Tuesday, January 23, 2007

Testimony?

Have you ever thought about what your "testimony" is?

All Christians have one... but in reading some other blogs today, I realized that some Christians feel as if they don't have a very good testimony because it's not something that is "exciting"... like someone who was transformed from a life of crime or man that has turned away from homosexuality and now has a huge mission. But, what I think that people fail to realize is that you don't have to have some BIG testimony that you write books about. I mean, look at our every day lives as Christians. Many of us don't even think about our day, because we have no real control over it, so we take it as it comes and pray for strength to get through whatever life slings our way. But did you ever stop to think that YOUR testimony may be what someone needs to hear that is in the same position as you once were?

I look back on my life and see the many mistakes that I made and I don't want my children to make the same kind of mistakes. If I had had a stronger relationship with Christ and truly understood what that meant, then maybe I would not have made many of those mistakes. It wasn't for God's lack of trying... I mean, he gave me several opportunities, but as I got older, my family did not make it something that was part of our everyday life in the way that I do today. We said prayers at the dinner table and at bedtime, but never really understood why and how powerful prayers are, until now.

It took a horrible divorce from a cheating spouse when I was 28 years old, to really open my eyes and turn EVERYTHING over to God. I struggled with ever wanting to marry again since I didn't believe in divorce and I didn't have any children. The more I turned over to God, the more He opened my eyes to His plan for my life.

It still amazes me every time He shows me something new. For example, I have had a lot of health problems over the past couple of years and have really wanted to be a stay at home mom with our son, but just didn't think that it was possible. Finally, after the "last straw" in the summer of 2006, I prayed a very specific prayer... "God, please show me what it is that you want for me...show me and I will follow whatever it is...make it VERY CLEAR to me so that there will be no doubt in my mind what it is that you want me to do...and let me be able to pay off ALL of our debt, including our new home mortgage within 5-7 years so that we can do more of YOUR work in our community & church" I found out the very next morning that my department was being done away with and I would be without a job/income sometime after the first of the year & that the severance package was not going to be that great. Well, I laughed because I knew that this was definitely an answer that I had been praying about, since I had started an at home business and really preferred working from home anyway. So I went home and prayed about the severance package and a couple of weeks later, I found out that it changed to a much better package. ; ) Funny how He works, huh?

When I returned to work after the holidays, I didn't find out until mid January that my last day would be March 18th and I would have an income coming in until the end of May... plenty of time to build my home based business and more than replace my income. WOW! God is so good! He eases our minds before we even can think about it!

So... don't hesitate to share your "testimony" with whomever God puts on your heart...you never know who you may be helping!

Put Christ at the center of everything in your lives! He will NEVER fail you.

Thursday, January 18, 2007

Oversize T-shirts and the like

Life is good!

I had to laugh, today.... I took a new extra work t-shirt home to my 2 year old last night (2 of the same shirt) Well, after he saw them he had to have me put one on him after his bath. So he slept in this really huge, adult size small, t-shirt and when he woke up he told me that he wanted to wear it to school... LOL Needless to say, we had to put the other one on over top of his clothes today for him to wear it at school. 2 years old!!! And he already has a mind of his own. My mom says that I am getting back what I gave all of those years ago. ; )

We are supposed to get snow today. I wish we WOULD! Everyone I know has been sick with one thing or another and it's because it has not gotten cold enough to kill off some of these germs. Little guy is still on breathing treatments. I don't know how some parents do it. I mean, I have insurance and the RX was still over $100... and that is just for 10 days. I sure am glad that he doesn't need them that often. I think we would go broke.

Tuesday, January 16, 2007

Wonderful Weekend!

Well, we had a wonderful weekend! My birthday was great! We spent time with each other and my husband got me the most exquisite bouquet of flowers... Gerbera Daisies, roses, cala-lillies, pink day lillies, wow~! His mom is a floral designer & he had her create it for me. My mom got me the prettiest Garnet earrings & card, and from my little guy, I received earrings, a necklace, & 3 bracelets. My mother in law also sent me the most beautiful bamboo plant! (Finally something I can't kill, LOL)

Sunday was really nice. We had friends in from NY and they brought me a birthday cake & icecream! Our son had the best time too! He really misses them. They just moved back to NY last Fall. We ALL really miss them.

