naked

Have you ever noticed that kids don’t like having their diaper changed?  I think its because they want to be naked, but we always insist on putting a stupid diaper back on just so they don’t pee all over everything (or poop, omw that would be awful).  As soon as they can, they start trying to take their clothes off.  And what adult wouldn’t honestly say that if they were the only human being on the entire planet, that they would walk around naked.  Its just the best.

And naked food is the best too. On Wednesday nights, I’m taking Karen Jasmine’s “Ladies Fitness and Nutrition” class.  It is simply amazing.  By no means is it your typical “eat right and exercise” type of class, no ma’am! She tells you like it is, no sugar coating (dadadum!), its in your face, honest-to-goodness stuff you need to hear.  My toes hurt, but its a breath of fresh air! To finally have someone be real about health and weight issues, to dig to the heart of the matter… its invigorating, and inspiring! The last class, Karen said something that I had technically heard before, but in a way that really struck me.  She pretty much said that if your food needs a label to tell you what it is, you probably shouldn’t be eating it.  Wow. How true? But NOOOOO One ever says that.   Too many people try to tell you what new diet food to eat or whatever, but if you just eat the foods that God made, the way He made them, you’ll be on the right track.  So, my goal is to slowly weed out the labels in my house.  Its a lofty goal, in this age of convenience (and oh am I the queen of convenient?!), but a healthy family is better than all that. Plus, the labels are big fat liars.  Funny story: I was at BJ’s the other day and saw a huge tub-o-peanut butter that said “Now made with No Partially Hydrogenated Oils”, and I thought “wow, I wonder what the ingredients are”, so I turned the tub over.  And they were right, they aren’t using partially hydrogenated oils, they are using fully hydrogenated oils.

[i had a really disgusting picture of hydrogenated oil to put here, but mozilla keeps crashing on me when i try to upload an image. sorry]

Sigh.  They must think we are all illiterate morons.  I embarassed my mom in the middle of BJs by laughing so loud about it. Isn’t it sad, that I was lured into looking at the ingredients because I was amazed a company would stop using a product that is dangerously unhealthy?  Sad times.  But there is a remedy, a solution, a way to fight back.

What changes can you make in your diet to make it more naked?  Or better yet, as Karen says, have a day where you eat just raw veggies… and I’m putting my twist on it, go NAKED one day! hehe, how fun would that be? (lets be real people, please don’t go around all nakie-free-bird, I’m talking about food here, geez).

I wonder how many hits I’m going to have because of the title, LOL.

internal mutiny

Have you ever noticed that you seem to be working against yourself sometimes? You do everything right, but then you somehow end up making some kind of mess along the way?  Or, you know what to do, but dont’ seem to do it?

We put our house on the market about 2 weeks ago.  And if you know me or know my parents, you’ll know that keeping the house spotless is a challenge.  And spotless is what it has to be every second of every day because you never know when someone will come for a showing.  If it took you 10 minutes to get all your gear and get out the door, it now takes you 30 minutes because you have to go through the house, straightening, turning on the right lamps, fluffing pillows, spraying yummy smelling room spray, and opening the blinds to “show off the view”.

Its always been my dream/goal/ambition to have a spotless house that people could show up at anytime and I’m not all embarrassed and rushing to hide the dirty dishes.  But now that I pretty much do have the house that way, I find myself purposefully not keeping everything 100% spotless. I tried it for a couple days, but I’m not comfortable in a pristine house, with no flaws or things to work on.  For example, the kitchen will be perfectly clean, but there is probably going to be one cup in the sink drying rack thing.  Or, the high chair is wiped down and clean, but I’m going to leave the bib hanging on it, “for next time”, of course.

I’ve always been good at analyzing people’s deeper motives, but when it comes to myself, I’m not so good (aren’t we all like that though?!).  But I’ve been pondering this… why do I do this, why can’t I be comfortable in a spotless house?  After much searching, I’ve come to a conclusion.

When the house is spotless, when there is nothing left to work on, accomplish, or tidy up, the only thing left to focus on is me, and what I need to work on inside myself.  As long as I can focus on the physical mess in front of me, I can effectually ignore any mess thats inside of me.  I think this is the same issue that meddling moms have.  They don’t have kids living in their home anymore, and therefore are forced to really see themselves, are unwilling to do that, so they seek out their adult children to continue fixing.  Its also the same when you can’t seem to turn off the noise, like tv or radio, or whatever.  Something HAS to be playing, HAS to be going on, otherwise you can hear your own voice (and the voice of the Holy Spirit, Selah), and you don’t wanna do that right now.

So, my new goal — keep the house clean which will therefore force me to spend time with me.  Sigh, I hope I’m still the best friend I remember!

and just where have you been?

Okay, so, we need to talk.  Its been a while, huh?  The combination of not having a computer at the house all the time, having a 10 month old, and just not having an interest in blogging for a while, has taken its toll.  Isn’t it always the things you harass other people about that gets you… lol.  So I’m going to try to turn over a new leaf.  I’m going to be blogging more regularly, and by regularly I mean at least once a week.  So check back. Or for those of you who have Google Reader, just wait for it to pop up there!

All righty then, lets get down to business.  I watched a new show last night on hulu.com (amazing website, probably my best friend).  Its called Glee.

Its about a teacher trying to revive the glee club at his cheerleader-dominated high school.  I was bored last night (Jamie was driving to High Point w/ Patrick for some Craigslist trade), so I watched it.  And I liked it.  Well, almost liked it.  The one thing that I’m sure is going to be a major theme in the show is the failing marriage of the teacher.  I mean, in episode 1 he’s complaining to his attractive co-worker about his marital problems… not a good start.  And I’m not sure how I feel about how they portray Christians with the football guys girlfriend being the President of the Celibacy Club … though it was pretty funny, “[kiss kiss kiss] hold on, let’s pray”.  If it wasn’t for the marriage issues, I’d really like this show. And I’m not sure if I should keep watching it or not.

We all want to hold high standards for our children, to teach them right from wrong, but yet we rarely hold those same standards for ourselves.  98% of the shows we watch are not suitable for Charlotte.  (Besides designing shows on hgtv, I can’t think of any that would be appropriate for her).  So why do we watch them?  I like to think that its because I’m an adult and can judge right from wrong, and even though I see/hear something wrong in a tv show, I know that is not how I will live my life.  Just because I see crazy serial killers on Bones/CSI/Law&Order, doesn’t mean that I’m going to go kill people.  Just because two unmarried characters are sleeping together on just about every show out there, doesn’t mean I’m gonna go shack up with someone.  BUT, when I watch stuff like that, it goes into my brain.  All that junk is in there somewhere.  BUT, I can’t hide myself from the world because when you are out and about among people you are going to see and hear things that aren’t “wholesome”, but you are able to differientiate between the good and bad.

Am I trying to justify wrong choices of entertainment, or overreacting about nothing?  What do you guys think? Where do you draw the line?