Time for More Weight Loss

So, I’m off to a good start.  Yesterday was a total day off because Sabbath always is.  But, starting today I’m transitioning back into strictly healthy eating. I had my green drink – with oranges from my tree and chard from my garden (thanks, Mom – those chard plants are the best ever!)  and I did a 1 hour elliptical workout.   Yay!  Tomorrow I start a 3 day juice cleanse.   Jim is going to do it with me, too. 

Then after that it’s a strict Eat to Live diet for a while.  I lost 40 pounds last year and kept them off.  This year I’d like to lose 50 and keep them off.  I’m thinking if I lose 50, I might be at a good place.  But, we’ll see how I feel when I get there.  

I know when I did this last year I felt really good.  Not just the weight loss, but health in general.  It’s amazing to me how hard it is to eat healthy when there is junk around.  Even though I know I’ll feel better if I don’t eat it, I eat it anyway.  So, I’ll try to document this time how I’m feeling when I’m eating better. 

The nice thing is that doing ETL last year really changed my eating habits.  When I’m not eating strict ETL, I still eat totally different than I did in 2009.  Lots and lots of veggies, plus fruits, grains, nuts and seeds.  When I’ve gone a couple of days without many veggies (due to busy-ness or junk food availability) I start to really crave some seriously healthy food.   So, I’m back at it...

Unschooling

I'm reading "The Unschooling Handbook : How to Use the Whole World As Your Child's Classroom." It reminds me of what I love about homeschooling. Every now and then I start straying back toward a more textbook style of education.  Then I just need to read a book like The Unschooling Handbook to get me back on track.

The more book work I add, the more stressed out I get :) The other day was great. We did calculadders, then I read Story of the World while they colored in historical coloring books. Since we are just beginning US history, I hung a US map and started reading “Paddle to the Sea”. We talked about the Great Lakes.

Paddle to the Sea mentioned a wolverine and Lucas went to the computer to look up wolverine. While reading about a wolverine, he saw "caribou" and looked that up, also. He was reading animal facts to Elijah because Elijah wanted him to "learn it to me". And Arianah drew her "A" and showed me all the things she was writing. In the meantime, Rebekah is busy looking at poses and other things to help her in her photography shoots.

That was just an hour snippet of what we did that day. But it makes me happy to take note of the education that goes on when I make my lesson plan a guideline.  The kids love learning and, when facilitated well, they can learn a lot.

Calculadders

I found something else for homeschooling that seems to be working well.  The kids have never done very well with memorizing their math facts.  I have seen Calculadders in various catalogs for years.  I finally decided to try them and they work really well.

It's a quick speed drill for math facts.  Each one page drill is designed to be finished in 2-3 minutes. You do the same page over and over until it is completed in the time frame and without error.  The kids still enjoy them, even though we've been doing them a couple of months.  And, they're actually making progress.

You can buy Calculadder books, but I bought them on CD.  It's really easy.  Each  morning, I simply print up one worksheet for each kid.  They do the worksheet and I correct them.  The program provides a great record keeping sheet for their progress also, so I have it all at my fingertips.

Pencils & Erasers

Why is it that you can never have enough pencils or erasers in the house?  No matter how many we have, there is always someone that can't find a pencil or an eraser.  So, I bought this box of erasers.  There are 144 in the box.  I wonder how long they will last.

Scripture Memory

I finally found something that works for scripture memory.  I am so excited!  I got the idea from this website: http://simplycharlottemason.com/timesavers/memorysys/

With a simple 3x5 card system, we have memorized several verses already.  And, the whole family is doing it.  I have tried different things for years, to no avail.  The plan always went by the wayside.

I have done a couple of things to the instructions on the website.  First of all, I added one more divider.  As I find verses that I want to memorize, I write them on a card and put them behind this divider.  One of the problems I had in the past with memory verses is that I would need a new one and I wouldn’t have one handy, so we just ended up not doing one.  Now, I have a stack of memory verses waiting their turn.

The other thing I added is a couple of large copies of the verse.  I hang one on the bulletin board in the school room and one where it is visible from the dining table.  Originally, I had some in different areas of the house, but we found the only ones we looked at were in the school room and in the dining room.  So, during school, we review the current verses. The readers can easily read the verse until they have it memorized.  Then, they recite the verse. The non-readers are prompted by a reader, so they can memorize the verses. Then, I review the past verses from my card file.  At meal times, the whole family reviews the memory verses. 

This system has been working great for us. I’m so happy to find a system that works.

Sukkot - A Time of Refreshment

Acts 3:19

Times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord

Sukkot is a glorious example of finding a time of refreshing in the presence of the Lord. It’s hard to explain how incredibly blessed we were in so many ways as we celebrated Sukkot together. We had times of corporate worship, praise, dancing and study of the Word. And, in between those group gatherings, we could always find somewhere in the camp where someone was enjoying praise, worship, dance, fellowship, study of the Word and, sometimes, just plain old relaxation and recreation. Funny how the main thing He tells us to do during Sukkot is to rejoice. We definitely did plenty of that!

We enjoyed living together in unity as family. We rolled out of bed and stepped out of the tent and we were with 150 of our closest family members. We brushed our teeth at the same sink. We got by with 2 showers, 3 toilets and 4 port-a-potties. (That, in itself, is amazing!) We shared our meals, taking turns cooking for the whole family and serving one another.

Everyone was free to share their gifts – serving, teaching, singing, dancing, facilitating, organizing, etc. Bring a gift and share it with others. There was such joy in the camp as we freely served one another.

