theologista

csaLOVE

2012-01-27T16:25:00.000-08:00

i absolutely *love* my CSA, and i want to share my love for it with you, so that maybe you will go out an join a CSA too (if you live in so cal, you can join ours!).

first of all, what is a CSA?

CSA stands for "community supported agriculture". it is a way of getting produce straight from a local farm, usually through a subscription. most commonly, people subscribe for a whole season and get a weekly share of the farm's produce. in this way you are sharing in the risk of a farm: in good years you get lots of produce, in bad years you get less, but its always local, fresh and delicious.

secondly, what is the benefit of joining a CSA, rather than getting produce from a store or farmer's market?

the consumer benefits from a CSA in many ways. the produce from a CSA is often cheaper than in a store, since it is local and in season. it is also more nutritious and tastes better, since it was usually harvested within a few days of coming to you. you also benefit by knowing the growing practices of your farmer: many small farmers cannot afford official organic certification (which costs a lot of money) but may practice all organic methods. you also become more connected with the source of your food, possibly even building a friendship with your farmer.

the farmers benefit by not having to go out and look for customers: when people subscribe at the beginning of the season, they already knows who has paid for the farm's produce. also, they get to hear directly from the consumers, which can be encouraging to them especially when they are putting in 16 hour days at harvest time. furthermore, a CSA cuts out the middle man, so the farmer gets a greater profit from his hard work (many farmers are way underpaid for the work they do, while food companies and grocery stores continue to rake in cash).

where can i find out about a CSA near me?

Local Harvest is a great place to start. if you live in so cal, you can ask me, as i am familiar with several around here, but of course i love ours the best :)

there is a great variety in CSA's: some focusing more on fruit or veggies, some delivering weekly, some bi-weekly, etc. some are certified organic, some are completely conventional, some are bio-dynamic without an organic label. some CSA's require a seasonal subscription, some yearly, and some monthly (although ours just goes week to week). there are even meat and dairy CSA's, though produce is much more common. look around at the options and find what works for you and your family!

why i love our CSA

to be honest, at first i didn't really like our CSA. the veggies that came in our box (lots of strange things i had never made before like kale, chard, kohlrabi) were difficult to cook with and didn't taste very good. but i was committed to the idea of the CSA and this was much cheaper than any other CSA, so i kept ordering.

fortunately, things went up from there. i learned better and new recipes, and i also learned lots of ways to hide strange veggies in recipes that we already enjoy. many things that were formerly weird are now normal parts of our routine. and now, every time we get a box, i smile as i open it, thankful for the delicious and nutritious contents inside.

every week is a surprise. though our CSA does send out an email each week to give you a heads up for what to expect, it still usually varies from what they predict. i love opening a box to see what is inside, creating menu plans for the week in my head.

the box saves time shopping. when i pick up our box, i know that we are set for the most part for veggies for the next two weeks. no deliberating over which veggies to buy because they are on sale, or trying to decide before i go to the store what the menu plan for the week is going to be. one trip to pick up a box and we are set.

the veggies are often heirloom varieties. which means they usually look weird. we get yellow tomatoes and purple basil in the summer. our broccoli is almost more leaf than floret. but i like it that way, knowing that they aren't genetically altered, and that people have probably been eating this variety for decades, or even hundreds of years.

last week, while cutting up parsley, i got stung by a thorny weed. now, the sting wasn't too fun, but i had to smile knowing that they don't use round-up or any herbicides on the fields. which means that weeds will happen. in fact, i regularly find weeds in our boxes, most especially crabgrass.

what could make me smile more than weeds in our box? bugs in our box. they usually hang out in the lettuce and other leafy greens. its not uncommon for a spider or beetle to crawl out while i am washing or chopping veggies. now, i am not a fan of spiders crawling around me, but again, i have to smile that the bugs were not killed by pesticides (which after i ingest them would be slowly killing me too).

i have rather enjoyed learning new veggies. i already fancied myself a pretty good cook, but my horizons have definitely been expanded through our veggie box. my favorite new recipes are turkey-cranberry arugula salad and lemon-nutmeg creamed greens. yum!

i love knowing that our veggies are regularly picked at the peak of freshness and that they didn't sit for weeks in a truck or boat, transported from some far off location. fresh not only means more nutritious, but it also contributes to much better flavor. i have heard it explained that the reason that many people don't like veggies is because they have only experienced flavorless canned veggies, or store-bough produce picked so early it never has time to develop good flavor. i couldn't agree more.

do you order from a CSA? what do you like about it? what do you dislike?

4 reasons to sabbath

2012-01-19T08:38:00.000-08:00

you have probably heard many words to describe people like me. type A. workaholic. highly motivated. productive.

let me put forth a new one: idolator.

to explain, let me back up. i have always been a hard worker. in high school i took the toughest classes, worked multiple jobs and participated in numerous extra-curricular activities, sleeping 5-6 hours per night and often skipping church to keep up with it all.

college was pretty much the same story. i would devote hours each week to my job and school activities, and sunday was my day to catch up on all my homework.

senior year i started dating alex, and we were assigned to plan a spring break mission trip to louisiana (this was around the time that hurricane katrina hit the south and many houses were still in need of repairs). we needed to get together to do some planning, and i suggested meeting that sunday.

"i don't work on sundays" was his reply.

i was shocked. wasn't the whole sabbathing on sunday thing rather old fashioned? do people really even do that any more?

as i learned more, i began to respect alex for his decision not to work on sundays. i couldn't quite take that step for myself yet, but after i graduated college i did start to practice a healthy sabbath every week. and it has become one of my best life practices. at times it is easy, and at times it is more of a discipline, but overall i am so joyful and thankful that one day every week, God not only allows me to rest, but commands me to rest.

i hope that you too have the joy of a weekly sabbath. consider the following:

sabbathing is an active form of trusting God

imagine life when the sabbath was first instituted. most people had to grow their own food to survive. if they didn't grow it, they didn't eat it. farming is hard work, and they needed to spend hours every day working on their farming and tending livestock, in addition to making clothes and many other daily living tasks. if they slacked for even a few weeks, it could potentially ruin an entire year's harvest, leading to possible starvation and death for their family. now imagine those people being told to stop working on their farm one day of every seven. to obey would be a HUGE act of faith in God's provision

in comparison with that scenario, it seems almost silly that we find it hard to sabbath, we who can get food, clothes or almost anything else we want from the store at any time.

but the act of faith remains: to sabbath, we are trusting that God will allow us to get more done in six days than seven. or we need to trust that what we desire to do is more (and unnecessary) than what God desires for us to do. either way, our actions speak louder than words: sabbathing shows more faith than merely saying (or thinking) that we believe that God provides.

the sabbath is a gift

to reject the sabbath is to reject a blessing from God. like a loving father, he knows what we need and had provided it through the sabbath. why would we want to reject such a beautiful thing that he freely gives us?

i really enjoy taking a day to rest each week. i am sad for all the years that i rejected this weekly blessing. in my eyes, this is probably the biggest and most compelling reason that we should take a day of rest.

God created us to sabbath

numerous studies show that taking a day of rest each week is beneficial. conversely, it is also well known that overwork and stress is one of the most damaging factors to our health.

God created humans to sabbath, and when we go against His good design for our lives, we suffer consequences. if God himself rested on the 7th day, who are we not to follow his example? it can only stem from pride.

sabbathing points us forward to eternal rest.

jesus said, "in this world you will have trouble" (john 16:33). work is hard, having kids is hard. for those who have turned away from sin and believe in jesus' gift of forgiveness, there will be eternal rest. i am greatly looking forward to it.

taking a mini-rest each week helps us eagerly anticipate the eternal rest that God has laid out for His children.

to go back to my above word (idolator)... for me, i know that i did not take a sabbath, because my heart was worshipping things besides God (such as good grades, money, and the admiration/respect of others). are you worshipping something besides God that gets in the way of your sabbath?

have you seen benefits in your life of taking a sabbath?

what i have been reading recently

2012-01-18T10:00:00.000-08:00

last week i shared about what i have been watching recently. but i have also been doing quite a bit of reading recently, and i'd love to share that with you too, as i have been loving the books that i am reading.

real marriage by mark and grace driscoll

when mark driscoll writes, i read. i am about halfway thru this book, and i am loving it! mark and his wife grace are honest about their marriage and their sin, and in the process constantly point to God, his good design for marriage and our need for the reconciliation and restoration that Jesus can bring to marriage.

you are a sinner. your spouse is a sinner. jesus can bring you new life in the midst of your sin. jesus can also bring new life to your marriage when you recognize the implications of the good news about jesus's life, death and resurrection in your marital relationship.

the vaccine safety manual by dr neil miller

this is the first anti-vaccine book i have read. it is very eye opening and i am really enjoying it. it is widely researched with over 1,000 citations. the whole vaccine issue is definitely one i am praying A LOT for wisdom on.

thats all i will say, because when i say any more about vaccines, i tend to get a lot of strongly worded comments...

operation world

i love this book! i will be reading it every day for the next year. it is a year long guide to praying for all the nations of the world. God has really used it to remind me of my need to pray for the nations and reinvigorating my desiring to be a missionary overseas.

today, i bought a large wall map, i will probably hang it up in our dining room. this will serve as a visual reminder to pray for the nations, as well as the missionaries we support, and help me to learn more geography.

for the love of God, volume one by d.a. carson

i also love this book! which is good because i will also be reading it for the next year (and then next year i will be reading volume two). the title is funny (not intentionally... but it sounds like something you say when you are frustrated), but the content is WAY deep. it is a daily devotional that goes along with the daily bible reading plan that i am doing, explaining part of the reading more in depth.

what i love about this book (that i find lacking in many devotionals) is that he goes in depth on each topic, mixing historical knowledge with theology with references to numerous other parts of the bible. i also really appreciate that he makes it clear that the whole bible, every page points to jesus and the good news of his life, death, burial and resurrection. because that truly is the main point of the whole bible.

your medical mind by dr jerome groupman and dr pamela hartzband

this is a book to help you understand how you make medical decisions. i don't generally trust doctors, and i like to make decisions for our family from my own research. my hope is that this book is going to help me better this decision making process. i just started it, so the jury is still out on whether i like it or not.

wise parenting

2012-01-17T19:11:00.000-08:00

last july, after we got lovely girl and little man (our youngest two foster kiddos) i started reading thru proverbs, a book of the bible devoted to wisdom.

this september, after esther was born, i again read through the book of proverbs (not even remembering that i had done it last year. you may have already read this post, which was inspired by my reading.

in the past year and a half, i have prayed almost daily for wisdom.

clearly, God has used parenthood to make me see my great need for Him, and especially His wisdom. and for this i am grateful.

good and wise parenting is NOT set in stone. there are many principles to follow (proverbs is a good place to start!) but the practicality of how it plays out in a parents' life is less clear. hence, the great need for prayer.

here are a few verses about wisdom that i like that come from the bible.

"so teach us to number our days
that we may get a heart of wisdom."
[psalm 90:12]

many people float through life, never questioning what comes after. the reality is, life on earth is like a dot on a line that expands to infinity. our time here is short, and then there will be another life.

i want to parent with eternity in mind. i want to number my days on earth (and number my days with my children!) and make each one count towards something significant. the only eternally significant thing i can do as a parent is be used by God to help my children know God through Jesus' mediating sacrifice for sin, that they too might spend eternity with Him.

"the fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom,
and the knowledge of the Holy One is insight."
[proverbs 9:10]

the idea of fear encompasses respect, awe, reverence, worship, trust and submission. what we fear has a great influence on how we live. fear of the Lord means acknowledging our sin and rebellion against Him, and humbly receiving the gift of Jesus, the only payment for that sin. fear of the Lord means following jesus, and regularly reading His word so that we know what that looks like practically. fear of the Lord means getting to relax in His strong arms, knowing that there we are safe. fear of the Lord also means that He has the greatest influence in our life, and not people.

but often times we do fear people instead of God. the bible says this:

"the fear of man brings a snare,
but whoever trusts in the Lord shall be safe"
[proverbs 29:25]

if i am to be a wise parent, i need to fear the Lord, who is good, and not people or situations. noted biblical counselor ed welch puts it this way:

fear in the biblical sense... includes being afraid of someone, but it extends to holding someone in awe, being controlled or mastered by people, worshipping other people, or needing people... the fear of man can be summarized this way: we replace God with people. instead of a biblically guided fear of the Lord, we fear others... when we are in our teens, it is called "peer pressure". when we are older, it is called "people-pleasing".

to be a wise parent, i need to fear God more than anything else. not the "experts" (truth is they all contradict one another anyways!), not my friends, not social workers, not all the well-intending advice-givers who give their multitude of opinions on how to parent (they often contradict as well). i have often felt pressure to parent a certain way to please others, especially social workers (when we had foster kiddos), strangers at the store looking at me when kiddos are throwing tantrums, and people with strong parenting opinions.

buuut... that being said:

a wise man is full of strength,
and a man of knowledge enhances his might,
for by wise guidance you can wage your war,
and in abundance of counselors there is victory.
proverbs 24:5

it is good to get advice from wise counselors. God can use them to guide you well. just keep in mind that they are not God, so their advice should be secondary to the bible, and make sure you do not fall into the temptation of pleasing them. also, make sure you are getting advice from wise people (you respect the way they parent and see good things in their kids), and not convenient people (the people you happen to see the most or talk to the most).

i especially am tempted to think that i know it all, especially because of my proclivity to research things. i can be tempted to think that my head knowledge is better than the years of experience that many around me have. this is sinful, and i have often been humbled to discover that other, more experienced parents know better (who would have though? :P )

lastly, keep in mind...

"House and wealth are inherited from fathers,
but a prudent wife is from the LORD."
[proverbs 19:14]

Lord, let this be true of me!

what i have been watching recently

2012-01-10T19:45:00.000-08:00

i love watching/listening to videos while nursing esther, doing housework, etc. basically, any time i can make use of my brain when my hands are busy :) i thought i would commend a few of my favorites to you.

wondering how the primary system works?

i find the idea of a caucus a little weird. i would not want to have to always make my vote public, and having to be at the polling place at a certain time.

what does God have to say about work? monday morning motivation

this is true of paid work and unpaid (ie being a SAH mom). can't figure out how to embed it, so you can watch it here.

avoid the one exercise that shrinks your muscles and speeds up aging

cardio (such as running, elliptical machine, spinning) isn't good for your health, especially if you are a woman. here is an interesting vid from a doctor who breaks it down.

adequate vitamin d levels would get rid of the majority of colds, flu and possibly 2/3rds of cancer

the more i learn about vitamin d, the more time i spend in the sun (one HUGE benefit of so cal)! here is a great place to start in learning about vitamin d.

jesus storybook bible animated!

jesus storybook bible is prob our favorite kid's bible. now they have some of the stories animated! and read in a cool british voice, which obviously makes them automatically 100% better :)

anything about ron paul

here's one you can start with.

at first this one made me mad. now i just think its hilarious (and the inspiration of this blog title)

ok, i cant resist. one more. the establishment is scared, because ron paul will remove the money IV drip.

aaand one of my fave subjects: raw milk

with the owner of our local raw milk dairy farm!

may i suggest a new year's resolution? shower less. bathe your kids less.

2012-01-01T19:55:00.000-08:00

i have never been one much for showering and bathing. when i was a little kid i hated taking a bath and would try to go as long as possible (a week or more!) between baths. when high school and college came around, i showered just enough to remain reasonably clean and smelling good (maybe 3 times a week or so).

when we got our four foster kiddos, i dutifully instituted nightly bath time. part of it was for good reason: the kids had experienced so much instability that they needed routine in their life, and bath time soon became their favorite time of day. on the other hand though, part of it it was because i felt like that was what parents are "supposed" to do. we kept up nightly baths for six months or so, and then decreased to monday/wednesday/friday baths (bathing four kiddos every night was a lot of work!).

now that esther is around, i usually have to write "bathe esther" on my to-do list. otherwise, i forget.

but as i learn more, i am becoming more ok with infrequent baths. there are many reasons it could be better for you, your kids, your wallet and the earth.

save water

a ten minute shower can use anywhere from 25 to 80 gallons of water. when multiple people in a household shower daily, that can really add up! not only does saving water save money, but it also helps the earth (especially here in so cal, where we are literally sucking the colorado river dry).

avoid chlorine

tap water contains chlorine, a chemical that is linked to increased risk of cancer, miscarriages, birth defects, lowered sperm count and a weakened immune system. chlorine is very absorbable through the skin, which may even be worse for the body than drinking the chlorine. the longer and hotter the shower, the more chlorine your body will absorb.

you can avoid chlorine by getting a shower head with a filter. we don't have one of these (yet- hopefully soon!) so the next best thing for us is to shower less.

avoid soap chemicals

chlorine is not the only chemical your skin absorbs during a shower. most shampoo, conditioner and soap is loaded with chemicals known to be toxic. just like with chlorine, the longer and hotter the shower, the more of the chemicals that are absorbed. you can check here to learn more about what chemicals are in your health and beauty products, and what their effects are.

these chemicals can be avoided: currently i use the no-poo method, washing my hair with baking soda (scented with good smelling essential oils!) and rinsing with apple cider vinegar. and i use dr. bronner's castile soap (made from 100% organic oils) for body and face wash (you can also use castile soap for shampoo, but i prefer baking soda).

save time

what could you do with an extra 15 minutes in your day? whenever you skip a shower, that gives you more time to spend on other things!

better skin

showers dry out your skin. it is most likely caused by a combination of the hot water, chlorine, and harsh chemicals in soap and shampoo. to make things worse, the skin produces extra oil to compensate when the natural oils are stripped away. this usually causes people to feel like they need to shower more, because their skin is so oily. it becomes a vicious cycle.

when you shower less, your skin retains its natural oils, leading to better feeling skin (especially in the winter).

how often do you shower? do you notice a difference when you shower more or less?

new blog feature!

