I'm Moving

So, I've lately had a great deal of trouble sharing my posts on Google Plus, so I decided to let this blog go and move to a new blog.  I plan to cover all of my usual topics plus more encouragement and a transition back to a healthy lifestyle (pregnancy was a naughty food fest). I'd love it if you'd join me at blessedhouseholdgoods.blogspot.com.

Things To Pass The Time

I'm hoping everyone had a wonderful Resurrection Sunday.  I hope it was blessed with time to reflect and rejoice with near and dear family and friends.  Normally, my Resurrection Sunday would be spent with friends, eating too much and laughing even more.  The kids would be outside playing (if Easter fell in April) and we would just be enjoying the blessing of that time.  This Easter, I was 38 wks pregnant and just wanted to kick my feet up while my wonderful husband cooked.  That is exactly what happened too.  So I got to spend time with family, resting and being grateful for a very generous and loving husband.  I am also thankful for him because he is working all day and coming home to try to hastily put together a chicken coop so my six fluffy babies (not so baby or fluffy anymore) can move outside into their own space.  I confess that I love the idea of free range hens, but where I live, we have hawks and falcons.  The best they'll get is a fully enclosed run and a large coop to stay cool or warm in.  Still much better than those overstocked, fully enclosed, dark chicken houses or those tiny cage-like things egg layers are usually in.  No beak clipping here, just room to run and eat and peck, safe from predators.

What have we been up to?  We have been cleaning and cleaning and cleaning.  Prepping for baby is the name of the game.  Since I birth my babies at home now, I feel more serious about cleaning my spaces than before.  One part of that is having a midwife in your space.  The other is the peace that comes with a clean home. I have also been cleaning my body, I suppose.  I have been drinking a green smoothie every day, which definitely helps keep things moving.

Quick shameless plug.  If you haven't tried it, you have to try the 30 Day Challenge over at www.simplegreensmoothies.com.  They give you recipes and a shopping list every week.  The smoothies are so delicious and it encourages you to get your kale or spinach in each day.

Ok, now that I've gotten that out of the way...

I have also been working on this

Crochet all the way.  I have put my knitting needles down in exchange for work that moves faster.  So, this blanket is going two skeins at a time until finished.  It is lovely and soft and made from Red Heart With Love yarn.  I used to be adamantly against synthetic stuff, but it washes easier and it feels amazing.  It makes for good sit down busy work while I binge on episodes of Project Runway.  At 38 weeks and 3 days, this madhouse is about to get a bit crazier, but I have my hands full of blessings and that's all that matters.

Enjoy your day.

When God Moves

First  I want to say with great joy, it is Spring officially!

Moving on...

This topic came to me, maybe a while ago but again recently.  I noticed that sometimes bad things happen.  I am not talking about tragedy.  I'm talking about days or weeks that feel like "bad luck" has set in.  I do not believe in luck because it is based on the understanding that the universe operates solely on its own, without the knowledge, wisdom or intervention of the divine.  Romans 1:20-32 covers this, warning us about the consequences of worshipping God's creations, rather than the Creator.  Still, you know the feeling.  That, "I just can't win" feeling.  Something breaks, we fix it and it breaks again.  You start to do better and then you do worse.  Your streak of sick days finally goes away and then something else comes up.  You feel like the devil is kicking you around and he won't quit.  But is it always the devil.

I have learned that our responses to these situations are critical.  The Bible tells us that God is a blesser.  He loves to give us the desires of our heart.  He wants to see us prosper because He gets the glory from true believers.  He gets all of the credit for doing the impossible in our lives.  So, miracles and blessing are for us, but for Him.  We readily accept when good things happen, they must be from heaven.  We reject the notion that bad things are happening because of God. The Bible says "Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows." (James 1:17, NIV).  So, we know that God blesses.  But how about these times when nothing goes our way?  What if these were blessings too?

What do we know about fathers?  We know that they love their children and want the best for them.  We know that they are placed as guardians over the precious lives that God created.  They would not say yes to a request that would lead to harm or death.  They would never deny basic needs nor would they allow sinful actions to be the main lifestyle.  Would a father be considered good if he gave his daughter away to every boy that stopped by, knowing that they would then go somewhere and put their hands all over each other?  Would a father be considered good if he gave the keys to his car to his son with one hand and a case of beer with the other?  The answers to both of these is no.  We would judge both fathers very harshly.  Likewise, our Heavenly Father is not a "feel good" deity.  He is a wise and righteous judge who hates sin but offers us hope for change.  That means that He also doesn't love a bad attitude.  Just like we loathe a bad attitude in our children, He despises it in us even more.  He instructs us to give thanks in all things.  He tells us to rejoice in our suffering and reminds us that our trials work patience.  We could all use more patience.

So, is that losing streak demonically inspired or God working out our bad attitude?  How would we know?  First, we can discern nothing without the help of the Holy Spirit.  So we must pray and ask God to show us what is happening.  Then we must examine our responses to these situations.  If we are grumbling and complaining in these times, we are displeasing God.  If we are speaking as though we never have the victory, we are showing our ungrateful side.  If others stay away from us when bad things are happening, we probably have a bad attitude that negatively affects those around us.  We are a bad testimony to God's grace and mercy when we focus on our failures and set-backs and losses.  Christianity isn't that great, bad things always happen to them.  How does that look to someone who's religion is based on good being rewarded with good?

