Sometimes I look around me, at my house that oftentimes makes me so unhappy… it’s untidy, it’s cluttered, if I only had this or that or some of those, then, THEN I could be truly happy, I feel the discontent seeping into me.  Poisoning that which could be enjoyable.  Making me blind to that which is all around me.

The sunlight coming in the window.

The children fighting, then one of them, just one turning it around and making everyone laugh.

The colour.

The warmth.

I am a Christ Follower.  I believe that God has given us promises, promises to an eternal life with Him.  Where He will dry our tears.  Where we will rejoice always.  Where there is no reason to sorrow.

I believe that God is good, that he works all things for his good purposes.  I believe that He is incapable of anything ill.

I believe that the bible is His word.  His TRUTH.  His message to us.  That we can hold on tight to those promises, knowing, KNOWING that He is in control.

And then.

Then friends of ours, friends who have lost one baby already, they lose another.  God takes that baby home.  Leaving them, leaving them with empty aching arms.  This baby, there was so much hope.  He was surrounded by prayer.  This baby was prayed for by people who didn’t know him, who will never know him or the rest of the family on this earth.

And I’m angry.

I’m angry at God for allowing the infection that took this child, that took this family’s hope away from them.

I’m angry that the world is such a place.  A place where some have so much, and others have so little.

I’m angry that children suffer.

I’m angry that loving parents have empty arms, while others take for granted what has been freely given to them.

I’m angry that God just doesn’t wave his hand and make it all be done.  All be good.

And while I’m angry, what carries me through, is the knowing.  Even midst tragedy, even when the world is falling apart around me, I have to hold tight to the truth.

We, as Christ followers, are not immune to suffering.  In fact, we are promised that suffering will happen.  The difference is that we are carried through it.  We never have to suffer alone.  He will not leave us.  Even when we feel bereft, when we want answers when there are none, even when I am angry, I am still held in the gentle and loving arms of God.

His promises are real.  His promises are true.  He can be nothing else.

And He can handle my anger.

And loves me in spite of it.

Please pray for our friends who have lost their precious and much hoped for baby boy last night.  My prayer is that they can hold onto the promises, even as they mourn.

I know, I know, it has been eons since I last wrote. I skipped Eph’s birthday post, and then went into a blog funk… there have been loads of changes in our household, and when I am overwhelmed, I tend to not do anything!

SO! In a nutshell, I got a part-time job, planned a Harvest Festival, and went to Houston for five days!

Since Houston is fresh on my mind, let’s go there, shall we?

My very good friend Bonnie who is an amazing pattern designer, asked if she could fly me down to help her out with the Fall International Quilt Market. I hmmd… I hawed… I debated… then I asked Ja what he thought. He politely and emphatically informed me that I would be stupid not to go! Arrangements were made for my friend Theresa to watch the hooligans, the ticket was booked, and 6 months later, I was on the plane!

I flew out on Thursday evening (it was supposed to be Thursday late afternoon, but it moved to evening… was an extra long flight… and I landed fairly exhausted… and with a terrible cough and chest cold.) BUT, it was SO GOOD to get to spend time with Bonnie! We’ve been online friends for years and years now, but had only met in person one other time. In May of this year, actually. Five days together was so much fun!

Admittedly, I had a hard time with homesickness on Sunday morning… was a wee bit (shut up, Bonnie) weepy, needed to talk to Ja and the kids. I was overtired, had that terrible cold, and woke up with a headache. I do have to say that I rallied! I had a little nap and abandoned poor Bonnie for most of the morning. Joining her when I felt a wee bit better.

Quilt market was crazy. I had no idea how huge this thing was, how huge the convention centre was, or how many people from how many different places there would be. We met people from New Zealand, Australia, the UK… And, amazingly, while it is still somewhat of a competition, everyone just seemed to want the best for each other. We hear, “how is your market going?” in genuine concern so many times that I lost count. People really wanted to listen, wanted to know about you, took a personal interest. It was really really lovely.