2011-12-31T10:53:00.000-08:00

for those of you who follow this blog regularly, you might benefit from the latest feature: email subscription! with this, you will get an email with my latest posts whenever i post. personally, i use google reader to follow all the blogs that i enjoy, but if you don't have a feed like this, email is the best way to go to make sure you don't miss out on anything!

to subscribe via email, you can sign up in column on the left at the top.

also- someone mentioned trying to comment but the comments not showing up after writing them. if you are having trouble with this as well, let me know (thru facebook or email: sarahdothopedotcosta (at) gmaildotcom). thanks :)

intentional living in the new year

2011-12-28T06:00:00.000-08:00

i never made new years resolutions until a few years ago. even now, i wouldn't exactly call them new years resolutions, more just reflections on ways i want to grow in the upcoming year.

this has been a really healthy practice for me. i love praising God for how he has moved in my life over the past year, confessing my sin of the past year, and praying through ways i want to grow in the coming one, and even setting specific goals for the new year.

if we aren't careful we can just drift through life without ever pausing to reflect. today's culture makes this especially difficult as we have every manner of diversion (tv, iphone, computer, internet, etc) to keep us from thinking. i encourage you to take a mini-retreat sometime within the next week to pause and think about your past year and upcoming year. sit down at home or at a coffee shop with your favorite hot drink; and let your mind go to dream, journal, pray, read and think.

here are some questions you could ask yourself to get your thoughts moving.

thinking through the past year...
what am i thankful for?
how has God grown my character since last year at this time?
what steps of faith have i taken? what has God done through that?
what sin patterns do i need to repent of?
what major events happened this year? how have these impacted me?

and looking ahead to the next year...
what steps of faith is God challenging me with?
next year at this time, what do i want to be true of my life?
what aspects of my character do i want to pray for God to work in?
how can i be a better spouse/employee/parent/etc?
how can i grow in my ministry? who's lives do i want to be a bigger part of?
what is my plan for reading my bible?
what do i want to learn more about this year? what books do i want to read?

i'd love to share with you some of my reflections and goals, in hopes of inspiring your mini-retreat.

this past year, God has grown my character in many ways:
*decreasing my selfishness... i am able to spend much more of my day focusing on others
*helping me to memorize more scripture
*increasing my trust in him, recognizing his sovereignty more deeply, trusting his fatherhood and provision more
*BIG increase in my joy (an answer to prayer! and i am praying that he does more in this area!)
*making the gospel, the good news that jesus saves sinners, the main thing in my parenting
*giving me more opportunities to point to jesus in my conversations with those who don't know him
*increasing my humility, reminding me that the way i do things isn't always THE way things have to happen

this upcoming year, i am asking God to help me grow in these areas:

spiritually [walk with God]
*i want to read through the bible with the m'cheyene schedule, and read from for the love of God daily [i have the book, but you can also get it for free from the blog i linked to.] my goal is to read at least 2 chapters of the bible per day before reading any other books or getting on the computer.
*read operation world daily and pray for the nations i read about
*pray for God to grow my trust in Him, help me to take steps of faith, increase my love for others, increase my wisdom and increase my eternal perspective

vocationally [keeping our home]
*increase the nutrient density in the meals i make by cooking with more bone broth, organ meats, and veggies. i also want to start making water kefir on a regular basis [a wonderful probiotic drink, similar to a natural soda]
*create a housework schedule [i thrive on routine. this should also help me prepare for our family size to grow]
*start getting up at a regular, early time [something between 6 and 7 in the morning. this will be a must after we get chickens, but i hope to start before that]

academically [reading and research]
*continue to research vaccines
*read nourishing traditions by sally fallon
*read God so loved, he gave: entering the moment of divine generosity by kelly kapic [i asked for this for christmas last year... hopefully i will actually finally read it!]
*read a book about infant potty training [not sure which one yet]
*research backyard chicken-keeping
*research and learn more about herbs and essential oils, in order to incorporate these more in our natural health and wellness regimen

ministry [pointing others to the love of jesus]
*prepare [physically, mentally, spiritually] to welcome another [foster] baby into our home with joy
*i have a goal to have daily interaction with people who dont know jesus. i dont want to be stuck in a bubble of people who are just like me.
*increase my focus on discipleship and building into other women from church, helping them to know and love God more and fulfill their role that he calls them to.
*pray for more opportunities to be involved in our neighborhood and community

ron paul, 2012. yeah, yeah.

2011-12-27T10:24:00.000-08:00

All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident. -German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer.

for years i have been frustrated by politics. i remember when i was little, we had one of those fake school presidential voting things. i voted for ross perot, merely because he wasn't one of the major guys.

when i turned 18, i dutifully registered to vote, exercising my freedom and fulfilling my role as an American citizen. each election i try to research the candidates and issues, and i cast my ballot. however, there is always a feeling of let down after i vote. are things really going to change? probably not, is what i have always felt. additionally, i am especially frustrated by the fact that i will never find a candidate that i fully agree with (or even mostly agree with, it seems).

it doesn't help that we plan to live overseas one day. i guess i like the feeling of escaping the political madness here. (though i have come to realize that as long as i am an american citizen, what goes on here will always effect me)

i dont know exactly how it happened, but there is someone that i am finally excited about this year. really excited about. he's not the savior of the world or even of our country, because the root of all of our problems is sin (only jesus can remove sin and its effects). but i know that things will start to move in a much better direction if he is elected.

that person (you can probably guess if you know me) is ron paul.

and i want to commend him to you. if you aren't familiar with his line of thought, i truly encourage you to study up and learn more about it. before i started to learn more about politics in the past two years, i was fiscally liberal and socially conservative. but now i lean pretty strongly libertarian.

but, labels aside, i want to share with you a few of the reasons that i really like ron paul, in no particular order (with some videos sprinkled in. videos are fun).

1. ron paul supports raw milk freedom.

this is one of MANY freedoms that american people should have (the freedom to consume whatever food we want) that the government tries to regulate.

i find it interesting that the FDA wastes tons of money cracking down on healthy, nutrient dense raw milk because of the extremely small chance of pathogens that may make people sick. however, they completely ignore the epidemic consumption of pop which study after study has shown the massive health consequences from. what is the difference? coca-cola is one of the largest companies in the world and can afford tons of lobbyists and lawyers. raw milk producers are generally small time farmers with no lobbying group and little money to influence congress. (though, to be clear, i think people should also be free to put pop into their bodies, though i personally think its a horrible choice. i dont think the government should have the power to regulate milk, pop or any food. to do so is to steal the liberty guaranteed to us in the constitution.)

more freedom and less regulation means less opportunity for special interests to get their foot in the door in washington. less freedom and less regulation means more wasted government money and more government control over our lives.

2. he supports moving medical care out of the public realm and into the private sector.

i mentioned previously that i used to be fiscally liberal. i used to support obama's health care reforms, but now i have realized that, while they have good intentions, they will never pan out as we hope.

basically any time the government starts to control things, they become less efficient and more expensive. on the more extreme end of things think communism, which has been marked by weak economies and lower living standards than more free economies. any time we move away from capitolism and towards government regulation, things become less efficient.

compare, for example, the electronics industry with medical care. both have seen massive improvements in technology, but health care costs have skyrocketed, while the prices of TV's and computers are always going down. why so? one of the reasons is that the government has a heavy hand in the medical industry (medicare, medicaid, VA hospitals, etc.) but not so in the electronics industry.

another reason, personally, that i support his views on medical care is because i do not agree with much of main stream medicine and i want the freedom to make my own choices in this area. i want the freedom to choose which vaccines to give and when, to treat illnesses homeopathically, and to focus on wellness rather than health restoration. furthermore, i think that lots of americans make stupid choices about their health, and i don't want to pay for the dumb things they do, thank you very much. in fact, alex and i are considering getting rid of our health insurance, but if obama's health care plan doesn't change, we will be required to get it again in a year, which i find infuriating.

to be clear, i agree that it is very sad that many people dont get the medical care that they need. i just dont think that more governement regulation is the answer to the problem.

3. ron paul believes in austrian economic theory.

i almost majored in economics. i'm SO thankful that i didn't.

when i studied econ in high school and college, all of the talk was about keynesianism. they brought up austrian economics on the first day of class and then swept it under the rug like it was nothing to take seriously. alan greenspan (one of the key reasons we are currently in a recession) was revered as practically a god (this is no exaggeration).

long story short, after studying more on my own, i have realized that there is no reason to be certain that keynesianism is true, and all of the evidence that i have seen points squarely at austrian economics being true. some people (like me) are starting to realize this, but ron paul has been saying this for years, and even predicted the economic downturn.

in fact, there are many very specific, and pretty unpopular things ron paul has been saying during his 11 terms in congress and his message hasn't changed much. that's pretty unique for a politician.

[if you don't know the difference between the keynesian and austrian economic theories, google it. its too long to explain here. but to summarize, keynesianism got us into the current economic mess, which runs deeper than most people realize and is being made worse by government stimulus]

4. at age 76, ron paul still exercises regularly, walking and biking several miles a day.

this is more of a personal thing than a political thing, but ron paul still exercises and is probably more fit than many of his opponents. some people have poked fun at his age, but i bet he will outlive many of the people he is running against *cough*newtgingrich*cough*

i guess i just feel like i can trust him more than other candidates because he makes his personal health a priority. it is one of several ways that i can tell he thinks similarly to me.

5. the establishment is scared of him.

do you wonder why media outlets and fellow politicians generally ignore him even as his popularity is growing?

the best way i heard it put is this: the american government is on an IV drip of money. paul will stop the flow. politicians and media corporations are scared of that happening.

6. ron paul is hardcore about personal rights and liberties, including the rights and liberties of unborn babies.

people have a right to live. this includes people still residing in their mother's womb.

i love the fact that as an OB/GYN he can speak to this issue from personal experience. he would still be right even if he didn't have personal experience, but he does have that experience, which is an added benefit.

and just like with so many other issues, he takes this unpopular stance firmly and without wavering, unlike so many flip-floppers out there who just want to say what people want to hear.

i highly recommend this video. definitely my fave ron paul ad:

i miss you, ohio/indy

2011-12-23T14:42:00.000-08:00

it has been great to be back in the midwest. while i love living in california, being away from the midwest for 2 years has made me miss some of the things from here, which i have really noticed this trip back.

i miss the smell of christmas! its not a very specific smell, in fact alex says its more like the feeling of cold air in your nose than an actual smell. either way, when i breathe the air outside, it smells/feels like christmas in a way that i just dont feel in cali.

and there is plenty of outdoor air to breathe, because yards here are frickin' HUGE! we could probably own like 10 chickens with room to spare in an average sized yard here.

and people aren't completely anal about having their yard perfectly manicured, like in cali. i'm sure people also dont send anonymous notes to you when your yard is slightly weedy, telling you to clean it up, or call the city officials and report your property (yes, both of these things have happened to us in long beach). yes, our tax dollars hard at work.

yesterday, alex and i drove ten minutes from where his parents live in indianapolis (a major city) to an organic creamery with 100% grass-fed cows and raw milk products. ten minutes away! and we even got to pet the cows! :D

i usually hate having to go to the store for even the smallest thing during this time of year, but alex and i have had to go to several stores the past couple of days. yes parking was nuts and the stores were crowded, but it felt like normal compared to what we are used to.

this year indiana had a strate budget SURPLUS. 'nuff said.

terror and joy

2011-12-15T10:11:00.000-08:00

in the sixth month the angel gabriel was sent from God to a city of galilee named nazareth, to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was joseph, of the house of david. and the virgin’s name was mary. and he came to her and said, "greetings,o favored one, the Lord is with you!"but she was greatly troubled at the saying, and tried to discern what sort of greeting this might be.

luke 1:26-29

reading this passage this week, i was struck. gabriel, an angel that sits right next to God himself (luke 1:19), comes to mary and basically says "you are favored! God is with you!" and her response is to be troubled.

why is this?

it could be because angels are terror-inducing. unlike the shiny, happy people they are portrayed to be in our culture (for example, in the painting above by famous artist fra angelico), angels are portrayed in the old testament as frightening warriors. people fall on their face when they see angels and are tempted to worship them.

but i think mary's response may be for a different reason. maybe she knows that God has a specific plan for her, and she wonders how painful it will be, ignoring the good that God will bring from it.

when God uses us in a big way, it is rarely a comfortable situation for us. look at the prophets of the old testament: they had to run and hide from those who wanted to kill them, they were often crying or depressed over the state of Israel (God's chosen people group), they had to stand up against masses of people who hated God, they had to go hungry and homeless, and some were killed for speaking the truth. or look at the apostles, the founders of the Church. all of jesus' disciples except for one were martyred (killed for their faith). even while they were alive they were often homeless, poor, persecuted, chased out of towns and beaten for their words about Jesus.

the angel had good news: mary would mother God come to earth! why would mary be terrified?

in truth, mary did end up having a hard life because of the angel's news: she was ridiculed and called a whore for claiming she got pregnant as a virgin, she had to watch her sinless first born son endure an extremely painful execution, she watched many of her people turn away from God. but do you think she cares about that now? no, she is with God in the intermediate heaven, praising Him for what He has done and eagerly awaiting him to remake the earth and remove all the sin so that she can live there again.

are we afraid of God's plan for our lives? this is a good question to ask ourselves. are we afraid to take steps of faith that God is laying out for us to walk in? why are we terrified? maybe it is because we, like mary, may be more focused on the here and now than the eternal joy God is preparing for us. set your eyes on eternity, beloved! "and the things of earth will grow strangely dim, in the light of His glory and grace" (from the song "turn your eyes upon jesus")

a few months later, God gave mary a right perspective on her pregnancy, despite all the hardship it might bring. here is her response:

    and mary said,
    “my soul magnifies the Lord,
        and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,
    for he has looked on the humble estate of his servant.
        for behold, from now on all generations will call me blessed;
    for he who is mighty has done great things for me,
        and holy is his name.
    and his mercy is for those who fear him
        from generation to generation.
    he has shown strength with his arm;
        he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts;
    he has brought down the mighty from their thrones
        and exalted those of humble estate;
    he has filled the hungry with good things,
        and the rich he has sent away empty.
    he has helped his servant israel,
        in remembrance of his mercy,
    as he spoke to our fathers,
        to abraham and to his offspring forever.”

luke 1:46-55

let us praise God like this with mary!

3 breastfeeding recomendations i just dont do.

2011-12-13T21:14:00.000-08:00

1. avoid spicy foods

if you know me, you know that i ~~dump~~ put hot sauce on everything i eat (except for dessert). so did i stop when esther was born? heck no! spicy food is traditional, and in many societies the majority of the food they eat is spicy. women in these societies dont stop eating normal foods when they start to breastfeed, so why should i? in fact, some experts believe that eating a wide variety of foods while breastfeeding gives baby a more versatile palate, making them less likely to be picky eaters in the future. since i make lots of spicy foods, esther needs to get used to the flavor, and the sooner, the better :)

2. supplement vitamin d

doctors are starting to see many babies that are low or deficient in vitamin d. this is a concern, since vitamin d is one of the most important vitamins (from my research I would say it is far and above the MOST important one!), and vitamin d deficiency has been linked to diseases from type 1 diabetes to cancer to eczema to obesity. the solution? recommending vitamin d supplements.

these doctors have one thing right: breastmilk is often deficient in vitamin d. but their solution is wrong. they should be working to up mom's vitamin d (the root of the problem), but instead they take the easy route and prescribe artificial vitamin d (which isn't well absorbed by baby anyways). in addition, they need to encourage more time in the sun so that baby can produce more of his/her own vitamin d.

the problem is, to up mom and baby's vitamin d, they would have to go back on two common medical falsehoods: recommending low fat milk and avoiding the sun.

when esther is older, i will start giving her cod liver oil at some point. but for now, i am concentrating on getting her out in the sun a lot (the best way for her to get vitamin d) and boosting my own vitamin d, so that there is enough in my milk (i do this by drinking full fat milk (raw when it fits into the budget), eating fatty fish, pastured butter and liver, taking cod liver oil, and spending plenty of time in the sun).

3. avoiding "gassy" foods (like broccoli, cabbage, beans, etc.)

again, traditionally people have always eaten these foods. i see no reason to avoid them. some doctors just like to impose lots of arbitrary rules on pregnant and breastfeeding moms. i dont follow them :)

are you an excellent wife?

2011-12-12T23:33:00.000-08:00

"an excellent wife is the crown of her husband, but she who brings shame is like rottenness in his bones." proverbs 12:4

"an excellent wife who can find? she is far more precious than jewels." proverbs 31:10

take the day off from praying for stuff. dont pray for Gods provision of money or health or any tangible thing; pray for your character to be like His. pray that you would become an excellent wife.

what are you waiting for?

2011-12-07T14:14:00.000-08:00

earlier this week, i sent a message to some friends asking for prayer requests. the responses i got made my heart heavy. lots of my friends are waiting for some pretty significant things: employment (in the midst of financial hardship), the salvation of family members, a spouse or for God to move in some specific, much-needed way.

i felt burdened as i read each of the requests, wanting so badly for God to answer, wondering why He hasn't yet.

more importantly than ever, we need to focus on the discipline of waiting this advent season. christians do not wait without hope, we have a Father who is all-powerful and loves us. while we wait, let us pray for God to refine our character. moreover, let us remember what we should be looking forward to most expectantly: the return of Jesus.

i will also recommend a great sermon to you on this topic. many people i know who have listened to it have been greatly impacted. you can find it here.