We serve a loving God and more so, we are loved by an incredibly loving Father.  He wants us to be blessed but our bad attitudes prevent that.  Our bad attitudes prevent us from rejoicing in the blessings we have and they also keep us from receiving more.  Our bad attitudes show God that nothing He does for us is enough, it only focuses on what He's not doing for us.  If this is the issue in your life, I encourage you to blossom into some new habits this Spring.  Ask God to grow a garden of gratefulness in your heart and purpose to keep praise on your lips.  These things usher in blessing and favor and above all - peace.

Snowy Days Bring Wisdom

In my part of Virginia, it snowed a bit over the last 2 weeks and ultimately, we stayed in the house more than normal.  That led to many hours of documentary viewing.  Too many.  But, I promised to tell you how things have changed around here, so here's one.

I became concerned with the plight of other people.  I know, I am supposed to be concerned with the plight of others because I'm Christian.  I understand that I can't make poverty go away.  I don't think God expects us to, anyhow.  Jesus said, "The poor you will have with you always,"  But the rest of that statement says you are obligated to help.  "And you can help them any time you want. But you will not always have me." (Matthew 14:7, NIV) The poor will be with you always...but you must still reach out to them.  So, it is easy to think about the homeless vet, the hungry kids and even people I know personally who are dealing with displacement issues.  They are right around me.  But I never thought that my purchases were impacting so many lives around the world.  I love chocolate.  I don't mind grabbing a quick candy bar at the check-out.  Then I watched two documentaries about the child labor in Africa on the cocoa farms.  Very saddening.  Heartbreaking.  Then there's shoes and clothes and toys.  The toy factories in China, the clothing factories in Bangladesh and all of the other cheap labor employed the world around.  Our developed nations are taking advantage of greedy governments and cheap labor.  In the countries that manufacture most of our stuff, the governments don't enforce their own "laws" and it's easy for companies to make things inexpensively.  Don't get me started on Walmart.  I watched a documentary on that store just because I needed to remember why I don't like to shop there.  The reasons I don't shop at Walmart are for another post.

So, I made a decision.  I would only buy thrift store clothes.  My reasoning is this: I cannot afford to buy Fair Trade clothing when I need to replace something but I don't want to place my money into the hands of greedy, self-serving manufacturers.  So, the thrift store takes someone else's bad purchase and turns it around for good by supporting a charitable cause.  It's not a perfect system, but at least my money goes to someone else's good.  Another things I've decided is that I will now try to only buy American made fabrics for my sewing projects.  Everyone should be given a living wage.  Why should I only make changes that impact other nations when our nation suffers from a loss of jobs regularly?  Another thing is supporting missionaries and the spreading of the Gospel to other countries.  Many of the freedoms we experience in our country and many of our regulations are rooted in the Bible we now so easily reject.  These workers in poor countries get no time off, no days off.  If you can't come work, someone else will.  We are allowed, mandated even, at least 1 day off.  Whether you worked 3 on 2 off or 12 hr shifts, somewhere in there they must give you a day of rest and cannot penalize you for taking it.  6 days and a rest was God's idea, not man's.  How about a means of support when you have nothing or you've lost everything?  God's idea, not man's.  Many of those poor workers are women and if their husband died or they were displaced, they'd be out of luck.  The Bible tells us often to take care of the poor, the widow and the orphan.  The least I can do is try not contribute to the suffering of others.  I want my actions and choices to be a blessing to other, not a curse.  I will most likely highlight some companies I think are doing great and some that are not, as the blogging journey continues.

These are some of the changes that you can expect to see.  I've had a lot of things to consider and it has all given me so much to share.  I hope your day is blessed and your interest piqued by this post. Some documentaries to consider watching:

1. The Dark Side of Chocolate
2. Cocoa-nomics
3. Fashion Victims (Movie about Bangladesh sweat shops)
4. Living on One Dollar (made me think about woven Guatemalan items)
5. Santa's Workshop

That's just 5.  Plus I watched a health documentary called Bought and a finance video called Spent.  Being informed will not only bless your life, but enable you to bless others.  Enjoy.

(Please forgive any grammatical errors, I didn't feel like proof-reading.  Pregnancy has made me lazy.)

A Change is Coming...

So, with my pregnancy and my crazy twists and turns, I had to come to a decision - I'm making some changes.  I had much to talk about and I have grown and changed so much that I feel the need to broaden my topic base,  I also need to be able to share so much more.  It's actually very exciting.  I'm growing so much more passionate about so many topics, I have to get it all out.  Over the next few weeks, I'll be changing the name and explaining all that I have to talk about.  I am still passionate about plant based foods and cutting clutter.  But due to my inability to consume adequate protein, I had to lay aside my vegan lifestyle.  I knew that I would never be able to provide my baby with enough protein.  Not because a vegan diet doesn't have enough protein, as many detractors would say, but because I am a lazy eater and vegan diets with low soy levels take work.  Plus, my taste buds were not going to cooperate with other protein sources.  I doubt I'll go back, but will make sustainable choices whenever possible.  I have become so passionate about the fair treatment of those that make our clothing products and footwear as well as fabric.  I have become sewing fanatic.  I still have my love for all things Biblical and sharing my faith.  Plus, I'm preparing to embark on my third homebirth - after 3 c-sections.  Obviously, I'm passionate about that as well.  I could go on and on.  So, if you've followed me and miss my posts, know that I haven't disappeared, I've just changed and grown and want my blog to reflect that.  I love having company on this wild ride called life.  Be patient with me, it is about to get interesting....