So, how was your MLK Day? DH had to work, and I spent the day with a sick little guy. Breathing treatments and the whole works. This weather has really been the pits lately. I wish it would get cold enough to kill off some of the germs that we have around here! He has kept a cough all winter long. We finally got to go out for dinner last evening to our favorite local cafe, Hatcher's Diner. We were hoping to see Ms. Sylvia, so that our little guy could tell her hello, but she wasn't there.

Friday, January 12, 2007

Aspartame, Allergies, & Non-Stick Cookware

It's really funny ~ my step-sister has always been BIG into environmental issues and safe products, but now that I have a child, I REALLY see the necessity in it. I mean, now I won't use cooking pots & pans that have the non-stick stuff in it, I also won't re-heat my food in the microwave inside of a plastic container, we drink only well-water. I buy my vegetables from local organic farmers and the meat I purchase is hormone free. The reality of this is that the items do not cost any more than what we would spend at a local grocer for items that were not as safe and I am doing something much better for my family.

I was tested several years ago for allergies and found that most of what I was eating, I was allergic to. Ironic, huh!?! Beef, Potatoes, Citrus, Cinnamon, & Peanuts. This also caused me to gain an exhorbitant amount of weight over the years. I had not realized how something so trivial could be so important to my health. When I stopped eating the things I was allergic to, I started to feel better & slowly weight began to come off.

Then, a little over a year ago, I stopped drinking diet soda because of several articles that I had come across touting that aspartame was not good for you and could cause problems with your health. I had been having problems with my knees all of my life & drank mostly diet softdrinks...after a few weeks without any, I NO LONGER HAD KNEE PAIN!!! I have been pain free since then!

Unfortunately, I turned to REGULAR soda shortly after that & gained weight...so, I started drinking only water & unsweet tea and slowly removing refined sugars from my diet and anything that had "high fructose corn syrup". I have lost 70 punds in one year from making these simple changes...and I NEVER FEEL DEPRIVED! I actually feel a million times better than I ever have! I recently proved to myself AGAIN why I try to stay away from refined sugar... we stopped at a local ice cream parlor that makes their own icecream...I decided that I would get a small scoop of their chocolate rasberry truffle... within an hour I was feeling yucky & ended up taking a nap for 2 hours...Turned in to a very VIVID reminder of why I don't eat this stuff anymore!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

My son , husband, & I have issues with asthma type symptoms & allergies and my son & I have very sensitive skin.

I noticed that every time I would use any type of cleaning products throughout the house to clean, that we would all have some type of problem... whether is was my husband having difficulty breathing, my son coughing, or our skin producing a rash. I searched & searched for ways to clean without using toxic chemicals, but could not find anything that worked very well. Then I remembered my mom using some products when I was very young & they always worked and did not cause any negative reactions. So, one day while looking for a way to work from home, I got a phonecall from two ladies that "re-introduced" me to those products!

Now, I can safely say that my home is as clean as ever, we are not having ANY negative reactions to my cleaning products, and I am earning a respectable income by sharing this opportunity with others!

Evidence Mounts That Trace Chemicals CAN Harm Fetuses and Children

Evidence Mounts That Trace Chemicals CAN Harm Fetuses and Children

Are Our Products Our Enemy?Evidence Mounts That Trace Chemicals Can Harm Fetuses and Children By Elizabeth Weise, USA TO (Aug. 3) -