3 reasons to take daily walks

2011-12-06T14:12:00.000-08:00

ever since we got our foster kids, i have tried to take regular walks, daily when possible. sometimes i walk and pray, sometimes i walk to church, the library, store or the park, sometimes i walk with alex to connect and talk about life and sometimes i walk while talking to a friend on the phone. whatever the purpose, i am coming to realize that walks are great for mental and physical health.

1. walks are a great form of exercise. back in the day when i was an avid runner, i scoffed at the idea of walking being considered exercise. but now i have come to realize that walking is actually one of the best forms of exercise: your heart rate doesn't get so high as to release cortisol, a damaging stress hormone (like it does while running), it increases your endurance and it is low impact on your joints. It is an especially great form of exercise during pregnancy. It is also easier than some other forms of exercise, making it less likely to be avoided.

2. walks help you focus. a walk in the morning can help you think through your plans for the day (dr. ron paul does this. yet another reason i support RON PAUL 2012!!! :) ). a walk in the evening can help you reflect back on how your day went. walking with another person helps you to focus on the conversation. walking while praying eliminates things (like the internet, housework, or television) that distract us away from praying. all of these things are great for our mental health, and walking expounds the benefits.

3. walking increases your vitamin d (which is made from sunlight), a vital nutrient for your health. doctors and scientists are now starting to realize that many americans are deficient in vitamin d, contributing to diseases such as cancer (especially skin cancer... ironic!) and general low immunity, leading to colds and flu (one of the reasons people get sick during dark winter months). they are even seeing a scary return of rickets in children (a disease previously thought to be wiped out in first world countries). to increase your vitamin d production, maximize your skin exposure to the sun during your walks and do not wear sun lotion. even though it is cold, walks are even more important in the winter, for this reason!

for these and many other reasons, i love to take walks! i always feel good when i am done.

how often do you take walks? what do you love about walking? what benefits have you seen in your life?

eating sugar to the glory of God (part 2 of 2)

2011-12-02T13:32:00.000-08:00

yesterday we explored sugar and its effects. should you indulge this holiday season? i would say yes, if you are doing it to God's glory.

how do we eat sugar to the glory of God?

i am writing to christians here, because for me the heart of this topic is purely spiritual. one time, i heard john piper speak about how to eat pizza to the glory of God. he suggested that one way to do this is by not finishing all of your last piece of pizza, just to show that eating pizza is not ultimately satisfying, but that God is (you would have to hear him say it... he put it much better than i can).

i think we should think about sugar the same way. the best question a christian should ask is how can i eat sugar to the glory of God?

knowledge
the heart of him who has understanding seeks knowledge,
but the mouths of fools feed on folly. -proverbs 15:14

understanding what sugar is and what it does to your body is a great first step. we know of lots of diseases (as i mentioned previously) that are caused by or contributed to by sugar. but knowing the physiological effects of sugar helps us to see the underlying mechanisms that lead to the disease (as the disease is merely a manifestation of other things going wrong in the body). the effects of sugar are pervasive, meaning that it effects many systems in the body, which is part of the reason its effects on the body are so damaging. two of the many systems that are effected are gut bacteria and the liver.

sugar and gut bacteria health

sugar contributes to gut disbiosis, a fancy way of describing abnormally high bad bacteria (and conversely abnormally low good bacteria) in the digestive system. every adult has about five pounds of bacteria in their body, most of which is healthy and helpful (even necessary) to our bodily functions. however, sugar feeds the bad bacteria, causing it to overpopulate the body (crowding out the good guys).

the understanding of bacteria in our body is an emerging field, but scientists are starting to see that gut disbiosis interferes with hunger and satiety cues (leading to obesity), immunity (high good bacteria is the first line of defense against outside invaders), digestive health (heartburn and ulcerative colitis are implicated in gut disbiosis), food allergies (low good bacteria leads to a "leaky gut" that leaks the allergens out to the body) and auto-immune diseases. in "gut and psychology syndrome" dr. natasha campbell-mcbride theorizes that gut disbiosis is also a major contributor to mental illnesses such as ADD/ADHD, autism, schizophrenia, diabetes and fibromyalgia.

fructose and the liver

as i mentioned yesterday, the fructose component of sugar is actually toxic to the body, and the by-products of its digestion lead to various health issues. this is a recent discovery by a doctor at UC-San Francisco names Robert Lustig. the science behind it is pretty heady, but i will try to break it down in an understandable way (if you want to see the biochemistry of it worked out for yourself, here is a link. its 90 minutes long. yes, i watched the whole thing).

sugar is made up of two molecules: glucose and fructose (high fructose corn syrup has a similar chemical make-up, about half of it is fructose). fructose cannot be digested in the stomach/intestines like most food is, so all of the fructose we ingest goes to the liver. now, if you have ever take a physiology class, you know that this is pretty much the definition of a toxin (something that the liver has to break down for the body). the breakdown of fructose in the liver has several bi-products, including VLDL ("bad" cholesterol that leads to heart problems), uric acid (which contributes to gout and high blood pressure), free fatty acids (which increases insulin resistance and fat storage) and it disturbs leptin production (the chemical that signals satiety to the brain, telling you to stop eating). these chemicals are the reason that fructose consumption has been shown to lead to hypertenstion, heart diseases, obesity, insulin resistance (leading to type 2 diabetes), fatty liver and increased hunger.

whew! did i lose you there? and that was even the simplified version... long story short, fructose is recognized by the body as a toxin and digested in the liver, which leads to the production of a lot of bad chemicals in your body that lead to various diseases.

"but, wait!" you might say. "isn't fructose the type of sugar naturally found in fruit? doesn't that make it healthy?" yes, fruit contains some fructose. small amounts of fructose aren't bad. before world war I, americans ate about 15 grams per day (mostly from fruit). now we are eating about 75 grams per day (mostly NOT from fruit), and our health has never been worse.

prayer and self-control
it is good for the heart to be strengthened by grace, not by foods, which have not benefited those devoted to them. -hebrews 13:9

knowledge is a good first step towards glorifying God as we eat sugar. you probably already knew that sugar isn't great for your health, but i hope that i have shown you that sugar is actually pretty much horrible for your health. some of you may now be thinking that the best way to glorify God with your body is to reduce the amount of sugar you eat. but you may be discouraged by how hard that will be (especially since, as i mentioned sugar is addictive).

but be encouraged: for the Christian, God has already given us all we need for life and godliness. yes, it will take self-control to avoid sugar, but his Spirit gives christians self control when he lives in us (galatians 5:22-23).

i encourage you to pray. not only seek God for wisdom in this area, but ask him for the self-control to limit your sugar. it will likely be a battle, and it will take God's power to help you turn away from it when your body is craving and needing it. God has made it clear in the bible that He is the one who makes our character more like Himself, and we can ask him to do it.

be thankful, and use sugar well (don't let it use you)
"All things are lawful for me," but not all things are helpful. "All things are lawful for me," but I will not be enslaved by anything. -1 corinthians 6:12

every december for the past 8 years (except for last year) i have had a christmas cookie making party (four times in columbus, one time in germany, and this year will be the second time in california! yay for traditions!). should i stop this tradition?

no way! i have so many great memories of these parties, and they have always been so fun to invite good friends to, and a great opportunity to spend more time with people that i am reaching out to. this is one example of a way to use sugar, without being used by it. there are many other ways: sharing a dessert with friends, celebrating a birthday with a cake, going out on a date and getting ice cream (or if you are like alex and i, make it at home!).

the key is to not be enslaved by sugar (or any kind of food... or anything!). if you find that you are mastered by sugar or that it is not helpful, you may choose to completely give up your right to eat it. another key is to be thankful for it, recognizing it as a gift (and limiting your sugar intake helps you to be especially grateful when you do have it).

there are many beautiful and good ways to enjoy this gift from God. i hope that you are able to eat it to the glory of God this year!

eating sugar to the glory of God (pt 1 of 2)

2011-12-01T21:36:00.000-08:00

the christmas season is upon us. and with it, as many sugary delights as you could ever want or imagine.

the more research that i do, the more that i realize that sugar is one of the most damaging foods to human health. being the very black and white, all good or all bad thinker that i am, it is easy for me to want to completely reject sugar and condemn everyone who eats it (which is pretty much every american every day... especially considering that the government suggests that up to 25% of your daily caloric intake come from sugar... another reason we need to downsize government!! let me step off of my soapbox...)

but it is hard to divorce myself from our sugar-saturated country, especially during the holidays. and the truth is, the more i have thought and prayed about it, the more i have realized sugar is not all bad. nutritionally, it would be hard to argue that it is anything but bad for our bodies. if your sole goal in life is to live as long as possible, avoiding all sugar would probably be a good choice for you. but as a christian, i want to live long and healthfully, without worshiping food or health. i do think that God has given us different foods for different reasons, and one of the reasons for sugar is celebration, which is especially appropriate during this time of year.

the main problem is overindulgence. in america, sugar is a very cheap food item and our bodies are wired to crave it. some health professionals have even gone so far as to call sugar a drug, which is an appropriate comparison in my eyes since it is very addictive and habit-forming, and most people go through withdrawl symptoms when they completely go off of it. moreover, sugar (specifically the fructose component) is now known to actually be a toxin to the body (more on that later), which makes the drug comparison even more appropriate.

because we love sugar and it is cheap, most people eat sugar every day, multiple times a day, which has lead to many of our health problems (sugar has been implicated in diabetes, obesity, multiple types of cancer and there are even theories it is linked to autism). this overindulgence (and potential addiction) is particularly concerning for christians, since we want to show the world that we worship nothing but God, as God is far and above the most satisfying thing on earth.

a better way to handle sugar is (in cookie monster's words) to make it "a sometimes food" (and the rarer the sometimes the better!). not only is this MUCH better for your health, but it also helps you appreciate it more when you eat it (which makes it more celebratory, a much more appropriate use for it).

my journey with sugar

in the beginning of college, i decided to start eating healthfully. unfortunately, my definition of health at the time was very american: low in fat, low meat, with lots of low fat dairy, fruits and veggies, whole grains and carbohydrates. fruits and veggies are expensive, and i was a poor college student, so my diet consisted of a lot of grains (like cereal and bread), which usually contained sugar, or were paired with sugar, for flavor. i knew sugar wasn't incredibly healthy for me, but i justified it as a flavoring aid to whole grains (as well as low-fat dairy, like yogurt). any time was tired or hungry, i turned to my sugar fix, which lead to lots of high/low blood sugar cycles. this happened a lot since i was constantly sleep deprived in college. little did i realize that low-fat dairy and grains are almost the same to the body as sugar (and just about the same amount of nutrients) and so i was truly addicted to sugar.

about a year after i graduated (still eating like this) i began to have really bad GERD/heartburn. at age 23, i was on the strongest daily prescription medicine for heartburn! long story short, i changed my diet pretty dramatically and my health improved. currently, i eat sugar about every other day, and usually in the form of unrefined sweeteners like maple syrup and raw honey (which are slightly better than white sugar, but should still be limited). also, i usually eat sugar in my own homemade items, in which i use much less sugar than store-bought items (or stuff that other people make). i am to the point now where i get heartburn when i eat desserts or sweets made by other people (because they are much higher in sugar), which is a good motivation to avoid them (a blessing in disguise!). however, i do choose to indulge every once in a while, such as on thanksgiving (though i did pay for it the next day... with heartburn!).

why artificial sweeteners are NOT the answer

i have to add this caveat... in typical american form, we want to have our cake and eat it too. in other words, we don't want to practice biblical self-control, but we want to indulge frequently without any consequences. in response, food companies have developed chemicals that taste sweet without the calories or carbs contained in sugar.

long story short, these chemicals are not the answer, and they actually cause WORSE health problems than sugar itself (and interestingly enough, studies show that artificial sweeteners do not aid in weight loss).

the exception i would make is unrefined stevia (read more on that here if you are interested), which actually isn't artificial (if it is unrefined) but usually gets lumped in with chemical sweeteners.

so what is the answer?

glorifying God is the answer. more on how to do that tomorrow.

random updates on life and fam

2011-11-29T19:13:00.000-08:00

*alex has started traveling for his work. its kind of a bummer in ways, but i will start traveling with him from time to time. that's why, this week i am in san jose with him! yay for road trips. this is our first time traveling with kids (we weren't allowed to travel anywhere with the foster kiddos). so far it has been easy, but that's probably because esther is still at a pretty easy stage.

*esther is getting bigger and rounding out. thanks to her nutritious mama's milk :)

*i am going to start giving my extra milk to a milk bank! i could only find ONE non-profit milk bank in all of california. isn't that ridiculous? all of the other ones sell the milk for profit. ironically, it happens to be in san jose, but i can just mail the milk in, i dont have to drop it off (though I could do so now that we are traveling there so often).

*the reason i am pumping milk is to keep my supply up so that i can give breast milk (and hopefully NO formula) to our next foster baby. i like esther a lot. but i am also already looking forward to our next little one.

*i am experimenting with infant potty training, also known as elimination communication or EC. so far, i am pretty encouraged: esther goes about half the time i put her on the potty. i am not completely committed yet, but i have seen enough good that i think we'll stick it out. most likely we wont see results super fast, but if we keep up she very likely could be completely potty trained by 18 months or earlier. i would be ok with that! :)

*this year will be my seventh time having a christmas cookie decorating party! this one might be the biggest. no matter if its big or small, i am pretty excited. :)

*i am spending a lot of time these days researching vaccines. i've found its a pretty hot button topic. that's all i will say, lest i hit any other hot buttons. although, i have noted with interest that the people i have talked to with the strongest opinions on the topic don't have any kids... interesting.

*i am loving this stage of life! i feel very blessed.

organic: why pay more?

2011-11-20T19:59:00.000-08:00

if you know me, you know that three words describe me well: frugal, frugal and frugal.

this is why, until about a year ago, i never bought organic food, since it can cost two to four times as much as conventional. even if something organic was on sale for just 10 cents more than conventional, i just couldn't pay the extra for it.

until i did the research. and i realized that it is worth it to pay more for some foods. i have realized that there are some hidden costs of conventional food... you may think you are saving money, but ultimately you aren't.

i will share some of the reasons that we are transitioning to organic food. my guess is that about half the food we eat is organic (or "wild" or "pesticide free"). i pray that one day it will all be organic (and hopefully mostly homegrown!).

pesticides damage the health of farm workers. if farm workers were upper middle class citizens, we would probably have TONS of laws and regulations about the use of pesticides. since most of our produce is picked by undocumented mexicans, most people don't care about the effect that pesticides have on them. studies show that the children of mexican farmworkers exposed in utero to pesticides have IQ's that drop off dramatically after age 5. their children are also at higher risk for various birth defects, such as spinal bifida. the workers themselves are also at higher risk for cancer and neurological disorders such as seizures and uncontrollable muscle contractions [source and source and source]

legally, organic food cannot be genetically modified. about 75% of grocery store food contains gmo's, and does not have to be labeled as such, so you cannot know what you are buying. eating organic food is one way to be assured of avoiding gmo's.

buying organic often supports smaller, family owned farms. this is certainly not always the case, but organic produce is more likely to come from a small farm, especially if you buy from a farmer's market, CSA, farm stand or u-pick farm.

pesticides are linked to many diseases including cancer, hormone disruption (including congenital hypothyroidism) and brain/nervous system toxicity. pesticides are chemicals that are designed to kill things. it makes complete sense that these chemicals will also damage the health of the humans that ingest them. it makes me especially sad to know that pesticides may be the reason for esther's diagnosis. paying more now for pesticide free food can save you money later on medical bills. aside from money- who wants to be sick anyways? [source and source]

organic produce has higher levels of antioxidants. for example, wild blueberries have almost twice as many anti-oxidents as regular blueberries. why? antioxidants are what help repel the berries' pests. wild blueberries have to work harder to keep the pests away, resulting in higher antioxidants, which are healthier for us as humans. yay! (side note: trader joes sells wild blueberries, which means they are pesticide free, for $1 less per pound than certified organic blueberries. score! :D )

organic produce and meat has higher levels of vitamins and minerals. wonder why people have lived for thousands of years without taking a daily multi-vitamin? the answer is in the soil. farmers have had to work hard to make sure that their soil has lots of nutrients, so that their plants grow well. well nourished soil results in well nourished fruit and veggies, which results in well nourished people. these days, conventional farmers only focus on 3 nutrients, which they supplement artificially (the infamous N-P-K). soil quality has gone down, and produce contains fewer nutrients. conversely, organic farmers usually use quality fertilizers with a variety of nutrients beyond N-P-K, such as manure or compost, resulting in more nutritious produce. the same goes for organic meat, poultry and fish (these are especially high in nutrients when they are wild or pasture-fed/grass-fed). or to tweak the saying, "you are what you eat eats". [source and source] more in depth on this here:

pesticides and herbicides leach into the water supply. it really bums me out that the water we drink that we think is pure can often times be full of chemicals. i recently heard a story on NPR about people in california not being able to drink their well water from their own property due to agricultural run-off from neighboring farms. contaminated water has the same health effects listed above: hormone disruption, cancer and birth defects. [source]

are you building your house?

