is that I applied for it. Then I didn’t hear anything for a while and assumed I hadn’t been accepted. A few months later I got an email asking where I was. They were wondering what happened and why I hadn’t responded to them. I think an email got lost somewhere. But regardless they were seeking me out and hoping I would join.

So this whole year while I was wondering what on earth I’m supposed to be doing God was opening doors and providing more and more opportunities for me to share my passion for food and health. More ways to share my story and my experiences.

God was giving me a purpose and making it clear…even if I didn’t see it at the time. It’s amazing how we can be so blind to the things God is showing us. Reminds me that I need to take more time to listen and watch when I ask God for things.

So, here it is. I have a purpose.

I am a writer.

My plan (God’s plan) for now is to pursue writing opportunities. To use my blog and other media to share my story. To share my experiences. To hopefully help others and keep them from making some of the mistakes I’ve made.

I want to share my passions. I want to make my blog and my writing my business. I want to share my faith and God’s love with others.

I have made a lot of progress in my healing journey over the last 10 years. But I still have a lot of challenges. I still have a lot to learn. I still have a lot to share. I still have a purpose.

In the coming year…and hopefully years to come…I want to continue to share my journey through personal healing, through marriage, through motherhood.

I’m not sure about all of the details, but I know God will work it out. I might update the look of my blog (in time). I have a feeling I’ll be sharing some of our journey of treatment with Rebecca when the time is right/when we have more answers. I will hopefully have more to share about my own health and struggles with anxiety and OCD. Mental health is such a mystery.

I might do giveaways. I might start a newsletter. I might get more involved with social media.

For now all I know is that God has given me a purpose and a plan. I don’t know how all of my passions will play a part in this. And maybe some of them won’t. I do know that God has a reason for all of them and a reason for making me the way I am.

I’m not JUST a stay at home mom. I’m not defined by my health problems. I’m not just getting by.

I am Mary. I am a child of God. I am a wife. I am a mother. I am a writer. I have purpose.

This post is linked to Fresh Bites Friday.

We’re coming to the end of the year. This month will be full of Christmas shopping, baking and celebrating. I don’t have any big goals. I mostly want to spend time with my family and enjoy the holiday. Here are the goals I’ve made.

FOOD

1. Rebecca’s Recipes – Let Rebecca help plan meals and baking projects and come up with new recipes. She’s been coming up with recipes for Christmas for a couple months now. Will we remember them? Four-year-olds have a lot of ideas.

2. Baking – I definitely will be doing some baking this month (but hopefully not eating too much of it :P). Maybe more Oreos (new flavors). Definitely Christmas cookies. We’ve made one batch already, but since Abram begs to bake daily we will probably have to make more. Maybe Rebecca will help me pick out the rest. Any suggestions/requests for homemade versions of favorite goodies? Is there anything you always make for Christmas?

3. Rotate Food – I have been doing well the last couple weeks with rotating food and getting more variety in my diet. I really think this is one of the key factors I’ve been missing for so long.  It’s something I don’t remember ever hearing about when doing GAPS, when doing an IBS diet, when looking into just about any “diet.” Even simply reading Nourishing Traditions. Maybe it was mentioned, but I’ve never heard it emphasized. All I hear about is eat “this” or don’t eat “that.” But nothing about making sure you don’t eat “this” every single day (usually it’s the opposite…be sure you eat 2 Tbsp. coconut oil and 4 egg yolks and 3 Tbsp. butter and 1/2 cup fermented vegetables and…every day). I know from past experience that it takes more than a couple weeks to come to a conclusion about whether or not something works. But so far I am having good success. And I hope it continues. I will do an update in the coming months.

If you are interested in more information about a true rotational diet check out 20 Something Allergies.  At the moment I am not doing a full rotational diet where you have to wait 4 days before eating something again. But I am trying to really get variety and not eat the same things in a row. For example, if I eat yogurt for breakfast on Monday I won’t have it again for a few days. Maybe the next day I’ll eat eggs and vegetables for breakfast. And the next I’ll eat broth/soup with different vegetables. I think this will be good for myself and also for my family. I can get in a rut with my kids’ breakfasts, snacks and lunches. I have to remember to give them more variety too.

whole wheat sugar cookies with homemade frosting…still working on replacing those colorful decorations…

PERSONAL

1. Writing – Continue to write for Grand Rapids Natural Living and Real Food and Health magazine. Time to brainstorm ideas for March and April! I’m not ready to think spring 😛

2. Purpose – I’ve been praying about this a lot in the last 6 months. I’m planning to do a separate update post soon. And there will be some blog changes coming…in the new year.

3. Sewing/hobbies – I will finish the aprons before Christmas 😛  I would love to make some Christmas presents as well but I doubt that will happen. Maybe in January I need to start working on next year’s presents.

4. Clean/organize – I need to finish cleaning out my closet and replacing a few things. I also need to finish organizing Abram’s drawers and closet.

5. Christmas – gift shopping/wrapping, cards/letter, decoration, baking, party planning (pretty much everything).

What’s on your agenda this month? Are you scrambling to get Christmas activities under way or did you plan well and have most of it done already?

November is coming to a close. Which means Christmas is right around the corner! And it means I’ve got a lot to do next month. Here’s how November went.