Like the glint of a knife in the dark, a laboratory accident in 1998 helped scientists realize that some chemicals commonly used to make life more convenient can be health hazards.
Since what they still call "the disaster" in geneticist Pat Hunt's lab, more scientists have come to suspect that, even in tiny amounts, some of the chemicals that keep our food fresh, our hair stylish, our floors shiny and our fabrics stain-free might be confusing our hormone systems and derailing fetal development.
Hunt says she's not the only researcher who has come to study these chemicals - called endocrine disruptors - because she got "smacked in the face" by an unexpected result. "Almost everybody in this field was drafted into this, but we feel we can't leave this area, because if this stuff is dangerous, then we need to know a whole lot more about it."
Here's what happened seven years ago at Hunt's lab at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland:
While researching why women miscarry because of chromosomal abnormalities in the fetus, Hunt found that the eggs of the mice she was studying were inexplicably developing serious chromosomal problems.
It took months for Hunt to realize that the problem was caused by a temporary employee's error. "He had two bottles of detergent, one for the floor and one for the cages, and he picked up the wrong one."
The harsh alkaline floor detergent caused the plastic in the cages to begin to disintegrate, which leached a chemical called bisphenol A into the animals' food and water. Suddenly, 40% of the eggs had chromosomal abnormalities.
The question this posed for scientists: If plastic can do this to mice, what dangers do people face?
Out of Sight
You can't see them. There's no way to tell from a product label whether they've been used. And they don't appear in every variation of the same kind of product. Scientists are not always sure how they are transmitted from product to person.
These man-made chemicals are endocrine mimics. By sheer chance, their molecules are perfectly shaped to form keys that open the hormonal locks that control the proper development and function of our bodies.
They may do little harm to adults, but evidence mounts that they can wreak havoc in the development of fetuses and children:
-- Ana Soto, a professor of cell biology at Tufts University School of Medicine in Boston, found that exposure to bisphenol A, a common ingredient in plastics such as reusable water bottles and the housing of laptop computers and in resins that line some food cans and dental sealants, can change the course of fetal development. Fetal mice developed tissue associated with higher rates of breast cancer later in life. Soto's findings were presented in San Diego this summer at the yearly meeting of the Endocrine Society, the largest professional organization of endocrinologists.
-- Exposure to phthalates (pronounced THAL-ates) comes from direct contact with products that contain them, such as vinyl flooring, detergents, automotive plastics, soap, shampoo, deodorants, fragrances, hair spray, nail polish, plastic bags, food packaging, garden hoses, inflatable toys, blood-storage bags and intravenous medical tubing, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
"They're all around us, in food, in household dust and in products, but they're invisible." -Shanna Swan, University of Rochester Epidemiologist
Research published in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives by epidemiologist Shanna Swan at the University of Rochester in New York found an association between higher phthalate levels in pregnant women and changes in the genitals in their infant sons that suggest lower concentrations of male hormones and can lead to incomplete testicular descent.
Jim Pirkle, deputy director for science at the CDC's Environmental Health Laboratory, says that while more research must be done to replicate Swan's findings, "The big concern of the phthalates is that they have anti-androgen activity. They get rid of things that are in the testosterone line, the things that make a man a man."
-- In a separate study, Harvard and CDC researchers found that boys in neonatal intensive care units had phthalate levels about 25 times higher than the general population. This is two years after the Food and Drug Administration warned hospitals that phthalate leaching out of plastics used in medical devices carries such a health risk to baby boys that those devices shouldn't be used on babies or on pregnant women carrying male fetuses.
-- Perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) is a building block of chemicals used to make stain-, grease- and water-resistant coatings such as Teflon and Gore-Tex. An Environmental Protection Agency scientific advisory panel recently concluded PFOA is a likely carcinogen with liver, breast, pancreatic and testicular cancer of specific concern. The EPA has not yet adopted the finding and has not set acceptable limits.
-- A study released last month by the U.S. Geological Survey and the City of Austin found that runoff from parking lot sealant, used to protect and beautify asphalt, is a source of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons known to be a likely carcinogen and a possible reproductive toxicant.
-- Research published by Michael Skinner, director of the Center for Reproductive Biology at Washington State University, showed that exposure of rodents to an insecticide called methoxychlor and a fungicide called vinclozolin, both endocrine disruptors, caused changes in mice that affected not just the offspring exposed to the chemical in utero but all males born for at least four subsequent generations.
"If an environmental toxin can cause a transgenerational effect and affect your grandchild, this is a much more major hazard we need to consider in environmental toxins," Skinner says.
Trace Amounts Widespread
Although these chemicals have been widely used since the 1960s, it has been only in the past five or so years that scientists have had tests sensitive enough to measure the extremely low doses present in the environment and our bodies. And they have found that phthalates and PFOA are ubiquitous.
In random sampling of participants in a national health survey, the CDC has found trace amounts of phthalates in all urine tested. In January, the Environmental Protection Agency reported that adults tested in three human biomonitoring studies had trace amounts of PFOA in their bloodstream.
"Certainly, we're concerned about what's happening to adults, but we're especially concerned about developmental exposure of the fetus and young child," Retha Newbold, a developmental endocrinologist at the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, told the Endocrine Society.
"Protective mechanisms that are available to the adult, such as DNA repair, the immune system, detoxification enzymes, liver metabolism and the blood/brain barrier, are not fully functional in the fetus or newborn," Newbold says. "Exposures to endocrine-disrupting chemicals during critical states of development may have permanent consequences, some of which may not be expressed or detected until later in life."
But chemical producers say researchers aren't coming up with "smoking guns," in the words of Sarah Brozena, assistant general counsel to the American Chemistry Council, an industry group. "The International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry did this pretty comprehensive review and decided there was no evidence of humans being adversely impacted by environmental exposures to endocrine-active substances," she says.
The past three years have seen significant advances in "epidemiological evidence and the development of animal models" to help understand how endocrine disruptors work, says Kenneth Korach, director of the Environmental Disease and Medicine Program at the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences.
The means of exposure to endocrine disruptors can be difficult to determine. "It's not like smoking was," says Swan, who did the phthalates research. "They're all around us, in food, in household dust and in products, but they're invisible.
"People don't know when they're exposed. Our old epidemiological tools - interviews, looking at medical records and questionnaires - are useless. We have to look at the body. But it's expensive and hard to get people to give blood."
And if figuring out what a tiny amount of one chemical does is hard, researchers say they have almost no idea what happens when many chemicals interact. "Nobody's exposed to one thing," Korach says. "The problem is we haven't done enough yet to look at combinations."
The Big Picture
Of course, each of these studies is only one small piece in a much larger puzzle that still must be filled out, says Earl Gray, a senior research biologist with EPA's endocrinology branch. "There are things that we know for sure," he says. "It's obvious and has been for a long time that there are effects in wildlife due to endocrine-disrupting chemicals."
In humans, the evidence isn't clear-cut: "A single study doesn't create a disaster; it's a hypothesis that needs to be replicated."
Others wonder why compounds are turning up harmful in some studies, while "every test we've ever done in the past says they're inactive," says James Lamb of scientific and engineering consulting firm Blasland, Bouck & Lee Inc.