2011-11-15T12:17:00.000-08:00

"the wisest of women builds her house,
but folly with her own hands tears it down."
[proverbs 14:1]

are you building your house or tearing it down? your heart and actions impact not only your life but the life of your husband and children (and this is true even if you are single... what you are doing now has an effect on the men that you will attract and even your future married life, see proverbs 31:12). fortunately, proverbs [and the rest of the bible] has a lot to say about how we can build our house, by God's grace.

by fearing the Lord

"the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge" [proverbs 1:7]

"in the fear of the Lord one has strong confidence,
and his children will have a refuge.
the fear of the Lord is a fountain of life,
that one may turn away from the snares of death" [proverbs 14:26-27]

by seeking to make our homes peaceful

"better is a dry morsel with quiet than a house full of feasting with strife" [proverbs 17:1]

by speaking positively about our husbands and children to others

"the mouth of the righteous is a fountain of life" [proverbs 10:11]

"when words are many, transgression is not lacking,
but whoever restrains his lips is prudent" [proverbs 10:19]

by speaking positively to our husbands and children

"gracious words are like a honeycomb,
sweetness to the soul and health to the body" [proverbs 16:24]

"anxiety in a man's heart weighs him down,
but a good word makes him glad" [proverbs 12:25]

by rising early

"[an excellent wife] rises while it is yet night" [proverbs 31:15]

by disciplining our children

"whoever spares the rod hates his son,
but whoever loves him is diligent to discipline him" [proverbs 13:24]

by being generous

"[an excellent wife] opens her hands to the poor,
and reaches out her hands to the needy" [proverbs 31:20]

"blessed is he who is generous to the poor" [proverbs 14:21]

by trusting God and not worrying

"strength and dignity are her clothing, she laughs at the time to come" [proverbs 31:25]

"you are [Sarah's] children, if you do good and do not fear anything that is frightening" [1 peter 3:6]

by seeking and accepting mentorship, teaching and guidance from other wise women

"where there is no guidance, a people falls,
but in an abundance of counselors there is safety" [proverbs 11:14]

"whoever walks with the wise becomes wise,
but the companion of fools will suffer harm" [proverbs 13:20]

by loving God's Word, the Bible

"whoever despises the word brings desrtuction on himself,
but he who reveres the commandment will be rewarded" [proverbs 13:13]

"blessed is the man who fears the Lord,
who greatly delights in his commandments.
his offspring will be mighty in the land,
the children of the upright will be blessed" [psalm 112:1-2]

by preparing for the future

"she is not afraid of snow for her household,
for all her household is clothed in scarlet" [proverbs 31:21]

by having discretion

"the simple believes everything,
but the prudent gives thought to his steps" [proverbs 14:15]

"like a gold ring in a pig's snout is a beautiful woman without discretion" [proverbs 11:22]

by being content with what we have

"a tranquil heart brings life to the flesh,
but envy makes the bones rot" [proverbs 14:30]

"there is great gain in godliness with contentment, for we brought nothing into the world and we cannot take anything out of the world. but if we have food and clothing, with these we will be content." [1 timothy 6:6-8]

by providing for the physical needs of our households

"[an excellent wife] provides food for her household...
considers a field and buys it; with the fruit of her hands she plants a vineyard...
she makes bed coverings for herself, her clothing is fine linen and purple" [proverbs 31:15b, 16, 22)

by working hard

"in all toil there is profit,
but mere talk tends only to poverty" [proverbs 14:23]

"[an excellent wife] looks well to the ways of her household,
she does not eat the bread of idleness" [proverbs 31:27]

and what is the result?

"her children rise up and call her blessed,
her husband also and he praises her:
'many women have done excellently,
but you surpass them all.'
charm is deceitful and beauty is vain
but a women who fears the Lord is to be praised"
[proverbs 31:28-30]

lots of reasons that breastfeeding far outshines artificial feeding

2011-11-13T19:56:00.000-08:00

breastfeeding releases oxytocin in the mother, which promotes bonding (this is the same hormone released when you fall in love!), increases maternal behavior and helps the uterus return to its normal size after birth. the uterus of a non-breastfeeding mother will never return to normal, it will always remain slightly enlarged.

breastfeeding calms the baby. feeding from a bottle increases a baby's blood pressure, while breastfeeding decreases it.

breastfed babies are less likely to die before their third birthday.

breast milk has perfectly balanced nutrition to meet baby's needs. artificial milk, on the other hand, is constantly being tweaked by scientists to match breast milk. but it is never as good.

breast milk is always the right temperature and easily transported. there were multiple times with our foster baby girl that i would accidentally leave the house without formula or a bottle... not fun.

breast milk is more digestible than formula. most formula is made from one of the two most highly allergenic foods: cow's milk and soy. lots of artificially fed babies have to be switched from one formula to another until one is found that they can digest.

breastfeeding lowers the mother's chance of breast cancer, postpartum hemorrhage, and ovarian cancer.

breast milk changes with baby's needs. the milk the mother of a preterm baby produces differs from the milk the mother of a full term baby produces. the milk a mother produces in the morning is different than the milk she produces at night. the milk she produces when baby is two weeks old differs from the milk she produces when baby is six months old.

artificial milk increases a baby's risk for obesity, type 1 and type 2 diabetes later in life.

artificially fed babies are at higher risk for allergies, asthma, ear infections, SIDS, bacterial meningitis, respiratory infections, childhood lymphoma, hodgkins disease, ulcerative colitis, crohn's disease, cavities, speech impediments, eczema, multiple sclerosis, urinary tract infections and breast cancer (in baby girls).

...which is probably why artificially fed babies require about $1,500 more of medical care in their first year of life. breastfed babies require fewer doctor's visits, and their parents have to take fewer days off of work.

and add to that another $1,500: the approximate cost of formula per year. double this cost if baby needs a specialty formula. about $500 million of our tax dollars every year go to feeding formula to low-income babies (through the WIC program). breast milk, on the other hand, is free.

breastfeeding is more friendly to the environment. no packaging, wrappers, bottles to sterilize daily, etc.

artificial milk contains GMO's (genetically modified organisms) and artificial growth hormones.

breastmilk has natural healing properties that can heal wounds faster, and cure eye infections when applied topically. personally, i can attest that breast milk cleared up esther's clogged tear duct soon after she was born. no need to use the OTC medicine the doctor prescribed. yay!

no need to rinse the cloth diapers of exclusively breast fed babies. anything that saves me time is a plus! and the diapers are less smelly.

sources:
promom
dr. jack newman's guide to breastfeeding

a strange paradox

2011-11-12T12:30:00.000-08:00

"for you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ,
that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor"
[2 corinthians 8:9]

"the Lord Jesus himself said: ‘it is more blessed to give than to receive.’"
[acts 20:35]

"whoever gathered much had nothing left over,
and whoever gathered little had no lack"
[2 corinthians 8:15]

"one gives freely, yet grows all the richer,
another withholds what he should give, and suffers only want.
whoever brings blessing will be enriched,
and one who waters will himself be watered."
[proverbs 11:24-25]

"whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly,
and whoever sows bountifully will reap bountifully"
[2 corinthians 9:6]

God has really been challenging me in the area of giving and pointing out my selfishness of recent. i have realized that i have a hoarding mentality when it comes to my time, my energy and my money, and i want to give the best of it, and really almost all of it, exclusively to myself and my family.

yet Christ, for my sake, decided to become poor, though he was rich. and He himself said that i am more blessed when i give to others than when i receive from them. do i really believe this? do you? think about it this way... do you forward to other people's birthdays or your own? do you want to give others gifts and attention, or receive it for yourself? do you look forward more to going over to someone's house for dinner, or hosting them at your house?

paradoxically, not only is it more blessed to give than receive, but when we hoard our blessings, we wont be building them up, they will actually start to diminish. but the one who generously, freely, joyfully gives away their blessings, that is the person, the bible says, who will continue to grow all the more rich.

the good news is that we don't need to force ourselves into this kind of generosity. it will come naturally as we learn more about God's lavish generosity towards us, and as His spirit works inside us.

praise God :)

book review: food rules by michael pollan

2011-11-06T07:41:00.000-08:00

i did something yesterday that i never thought that i would do: i read an entire book in one sitting. granted, it was only about 100 pages, and had a lot of illustrations, but never the less i accomplished it.

and i enjoyed it. so i though that i could share with you my thoughts about michael pollan's "food rules". this book was originally published two years ago, but was recently re-published with some added material and illustrations (i read the newest edition). i have also read pollan's "in defense of food", and this book seemed to be a concise list of the principles found in the previous book.

pollan starts out the book giving his history with researching food and health issues. pollan is a journalist, and figured that with enough research he could get to the bottom of the whole debate of which foods are and aren't healthy (low fat? low carb? meat or no meat? etc etc.) unfortunately, the more research he did, the more he realized that the field of nutrition is just too young and doesn't really have a lot of firm answers.

the only thing that became clear from his research is that the western diet (ie lots of processed foods, high in sugars, refined grains and vegetable oils) is the only diet proven to make people sick (the vast majority of people in the whole world with obesity, type 2 diabetes, heart disease and many cancers eat the western diet).

on the other hand, people who eat traditional diets have very low incidences of these diseases, with a very broad spectrum of what their traditional diets consist of. he gives examples of traditional diets that are very high in fat (the inuit of greenland subsist mostly on seal blubber), very high in carbohydrates (native central americans eat lots of corn and beans), and very high in protein (the masai in africa live mostly on cow blood, meat and milk). this low rate of disease also holds true for traditional diets that are more mixed. pollan points out:

"what this suggests is that there is no single ideal human diet but that the human omnivore is exquisitely adapted to a wide range of different foods and a variety of different diets. except, that is, for one: the relatively new (in evolutionary terms) Western diet that most of us are now eating. what an extraordinary achievement for a civilization: to have developed the one diet that reliably makes people sick!"

pollan's aim with the book was to compile a list of traditional sayings and grandmotherly teachings about food and compare them with what we do know about food from science. in the process he came up with about 80 "rules" about food. he makes it clear that these are not rules we should be enslaved to, rather they should be helpful in guiding us towards the best choices for our health.

here are some of the "rules" that i particularly enjoyed:

"if it came from a plant, eat it. if it was made in a plant, don't"

"no snacks, no seconds, no sweets — except on days that begin with the letter S.” [pollan says to treat treats like treats. treats used to be expensive, and therefore infrequently eaten and highly appreciated when they were. now we have access to as many treats as we want, which leads us to indulge often without thought or appreciation. when treats are more infrequent, we will truly appreciate them and enjoy them.]

"do all of your eating at a table" [this way you will be mindful of what you eat, and make eating something that happens at a specific place and time, not just whenever]

"eat all the junk food you want, as long as you make it yourself" [he makes the point that almost anything you make will be healthier than buying it at the store. also when you make it yourself you will probably make it less often than you would buy it, and consider it a "treat", as you should]
"don't eat anything your great grandmother wouldn't recognize as food."

and, lastly, my favorite (shown in the illustration from the book, above): "when you eat real food, you don't need rules" when all you buy is healthy, whole, clean foods, you don't need rules. make whatever you want out of it, and it will nourish your body.

saving money while eating healthy: dairy and eggs

2011-11-05T19:38:00.000-07:00

it looks like i might actually be getting around to finishing my blog series! earlier this summer i wrote about saving money while eating healthy on produce and meat. now i am going to continue the series by talking about dairy and eggs.

like i mentioned about meat, i make it a priority to buy milk and eggs from animals that are raised properly. this means, for milk, i try to get it from cows who eat 100% grass and are not given any hormones or antibiotics. for chickens this means that they should be pastured, which gives them access to eat grass and bugs, along with their feed.

second best to these are products labeled "organic". store-bought organic milk usually comes from cows that are given mostly organic grain, but also some grass, and no hormones or antibiotics. store bought organic eggs come from chickens who eat organic grain, but usually dont eat any grass or bugs (even if they are labeled "free range"). (side note: although most organic eggs are brown, brown eggs are not inherently better or healthier than white eggs. it still depends on how the chickens are treated, and again grass-fed, bug-eating pastured chickens with organic feed supplemented is the best).

the third choice is conventional dairy and eggs. if you have to settle for this (and often times you will find conventional eggs and milk in our fridge too) at least stick with dairy products that specifically state on the label that they do not use the rbST (a bovine growth hormone). for eggs, the label "free range" doesn't mean much, so don't pay more for "free range" conventional eggs. i also see a mark-up on conventional eggs that happen to be brown, but again, the fact that the eggs are brown tells you nothing about the nutrients in the egg.

one more important note about dairy: consider buying raw milk. after researching this issue, i really believe that raw milk is the healthiest kind of milk you can buy because of the friendly bacteria it contains and also because the vitamins aren't destroyed by being heated and because the fats have not been altered through homogenization (read more about raw milk here). if you cant get raw, steer clear of ultra-pasteurized milk and stick with pasteurized. also, if you cant buy raw milk, try to at least find unhomogenized milk (several brands of yogurt these days are also offering unhomogenized versions, usually labeled "cream top"). lastly, as i believe that it is best to consume foods in their most natural state, buy whole milk and full fat dairy products.

now that you know what kind of dairy products to look for, how do you keep the costs down?

make homemade dairy products

this will certainly save you money, especially on high-yield dairy products like yogurt and kefir. a gallon of store bought organic yogurt costs about $16, but i can make it at home with about 20 minutes of work for $6. a gallon of organic kefir is even more, around $20, but it also only costs me about $6 to make it, with only about 5 minutes of work involved! i have also made yogurt cheese (similar to cream cheese), cottage cheese and sour cream at home.

another increasingly popular venture is making homemade butter and cheeses such as feta, mozzarella and cheddar. i have not tried these yet because they are not cost effective to make for what we pay for milk. it is worth the time to do the math on what it would cost to make these at home, to see if it is worth your while. however, i can pretty much guarantee you that at least homemade yogurt and kefir will save you money (and your belly will thank you for the friendly bacteria :) ).

buy from a farmer

if you want to buy raw milk, buying from a farmer may be your only option, depending on where you live. regardless, buying from a farmer is likely cheaper than from the store, and you can have a better idea of the quality of milk you are getting by asking the farmer questions about how the cows are treated and what they are fed. if you get some friends together to form a buying group, you may be able to save even more, as well as split up milk pick-up duty. i look forward to the possibility of one day living close enough to a dairy farm to get our milk fresh from there. you can find a listing of farmers who sell raw milk here.

buy medium eggs

i haven't been able to figure out how to do the math on this to figure out if it is actually definitely cheaper to buy medium eggs (as opposed to large or jumbo eggs), but i'm pretty sure it is. i usually buy medium eggs about half the time, depending on availability.

raise a dairy goat, cow or laying chickens

two people on our street have laying chickens (i hear them squawking all the time!) and we hope that we will be able to sometime in the future as well. if we ever live in a more rural area, we also hope to get a dairy goat. not only is this great for your health, as you can make sure you are eating fresh from well-fed animals, but it is also kinder on the environment, as your food does not have to be shipped from afar. it also assures a constant supply of these household staples!

buy in bulk

buying dairy products and eggs often times isn't an option (because of the fact that it is perishable, and also because it is not often sold in bulk), but sometimes it is. a few examples from our life: sometimes eggs that are about to expire go on clearance, and i will buy 4-5 dozen. i hard boil most of them, which extends their life by weeks (to be used on top of salads or by themselves as snacks), and i also make lots of egg recipes the next few days (things like quiche). eggs are usually good for a week or more past their expiration date, so i don't sweat it if they are a bit past the label's date.

another thing that can be bought in bulk is cheese, though you may have to hunt around for a source such as a co-op. i buy a lot of our cheese this way, in five pound blocks, which will last for weeks in the fridge (or months in the freezer). another possibility: most farmers markets will give you a discount if you ask when making a large order. i used to buy our raw milk at a discount by buying five or more gallons at a time (and freezing the extra). many farmers markets also sell eggs, cheese and yogurt, which could probably also be bought at a discount in bulk if you ask (added bonus: you can talk directly to the farmer and find out the living conditions of the animals, what they are fed, etc. many foods that are not labeled "organic" may still be raised in an organic way, but the farmer may not be able to afford the organic labeling).

read your labels, write to the companies when you have questions

reading labels will sometimes also give you a clue as to the quality of the product. for example, trader joe's sells a cheddar cheese that is from 100% grass-fed cows who are not given growth hormones. this is almost as good as organic in my eyes (and better than some organic dairy products that may come from grain-fed cows), but it does not come with the "organic" label, so it is much less expensive than cheese that is officially organic.

also, dont hesitate to write to a company when you have questions. sometimes you will be disappointed by the answers you get (like when i wrote to general mills to ask them if they use GMO grain in their cereals. the answer was yes. :/ ) some other times you will be pleasantly surprised. for example, one time i wrote to trader joe's to ask what kind of diet the cows eat that produce their organic milk. they told me that they require that their cows eat a diet of at least 80% grass! as i mentioned above, 100% grass is ideal, but 80% is still unusually high, and i was pleasantly surprised. because of this, i try to always buy our organic milk from trader joe's.

when we cant afford organic milk, i have a second best. after doing research i found a conventional milk company that has cows raised without rbST that eat least a partial diet of hay (ie dried grass). again, 100% grass-fed and no antibiotics is ideal, but this is still a step up from other conventional milks, and i wouldn't have known this unless i did the research.

it may sound overwhelming to look around for different sources, compare prices and ask farmers or companies about how they raise their animals. however, let me encourage you in a few things. it doesn't have to happen all at once; it has taken me more than a year to hone in on the best dairy/eggs for our budget, writing to companies here and there when i have time (the internet makes this pretty quick and easy!) and i continue to research and shop around for the best. also, once you have done the research, you can know that you are doing the best thing for your family's health and budget. lastly, eventually you will settle on the best products and can get into a habit of buying those, without having to wonder what is in what you are buying every time you go to the store (or co-op. or farmers market).

what are some ways that you save money on dairy products?