A few things that I learned about the South, in no particular order,

• people are very very polite.  Willing to help.  Holding doors open.
• apparently I was the one with the accent!
• I say “eh” way more than I thought I did.
• The highways and interstates are crazy.  Stacked on top of each other in layers.
• Palm trees are kind of ugly.
• You should not watch the movie The Birds this time of year while down South.
• GREEN.  I left dead grass and most of the leaves off the trees, and went to green!
• Texas Barbecue is to die for.
• Old Texas men like to hit on young women.  (Although they jokingly say that once they’ve caught a woman, they’re too old to remember what to do with them…)
• 64 degrees Fahrenheit is too cold to set the air conditioner at.  (note: don’t let the Cdn. be in charge of the a/c!)

I was actually really surprised at the culture shock to my system.  Granted, I am no jetsetter, prefer to stay home in my yoga pants and have friends over who don’t care if I’ve brushed my hair, but I was surprised at the differences.  In food, in culture…  The one hour time change was really hard for my body to get used to as well.

Unfortunately, I don’t have a ton of pictures to show you…  we were so busy at the convention centre!  I only have ONE picture of Bonnie, and NONE of the two of us together!

Her booth looked amazing.  She is such a talented designer.  I actually told quite a few people how spoiled I am with her easy to use patterns.  Bonnie has ruined me for all other patterns!

People LOVED the underwear. Really really loved it. (It’s actually one of my fave patterns too. I even make it for my girls to wear under their skirts… little bit of stretch lace around the legs instead of cuffs, and voila!)

We of course made a visit to Joann’s where I got a healthy bag of fabric for a ridiculously good price…

Some of the other booths at quilt market were beyond amazing. Huge, almost like cities… A few of my favourites were,

The entire Riley Blake booth,

I think they have some of my favourite fabrics. The designs are gorgeous, and there are so many coordinates. It makes it easy to put things together.

How awesome is this Dr. Seuss fabric? (I think it was by Michael Miller… but I’m not 100% on that one)

Michael Miller also had a car in their booth…

Yarn and fabric together, who could ask for more?

This booth by Jane Simmons was stunning. That dress…. drooooooooooooooool….

This yarn was amazing too. All hand dyed, but was very very expensive. Even at wholesale prices.

Oh Birch Fabrics… all organic… I MUST get some of you!

Sandy Henderson’s ridiculously cute booth,

Adorable, although I don’t remember whose booth it was…

On our last night in Houston, we found a little out of the way barbecue place… where I got my one and only picture of Bonnie!

I thought it was terribly flattering getting her shoving her mouth full of stuffed baked potato. heh.

It was a great trip. A little bit long to be away from the family, I missed them terribly, and all I seem to want to do now that I’m home is sit on the couch and be a part of the chaos and bustle.

Texas was a wonderful, warm place to visit. But Canada? Canada is home.

Here we are! Day four of the Real Food Challenge!

I planned out my menu, I did the shopping, and on Day Four, we are still doing really well!

My menu did get derailed a little bit, we were gifted with a meal (that followed all of the rules), and today we’re going to friends’ house for dinner.

There has definitely been a lot of detoxing this week. Dark circles under the eyes, a little bit of crabbiness… and this, from not being terrible eaters to begin with. I really think that the whole challenge idea has been a great nudge for us to simply take things one step further.

One thing I’m having difficulty with is explaining to people what we’re doing. And why we’re being so militant about it. They don’t see the point, or they wonder why I’m wasting my time. We have encountered this before, which I think is kind of funny because it’s not like we’re doing something harmful to us or our family. It’s all about being healthier. Having more energy. Making better choices.

We had loads of good food though! And yesterday it was cool enough to do some baking! Rhubarb bread, altho it fell apart when I tried to get it out of the pan, Easy Cheesy Crackers (to die for), and Whole Wheat Rhubarb muffins. Yum yum yum.

