School is done is a little over 2 weeks. Sooo not soon enough :-/
Life is an odd pace right now. A year of nights and the girls are really stepping up their game of Let's Hose the New Step-Poppa. Simple rules that have always been the standard are met with defiance. The amount of creativity that goes into getting out of chores is absolutely incredible. If they would harness it into just half of what they are currently using in failed escape plots said chores could be done three times over. It's frustrating and causing some tension. Love it while you can, kids. In a couple weeks there's a new sheriff in town. Momma's back home at night.
Somewhere in the past couple of months, meat has started to lose it's appeal. It's not that I don't enjoy a good steak and I will never give up fish. It's not an animal thing. No mantras of "Nothing With a Face" will erupt from my lips. It's the hormones and chemicals and the conditions that effect the healthiness of the meat we eat. Currently, our deep freezer is in the garage at my dad's house. Without that we can't buy local cows or pigs and have them processed. Free-Range Chickens are almost impossible to find already killed and plucked. Buying grass fed meat is crazy expensive. So I've started cutting it out in an attempt to limit the toxins from my body. What I've found is that I don't miss it like I thought I would. I feel better than I've felt in years. My body is functioning on a level that I don't recall it doing since I was a teenager. I'm still tired from 50 hour weeks at the salon and my knees are increasingly trying to become arthritic (getting older SUCKS....physically), but I feel good. I feel fuller, yet I'm eating less. My stomach which has long been my problem area is shrinking faster than my butt! Whaaaaa???? I've NEVER had that happen. The part I'm liking best is the freedom I'm feeling in this type of diet. I eat meat if I want to eat meat. I just don't have as much of a taste for it, so I'm looking for more interesting... more fun things to eat. I was talking to Emma about how I was thinking about this around New Year's. She responded that it was kinda funny because she'd been thinking about it too! Emma has been stricter with her new found vegetarianism than I am...She's already lost TWO pant sizes!!!
I've started making my own face wash. I'm not some uber-crunchy granola. I just like using natural things to clean my home and nourish my body. The oil mixture makes my skin a wee bit dry so I think I need to add more olive oil or vitamin E and go easy on the Castor.
I was reading voraciously, but school seems to take up so much time. However, I'm reading Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close. I love love love Oskar. But I feel that the character is too young in age for how it is written and too old at the same time. Which I guess is how it feels to be too young and too old as well.
Organized Simplicity by Tsh Oxenreider (I'm not posting links as this is written today to purge my thoughts and share this anyone who happens to be listening all that has occupied me as of late. Google works wonders.) has transfixed me in the first chapter. I can't move on until Brandon and I manage to sit down and hash out a Purpose Statement that I can type out and print up in scrawling print on beautiful paper to motivate and remind our family that loving each other and the least of these is what Clan Maxwell is ALL about.
Purposeful living is worth the struggle of the change. I wrestle with the want of 'stuff' as much as any other American. I'm a clothes whore and have been trying to buy more second hand and find new ways to reuse old items. To not base my worth and value on what's on my back and feet. But I do so love all things hair and make-up and fashion. It's a part of who I am. It's also what I do. I just don't want it to define me. Which in the past I have allowed.
New Year's Resolutions are going well. Being present is an awesome experience. You connect so much more with the those put in your sphere. Choosing Gratitude as my word for 2012 has changed me tremendously in only 27 days. Even if I'm not typing up a new post every single day on The Gratitude Project Blog, it is not being eclipsed by the daily grind. If anything, it has brought me closer to a more tenderized heart.
I'm still not making the time for my devotions that I was craving. I keep trying to set up a plan of some sort to get through my sort of secret resolution to get all the way through the Bible this year...but I got bored with Job....again. Truthfully, I'm choosing to go through vegetarian cookbooks and play Castleville than get into the Word. Yes, Castleville. Because we are THAT family. You know the one. Overly competitive with each other. OK so maybe it's just Brandon and I, but the race is on to get the most Castle points. I am shameless in this. I'm having a wonderful time saying things like: "You have a BLACKSMITH'S SHOP!!! I don't have a Blacksmith's shop!! But I have a tailor *smug smile*"
HC (House Church) starts tonight. For now it is just me, B, and NiNiblended family. Just a family.
I'd like to go on retreat. By myself. A hotel somewhere for a weekend. Just to draw closer to God. Jill did this last winter. It had never occurred to me until then that you could go solo on a trip that wasn't guided by someone else and it still be a retreat. It didn't occur to me to take one until about a month ago. I'd like to go on a small trip for the second anniversary of our first date...our own sort of Rededication of Our Relationship to the Lord Getaway...but we have an actual marriage retreat 2 weeks later, so I guess that'll have to work...even though we don't get to share a room. I don't like that. It feel unnatural to sleep away from him.
I have to cut myself off now. It's been ages and ages since I've sat down to write. Oh, how I've missed it so. I'd just keep regurgitating information and thoughts and feelings, but the kids need picked up in about an hour and I'd like to watch Once Upon A Time while looking through a cookbook :)
Kisses to your faces, Babies!!
Rach