4 strange ways to save water

2011-11-02T17:29:00.000-07:00

some of the green/earth friendly things i do cost us more money, such as buying pesticide-free produce. but fortunately, many of the things i do actually save us money.

saving water is one of those things. saving water is important in most places (unless, i guess if you have a well. i would like to have a well one day, but that is a whole 'nother blog post :) ), but especially in southern california.

did you know that we are using up the colorado river to the point that it now literally dries up soon after it reaches mexico? so cal is a desert, but we are in denial so we pump in water from afar, with much damage to the environment.

besides loving the earth (and specifically the colorado river and all the wildlife that depends on it), i have another reason to try to save water: our water bill! lets just say its pretty astronomical, especially compared to what we paid in the midwest.

so, because i am frugal and because i want to steward God's creation well, i have incorporated various habits into my life to save water.

recycling dishwasher water

if you live in so cal, you have probably seen signs that say something like "this area is watered with recycled water" or "greywater in use here". that gave me an idea... are there ways that i could re-use non-dirty water from our house? and it gave me an idea... our dishwasher water!

we have a portable dishwasher, which means that when its time to wash, we have to manually move it over to the sink, hook it up, and turn on the faucet. when it is running, the used water is drained into the sink. this would just go down the drain, but now i catch it in a bucket and use it to water our plants outside.

some might wonder if the soap in the water might be bad for the plants. i use an all natural, earth-friendly soap (bio-kleen brand), so i am not worried about this. and, it is possible that the small bits of food in the recycled dishwasher water might even be providing the plants a nutrient boost.

i don't flush the toilet

well, kinda... i usually don't flush the toilet if i am the only one around the house and i just go #1 (i try to go 3-4 times before flushing). this was especially helpful when i was pregnant, since i literally went to the bathroom every 30 minutes.

this might gross you out, and i am ok with that. that's why i only do it when i am the only one home. this is actually a regular practice in many (most?) countries of the world. when i lived in germany, there were actually two buttons on the toilet; one flushed more water and one less, depending on your need... i wont go into detail, hopefully you can figure it out :)

washing my face with cold water

when you want warm or hot water, you have to turn on the faucet and let it go for a while until the warm water comes out. this wastes a lot of water. recently, i have begun washing my face at night in cold water. sometimes its easy (in the summer) but sometimes i have to brace myself for the initial moment of discomfort (but its really not that bad).

wash my hands without water

when i am washing/scrubbing my hands, i make sure that the water is turned off. since we use (homemade!) foaming soap in the bathroom, i just use two squirts of foam, and then i don't even have to wet my hands at the beginning. this way, all i have to do is rinse my hands briefly after i scrub, which only requires the faucet to be on for a few seconds.

this is especially helpful since i am washing my hands almost twice as much since esther was born (because of diaper changes through out the day, also after i go out i wash my hands to protect esther from germs i come into contact with... i am not a germophobe, but i have to be proactive like this to avoid germs since we want to avoid some of the recommended vaccines, especially with our frequent doctor's office visits due to her diagnosis. we have averaged two doc visits per week since her birth, but it should be less frequent from here on out).

another tip for mothers of multiple littles in diapers... change everyone's diaper at once. if you change one kiddo, change the other. and then wash your hands after both. this not only saves water and time, but also your skin, especially in the winter!!

what are some things you do to save water?

recipe: garbanzo bean salad

2011-10-31T10:35:00.000-07:00

sometimes i am really good at meal planning (i like it when that happens). sometimes i decide what i am making as i am making it.

that is what happened this weekend. yesterday, our church had a potluck and kickball game. i ended up not having a key ingredient for the first thing i was going to make, so i ended up making up a recipe on the spot, throwing together a couple things we had on hand. it ended up tasting pretty good, so i wanted to share the recipe with you all.

garbanzo bean salad

1 lb of garbanzo beans, soaked, cooked and drained (about 4 cups cooked, or 2 15oz cans of garbanzo beans)
2 tomatoes, chopped
1/2 bunch parsley, chopped
1/2 white onion, finely diced (if you don't have a white onion, leave this out. i find brown onions to have much too strong of a flavor in dishes where they are raw. a red or purple onion might be ok, though)
1/4 cup olive oil
1/4 cup red wine vinegar
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp fresh ground pepper
1 tsp garlic powder
1/2 tsp celery salt
1/2 tsp dried basil (although fresh basil would taste better if you have it)

mix everything in a big bowl. if you have time, refrigerate for a few hours to let the flavors meld. but it would also taste delicious served right away.

i'm excited to finish off the leftovers for lunch today, topped with some leftover canned salmon for a protein/healthy fat/calcium boost!

for your christmas shopping (or otherwise) consideration... three etsy stores

2011-10-29T18:43:00.000-07:00

i guess i just run in creative circles: i have three friends with etsy stores.

what is etsy? etsy is a marketplace for handmade and vintage items on the internet. thousands of sellers from literally everywhere... you can find tons of stuff on etsy from lamps to towels, artwork to clothes, purses to shoes.

why shop at etsy? and in a country with increasing anti-big-business sentiment, shopping at etsy is a perfect way to support small business owners. furthermore, the items on etsy truly are unique. they are often handmade and literally one of a kind (if not one of a kind, usually only a few others like it have been made). many shop owners are willing to customize items to fit exactly what you are looking for (which they can do since they are making the product just for you!).

whether you are new to etsy or an experienced shopper, i give you three shops i'm sure you will love.

urban allure: soft, beautiful and comfortable

the urban allure shop will draw you in with its luscious scarves and attractive wallets. the scarves are the kind that make you long for those crisp autumn days where you can wrap your neck in warm, stylish love. with a variety of premium yarns and unique accents you are sure to find something feminine and functional... no chilly neck even on the harshest winter day!

the leather wallets with croqueted accents will make you want to hold on to your wallet all night long... just so you can show it off. they are cute enough to even function as a clutch style purse.

for those of you who are bargain hunters... urban allure will be having some sales in the coming weeks... so visit the shop, find what you love and stay tuned!

pinklotus: sexy, silky, stylish

what i love about pinklotus' silky scarves is how versatile they are. they can be worn as an accent to an outfit that needs some spicing up. they can be worn in your hair they can be tied around the neck for sexy way to warm a cool day. they can be casual or dressy.

not only are these scarves made of real silk, but they are hand painted, creating a truly unique experience for each person.

full disclosure: i was sent one of these scarves, but not so that i would review the shop. so i can say (from personal experience) that i love this shop!

jennasaurus: silly, cute and cheery

this is truly a creative shop, carrying everything from croqueted beanies and headbands to upcycled christmas ornaments.

i'm pretty sure there is no way that you can have a bad day while wearing one of these items. it will make you feel like a kid again... and definitely in a good way.

i am also intrigued by one of the shop's newest items: upcycled starbucks cap christmas ornaments. this would be a great gift for the coffee lover in your life!

full disclosure: i haven't been given any of these items but i would love it if jenna gave me a croqueted coffee sleeve. please and thank you. if she does i promise to write another review. :D

i encourage you to check out each of these stores and make your christmas gifts truly unique this year!

pros and cons of a hospital birth

2011-10-27T22:06:00.000-07:00

we had no choice. esther was born in a hospital. well, we could have gone with a home birth or birth center, but it would have cost a lot more.

knowing that it wasn't my ideal, i had to trust God with giving birth in a hospital. but i did struggle with some worries in the weeks and months leading up to the delivery, that something would happen and they would make me get an unnecessary c-section, episiotomy or epidural.

by God's grace, everything with her birth went well and i didn't have to get any kind of medical intervention (besides an unwanted IV). i am very thankful for this fact. and, surprisingly, there were actually some things i really did like about giving birth in the hospital.

since then, i have reflected on the pros and cons to my birth experience in the hospital.

pros

nurse care and meals- the nurses i had were really nice (even when i got blood all over the floor... more on that below). i didn't realize how out of it i would be after delivery, and i was so thankful to have people there to get me water, help me go to the bathroom and do everything else. the meals weren't amazing, and they were supplemented by the actually healthy food i brought with us (for some reason hospitals just take all the salt out of food and think that makes it healthy...) and food my mom brought for us, but it was nice to have someone just bring me a meal and not have to worry about it. i'm sure if we were at home or elsewhere that alex or my mom could have done all of this, but i was also thankful that they didn't have to (next time maybe they will!).

soonest possible diagnosis for esther- because of the standard newborn screening test done at the hospital, esther was diagnosed with congenital hypothyroidism. the soonest they can do this test is 24 hours after being born, and hers was done at almost exactly this time, right before we left the hospital. five days later we got the results and she was put on medicine (time is critical with this diagnosis... the sooner the better the prognosis of the baby). had we had a different type of birth, it is possible it would have been a few days later that she would have been diagnosed. a few days probably would not have made a difference ultimately, but i am thankful that we found out as soon as we did.

no clean-up- about an hour after delivery, i got up out of bed. it wasn't pretty. lets just say that it looked like someone may have been murdered in our hospital room. i cant imagine what our carpet at home would have looked like... in my defense, no one told me not to get up, and being that it was my first birth i didn't realize how much i would be bleeding... i felt bad and apologized a lot to the nurse :/

up and down bed- i dont think i could have gotten out of bed or fed esther that first day without this kind of bed (the one with the button that you push in order to sit up and lay down). i was so weak and sore! this was probably the biggest plus about giving birth in the hospital.

stealing esther- this is also on the con list. even though esther roomed in with us she was taken several times for medical exams that lasted a couple hours each. i was so tired that honestly it was nice to have a little break.

cons
stealing esther- but on the other hand, i would rather have had her in the room with us the whole time. when i was tired, i'm sure alex would have been willing to hold her.

when to go and the car ride there- being that it was my first time giving birth, i didn't really know when we should leave the house to go to the hospital (i know that they say when your contractions are a certain length and interval, but that is so textbook. i wanted the least amount of time at the hospital as possible, so i waited longer than that). it was a little stressful deciding when to leave, since i didn't know if we were going too soon. fortunately, we got the timing just about right. however, the car ride was especially miserable, considering we left at the peak of LA traffic hour, and it ended up taking about an hour to get there, twice as long as it should have. in a home birth situation, this would not have been an issue.

germ fest and eye goop- i am not a germophobe. but i am an anti-biotic-phobe. i don't like medicines and especially anti-biotics, so my main way of dealing with illness is prevention, which means avoiding germs in the first place (along with building up your immune system so that they never take over). the whole time we were there, i felt like the hospital was a big germfest. and considering that babies are born with almost no immune system and a sterile gut (ie no healthy bacteria to protect them from the bad ones), i wanted to protect my fragile baby from all the germs. originally i requested that esther not get the standard procedure eye goop (an antibiotic that is used as a preventative measure against infants getting eye infections). but my midwife strongly encouraged it, and in the end i consented, mainly because i knew that esther's chances of getting an eye infection there in the hospital were higher than at home, due to all the germs. i dont know if i would do it again, if we give birth in the hospital again, but i do know that one plus of giving birth at home would be that it would feel and be much cleaner.

fetal monitoring- i have not seen any evidence that electric fetal monitoring is safe and effective. often times it leads to unnecessary medical procedures when doctors and nurses overreact to slight changes in the baby's heartbeat. monitoring the baby through other means has been shown to be more effective. during delivery, esther's heartbeat was dropping, and they suggested that her cord may be around her neck and i was pretty concerned that they were going to make me get a c-section. fortunately, she popped out so fast there wasn't time to even suggest this. and her cord wasn't around her neck. (for the record, if the cord had legitimately been around her neck, i would have consented to a c-section... its just that often this risky procedure is jumped to way too quickly).

getting an iv- i requested not to have an iv during labor. upon arrival, first thing they did was hook up an iv. >:/ they told me that i was dehydrated, even though i had been drinking water all day like it was my job (i still don't know what their proof was for saying i was dehydrated). the iv, along with the HUGE thing of juice i drank right after delivery (like, uber big-gulp sized) caused me to have to go to the bathroom, causing the above mentioned bleeding incident. that incident caused them to give me yet another iv (originally i was promised just one iv). three days later, i was dealing with really uncomfortable engorgement. what is one of the main causes of engorgement? iv's during labor. grrrr...

would i do a hospital birth again? i wont say no, but probably not, for several reasons. the biggest reason would be because next time i hope to have a water birth (i labored in the bath tub for a while with esther and found it really comfortable, so i would love to be able to try a water birth). also because the hospital was a bit stress inducing (because of the risk of unnecessary medical procedures, the germs, etc.), and i think a different location would be more relaxing.

for the love of butter... and other healthy foods

2011-10-24T10:00:00.000-07:00

over the last year and a half, my homemaking and personal health philosophy has changed pretty dramatically. while i am still very frugal (as i have always been :) ) i spend money much differently than i used to. while i am still like to cook healthy meals, my "healthy" cooking has moved away from being low-fat and is now much more buttery (yum!). i have moved away from killing germs with dangerous chemicals like triclosan, bleach and alcohol to growing bacteria to make foods like kefir, sauerkraut and yogurt. and while i still place a high value on exercising, i rarely do long distance running and now focus more on functional fitness.

let me explain the shift.

it all started with a book called "the maker's diet" (cheesy title, but good info).

i had been battling daily GERD/heartburn for almost two years and decided that i was done. not only did i want to be off of medicine (it didn't make sense to me that someone in their mid-twenties should be on a daily medicine, plus i knew there had to be lasting health effects from it), but i noticed a trend among people my age having frequent heartburn. this isn't normal, and so i knew there had to be an answer besides medicine. a friend had told me about this book and how some of the people who followed the diet had their persistent heartburn cured.

the book was eye-opening to say the least. the writer's diet philosophy was completely antithetical to everything i had ever been taught about healthy eating. he purported that too many carbohydrates like sugar and grains (even whole grains) were to blame for weight problems, and not dietary fat, which is usually blamed. in fact, his diet even emphasized the types of fats i had been previously told to avoid, like butter, animal fats, and coconut oil. he also showed the importance of healthy bacteria for digestive health, though unfortunately these days due to pasteurization, refrigeration and processed foods, we kill or discourage the growth of bacteria in our food, much of which is actually beneficial (previously i didn't even know that there was such a thing as good bacteria!). he also pointed out many common lifestyle factors that degrade our health, such as exposing ourselves to toxic chemicals through household cleaning products and health/beauty products.

since then, i have continued to do research into these things and found a lot of confirmation from numerous other resources, such as the weston a. price foundation. i feel like my eyes have been opened to a lot of things, and i have made many changes. many of the changes have been baby steps towards better health, and some have been pretty big. some of the changes have required a lot of prayer, as i have had to seek the Lord for wisdom in the midst of conflicting opinions (such as the argument over whether or not meat is healthy... there are strong opinions on both sides and evidence for both sides as well. i land in the clean meats camp... the belief that meat is healthy if it is clean... ie no hormones or antibiotics, and fed a healthy, pasture-based diet). overall, i would describe my current philosophy as a traditional diet and lifestyle... cooking, cleaning and exercising as people have been doing for thousands of years, without many of the modern diseases (heart disease, diabetes, cancer) that we deal with today.

as i continue to take more steps towards healthy living, i wanted to share with you some of the changes i have made, and how it has been for us.

less processed food, more homemade food. this shift has happened for two reasons: for our budget and for our health. it is pretty hard to afford organic bread, tortillas and granola on our budget, but we can more easily afford organic flour and oats for me to make these things homemade (especially when i buy these items in bulk from our co-op). also, by making things myself, i know that we are avoiding preservatives, artificial colors, MSG and the other added chemicals of processed foods. moreover, i have more control over how things are made. for example, when i make grains i prefer to soak or sour them first, a process that breaks down the phytic acid (something in whole grains that blocks the absorbtion of minerals in the body). it is almost impossible to find processed foods at the store that have undergone this process before being prepared.

only buying organic meat. this has been more difficult on the budget, but i have been able to work it in through buying less expensive cuts of meat, and stretching the meat through making a meatless meal once a week or so, and making dishes that call for smaller amounts of meat. because of the hormones, antibiotics and concentrated pesticides, i see meat as the most important food to buy organic. we made the transition over a period of a few months, and now i almost never buy non-organic meat. More on my meat philosophy and how to save money on it here.

using all homemade cleaning products. i clean our entire house with vinegar, baking soda, hydrogen peroxide and water. not only do they work just as well as conventional cleaning products, but they are MUCH cheaper! it makes me happy that i can carry my baby in a sling while cleaning the house with no worries about how it will effect her health. i have also started to make some homemade health and beauty products (toothpaste, shampoo/conditioner, moisturizer, diaper wipes and cream), which has also saved money and is also healthier (especially important since these things go on our skin which can absorb the toxins which are in many conventional products).

cooking with fat... lots of fat. its true. i went from being a low-fat nazi to cooking with so much butter it would probably make most americans nervous. i also switched from non-fat milk/yogurt/cottage cheese to full fat dairy products. i cook chicken with the skin on and eat the skin first... previously i would have cringed, now i think its delicious! i love to douse my salads with my homemade olive oil salad dressing. and the list goes on and on. and contrary to popular american thought... i didn't gain a pound (before getting pregnant)! even when i was pregnant i gained a healthy 25 pounds (the general thought is that pregnant women should gain 25-35 pounds), and i have already lost 20 of it (3 weeks after giving birth). i never would have believed it even 2 years ago, but dietary fat IS healthy and it does NOT make you fat.

walk, don't run to better health. when alex got certified as a personal trainer, one of the surprising things he learned was that long distance running isn't as healthy as it is sometimes portrayed. it puts a lot of strain on the body in an unhealthy way, especially in how it builds up cortisol in the body, a stress hormone that increases fat reserves and decreases lean body mass (ie muscle). running used to be my sole form of exercise, but since then i have moved more towards lifting weights, walking, biking and staying active with housework (things like gardening). even carrying a baby in a sling is a form of exercise, especially when mixed with other housework. now i try to stay active throughout the day and i only formally "work out" a couple times a week.

have these changes worked? yes, i am happy to say that i have been off of heartburn meds for almost a year now (it was just in time... i am very thankful that i was able to have a med-free pregnancy). that is more than worth it in my eyes. other than that i cant say that i have seen huge changes in our health, but i do feel very good about the changes we have made. it makes so much sense to make food and other things the way people have been doing it for thousands of years.

thoughts on esther's diagnosis

2011-10-23T16:52:00.000-07:00

as he passed by, he saw a man blind from birth. and his disciples asked him, "rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?" Jesus answered, "it was not that this man sinned, or his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in him."

