Tuesday Night –

Bible study was fun. I wish we had a bigger group but the discussion is precious. One of our ladies just moved here from Korea….AF flew her ahead as she is pregnant with twins. That’s sort of fun to watch unfold :::snort:::.

I baked 4 more loaves of bread. They looked great when I had to leave the house. Three of them flopped one of them is perfect…all taste great. I did the 7 grain again. I’m simply not sure what to do beyond this. I may have someone bake the same recipe at their house and see what happens…though I HAVE baked Adrienne’s bread recipe here and it flopped to so I’m not sure what that proved. I can’t even make my own dough enhancer to use because every dry milk that I find has BHT in it.

I made cookies this afternoon. Zander was my “big helper” but in actuality Arielle ended up baking the cookies. She’s getting quite good. This recipe originally called for sucanat and I’d used turbinado last week…..makes a lot of difference. They are much better with sucanat. I have some rapadura ordered and wonder what sort of adjusting I’ll have to do when using that.

One of my young ones had a dose of reality discipline today. I pair a young one with an older one for chores. They take turns with kitchen clean up. If not doing kitchen clean up then they do laundry and if there are no piles dried and ready to fold they do other chores I want done while the “kitchen crew” is at work. One child said, “I feel sick” right when it was time to begin. He may have had the flu? He may have not wanted to work? But I was not going to accuse him of lying and have THAT stick in his mind “Mom thinks I would lie”. SO….I excused him. I then called and cancelled two other appts he had for the day…both of which he likes. WE were also planning to go to the park for an hour and he missed out on that. I was not mean or huffy whatsoever…just explained that since he was to sick for work and school we couldn’t take the chance of exposing others around town. One of my older boys told me “Mom, I remember faking it once and missing out on all the fun – I’ve never done that again” and I didn’t know he HAD done that. LOL

I was totally frustrated with myself today. Zander is on a very strict diet which is helping with the list of letters after his name. This weekend we were given some yummy venison sausage….yum…and on our eating plan too. BUT the guys wanted me to BBQ them right away and didn’t want to wait for me to make hot dog buns….I bought some. Zander had one on Saturday…Sunday (and by afternoon we were noting changes)….Monday (I spent yesterday disciplining him and wondering if he’d eaten anything but couldn’t think of a single thing off his plan…TODAY at lunch Jamin pointed out his ketchup sandwich…gross but o.k. THEN he pointed out the bread that Zander was using….Josiah read the label….artificial flavor AND BHT….We’re still in awe of how much eating that stuff affects him…..and so maybe we can get this back under control and I will be much more careful to keep bread and buns in the freezer. BTW he was not eating sausage dogs all week…he was using the white bread for sandwhiches. The younger three still love white bread. I gave them a bottle of glue and told them to squirt that on the whole grain bread for the same effect but they didn’t go for it.

Mike’s read Narnia to us about 5 times. First just to me then to the girls (now living in WA), then with the older 4…then with Jared alone, and now he’s reading through it again with Josiah – Zander. This time we are reading it in Chronological order….we love that series and it gets better with each reading.

Mike just solved the “case of the missing sippee cups”. He found FIVE of them…..I’d better go help him scour them….

What's with all the Preaching, De?

:::snort::: Wellllll....it is *my* blog. Feel free not to read them and read whatever it is you like to read. {G}

I'm teaching a 5 week course on prayer at PWOC. You are basically seeing teaching notes. No, I guess not as you don't see the discussion questions. You are helping me meditate or marinate as one of my kids say.

I read, I think, I marinate.....don't you think that "marinating in the Word" is a great definition for "meditaing on the Word"?

Some of my quick blurbs may well become PWOC newsletter articles. OH....I've been "web published". Here It's certainly not the book I dreamed of writing....but as some of you are discovering a writer writes...good or bad and you can't seem to shut her up! :::snort::::

"8" Minutes in the Morning...

I shared some months ago that I received this book from PBS. It gurantees 2 lbs weight loss a week. {yeah - SURE}. Anyway, Jamin got a hold of the book and really enjoyed some of the info. I had not read it. I decided to pull it out this weekend as I'm whittling down my bedside stack.

I'm not sure I can buy his food regime. I'm pretty committed to sanity and avoiding strict outside measures. We'll see. I was encouraged to find out on his chart that for my age {over 35 smirk} and height 5'4" the ideal weight range is 122 - 157....I'm within range.....so I'm not as obese as I previously thought...but I still want to get down to the lower range as I don't ever want to experience the eclampsia I had with Stacia again. I also wondered about weights with my arthritic wrists as they have been feeling so good. I do know from past experience and research that this weight loss thing works best with a combination of aerobic and weights. I also know that muscle increases a metabolism....and I need that.

This a.m. I thought I'd do this "8" minute thing. First I didn't have weights so I did the two moves without weights. Not a problem. Then I remembered that the weight bench in the garage would have weights. This has formerly been the den of young men and Mike (who is also a young man, you know?). All that to say that they had no cute purple 3 lb weights...look as I may. I did find some 5 lb weights. I did my two moves. No problem. Then I went back and checked the book...I'd done them wrong.....I did them again....8 minutes turned into 20.....We'll see. I am seriously trying to get in shape with what we have at home. I can't make the time for the gym right now but I can do something....I'm curious to see how my wrists will respond to this - I think I may need to go buy some purple and green weights to add to the manly collection in the garage.

“Jumping Jehoshaphat”
Jehoshaphat (2 Chronicles 20)

Circumstances: 3 armies rise against him; he’s terrified but “he turned his attention to seek the Lord, called all of Judah to fast and pray, God promises to deliver them; singers and dancers move out; God totally destroys the enemy; took Israel three days to collect the spoils…sad that Jehoshaphat didn’t destroy the high places, he went on to make unholy alliances with other neighbors and God ultimately destroyed his work.

Prayer: “The God of our fathers…God in the heavens” – recognizes who God is, worships God for who he is….

Recalls what he knows about God “you said this”, “you’ve acted like this in the past” – he then bases his requests on God’s character, commands and past dealings with the nation.

Compared with “Lord’s Prayer”:
Begins with Worship; acknowledgement of who God is (His Character) and His sovereignty: “God of our fathers”, “thou art in heaven (sovereign)”. “power and might are in your hand”, “who can stand against you”. Speaks of God’s past dealings with Israel.

Moves on to Petition “Judge them”, “We’re powerless nor do we know what to do”

Prays for deliverance.

Ends with more worship: “Our eyes are on Thee”.

Compared with Phil 4: 6:
“Be anxious for nothing” – Jehoshaphat WAS anxious, he was terrified but he turned his attention to seek the Lord.

“by prayers (general) and supplication (specific, intense, pleas) with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known unto God” – He specifically listed the things that were needed, they worshiped God for his past dealings and for who they knew He was/is.

The Lord routed the enemy when they obeyed (they began to move out as they were instructed) in the context of worship.

Application: Facing an enemy? Turn your eyes to God. Pray with confidence based on who God IS and how he ACTS…..don’t know God? You can do something about it! He’s waiting in His Word to reveal all that He is to us.