I also had a happy mishap with some bread. I, sadly, forgot to put yeast in my bread! Shockingly, it did not rise (sigh) which means that I had a hunk of bread dough. BUT! We tried making them into tortillas, and oh my goodness they were good! Maybe not as thin as I would normally like it, but absolutely delicious!

And now it’s time to start on the menu for next week. The real key to eating this way, and I hope it’s something that I keep up with, is to plan, plan, plan. I like to have things planned out for certain days, based around what I know is going on that week. A friend of mine likes to plan a set of meals, but with no set days. Whatever way works for you, it doesn’t really matter. But, having the groceries ready, and the meals at least planned out is what garners success. It prevents me from caving and just throwing something quick and easy on for dinner. Or, prevents me from asking Ja to pick up subs on the way home. It also helps with those mid week grocery stops… where you stop for one thing, and come home with ten? Those trips that blow the grocery budget out of the water? Yah.

So, hopefully not only are we going to feel better (and I’m already sleeping better!), but we’re going to save a wee bit of money too!

And now onto next week!

Ah perspective. This is something I can get behind! I already really like taking pictures from unusual perspectives, so this wasn’t a huge stretch for me.

Business end first, you can see previous posts here, find my Mama here, and Shari here.

Since I’m not feeling very wordy today, onto the pics!

The bows on the back of Talya’s new bike.

Big old pine tree in our front yard.

And our beloved bird feeder.

As a bonus, I just really like this one… they aren’t fighting!

Shari has chosen “magic” And since my mama has had access to grandkids this weekend, it seems to me that hooligan pictures should be acceptable!

I’ve talked about food a little bit before now, touched on how we started to eliminate certain things from our diets. Mostly, or at least in the beginning, we had decided to do that simply because of the behaviour of our son being out of control. We did make it a family wide change, for the most part, and especially if we were all together.

We’ve been slacking a little bit lately… letting pre-packaged cookies and crackers sneak in. Especially when we’re at someone else’s house. And, I have noticed that I haven’t been feeling as well with all the cheating that I’ve been doing.

So, along with a big group of facebook friends, we’ve decided as a family to do a 30 Day Real Food Challenge. Locally, we’ve challenged really good friends of ours to do the same thing, and the kids of both families are raring to go.

Inspired by the 100 Days of Real Food blog, we’re opting to use their rules, although we probably won’t be as focused on local meat…. Unfortunately, our funds being what they are, we can only do what we can do. We will, however, be cutting our meat consumption down to only 3 meals a week.

These are the rules,

What you CAN eat:

No refined grains such as white flour or white rice (items containing wheat must say WHOLE wheat…not just “wheat”)
No refined sweeteners such as sugar, any form of corn syrup, cane juice, or the artificial stuff like Splenda
Nothing out of a box, can, bag, bottle or package that has more than 5 ingredients listed on the label
No deep fried foods
No “fast foods”

(click anywhere on the rules to be taken to the originals that have loads of additional links in them!)

Now, again, this isn’t going to be a huge stretch for us. Altho planning for when we’re out is going to be a bit trickier. It’ll be good to have a challenge to keep us on track, and I do hope to blog a bit about our progress!

The start date will be August 1st, 2011. Last night Ja and I went through our big freezer to see where we were at, and tossed a lot of “unknown” stuff. Today, I intend to go through the fridge and the cupboards in the kitchen. We only have a few things that don’t fit into the rules, and those things will be going to the food bank. (Canned brown beans comes to mind)

There is a huge Obesity Epidemic in Canada and the US, and that is due largely in part to the easily accessible cheap processed foods that most of us have started eating on a regular basis. It actually makes me really mad that most of the time, it’s cheaper to go to the grocery store and buy a case of Kraft Dinner than it is to buy fresh local fruits, veggies and meats. Not to mention that a lot of people don’t know how to prepare whole foods, and consider Hamburger Helper a down home meal.

Our health is worth making the effort here. And that’s what we’re going to do. If you’re interested in joining us, leave a comment, or join the 30 Day Real Food Challenge on Facebook!