[john 9:1-3]

when esther was four days old, i got a phone call from her pediatrician.

"we need you to come in as soon as possible, esther's newborn blood test came back abnormal."

my heart sank. my voice was shaking as i asked "what was abnormal?"

"we can't say right now, but can you come in tomorrow morning at nine?"

"yes, i will be there."

a few days later, after some confirmatory tests, esther was diagnosed with congenital hypothyroidism.

congenital hypothyroidism in a condition in newborns that can lead to heart problems, mental retardation and growth retardation. fortunately, when it is caught and treated early, the prognosis is good. since esther started taking medicine at 5 days old, it is likely that she wont have any lasting effects, though she will have to take medicine daily for her whole life.

when the diagnosis was first confirmed, i was really sad, wondering if she would have any permanent mental or physical problems, feeling the burden of daily, lifelong medication for her with frequent doctor's appointments. but God has been good to calm my heart and help me trust in him. and he has made me very thankful: thankful that it was caught early, thankful to have good medical care and doctors to treat her. here are some of the things i have thought about and learned through this process:

*"why esther?" of course this question has gone through my head many times. from the medical side of things, there is not really an answer. some doctors think congenital hypothyroidism is genetic, but others don't. some resources i have read say that radiation can cause it, which makes me wonder if the lovely radiation cloud from the japanese nuclear plant that came to the US early on in my pregnancy could be the cause. we will never know. theologically, though, we do have an answer. from the above scripture, i know that if i were to ask jesus "why was esther born this way? did i do something wrong? did alex do something wrong?", his response would be "its not that either of you did something wrong, but it is so that the works of God may be displayed through esther". God created her for His glory. period. and i praise Him for it, and trust his plan in it.

*like every mother, i want a typical, healthy child. but more than that, i want a child who loves and follows jesus. esther's condition may be an answer to our prayers in that it could be used by God to draw her to Himself. maybe it will make her more salient of her mortality, which will lead her to trust God in a way she otherwise wouldn't. we dont know how God will use it, but we do know that he works all things together for the good of those who love Him (romans 8:28) and we know that this will be true of this as well.

*her diagnosis has been humbling to me personally because of my general dislike of western/allopathic medicine. i was annoyed when we were in the hospital and they had to take her blood for the newborn screening. but this situation has been a good reminder to me that allopathic medicine does have a very important role to play in people's overall health, and of course now we are very,very grateful for the newborn screening that uncovered her condition before it was too late.

our birth story

2011-10-18T21:21:00.000-07:00

disclaimer: i used to think birth stories were silly. but then i got pregnant and read ina may's guide to childbirth, the first 100 pages of which are filled with different women's birth stories. i found it incredibly helpful to read and get a better understanding of the wide range of things that can happen during a normal birth.

so i present to you here our birth story. i pray that it will be an encouragement to you wherever you are at in life, whether or not you have ever given birth or hope to.

to give you some background to my pregnancy, around 30 weeks my midwife expressed concern about the size of my stomach, which led to tests and eventually my pregnancy being labeled "high risk" when our baby appeared to be significantly smaller than she should have been. the last 3 months of pregnancy i had to get non-stress tests twice a week to make sure she was doing ok (which i disliked and tried to get out of doing, but the doctor who ordered them wouldn't change his mind :/ ). a few weeks before the due date, i started to suspect that the due date i had been given was probably a little off (too early) which would have explained her small size. unfortunately, the doctor who works with my midwife wasn't willing to change the due date (my midwife seemed to also suspect the due date was wrong, but it wasn't in her power to change it).

some other important background to know was that we had decided very early on to try to have a natural birth: no epidural, no pitocin, and definitely no cesarean section, Lord willing. i always said "Lord willing" because i do realize that there are situations in which all of these things are helpful and necessary, but i believe that they are vastly over-used in our country, and they should in general be a last resort because of the risks to mother and baby. the diagnosis of the pregnancy as being high risk gave me some concern because i knew it made it much more likely that i would have to get one of these interventions but i also had assurance knowing that my midwife is a big advocate of natural birth and would be key in making the type of birth that we wanted possible.

how it all went down...

my due date came and went, with no signs of our baby wanting to come out to the "real world". fortunately, neither alex or i were too antsy for her to come, and it even worked out well because he was able to be a groomsman in our friend's wedding that we weren't sure we would be able to attend (the wedding was a week after the due date). after the wedding the wait became a little harder because we were in a bit of a crunch: she had to come before i hit 42 weeks or my midwife would be forced to hand my case over to a doctor (because i would be considered really high risk at that point). the hard thing about that was the fact that i felt like the due date was wrong, so it was uncomfortable to be under such an arbitrary (and possibly inaccurate) deadline.

two days before the deadline, i finally started to have regular birth rushes, about 2 every hour (a term coined by ina may, i prefer "birth rushes" over contractions, but i use them interchangeably in this story). but they were really light and didn't seem to be progressing towards anything. the next day i had my last appointment with my midwife, where she did two things to hopefully naturally kick-start labor: sweeping the membranes and prescribing a high dose of castor oil (which releases oxytocin in the body, the hormone that increases during labor). then i sent a message to pretty much every christian i know asking for prayer that labor would start, so that i wouldn't have to be artificially induced the next morning.

God answered pretty quickly. that morning right after the appointment the birth rushes started coming about every 10 minutes. they weren't too intense to start out, and i was able to run some errands. after lunch they were a bit more serious, and i needed to lie down for a bit. at that point, they were coming every five minutes and lasting about a minute each. this is usually about the time they tell you to head to the hospital, but i wanted to stay at home as long as possible, and i doubted that i was very far along in labor anyways since it had just started a few hours previous. to relax better and ease the intensity, i took a long bath which felt amazing (makes me highly consider a water birth for our next!).

after getting out, alex asked me how it was going. in my head, i was realizing that we needed to start thinking about going to the hospital, but was hoping to wait til after dinner. when i told him the frequency and intensity of the rushes, he got concerned and said that we should consider leaving sooner. at that point, they were just under a minute long, but coming every 3-4 minutes.

i didn't want to get hungry at the hospital (since they wont let you eat during labor) because that would make having a natural birth more difficult, so i insisted that we eat a light dinner before leaving. i made smoothies and toast, which was a light but nourishing meal to power me through the last part of labor. after we ate, we finished packing the car and headed out for the hospital.

the car ride was brutal. the birth rushes moved from being really intense to actually painful, and i had nothing else to turn my attention toward (at home i was doing housework, the bath, making dinner, etc to distract myself). i also couldn't find a comfortable position to sit or lay down. on top of all this, one of my labor nightmares had come true: we were driving to the hospital during the heaviest hour of LA traffic (5pm on a weekday). eventually (about an hour later) we got there, and i couldn't have been more relieved.

after parking and getting checked in (which probably lasted about 10 minutes but felt much longer) we finally got into the labor/delivery room. i was eager to find out how far along i was, because it would give me an idea of how "close" we were, especially since i felt like i had to be pretty far along (at least over five centimeters i was guessing). after doing some vital signs, the nurse reported to me that i was three centimeters dilated. my heart sunk (ten centimeters is full dilation, at which point you can start pushing). if i was only three centimeters at that point, it meant that i probably had a very long time to go before i could even start pushing. i was beginning to highly doubt that i could go through the whole labor without an epidural.

my midwife got there soon after that, and i expressed my disappointment with my progress. she suggested that we try breaking the bag of waters to speed things up and i agreed. she broke it, and left to go home for a short time just to have dinner and change clothes, and then she would be back with plenty of time before i would need to start pushing.

after about 15 more minutes of labor, i started to feel an urge to push with the contractions, which i have read means that you are fully dilated and your body is ready for you to start pushing. at first i ignored the feeling, thinking that there is no way i could actually be fully dilated at that point. but after a few rushes that i was sure were pushing contractions, i called the nurse back into the room. she checked me, reported that i was nine centimeters dilated, told me to make sure that i was NOT pushing with the contractions and rushed out to call my midwife to come back to the hospital ASAP.

the next 20 minutes or so were some of the longest, hardest minutes of my life. when you have a pushing contraction it feels great to push with it. it is torture to try to relax or fight against the urge to push. at this point, the rushes were lasting about a minute each with only about 30 seconds to rest in between. i felt like i was being hit by wave after wave of contractions with almost no rest in between, and without the luxury of pushing when i needed to. the only thing that got me through was to concentrate on breathing, which distracted me a bit from wanting to push, because i knew that if my oxygen got low, they would have to perform a c-section. to my embarassment i was in so much pain i was yelling, and i felt bad because i could tell i was scaring alex.

finally my midwife got back to the hospital, and i was allowed to start pushing. during the first push her heart rate dropped very low, and they were concerned that the cord may be around her neck. i was concerned because i thought that it might mean that i would need a c-section. they put me on oxygen and continued to monitor her vital signs.

fortunately, she was out so quickly there was almost no time to consider anything like a c-section. i cant remember exactly how many times i pushed before she was out, but it was something like four or five pushing contractions. in other words, it was really fast. all i remember is that they kept saying "she is coming!" but i didn't want to look and be disappointed if she wasn't as far along as i was hoping. but before i knew it i felt her head slide out, then her body, and then they laid her on my stomach.

i was too weak/dazed to turn her, so i just stared at the grey-brown hair on the top of her head for a couple minutes. i was a little bit in shock to actually see the little being that had been inside of me for so many months.

after she laid on me for a while and they cut the umbilical cord, they weighed her and she was 6 lb 15.5oz, which was my exact weight at birth! the day before my mom said that she hoped esther would be the same birth weight as me, and it actually happened. a few minutes later my midwife confirmed our suspicions: because of esther's weight and the amount of vernix she was born with, she was likely a 38 week old baby. so she wasn't overdue after all!

the biggest thing i have felt about esther's birth is gratefulness. despite various issues that came up, the delivery was unmedicated and fairly easy (even though the very last part of it was much harder than i anticipated!). and now we have beautiful baby esther.

thank you Lord for your kindness to us. :)

on preparing (again) for becoming a new mom

2011-07-22T12:00:00.000-07:00

our due date is less than two months away. people keep asking if i am nervous, but all i can think is how hard can one be compared to four? but i am trying not to be too confident, since we are inexperienced with newborns (lovely girl was 5 months when we got her).

i am looking forward to the next couple months for doing some of the research and preparation that i have been wanting to do for a while. i am almost done with the two natural childbirth books that i bought (ina may's guide to childbirth and the bradley method). next on my list is the womanly art of breastfeeding. and after that i want to read several books from different perspectives about vaccines... i see that as a major decision and i want to make sure that i do plenty of research in order to make an informed decision. basically, i need to learn about everything that i didn't need to learn about for being a foster mom. :)

i also need to research and buy a set of newborn cloth diapers, so i would love any input from people with experience in that! i already have a set for 16+lbs that i love... so i just need the little ones.

i am excited for the blessing of this free time to prepare well for our baby.

as a side note, please pray for our little bun. my midwife is concerned because she is not gaining weight like she should, which could lead to complications. right now i am going in for extra testing twice a week to monitor how she is doing.

one year ago today...

2011-07-21T20:45:00.000-07:00

...the waiting ended. we went to a meeting. and then the call came... there was a little boy, and a a baby girl that had just been taken by child services. they needed a home.

one year ago today...

...our world was rocked. our lives were changed.

...i went from lots of free time to almost no free time. [and i dont miss any of it]

...i thought i was becoming a "real" mom.

...i texted our community group to tell them we would not be attending. they showed up on our doorstep with target bags full of blessings [ie diapers and other necessities!]

...i woke up in the middle of the night to feed a baby for the first time ever [but prayerfully not the last time]

...i embarked on a remarkable journey that grew my relationship with God, and with alex.

...my heart overflowed with joy and love like i didn't know it could.

happy father's day, alex

2011-06-19T12:46:00.000-07:00

yes, alex hasn't been a dad for even a full year yet. yes, all of his parenting experience (of kids outside of the womb) have been with foster kids, which aren't the same as adopted/biological kids. yes, are not any children in our home currently (besides our little bun in the oven).

despite these things, i can already say numerous reasons why alex is a great dad. and i am excited to see how God continues to grow him in the coming years to be an even greater father.

1. he has a deep commitment to provide for the physical and spiritual needs of his family, and to lead the family well.

2. he desires to give generously to his family.

3. the way that he holds a baby... there is no describing it, you just have to see it.

4. because seeing him as a father makes me a better mother.

5. he desires over all other things that his children would follow Christ.

6. he prays for his children.

7. he teaches his children the gospel, not morality.

8. he makes his children laugh and have fun. he delights in them.

9. he fully participates in and doesn't complain about the mundane tasks of fatherhood: brushing teeth, changing diapers, getting them dressed.

10. he delights in being a father.

saving money while eating healthy: meat/poultry/fish

2011-06-17T17:23:00.000-07:00

in part one, i shared my tips on saving money on produce. today i am going to focus on meat and other animal proteins, which i see to be a foundation of a healthy diet.

meat/poultry/fish

meat (and by "meat", i include fish and poultry) is one of those categories that i really wont compromise that much on. because of that, it can be one of the pricier things in our budget, but there are lots of ways that i save money even in the midst of that.

what do i look for when i buy meat?

meat has a lot of potential for nutrient density if it is quality, and a lot of potential for bacterial contamination and high chemical concentration if it is not quality. though it is much more expensive, my research has led me to believe it is worth the investment to buy organic meat, for a few reasons:

1. bacterial contamination (including salmonella in poultry and e. coli in beef) is much lower in organic meat (source).

2. organic meat, and especially pasture-raised meat is significantly higher in nutrients such as omega-3 fatty acids, vitamin e, beta carotene, calcium, magnesium, potassium and B-vitamins (source). (this is also true of factory farmed vs. wild caught fish)

3. in general, organic meat animals are much more humanely treated than conventional animals. i know that God gave humans the earth and told us to subdue it, and i know that he has given us animals for the purpose (among other things) of eating them, but i also know that abusing them does not please him. any account you read about a typical factory farm is disgusting: animals are given no room to exercise or roam, they are literally fed garbage (including food scrapings from restaurants and old expired potato chips... even though all science points to the fact that cows should ONLY be eating grass), and they often stand in excrement up to their knees. not only is this bad for the animals, but do you really want to be eating something that lived in its own excrement? this is also the reason that animals are given so many antibiotics, because they are unhealthy to begin with, and then they live so close together that disease spreads very easily (antibiotics... another thing i prefer not to eat with my meat!).

4. artificial hormones in meat are linked to breast cancer and early puberty (source). not something that i want for myself or my children.

5. people usually only think of pesticides when it comes to produce, but conventional meat can have much higher concentrations of pesticides. this is because the animals absorb the pesticides (and other chemicals) from their feed and it accumulates in their bodily tissue (meat and fat). its like the saying "you are what you eat"... except that "you are what you eat eats"!

there is a lot more i could write about this topic, but if you want to read more, i recommend www.eatwild.com as a great resource for more info on this topic.

long story short, i will only buy organic meat. i also avoid cured meat (ie hot dogs, lunch meat, sausage) that contain nitrates, which have been linked to birth defects, cancer and thyroid dysfunction.

how do i save money on meat?

since there are rarely coupons for meat (and much less often for organic meat!) there are several strategies that i use to save money on meat:

*stock up during sales. recently, i was able to buy organic, grass-fed ground beef for an amazing price (cheaper than the price of conventional beef!). Now about a fourth of our freezer is filled with ground beef (i bought about 30 pounds!). i also do this with fish, and sometimes poultry.

*cook and use whole chickens, rather than just certain cuts (like the american favorite: boneless, skinless breast meat). not only is this cheaper (for organic chicken, about $2.50/lb for a whole chicken vs. $7.99/lb for boneless, skinless breast) but it is also healthier to get the nutrients from all parts of the chicken, you can make homemade bone broth, and it is also better stewardship (and better for the environment) to use all of the chicken, rather than select parts. to learn more tips on using whole chickens, read here.

*i haven't been able to do this myself (due to a lack of farms in my area) but buying meat direct in bulk from a farmer can save a lot of money. the other advantage to this is that you can ask lots of questions to your farmer about the living conditions of the animal. many beef farmers offer the option to buy 1/4 or 1/8 of a cow. other farmers will offer a discount to buy multiple (something like 10 or more) whole chickens. www.eatwild.com has a great listing of farmers who sell directly their pastured meat.

*canned fish is nearly always cheaper than fresh or frozen. though i still buy fresh/frozen fish because of my concerns with BPA in the can lining, it does save us a lot of money to eat canned about half the time when eating fish. with the canned fish i make things like salmon burgers, tuna melts, tuna avocado salad and salmon salad. canned fish is also great because we always have plenty available (thanks to my bulk purchases!) and it doesn't require any defrosting or cooking. make sure to look for "wild caught" on the label of the can. (side note: wild caught canned salmon is pretty low in mercury, but canned tuna has more. pregnant women like me should eat about one can or less of tuna per week, and stick to chunk light tuna rather than solid white albacore tuna. chunk light is cheaper anyways... score!)

*stretch the meat. these days, we rarely eat whole cuts of meat. instead, i usually make dishes where i can more easily stretch the meat by chopping it in small pieces (ie tacos, stir fry, etc.). Beans are a great way to stretch meat, since they are high in protein and offer a similar texture (in a dish like chili or burritos). vegetables cut up in really small pieces are another way to stretch meat (such as in meatloaf, meatballs or homemade sausage). some people also use grains (like rice or bread crumbs) to stretch meat, but i try to avoid this because of the low nutrient content of grains.