Monday, January 8, 2007

On a bandwagon...

I have so many things on my mind today that I feel like I am going to burst. : )
With all of the stuff in the news this morning, it just made my head swim!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

When I was a little girl, my parents, my brother, and I would all go for a "Sunday drive" after church & after we had eaten lunch. Funny... I used to really enjoy those drives, but as I got older, I didn't have time for them. Work around the house, laundry, meal planning for the up coming week. But, this weekend, my husband & I and our son, all took a little "Sunday Drive" and it was so nice to just drive through the countryside, looking at the farms & farm animals. Getting away from the daily grind for a few hours, simply to enjoy each others company.

After the drive it made me realize that too many people have fallen into the same trap that I had fallen into... not MAKING time for the little things in life. It seems we are all caught up in the hub-bub of every day living: work, kids, school, ball practice, soccer games, overtime, etcetera... We get too caught up in the goings on around us, that we don't take the time to see how others live.

I am so glad that my husband and I chose to live in the country. We built a house in the country last fall and my son will have the oportunity to view life in a different way. We have several Mennonite families that live in our area and I believe that it is important that he experience friendships with children from different Christian upbringings. I have alway been fascinated by their way of life and the life of the Amish. It amazes me at how simple they live & how complicated most of us have made our lives with all of the technology today. Don't misunderstand me, I mean, technology is a good thing, but I believe that some parents have let it take control over their families. With all of the video games out there that are so violent, I don't see how anyone could say that they are NOT affecting our children. I feel that is "desensitizes" them to the violence and heinousness of certain crimes.

For example: Look at what happened in Richmond, Virginia New Years Day of 2006. 2 men walked into a middle class home and murdered 2 adults and their 2 daughters. The reason that they gave for choosing this particular house, was that the front door was open. The information that was released after the autopsies was grizzly! It makes you wonder what kind of upbringing these men had as children? This was a crime of convenience and a very heinous one at that! Did they have loving homes? Did they grow up knowing that they were loved?

Take a minute or two today and hug your children! When I saw this story in the paper last year, I had a real hard time letting my child sleep in his own room. I wanted to hold on to him every moment of the day. Unfrotunately, my 2 nieces knew the young girls that were murdered and they took it really hard. One is still having issues about it... and it is a year later.

I pray that God blesses all who read this blog today. Watch over everyone and enlighten us to His plan for us.

Friday, January 5, 2007

What have you done for someone else lately?

Did you do something over the holidays that showed someone that Christ loves them?

Several people that I know volunteered at the local Salvation Army Distribution center over the holidays. A few of them had a "not so pleasant" experience, while others really got to see how much they were appreciated.

