I’ve been on Weight Watchers now for 2 whole weeks and I’ve lost 9 pounds so far. I’m very pleased with the progress I’ve made. I also feel like my attitude about food is changing drastically. I’ve come to the conclusion that as much as I like mayo on my sandwiches or Ranch dressing on my salad, I’d like to shop from the size 8 rack much more! I’ve been eating mostly chicken rather than beef or pork. And my calorie intake has dropped DRAMATICALLY! I honestly have no clue as to the amount of calories or fat grams I was getting in a day before I started dieting.

After 2 weeks on Weight Watcher’s (and 2 whole weeks without dinner at a restaurant), I felt like having dinner out tonight. I looked online at a few restaurants’ websites to check out menus and nutritional facts. Menus for different places are easy to find, nutritional facts… not so easy. Our favorite place to eat for a long time has been Chili’s Bar & Grill. There websote is full of information. The full menu is available online as well as a pretty complete list of nutritional facts. Let me just say that I could have lived the rest of my life NOT knowing the fat content of the meals served at that place! Not to mention the calorie counts. And that’s just in a main dish, not including any appetizer or dessert. David’s Chili’s favorite, the mini-burgers contained around 1900 calories and 110 grams of fat!! The Bottomless Chips & Salsa contain 480 calories and 39 grams of fat. Our family usually downs two of these!! You could always go with a nice healthy salad, right? Wrong! The Grilled Chicken Caesar salad at Chili’s is over 700 calories and 42 grams of fat! So, if I went to Chili’s and order our usual appetizer and a “healthy” salad, I’d have about 1200 calories and 81 grams of fat sitting in front of me (and I would have eaten it all, and then some)!!

We ended up deciding on Applebee’s because they have items on their menu that are “Weight Watchers Approved”, including the point value for those specific items. They also have a section of their menu in which each dish is under 550 calories. Once there, I chose the Italian Chicken & Portobello Sandwich w/ steamed veggies. Only 7 points! I must admit, eating steamed veggies without butter is going to take some getting used to!

In case you’re interested, I am posting the url to Chili’s Nutritional Facts. Beware! There are some things you can’t un-see!

http://www.chilis.com/EN/Nutritional%20Information/Chilis_Nutrition_Menu_Generic.pdf

I started going to a Christian church when I was around 8 or 9. I’m not sure. I know it was after I made my First Communion in the Catholic church. And ever since then, I have heard the phrase “God is Love.” And I’ve aways believed that. The sending of His son, the dying to save us, the forgiveness of sin, all of it, shows us that God is a loving God. But I’ve also been aware of the vengeful God of the Old Testament that lays waste to entire civilizations, and two seemingly very different personalities of God are hard for my human mind to reconcile.

While driving in my car today, I was listening to a fairly new cd I bought a couple of weeks ago at my local Christian book store. The song is about the love of God. It’s got a catchy tune and I’ve been singing along with it since I bought it. But today as I sang along, I seemed to “hear it.” The hearing that the Bible talks about. “He who has ears, let him hear” kind of hearing.

The songs says:

Love is here

Love is now

Love is pouring from His hands

From His brow

Love is near

It satisfies

Streams of mercy flowing from His side

This is My commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.- John 15:12

I know that, as Christians, we are called to love one another as Jesus loves. Wow. That’s a tough one. Loving people is hard for me sometimes. Don’t get me wrong. My family. My friends. Those are easy. I’m programmed to love and care for them. They love me back. It’s a rewarding relationship with these people. Even the ones I disagree with, I can love easily. I can say, “Yeah, but they’re my …, so its ok. I love them anyway.” “Yeah, he/she’s crazy and maybe not too bright, but I love him/her anyway, because he/she’s my… .”

But when it comes to loving people outside my little box, it’s a totally different story. Some are easy. Almost as easy as my friends and family. Christmas comes and its time to help orphaned kids with a shoe box full of goodies. SO easy. I’m so willing. I know that I would want someone to do this sort of thing for my kids if they were in that situation, so it’s a no brainer. Those kids, dealing with things people at that age shouldn’t have to worry about, are easy to love and feel genuine concern and sympathy for. I would do whatever I could to help them. Their plight pulls at my heartstrings. I want to love them.

Homeless people. Abused people. Hurt people. Victims. When you feel sorry for someone, its easy to love them and want better for them. It’s easy to love good people.

Right now, we live in a world full of hate. Seems like everybody hates somebody. Entire groups of people hate other entire groups of people. I’m sure this has always been the case. Human nature and all. But it seems to me like times are especially volatile now, here in our country and all over the world. I could list groups, individuals, clubs, etc. who hate someone or multiple people for days. But to be honest, I could find hate right here in my own self. Do I experience hatred? I do. If God is love and I feel hatred toward someone or multiple “someones”, obviously, it is not from God. I feel hatred for different reasons. One is fear. But…

For God did not give us a spirit of timidity (fear), but a spirit of power, of love and of self-discipline. -2Timothy 1:7

There’s “love” again. And no fear. This is a high calling. To love and not be afraid. To discipline myself enough to love people who are hard to love, maybe dang near impossible to love. In today’s world, it’s hard not to be afraid. Politics, finances, war, terrorism, disease… take your pick. It’s all scary.