The camp was not without trials and discomforts. We had extreme heat, swarms of flies, bugs of various kinds, spraying of nearby crops, illness, etc. But even in the midst of this, we rejoiced and praised Yahweh. We didn’t let the discomforts get us down (as a general rule). Many of us felt these were a way of Yahweh testing our attitude. Hopefully we passed that test J

It truly felt like a rehearsal for living in Yahweh’s Kingdom. To dwell in unity with so many other believers was wonderful. Relationships were renewed. Healing took place in more ways than one. We could safely leave valuables lying around the camp, whether it was cameras or computers or phones, just as comfortably as we would do that at home. When others were in need financially, physically, emotionally or spiritually, others were ready to give whatever was necessary to help them.

It’s hard to describe the joy and contentment felt as we celebrated this appointment with Yahweh together with so many others. It creates a bond that can only be formed by God’s Spirit. I’m thinking that’s one of the blessings Yahweh had in mind when He invited us to share in this appointed time with Him. (Lev 23:33-43) Our obedience to His call paid off a thousand fold, as it always does.

Why We Strive to Be Torah Observant

Someone on one of my email lists asked this question:

Could you please explain to me why you think it is necessary to observe Old Testament laws in light of the New Covenant and New Testament Scriptures?

This is my response:

It’s a hard thing to explain. I don’t believe keeping the law is necessary for salvation. That is because the only thing necessary for salvation is to accept Jesus Christ as my personal savior.

As a result of loving and accepting Jesus as my Savior and loving my Father and Creator, I choose to obey them to the best of my ability.

If you keep my commandments, you will abide in My love, just as I have kept My Father’s commandments and abide in His love. John 15:10

If you love me, keep my commandments. John 14:15

Now by this we know that we know Him, if we keep His commandments. He who says, “I know Him” and does not keep His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him. But whoever keeps His word, truly the love of God is perfected in him. By this we know that we are in Him. He who says he abides in Him ought himself also to walk just as He walked. 1 John 2:3-6

We choose to walk as He walked. We choose to do what Jesus did. Jesus did not look for an excuse to disobey His Father. He was obedient and followed the law and commandments. Jesus did not celebrate Christmas or Easter or any other pagan holiday disguised as a Christian one. He kept the days that His Father commanded us to keep throughout our generations. (Leviticus 23 shows us that these are God’s feasts, not the Jews’ feasts.) I can’t figure out why I would want to use some replacement holiday instead of celebrating the joyous feasts that God has blessed us with.

We just celebrated Yom Teruah yesterday (Lev 23:23-25) – a day that God has not yet fulfilled the meaning of. It was such a joyous day. We worshipped and praised together with dance and song and musical instruments (Psalm 150). We ate yummy food together. We made a loud noise as we are commanded to do. (The kids loved it. They could yell and blow trumpets over and over again without us stopping them, because God commanded us to make a loud noise. :) We’re not quite sure why that is commanded. But someday God will show us and, in the meantime, we just walk in obedience.

And it shall be that whichever of the families of the earth do not come up to Jerusalem to worship the King, the LORD of hosts, on them there will be no rain . Zech 14:17

People kept the appointed times in the past. We will be expected to keep them in the future. There is no place in the Bible that says we should no longer keep the appointed times that God commanded us to keep throughout our generations (that means ‘forever’, people!). So, why would I not keep them now? Again, I prefer to keep God’s days than counterfeit days. They are an incredible blessing to our family and we anticipate them for months before they arrive

God asks us to not to worship Him the way the pagans worship their God. Yet people use pagan holidays disguised as Christian holidays to worship Him all the time. I would not be pleased if my husband came to me and said, “I am so excited to celebrate your birthday. But, I have decided to celebrate it on my ex-girlfriend’s birthday. It seems like a good day and we always had some really good traditions for her birthday celebration. So, I will take those traditions and use them to honor you and show I love you.” I most certainly would NOT feel loved or honored by that. Christmas is the same thing. The day was originally used to worship the pagan God Nimrod. That is easily found in any encyclopedia. Because of that, we choose not to celebrate Christmas or Easter. (And, because nowhere in the Bible are we told to celebrate Jesus’ birth. It doesn’t even tell us when He was born. If God wanted us to celebrate Jesus’ birth, He would have told us when it was and asked us to celebrate it.)

I am always learning and growing by honoring Him the way He has asked me to in His Word. I don’t have any need or desire to add extra days that He hasn’t requested. We choose to honor Him the way He has asked us to honor Him.

We choose to follow all of the 10 commandments simply because He asked us to. We don’t leave any out for the sake of convenience or for any other reason. We strive to follow all of them, including the Sabbath (sunset Friday to sunset Saturday as He commanded us) because He made it for us. And He said to them, "The Sabbath was made for man , and not man for the Sabbath.” Mark 2:27-28 God made the Sabbath for us! It is His gift to us! Why would I not accept a gift from God!? I think that would be crazy!!!

We choose to follow the laws of clean and unclean meats because God put them in His Word for us. He knows how He made us and He knows how he made those animals. As a result, He knows what is best for us to eat. Research shows that the meats Our Creator has labeled as unclean are unhealthy for us to eat. It’s not surprising to me that He knew that before men did J

I follow other laws in the Bible that people don’t typically follow. I don’t need to go into details. Suffice it to say, I obey Him because I love Him. Simple as that.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I don’t follow any of these laws perfectly – not by a long shot! I fall short every single day, just like everyone else. As a result of falling short, which is ‘sin’, plain and simple, I need the sacrifice of my Savior. So, His sacrifice is very important to me. Without it, I would suffer eternal death, but because He is my Savior, I can live with Him forever. HalleluYah!!

Missi who, along with her family, is excitedly looking forward to Yom Kippur (Day of Atonement) and Sukkot (Feast of Tabernacles) - 8 glorious days of celebrating His millennial rule!!! HalleluYah!