Challenge(s)

Write a post inspired by the word: challenge

Once again, I find myself baffled and challenged to help my husband figure out which bazillionth, stupid thing is causing his headache, nausea and weird shaking. And no, it isn't coffee.

The challenge doesn't just come in the mystery trigger, but also in the shopping, planning, preparing, and cooking of meals. I am the grocery CEO and chef so the burden of managing this portion of our lives has fallen so kindly on me. And I am tired. I have days where I hate food.

For roughly two years, we have been creating a color-coded, beautifully crafted spread sheet of what food items cause awful symptoms. This includes a dinner menu, slash grocery list so wifey here doesn't kill her hubby with food.
    My spouse (the sweet, special one) has food allergies to oats, chocolate (that is SO wrong), many preservatives and is gluten-intolerant so cooking is rarely ever convenient. If food comes in any packaged, boxed, or canned form, it must be inspected, scrutinized, analyzed, criticized, and often snubbed. 
If you need a vegan, vegetarian, gluten-free, raw, or grain-free recipe-I'm sure I have one. 

Yet, there is more to this story than frustration... 

 I have risen to these challenges. We eat more whole foods in there natural state and we all feel better. Not that we never eat junk food.  I have just had to learn to look at food differently, have had to cook more items from scratch and it does taste better, but most importantly...

  
I have found God faithful as always...providing strength and ingenuity. I have grown immensely in planning, organizing and executing in ways I did not before and my compassion, patience and gratefulness have deepened for my husband. I find myself getting better at serving others instead of myself. I know that is because of God's work in my family and in me. 

Changing because of God's doing is always beautiful, but more often than not-painful. I have had to hand over a TON of insanity-sick-of-it moments, but God has exchanged these with periods of peace, joy, laughter and bonding. So even though I still sometimes loathe dealing with food, I know that this is more about his work in my family and me and less about the food.  

 P.S. I will always miss the convenience of eating out. It is rarer these days and yes, I know that is a spoiled luxury we have in this country.

Linking up at : MamaKats 

Don't ever post pictures of your kids! Here's why...

About 6 months ago, I noticed a pattern on my blog statistics...I was looking at who was reading and following my blog. Discovering a certain follower who seemed to target my posts that ONLY had pictures of my children on it, I became alarmed.
 So I prayed and gave it some time because I am capable of jumping to conclusions without evidence and sometimes truth.

Sure enough, I saw God lead me to another post about stalkers (unfortunately, I have had one)...well, this blogger's post was actually about blog stalkers, however, it brought to my attention something I had never thought about. Silly, perhaps, but I realized how naive or thoughtless I can be about the internet even though I know that anything put out in cyber space is usually permanent. Ugh!

I conducted an experiment on my blog.  I took off all the pictures I could find of my children and EVEN ones of me that showed more of me (not that I post scantily clad pictures of myself anywhere).
Did you guess it? That follower quit following me! Hmmm, seems a bit suspicious to me.

During this process a question came to mind..."Should I really be posting pictures of my children on my blog?" It isn't as if they gave me permission. And, well, we live in an ever growing perverse world where access to people's private lives is so easily attained with a click of a button.

 It is your choice, but I urge you to reconsider giving anyone the temptation to use your pictures for their impure, unholy choice of pleasure!

*I also deleted a lot of images from my social media page even though that has some limitations to access and privacy I can set compared to my blog. 

Linking up here: http://www.solideogloriasisterhood.com/

Writer's Workshop...defining emotions in pictures...

Thank goodness for Kat Bouska's Writing Workshop...let's just say my motivation for blog writing lately has been practically zilch.
Want to join the movement? Follow it all @ Mama's Losin It

Prompt #2...Define goodness...joy...sorrow...and anger in pictures I have taken.

Goodness.

Strawberry ice cream popsicle? Goodness.

JOY

Maybe you're thinking how in the world is the below picture joy?

Well...because my house is filled with Star Wars!
Okay, yes that is joyful, but really what brings me joy is the gift of my two sons who just happen to like Star Wars as much as me!

Sorrow

The grass is crying.

All by itself.

A lonely place indeed.

That's how sorrow has been for me, a lonely place.

Anger

"He had it coming."

This really only covers a few of my emotions ya know, but that is another post for another day.