*make one meatless meal per week. though i am not like some people who believe that going meatless is healthier, it definitely is much cheaper. some of my meatless meal faves are black bean soup, bean and cheese burritos, sloppy lentils and egg frittatas (the three recipes i linked to are also crock-pot recipes, making them a time saver as well as a money saver!). eggs and beans are the foundation of most of our meatless meals. beans are especially frugal and are great because you can usually use bone broth in some way in any recipe that calls for beans, which give a meaty taste to the dish without actually using meat (great for hubbys who prefer meat in all of their meals!).

what do you look for when you buy meat? how do you save money while doing so?

eating healthy without breaking the bank (and it doesn't involve coupons!)

2011-06-12T20:16:00.000-07:00

there are two things in my life that i am passionate about: being frugal and being healthy. neither is my ultimate passion (God is) but they do stem from my faith in him.

sometimes these two things don't seem to be able to coincide. if you think that being very healthy means that all of your grocery shopping should be done at whole foods, then you probably don't think it is possible to eat healthfully while saving money. i have found that though some healthy food is ultimately going to be much more expensive than conventional food, there are many ways to save a lot of money. in fact, from the statistics i have read about how much the average american household spends on food, i know that we spend much less, while eating much healthier.

many people have asked me for tips on how to save money on food while eating healthy, so i have finally gotten around to writing a series on this topic. though there is some overlap, i am going to divide up my strategies by type of food, since there seem to be different strategies with different categories (produce, meat, dairy, grains, beans, etc.).

produce

when it comes to produce, i look for fruit and veggies that are highest in nutrients while being lowest in pesticides.

what do i look for in produce?

the best way to save money while getting the healthiest produce is by becoming very familiar with the dirty dozen/clean fifteen list. this is a list of the most and least pesticide-laden types of produce, which will help you to know when it is worth your while to buy organic, and when its not.

since organic produce is usually about twice the cost of conventional, it is very helpful to know when to spend more, and when to save. note that the tests were done after the produce was rinsed and peeled (if applicable). you can also read the list of all 50 of the fruits and veggies that they test.

i also concentrate on what the nutrient contents of various fruits and vegetables are. in addition to being free of (or at least much lower) in pesticides, organic produce has also been shown to be higher in vitamins, minerals and other nutrients. leafy greens (spinach, kale, chard, etc) are among the most nutrient dense, and have been linked to many health benefits. on the other hand, many different types of fruit have been bred to be extra sweet (ie high in sugar) and are low in nutrients. when it comes to fruit, berries are usually one of the best bets. in general, though, eating a variety of colors is best when it comes to produce.

in general, i try to include at least one vegetable in every meal (including breakfast) but i dont make any great attempt to have fruit in the house (since they are relatively low in nutrients). however, we do enjoy fruit (and it is still healthier than lots of other foods), so i buy it when it is on sale. some people are shocked to hear that i dont believe that we need fruit in our diet every day, but i point out that in the winter time in traditional cultures, they went for months without fruit. when fruit is picked before it is ripe and shipped across the country (as most of it is, especially during the winter), it is especially low in nutrients, making it a poor investment.

how do i save money on produce?

i have found that in order to save money on produce, i cant be picky. i have to form our meals out of what i can get for a good price, rather than going to the store knowing exactly what i would want to get before i get there.

*buy in bulk and stock up during sales. buying a large bag of carrots, apples, onions or potatoes will always be cheaper than buying them individually or by the pound. i regularly buy 5 pound bags of carrots, which are cheaper than conventional carrots. also, most grocery stores will have weekly specials on one or two kinds of in-season produce. when there is a really good price on something we use a lot i will sometimes buy ten or more pounds, and freeze some of it if necessary.

*buy from the reduced produce section. i regularly buy browning bananas at less than half the normal price, and peel them and put them in the freezer (they are great for smoothies or chocolate banana shakes).

*shop at farmer's markets. the best part about farmer's markets is that you can talk to the farmers and ask them about their farming practices. many times you can find farms that basically follow organic practices (ie no chemicals or pesticides, all natural fertilizer), but haven't been officially certified organic. in these cases, the prices will probably be similar to conventional produce, but you can feel more secure about the safety and nutrient density. another benefit of farmer's markets is that you can often negotiate lower prices if you buy 2 or more pounds of something. also, you will sometimes find a farmer who has had a very large harvest of a particular item, and are selling it at a very low price. going an hour or so before closing is the best time to negotiate deals, as farmers usually want to get rid of the last of their stock before the market is over.

*join a CSA. a CSA (community supported agriculture) is a program where consumers buy produce directly from a farm. usually you have to buy a subscription for a whole season or a whole year, though some go week to week (ours goes week to week). sometimes you will even get a discount in exchange for working a certain number of hours on the farm. then each week (or every other) you will receive a box of fresh fruits and veggies straight from the farm. another advantage of this, similar to farmer's markets, is the fact that you can talk to the farmer and learn more about his growing practices. to read more about CSA's and find one near you, i recommend the local harvest website.

*buy in-season produce. the advantage is two-fold: produce is higher in nutrients when it is in season, and cheaper. consider stocking up on produce (though canning and freezing) in the summer to use through the winter months.

*plant a garden. this is a great way to get pesticide-free produce at the lowest price. start out with a few simple vegetables, such as squash, tomatoes and bell peppers, and add to your garden each season as you learn more.

do you have any tips to share? how do you save money on produce?

avoiding GMO's in your food

2011-06-08T23:57:00.000-07:00

what are GMO's?

"GMOs (or “genetically modified organisms”) are organisms that have been created through the gene-splicing techniques of biotechnology (also called genetic engineering, or GE). This relatively new science allows DNA from one species to be injected into another species in a laboratory, creating combinations of plant, animal, bacteria, and viral genes that do not occur in nature or through traditional crossbreeding methods." (source)

why is it important to avoid them?

"In 30 other countries around the world, including Australia, Japan, and all of the countries in the European Union, there are significant restrictions or outright bans on the production of GMOs, because they are not considered proven safe." (source)

my intention in this blog is to write about how to avoid them, under the assumption that they are not safe. studies show that the majority of americans would avoid purchasing a food if they knew it was GMO. however, if you are not yet convinced that they are a health hazard, i would encourage you to read more here, here, or here (or just google "gmo health risks").

how can you avoid GMO's?

it is important to know which foods are most commonly GMO. the three most common GMO foods are soy, canola and corn (which is used to make high fructose corn syrup). from the non-gmo project website, "According to the USDA, in 2009, 93% of soy, 93% of cotton, and 86% of corn grown in the U.S. were GMO. It is estimated that over 90% of canola grown is GMO... As a result, it is estimated that GMOs are now present in more than 80% of packaged products in the average U.S. or Canadian grocery store." however, it is very possible to avoid them, it just takes some intentionality, and education.

the first step to take, if you are not very familiar with your food, is to start reading labels and become familiar with what is in them. another advantage to reading labels is that sometimes companies will specifically state on the label that the ingredients are non-GMO (but this is pretty rare, so don't expect to see it). with the ingredients listed above, GMO's are so common that you should just assume that the ingredient is GMO unless it specifically states that it is not.

here are some of my thoughts on how we avoid GMO's from these three foods:

soy- i pretty much avoid soy at all times, whether GMO or not. i believe that soy is one of those foods that has been falsely marketed as something that is healthy with little science to back that claim up. in short, soy is full of phytic acid, a compound which blocks the absorption of minerals in the body, such as calcium, magnesium and zinc. furthermore, soy phytoestrogens are hormone disrupters and have also been linked to thyroid problems. there are many other issues with soy, which you can read here. another great resource is the whole soy story. in short, i believe that soy is best avoided, and when you do, you have no worries about GMO's coming from this source.

canola- another food that i pretty much avoid as a rule of thumb. canola oil is a pretty recent invention, and has not stood the test of time in my opinion. furthermore, canola must be highly processed in order to extract the oil, meaning that it can be contaminated with lots of chemicals. on top of all of that is the fact that it goes rancid pretty quickly, so you can't be very sure whether the oil you have is fresh or not. the oils/fats that i cook with are pretty much just coconut oil, olive oil, butter and animal fats (such as tallow). along the same lines as soy, i see no reason to eat canola, and avoiding it is another way to avoid GMO's.

corn- corn is not very nutrient dense, so we eat it from time to time but not very much. and when we do, it is usually something homemade (which, again, i usually buy organic, which by law cannot contain GMO's or non-GMO labeled corn products). i do have a love for corn tortilla chips, and when i want to buy some, i always go to trader joe's because not only do they have pretty good prices on tortilla chips, but they also don't allow GMO ingredients in their private label products. also, i recently switched from buying and using corn starch (which, again, if not labeled non-GMO almost certainly is GMO) to using arrowroot powder, which i have found to be pretty much interchangeable with its uses. i also avoid any packaged food that contains high fructose corn syrup since this non-real food product isn't good for your health to begin with (whether GMO or not).

more tips for avoiding GMO's

*find stores that refuse to sell GMO's. i know that trader joe's is one.

*find companies and products that pledge not to use GMO ingredients (bob's red mill is one). the non GMO project is the only organization that does third party testing to assure against GMO's. you can look for their logo on products:

*when in doubt, you can email a company to ask them what their stance is on GMO's. if a company does not specifically source non-GMO ingredients, then their food most probably contains GMO's if it contains corn, soy or canola. i have found companies to be very good about answering my questions about their products, even when it comes to GMO's (unfortunately, every time i have specifically inquired about GMO's, the answer is usually yes, that they do allow GMO ingredients in their foods. bummer! but knowing is better than guessing)

what are your thoughts about GMO's? do you intentionally avoid them? if so, what are your tips for staying away from the 80% of food products that contain GMO's?

note: this post has been edited because it mistakenly said that most wheat is GMO. at this point in time, GMO wheat is not being grown or distributed.

how can you love a foster child who does not love you in return?

2011-06-07T05:00:00.000-07:00

multiple people have asked me something along the lines of "how can you be a foster parent? i could never deal with it, if they had to go back with their parents".

i too thought to myself multiple times through our process so far, "you have to be crazy to be a foster parent". how can someone pour out so much love with little to no love reciprocated, or even as much as a sign of appreciation? isn't it just easier to guard your heart from such pain, and ignore all of the orphans in our country?

this quote hit me today:

"to love at all is to be vulnerable. love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung, and possibly be broken. if you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. wrap it carefully round with little hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. it will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable" -C.S. Lewis The Four Loves

fortunately, the same One who calls us to care for orphans ("pure and undefiled religion in the sight of God our father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained from the world" james 1:27) is also the One who enables us to love them, without concern of reciprocation ("we love because he first loved us" 1 john 4:19).

jesus frees believers up from having to seek out love from other people, including our spouses, children, friends and co-workers. he loves us with a perfect love first, and as a result we can pour out love to others without having to expect love back from them.

this sums it up well:

"'by this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers' (1 john 3:16). this kind of love is the clearest indicator of a gospel-centered life. but laying down your life for others is impossible. it's too scary- unless you know you've been eternally loved by Christ. then you're free to give your life to others, because you've recieved so much yourself"
-tullian tchividjian, surprised by grace

a great prayer

2011-06-06T05:00:00.000-07:00

"remember o my soul
it is thy duty and privilege to rejoice in God
He requires it of thee for all his favors of grace.
rejoice then in the giver and his goodness,
be happy in him, o my heart, and in nothing but God,
for whatever a man trusts in
from that he expects happiness."

-valley of vision, p. 153

wow. those last two lines are powerful.

but how can it be our duty to rejoice in God? does that not take the joy out of it to know that we have to do it?

i love john newton's response to that (from one of his hymns):
"our pleasure and our duty,
though opposite before,
since we have seen his beauty,
are bound to part no more."

3 randoms

2011-06-05T15:14:00.000-07:00

i read a prayer the other day that really resonated with me:

"o that all my distresses and apprehensions
might prove but Christ's school
to make me fit for greater service
by teaching me the great lesson of humility"

in unrelated news, thank you to all who gave to the long beach AIDS walk that I ran the 5K for. i ended up raising $120, and my church team raised over $1,000 all together. despite running my slowest 5K ever (maybe due to the fact that i am 25 weeks pregnant??), i was the first female finisher, so that was pretty cool.

and in still other news, today i am really missing lovely girl (my nickname for our foster baby girl, who is now back with her birth mom). it feels strange knowing that baby costa may never know (who i would consider to be) her older sister.

reading. i. love. it.

2011-05-31T20:45:00.000-07:00

my goal for the next week is to read for at least one hour each day. i am pretty excited about it.

what am i reading? [in no particular order]

surprised by grace- i am LOVING this book. i love learning more about God's grace. it is the foundation for everything in my life.

ina may's guide to childbirth- this has been a great encouragement to me. the first entire half is just various women's birth stories (mostly natural births). so cool!

give them grace: dazzling your kids with the love of jesus- reading this one with some wonderful ladies from church! :)

overcoming fear and discouragement: ezra, nehemiah, esther - i was trying to decide whether to do a kay arthur study on nehemiah or esther. then i saw that she has a book that covers both. sweet!

It cannot be wrong. It is done in love. It must be well.

2011-05-24T19:10:00.000-07:00

“Reader, if God has given you His only begotten Son, beware of doubting His kindness and love, in any painful providence of your daily life! Never allow yourself to think hard thoughts of God. Never suppose that He can give you anything which is not really for your good. Remember the words of Paul: ‘He who spared not His own Son—but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things’ (Romans 8:32).

See in every sorrow and trouble of your earthly pilgrimage the hand of Him who gave Christ to die for your sins! That hand can never smite you except in love! He who gave His only begotten Son for you, will never withhold anything from you which is really for your good. Lean back on this thought and be content. Say to yourself in the darkest hour of trial, ‘This also is ordered by Him who gave Christ to die for my sins. It cannot be wrong. It is done in love. It must be well.’"

-JC Ryle (thanks to girl talk )

i love how he says "lean back on this thought and be content"... we can rest and relax on these truths, even in the midst of the most painful hardship.

this quote reminded me of a really good point from my pastor's sermon on sunday. he pointed out that the times we are most likely to doubt God's love is in the midst of a trial, and that is why paul wrote these words to fight that lie:

"who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger or sword? ... no, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us." romans 8:35, 37

that is why i am meditating on and memorizing these verses this week... i need it to penetrate my soul, because i often do doubt his love when going through a painful trial.

my thoughts on the controversy: natural birth

2011-05-20T15:55:00.000-07:00

this week two books came in the mail that i am pretty excited to read.

natural childbirth the bradley way

and ina may's guide to child birth

one of the upsides to the kids going back with their birth mom is that i have been able to focus a little more on our little "bun in the oven" and preparing for her to come. one of the things i have been needing to think through and research more is having a natural child birth. from my initial research it seems that this is just the right time to really start preparing for this major event, if you want to have a natural birth, because of all the exercises and practicing that is needed in order to be successful.

first let me define what i mean by natural child birth. my desire is to give birth without any sort of medication or medical intervention whatsoever. the kind of birth that could just as easily happen in my own home as in a hospital. women have been doing this for thousands of years, and still do so around the world.

however, these days in america it is popular and accepted as the norm to have induced labor, an epidural, an episiotomy, and/or a cesarian section to "help" the laboring mother. labor and birth are treated as an illness, as women are sent into hospitals to do something that is completely normal and healthy for their body. traditionally women have given birth with the help of a midwife or other women with lots of childbirth experience, but these days doctors do the deliveries. unfortunately doctors are trained to "do something" and not just stand idly by... and what they do is administer drugs and order unnecessary surgeries "just in case" (ie to avoid being sued in the very small chance that something will go wrong). unfortunately, when you look at the statistics all of these medical interventions are actually hurting both mothers and babies more than helping. (please note that i am not saying that these medical interventions are never acceptable, its just that they should be the exception and not the rule.)

america has the highest rate for medical interventions during birth anywhere in the world (in fact, a few years ago, the c-section rate was up to 30% of all births in america!!!) and one of the lowest rates for home birth among developed countries (less than 1% of births in america, but up to 30% of births in some european countries). that being said, our infant mortality rates are the highest among developed counties. the reason for this higher rate of death is that medical interventions bring risk for the mother and baby. even when a medicated birth seems to go well, the effects of the drugs are always felt by the baby and there is no drug that has been proven completely safe for an newborn baby.

furthermore, it is completely a myth that giving birth with drugs will be a pain-free birth. first of all, the drugs eventually wear off, and sometimes before more can be given. second of all, getting an epidural messes with your spine, and some women continue to feel the effects for a long time afterwards. third of all, when you are given an epidural it often slows down your laboring and contractions, which means that labor inducing drugs also need to be given (it is a vicious cycle, and the reason why many women need to be given LOTS of drugs to get through child birth). these labor inducing drugs (such as pitocin) cause contractions to be much more painful than natural contractions. you may have the impression (which is common) that laboring women scream out in pain during the process... this is only true of women given labor-inducing drugs (which, these days is the norm, which is why we think it is normal to scream while laboring). if you ever watch a video of a women given birth without drugs, she is not screaming in pain, but occasionally moaning (if you are interested, search for "natural birth" in you tube).

on the other hand, women who do not taken medication are able to be up and moving around during labor, finding the most comfortable (and most effective) positions to labor in. more important, though, is the fact that unmedicated women are able to feel the body's natural repsonse to the birth, a huge release of oxytocin and other chemicals which leave her feeling very alive and happy. women i know that have had both medicated and unmedicated births have mentioned that they will never accept the drugs again, simply so that they can experience the high after the birth that you cannot feel when you have an epidural.

yesterday, in the bradley method book, i read this interesting quote: "many women start out with a medicated, monitered experience and then "graduate" to a more natural method." using the words of the book, i am hoping to get the "graduate" experience without going through the undergraduate course. but, i must add, this will only happen if the Lord allows (james 4:15).

more more information, in addition to the books above, i highly recommend the documentary, the business of being born which goes much more into depth than i can here about the differences between medicated and natural births, and why america has such high rates of medical interventions, as well as the effects of these interventions.