 

FOOD

1. Rebecca’s Recipes – Rebecca continues to be a big help with both planning and preparing food.

2. Food preservation – I froze squash and pumpkin.

3. Once-A-Week Challenge – I started the month continuing with Take It Out Tuesday for experimentation. I have seen some trends in the process. And I am taking note. But none of the experiments will be a regular practice at this point. I’m just gathering information right now in combination with other things. Hopefully in the new year I’ll have more direction. It’s mostly related to Rebecca’s behavior and how she responds to certain foods. When we have more clarification I will post an update.

4. Baking – We did our fair share of baking…and there is more to come.

HEALTH

1. Supplements – I started taking probiotics again. Amazingly I didn’t have a strong reaction. I’m going to take them until I run out (which will be soon) and see if I notice any difference.

2. Psychologist – Good appointments as usual.

3. Candida – I have a sample diet to look through and am still researching – still looking into this.

4. New doctor – I am trying to set up an appointment with a new doctor but haven’t gotten through yet.

FAMILY/PERSONAL

Rebecca

1. Mommy-daughter-Grandma date – Build-A-Bear
2. Visualization and reasoning techniques to help with focus and self control.

Abram

1. Work on development/milestones – talking, numbers, letters, colors – he’s really taking off.
2. Organize closet – not quite yet. Although I did deal with his dresser.
3. Start potty training – we’re slowly working on this.

Me
1. Writing – Continue to write for GRNL and RFAH.

2. Purpose – I’ve been praying about this a lot in the last 6 months. I’m planning to do a separate update post soon.

3. Sewing/hobbies – STILL working on the aprons (I did a couple stitches this morning :P). I need to have them done by Christmas.

4. Clean/organize – I got rid of/put away more clothes. I also did some shopping.

November Links

Finally, here is a new part of my monthly recap. Some links from other Real Food blogs that I think are worth taking a look at.

Confessions of a Baby Boomer – A post from a very experienced geriatric health care worker about how real food is the key and we need to stop pharmaceutical companies from driving health care at The Kitchen Rag.

A recipe for Chocolate French Silk Pie from Our Nourishing Roots. This looks amazing!

Confessions of a Picky Eater from Granny’s Vital Vittles reminds us of how critical it is to eat nutrient dense foods. If your child is finicky or your kids won’t eat check this out.

Ever wonder if raw meat is healthy? Gutsy answers your questions.

I like some principles of attachment parenting. But I also know not all of it works for everyone. This is a wonderful post from Holisic Squid about why she ditched AP (we don’t follow all of it either…definitely no kids in our bed!).

I love this post about why calories don’t count from Empowered Sustenance. I completely agree. Stop looking for “low cal” food. Start looking for real food.

I hope you’ve had a great November. Stop by tomorrow to see what’s in store for me in December.

November is here. Time for some new goals. I’ll keep working on some from last month that I didn’t get to. And add a few new ones.

FOOD

1. Rebecca’s Recipes – Let Rebecca help plan meals and baking projects and come up with new recipes. Just this week she asked to make strawberry shortcake ice cream…so we did of course 🙂

2. Food preservation – I would like to freeze squash and pumpkin and can spaghetti sauce.

3. Once-A-Week Challenge – I am going to continue Take It Out Tuesday. I would also like to have a full week of take outs to see how it impacts all of us. I’m already noticing some trends, but I want to experiment further before I give any updates.

4. Baking – I can’t head into the holidays without some baking 😛  Hopefully we’ll do some experimenting. Any suggestions/requests for homemade versions of favorite goodies?
HEALTH

1. Supplements – I’m currently taking magnesium, cal-mag and a multi-vitamin daily. I am going to start taking cod liver oil and probiotics again…see what happens. I think I need probiotics, but I’ve got to take them much more long term than I have in the past. See if that helps. I’m just dreading the die off :\

2. Psychologist – I have two appointments this month…one today!

3. Candida – I have a sample diet to look through and am still researching.

4. New doctor – I’ve kind of run into a dead end with traditional doctors. I might finally go see someone a little more natural minded to have an evaluation and hopefully get more help.

FAMILY/PERSONAL

Rebecca

1. Mommy-daughter date – TBD – Build-A-Bear?
2. Visualization and reasoning techniques to help with focus and self control.

Abram

1. Work on development/milestones – talking, numbers, letters, colors.
2. Organize closet.
3. Start potty training.

Me
1. Writing – Continue to write for GRNL and RFAH.

2. Purpose – I’ve been praying about this a lot in the last 6 months. I’m planning to do a separate update post soon.

3. Sewing/hobbies – I hope to finish the matching aprons.

4. Clean/organize – I hope to get rid of more of my clothes (I’ve already cleaned out a lot) and buy a few new things. I’m realizing that I’m a 32 year old mother of two. I’ve had 3 major abdominal surgeries. My weight has changed. My body just is not shaped the same as it was 10 years ago. It’s time to get rid of all of the old stuff and buy new stuff that works for the body I have now. Not to mention my clothing needs are different as a stay-at-home mom than they were when I was working. I still have a large assortments of button downs in my closet that I’ve hardly touched in years. It’s time to really gut my closet and drawers.

5. Christmas prep – start shopping for gifts and working on Christmas cards.