The ones with the unpleasant experience said that they had a mom that came to pick up gifts for her child and was LIVID and verbally abusive because she did not get the EXACT bicycle that she wanted. This left a really bad taste in my friends mouth for volunteering there ever again.

This was really an opportunity for her to show the love of Christ....not everyone reacts in that way and there is always one or two people in every family that feel like they area entitled to more or better than anyone else.

The ones with the good experience, had a mother thank them profusely for all of the help that she was receiving by getting the gifts for her children. They were not going to have anything else other than what she was getting through Salvation Army. This really made them happy to volunteer.

It has crossed my mind that we tend to do more for others during the holidays than at any other time. Wouldn't it be nice if everyone gave a gift to someone that they did not know on their own birthday instead of receiving presents? This is something that I am implementing with my child. I want him to experience the joy of giving. I know that family members will get him gifts, but he & I will be going shopping for a homeless person or someone that we know is in need. I want him to see the joy that he can bring to others by sharing God's love with them. Especially with those that tend to get overlooked. God doesn't overlook anyone.

I remember one time, my mom was working in a call center and while she & some of her co-workers were waiting in between calls, they knitted & crocheted winter caps for the homeless. How blessed we are to have a roof over our heads and more than a change of clothes.

Each and every person that we meet we should treat as our brother or sister. God loves us all and he didn't hang out with the "Rich and Famous"... He was around the lowly and despised...prostitutes, beggars, lepers and the like.

Thursday, January 4, 2007

Taking things for granted

So many of us forget to be thankful for the difficult times that God allows to occur in our lives.

I remember hearing that said one Sunday in church when I was much younger in my walk with Christ and I remember thinking.... "are you serious?! Thank God for the troublesome times?!" Well, it was not until a few years ago, that I understood what that meant. God allows troubles to occur so that we will turn to him in our time of need... but we also need to remember to turn to him when things are going smoothly. If it weren't for the difficult times, we would likely begin to take God for granted and never turn to him.

I think that is why so many people today get wrapped up in their own lives and not in the lives of others. They are more concerned with how much they can buy and what car they drive instead of sharing their blessings with others. I am so thankful that my mom did not raise me to be that way. She is such a wonderful example of a loving, selfless, caring human being. She bought some new furniture for her living room a couple of years ago & recently remodeled her living room... well, her furniture was like new & instead of selling it she called Salvation Army & donated it. When the guys came to pick it up, they could not believe how nice it was. They said that they hardly ever get this nice of furniture.... Sad.

I think that sometimes we forget that the money we have is not ours... it is God's. We should remember that when we decide to spend it & be mindful of the needs of others.
That is what He would do.

Wednesday, January 3, 2007

Finally Free!

So . . . . . I decided to start a blog.

Maybe my ramblings can help someone else out there. . . . .

2005 was a really tough year for me "health wise". I was hemorraghing & the doctors could not figure out why. They performed 2 D&Cs and put me on several different medications....nothing seemed to be working. Thank God my OB/GYN shared my case with several other OB/GYNs that she new & ONE of them suggested a different treatment than anyone else...AND IT WORKED! Since January 2006 I have lost 70 pounds and have not had any more trouble with hemorraghing. I feel like a new woman! I had almost forgotten what it felt like to be alive.


In May 2006, I had to have medication changes and was out of work for 3 months. Which made for a strange return to work. I returned in August & found out in October that my job of 9 years would be ending sometime after the 1st of the year. Our whole department was dissolving & several of us would be placed elsewhere in the company & others of us would not.

Funny. . . . I had been praying the night before that God would reveal to me what he wanted me to do with my life for Him. Should I stay at my day job or continue to persue my work from home ventures? And if so, how fervently?

Looks like I got my answer! Thankfully, I will get a small severence package. But in the mean time I am spending my spare time in the evenings working on my home based business. I have always dreamed of leaving the "Corporate World" and the long commute to work ( 50 minutes one way!) I just never thought there would be so many options out there! Honestly, I was always afraid that I would not have a "steady" income...but he truth is, you never know when you may get laid off when you are working for someone else. At least now I have control over how much I make in a month & God has put PEACE in my heart so that I do not concern myself with finances. (We just built a house in Dec 2005)

Now, I have my health back & am bouncing and full of energy. I have 2 wonderful home based businesses and my husband will be able to quit his full time job by this time next year so that we can devote our time to our family, church, & community.

Feel free to leave comments or email me.
Have a BLESSED Day!
Christian Gifts Of Faith

Support White Boxer Rescue!!!