And we aren’t just called to love, but we’re called to love as Jesus loved. Jesus loves still. It doesn’t matter what someone does, Jesus loves them. As he was dying, he granted forgiveness. I don’t know many people who are capable of such a thing. Its an amazing thing. Imagine people hurting you in horrible ways, hurling insults at you and hating you as you die, and you love them in the midst of that, forgiving them when they don’t even ask for it. Wow. Hard to even fathom for me. Imagine someone doing these same things to your child and forgiving them and loving them anyway. That one’s even a harder pill to swallow for me. That’s the love God is capable of. My human mind isn’t capable of understanding that, but I’m called to love. I’m called to love people I don’t like. I’m called to love people who are worthy of hate, because I, myself, would be worthy of hate without Jesus. I am called to love people so that those people can see Jesus. I am called to love people who hate me. I am called to love people I strongly disagree with. It will not be easy for me. It will require me praying that God grant me this ability; to allow His love to flow through me to these people.

WWJD has been popular over the past few years. What would Jesus do? But often, I think people don’t really want to do what Jesus would do, because it won’t be easy all the time. In every circumstance, Jesus would LOVE.

He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love. So, beloved, let us love one another. I John 4:7-8

I started Weight Watchers this past Friday. As of today, I’ve lost 4 pounds. I am stoked!! I’m doing it online rather than going to the weekly meeting and keeping track of my points with the online tool. I went grocery shopping yesterday, choosing low-fat or low-calorie foods. I picked up a bunch of Smart Ones frozen meals and a few Healthy Choice ones as well.

I’ve got a bunch of weight to lose. But 4 pounds in less than a week is quite encouraging. My mom is doing it with me and having a diet buddy makes it much easier (and more fun). My husband decided to go ahead and do it too, even though he doesn’t really have weight to lose. His support means a lot!

I’ll give updates on my progress as I go.

As of this Monday, the local public schools are back in session. So, rather than put off the inevitable, I went ahead, sat my kids down that morning and got them working once again. Three days in and everyone is settling back into the schedule pretty well.

The first day was rough for Anna, my 7 year old (who will be 8 on Sunday). She does not like reading at all, and when she saw that I had assigned 18 pages in a chapter book, she had a small break down. After 2 months of a summer break full of lazy mornings and very little reading, I noticed that she seemed to have forgotten every reading skill she ever acquired. So, I sat with her and we grabbed a much easier book and she read it to me as I quizzed her comprehension. After that, she seemed much more at ease and ready to go. Leah, my 9 year old, has similar issues with multiplication and division. I can tell we are in for lots of memorization and timed tests to get her more than familiar with her facts, since we can’t move on until she masters those. My oldest, Jacob, seems to have fallen right back into school with no issues whatsoever. However, the girls’ reluctance got me thinking that a long summer break isn’t in their best interest. I’m thinking a better idea might be more frequent, shorter breaks throughout the school year.

I think we’ll do about 3 weeks for Christmas & New Years, 3 days for Thanksgiving, 3 weeks in early June, a fall break in September/October (maybe a week or so), and a nice spring break. Of course, days like Memorial Day, Labor Day, Good Friday, etc. would be single days we could take if we wanted. The kids would end up having more actual school days in the school year, but they’d never have a long stretch of nothing academic when they might forget the things they’ve learned.

It’s nice to get back into the groove of school. No more lazy days! Now to find some fun and educational projects for the kids to do over the next few weeks!

I found this shirt at Walgreens the other day and got such a kick out of it. Of course, I had to buy it. I got some cute pictures of Ella wearing it. She makes the cutest faces!

Leah needed a haircut in a bad way. We went to Studio 11 in Covington. My friend, Brandy, owns the place and did the cut.

David & I took the kids to Chuck E Cheese this past Wednesday. I found a few coupons online, printed them out and brought them with us. David’s brother, his wife and their 2 kids, as well as my mother-in-law, came with us. David & I bought 2 pizzas, 6 drinks and 50 tokens for a grand total of $32. I was really impressed by the price. We can’t even got to Chili’s and get food for everybody for that price, not to mention the games. And if we decided to go to the movies it would cost us way more than that, especially if we got popcorn and drinks. I’m not sure what the price would have been if I didn’t have the coupons, but they are very easy to get on the internet.

Jacob & Leah have been involved with children’s theater since January of this year. There is a local theater group called CAST and they put together plays & musicals for kids by kids. So far, Jacob has been in The Apple of Contentment and Stuart Little: The Musical. Leah also did both of those plus a showcase full of Broadway tunes. In June, Jacob will start rehearsals for Into the Woods in which he is cast as Rapunzel’s prince. Leah will be starring as Duchess in AristoCats. I can’t wait to see both of these shows! The kids love it and I love watching the shows!

A little stray cat we adopted turned out to be carrying 6 precious little babies. If you are interested in giving a loving home to a sweet kitty, Let me know! They are 4 weeks old right now. We have 3 girls and 3 boys.

I’m sitting here with my kids and a friend’s kid watching Disney Channel. Handy Manny is just coming on. I realize that this is one of three shows on tv that introduce children to the Spanish language. We’ve got Dora the Explorer and her male counterpart (and cousin), Diego and then Handy Manny and his talking tools. I’ve also noticed we’ve got Kai Lan, who teaches kids some Chinese words. I’ve only seen Kai Lan twice. One episode was about riding bikes instead of driving cars and the other episode was about giving people choices because it makes them happy. Political children’s programming…. ??? WTH… I’m just sayin’.
Gone are the days of great cartoons like Tom & Jerry or Popeye the Sailor Man. No political correctness there. They’d beat each other with frying pans, shoot guns, drink alcohol and whistle at the pretty girls, and of course, you’d have the occasional racial stereotype thrown in for good measure (can you say Speedy Gonzales?). Gotta love Cartoon Network for continuing to show the old gems from back in the days when Cookie Monster still ate cookies at lightning speed instead of calling them a “sometimes” food.
Ah, the wussification of America. Indoctrinating our children with tolerance and political agendas before they can walk. And here I thought I had to worry about the dvd’s I rent. LOL I’m being over-dramatic… but not very.