(i write all of this to share my thoughts and feelings about the subject. before i did any research on this years ago, i figured that i would just have a medicated birth like most other american women. however, the research is too compelling not to share, especially since i feel like many women are uneducted about their options and the reasons for going with a natural birth. however, i do want to emphasize that medical intervention is need in a few births, and i praise God for giving us these tools when they are absolutely needed.)

what's next?

2011-05-15T20:08:00.000-07:00

it feels like i suddenly have this big gaping hole in my life.

weekends can now be a time to relax and hang out with friends, not spend hours in the car driving the kids to see their mom and catching up on housework. my afternoons after i come home from work are amazingly free... i can even take a nap when i want to!

its pretty rare to experience such an all-encompassing life change like this. its not just all the extra free time, but even just having a free mind... no worries about foster care paperwork that is due, whether or not the kids are hurting each other when they play, or what needs to get done each day to have everyone clothed, bathed and fed...

for the past few days i have been enjoying and relishing my free time: sleeping in, taking much needed naps (trying to catch up on all the sleep i am behind on from the last year!), reading, watching netflix and relaxing. one time a while ago i joked that if/when the kids would go back to their mom, i would sleep for a week straight... it hasn't quite been that, but i definitely don't feel bad for all the extra time i have spent in bed!

i have also been thinking ahead to how i want to start using this new found free time. if there has been one thing that i have learned in the past year, it has been to be much more generous with others with my time, and to use my time wisely in general. there have also been numerous times that i thought to myself "i wish i had done more of ____ when we didn't have kids". now, i have another chance at a few months without kids, and i want to us it well. here are my initial thoughts on how i want to use my "extra" time for the next few months:

*gardening- my dream is to have a huge vegetable garden in our back yard. unfortunately, i am a bit slow in starting it up, so it might not be as big as i was origionally hoping, but i am praying to have a fair sized crop of veggies (and melons!) by the end of the summer.

*reaching out to my neighborhood- i haven't quite thought through what this will look like yet. alex and i want to have a cookout in the near future. i want to spend some more time with the people i have gotten to know. i need to pray for some more wisdom and direction in this area.

*getting enough sleep- though i average 8-9 hours a night, this still hasn't been enough for me since becoming pregnant. i want to try to take more mid-day naps as well as get to bed at a better time each night.

*reading, praying, memorizing scripture- this is definitely something i have thought about a lot while we had the kids... why didn't i do this more when i had free time!? i want to really use my time wisely this summer to invest in these disciplines well.

*spending time with people- always a priority for me, which can be more of a reality at this life stage.

*spending time with my wonderful husband- we are hoping to go on a mini-vacation this summer (for the first time since we were married!) up the coast. and i now that we wont be so exhausted all the time, we will be able to spend more than an hour together on our weekly date night. i feel like this summer is going to be a second honeymoon! :)

sorrowful. thankful. rejoicing.

2011-05-14T19:29:00.000-07:00

“give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.” 1 thessalonians 5:18

“ [regarded] as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing” 2 corinthians 6:10

"therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain." 1 corinthians 15:58

earlier this week, a judge ruled that our four foster children should be reunified with their birth mom. three days ago, we drove them to her place, and dropped them off for the last time ever.

it is difficult to describe the mix of emotions that i have felt as a result. sadness for the kids and what their future holds. the pain of four broken relationships. thankfulness for everything God did through our time with them. peace with His plan. longing to see them grow up. joy in the blessing that they were to us.

i have been reflecting a lot on their time with us, what God did in us, what God did in them. i miss them. but i am very thankful, and i can honestly say that i have a heart full of joy in the midst of it all.

i am thankful for the laughter they brought to our home. i remember reading some kind of statistic about adults laughing on average like 7 times a day, while children laugh on average something like 100 times per day. i really noticed this about our kids... they laughed about everything! sometimes hearing their laughter made me suspicious, because it often meant that they were doing something mischievous, but God really used their laughter to show me how serious and hard my heart is, and gave me a desire to just laugh more. He used it to help me take my eyes off the never ending list of tasks i needed to accomplish in order to stop and just enjoy a minute or two with them.

i rejoice because of how God taught me about His character through their time with us. one way i learned about his character was through reading about and meditating on His fatherhood. it was always such a contrast to my parenthood... He is full of patience and his every action toward His children is motivated by love. even my most loving actions (which are rare) are stained and marred by sin. when the kids were disobedient, my mind instantly went to what punishments they "deserved" for their rebellion and what privileges they did not "deserve". God continuously reminded me of His grace towards me, and how he constantly fills my cup to overflowing with blessings that I don't deserve.

God also really took deeper into my heart the reality of His sovereignty, that all things are under his control. my trust in God has gone much deeper through this, even when many aspects of our first foster care experience did not go the way that we were hoping. God chose for these kids to be in our home. he chose that first we would have two, and then four. he chose that things would be hard at times and good at other times. and he chose that this week they would go home with their birth mom. period. i have no bitterness, just a deep trust in him (by his grace). moreover, i rejoice that my God rules the universe. "our God is in the heavens, he does whatever he pleases" (psalm 115:3)

i rejoice that he has humbled me through this. God showed me a deeper level of my sin than i have ever experienced before through our kids. having previously worked with children with austism, i thought that i had a lot of patience. boy. was. i. wrong. (but God reminded me that He has perfect patience, and that true patience can only be brought about in me through his spirit). he showed me my severe lack of love and empathy (while reminding me of His perfect love and his desire to fill me with his love by his spirit). he showed me my pride, that i would think that i could keep up with four young children all on my own (but in the midst of it, he graciously provided what i needed to get through each day). he showed me my complete inability to "do everything without grumbling" (philippians 2:14), and lack of joy (but constantly reminded me that only He is the true source of joy).

i am thankful that we got to share the gospel with them on a regular basis. moreover, i am thankful for all the opportunities (and we will continue to do so) to come to Him in prayer and ask for their salvation. i rejoice that they got to hear gospel truths that they may never have gotten to hear otherwise. even now that they are back with their mom, they have bible story books and CD's of gospel centered songs (that we sent them home with) that we pray will continue to point them towards Christ. it breaks my heart to think that i may never see any of them here on earth again but i spend more time praying that i will spend eternity with them.

i am thankful for getting to play the important role of teaching and training them. teaching and training is haaaaarrrrddd work. but so satisfying when you see the results. i am thankful that we were able to spend almost a year of the most important developmental time in all four of their lives with them. we were the ones who taught the oldest two how to get dressed. we were the ones who taught the youngest boy how to take off his shoes. we were the ones who taught the oldest two all of their colors, the oldest brother most of his letters and the middle brother to count to five. many of these things we taught them they should have been taught long before they came to us, and they still might not know had they never come to us.

i am thankful for everything that i learned that will make me a better parent in the future. one of the biggest things i saw through our time with them was my sin and my need for grace. on more than one occasion i had to apologize to the kids for my sin (such as being impatient) and i thank God that he helped me to do so. however, i also really saw how a parent's sin can transfer onto their kids and it has really lead me to pray more for sanctification... i don't want our kids to follow in my sinful ways!

i also learned that it is important to bring up God and the gospel at every moment possible (especially since their time with us was so brief). every moment is an opportunity for them to learn about God's character. when they would notice a bird or a tree, i would point out that God made that bird or tree. when they had difficulty sharing toys, i would bring up the reason that we share... because God first chose to share with us. when they were excited about a new toy or new shoes, we would pray and thank God for providing it.

i am thankful for how our time with them has gotten me more excited to have a large family in the future. even though things were very chaotic at times, i was able to see innumerable benefits to having a large family. i loved seeing how close of friends all the kids were. it helped that they constantly had others to play with! (it baffles my mind when so many parents of a single child say they don't have time for another one... i feel like i don't have time to be the sole entertainer for one!) it was also cool to see how things we taught one child quickly transferred onto the others. for example, within a month of the oldest learning his colors, the next oldest brother also knew all of his colors.

these are just a few of the things i have thought about this week, and why i am thankful and joyful in the midst of my sorrow. i am also hopeful... i hope to get to spend eternity with them in God's presence. but that will remain just a hope for the time being.

tomorrow is the day....

2011-05-09T20:13:00.000-07:00

"the king’s heart is a stream of water in the hand of the LORD;
he turns it wherever he will." proverbs 21:1

if i didn't believe in God's sovereignty in all things, i think i would be going nuts right now. tomorrow is the court date for the kids, where the judge will most likely rule that the kids will go back with their mom. if so, we will be driving them there on wednesday, possibly never to see them again.

but the judge's heart is a stream of water in the hands of the Lord. God will turn it where he will.

the thought of them going home is a bittersweet one... on one hand i relish the thought of free time, sleeping in, relaxing, allowing my brain to unwind, not having to deal with their crazy behavior of recent and having much less housework to do. on the other hand, we already have had a taste of what their life will be like, and it is not something i want for them. i *know* that they would have a much better life with us... but that might not be God's ultimate desire for them. he may have a better plan to bring them through lots of hardship. in the past month or two i have grown much deeper in my attachment to the younger two, especially to lovely girl (to whom i am her "real" mom as far as she is concerned, she has spent two-thirds of her life with us) and i so want to be their forever mommy...

but i have a desire deeper than being their forever mommy... the desire that they would know Christ, delight in Him, treasure Him, love Him... and maybe God will choose to do that through a very rough life where his gift of grace and promise of new life will seem that much sweeter than if they grew up in a loving, nourishing, emotionally fulfilling home.

i have no idea what their future hold, but i rejoice that i can pray for them, and continue to affect them even if they are not living with us.

please take a minute to pray for all four of our foster kids. pray that they would come to know Christ. pray that God would turn the judge's heart tomorrow to make a decision that will ultimately lead them to know Him.

april at our home

2011-05-01T20:49:00.000-07:00

wow. i cant believe that it is may already. time flies when you are pregnant with four young kids in the home :)

april at our home was eventful (the story of our lives recently). for the first two weeks, the kids were in respite care at another foster home. during this time i got a lot done (things that i dont have time for when the kids are around)... major work on our garden, finishing our complicated taxes, lots of catching up on cleaning and laundry. i think i even took a nap or two :) alex and i also took a weekend trip to san diego which was fun. it was also a time for reflecting on things with the kids... i missed them, despite enjoying the break, and was able to think through what i want my last weeks with them to be like.

things with the kids have shifted pretty majorly since they came back. we expected a bit of a readjustment period, and our expectations were pretty accurate. in addition, not only were they thrown off of the normal course of things by the respite care, but even more so by the extra time they have with their mom these days (visits were formerly about 6 hours, now they are 48 hours long). since this change we has seen a dramatic increase in tantrums, whining, screaming, crying, disobedience and talking back in all of the boys. it has been a trial of my patience, as well as my understanding of the gospel. God has been very gracious to help me love them through it, reminding me that my sin is much more ugly than any of their behavior. he has also been gracious to forgive me when i am impatient and don't love them through it.

their next court date is coming up soon, may 10. we have been told that they almost definitely will be reunited with their birth mom at that time. on one hand i am eager for the craziness of having all of them in the house to be over, but on the other hand i am a bit sad for the kids... seeing how they come back from their parent visits is a bit of a reality check for what their life will be like living with their mom. we have also given a bit of thought as to the possibility of them coming back into our lives again. if they are reunited and something goes wrong and they go back into foster care, we would be the first to get a call to take them in. we would be open to it, but we would most likely only the younger two kids who we started out with originally. we feel, and several other people have also noticed, that these two have developed a special bond with us that the older two clearly do not have.

this has been a month of growth for me spiritually. i have been making prayer and bible reading more of a priority, which has been good. it hasn't necessarily been life changing every day, but more like a good discipline that is making me stronger over all. i have been reading through revelation, which is one of my favorite books of the bible, and thinking more deeply about some of the things in it (especially relating to the end times).

one very exciting thing for me this month has been (FINALLY!) starting my vegetable garden. in so cal, you are supposed to start seeds january to march, but i put it off for a while since we did not know whether or not we would be moving (it also didn't help that i majorly lack free time!). i am hoping that my late start wont mess things up. by God's grace, a couple veggie plants planted themselves earlier in the year, which means that we have a tomato plant that already has lots of flowers and 4 small tomatoes, as well as pumpkin plants with tons of blossoms. in addition, i have started seeds for butternut squash, sweet cherry peppers, basil, marigolds (flowers that ward off bugs that attack veggie plants), watermelon as well as more pumpkin and tomatoes. we are blessed with a ton of garden space, and i am hoping to make good use of it all.

baby costa is getting bigger. this week is the half way point in the pregnancy, which is fun :) i bought some maternity clothes this week and have started to wear them, its nice to have a bit more room for my expanding tummy. at an ultrasound about a week ago we found out that the baby is (most likely) a girl, so we can call her a "her". we have thrown around a few name ideas, and have possibly landed on one. finding out that the baby inside of me is a girl made my affections for our foster baby girl that much stronger. i want them to grow up together, to be best friends. right now i cant imagine life without her beaming smile, her silly walk, her cute crinkly nose and her room-brightening squeals.

good friday 2011

2011-04-22T07:47:00.000-07:00

my father,
enlarge my heart, warm my affections, open my lips.
      supply the words that proclaim 'love lustures at calvary'.
there grace removes my burdens and heaps them on thy Son,
     made a transgressor, a curse, a sin for me;
there the sword of thy justice smote the man, thy fellow;
there thy infinite attributs were magnified,
     and infinite atonement was made;
there infinite punishment was due,
     and infinite punishment was endured.

Christ was all anguish that i might be all joy,
     cast off that i might be brought in,
     cast down as an enemy that i might be welcomed as a friend,
     surrendered to hell's worst that i might attain heaven's best,
     stripped that i might be clothed,
     wounded that i might be healed,
     athirst that i might drink,
     tormented that i might be comforted,
     made a shame that i might inherit glory,
     entered darkness that i might have eternal light.

My Savior wept that all tears might be wiped from my eyes,
    groaned that i might have endless song,
    endured all pain that i might have unfading health,
     bore a thorned crown that i might have a glory-diadem,
     bowed his head that i might uplift mine,
     experienced reproach that i might receive welcome,
     closed his eyes in death that i might gaze on unclouded brightness,
     expired that i might live forever.

O that my every breath would be estatic praise,
     my every step boyant with delight, as i see
            my enemies crushed,
            Satan baffled, defeated, destroyed,
            sin buried in the ocean of reconciling blood,
            hell's gates closed, heaven's portal opened.

go forth, o conquering God, and show me the cross,
     mighty to subdue, comfort and save.

-take from the valley of vision puritan prayer book, p. 42-43

rest.

2011-04-17T17:12:00.000-07:00

the pastor of my church in ohio once made a comment in passing that has stuck deeply with me ever since. he said that the normal american thinks that life should be generally easy with periods of hardship every once in a while. however, the bible makes it clear that life on this sin-infested earth for the believer will be consistently difficult, but in the midst of that God promises periods of rest from time to time (and ultimately when he remakes the earth, there will be eternal rest for his followers).

i am on the precipice to the end of one of those periods of rest, with mixed emotions. for the past two weeks, the kids have been gone (part of the time in respite care, and then with their birth mom), but they come back today (possibly even before i finish this post!).

for the past few days i have been slightly dreading, slightly anticipating this moment. selfishly, i long for more days of a free schedule, getting ready for work with no one else to get ready, coming home from work to a clean house with no noise and no one to take care of, leisurely evenings spending time with alex, sleeping in on the weekends.

today that will change, and we will jump back in to the madness. but, "this light and momentary affliction is preparing for us a weight of glory beyond all comparison" (2 corinthians 4:17). we will jump back into the way that God has called us specifically to care for "orphans... in their affliction" (james 1:27).

as hard as it is at times to keep up with the kids, i LOVE that we get to point them to jesus in a way that they would otherwise not get. today i spent some time planning for this week leading up to easter, and how i can teach the kids how easter is about jesus and his resurrection and not bunnies and eggs. if they were living with their birth mom and not us, they would likely have zero input about the true celebration of easter (what is there to celebrate about bunnies and candy? but there is MUCH to celebrate about freedom from sin and loosening the chains of our bondage to death. praise Him!!)

this week in our community group we discussed in depth one of the more famous verses in the bible "and we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose." (romans 8:28), and discussed how certainly the bad things but even the mundane things in life are being worked out by God for His glory and the believer's ultimate good. i find this comforting. sometimes it is easy for me to wonder why i spend hours a day changing diapers, doing laundry, cooking and running around after kiddos. i am a college educated woman, and i used to have an "important" ministry of daily sharing my faith and discipling younger believers. and now i spend my days doing this?? but i know that God is using this, and that he will use all time time i spend doing mundane things, when i could be doing really "spiritual" things for my good and his glory.

the next month or so (until the kids go back with their mom) will be hard. as much as i try to take it at a marathon pace, it will more likely be like a month long sprint. after that God will likely provide another season of rest, but then the craziness will begin again once we (Lord willing) have an infant in the house.

but i don't live so that life right now will be easy. i "look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. for the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal." (2 corinthians 4:18). i want to work as hard as i can on this earth, and endure the difficulties, that God may be glorified. i will enjoy the brief periods of rest he brings, as i look forward to the eternal rest that He promises.

march at our home

2011-04-03T15:40:00.000-07:00

wow, the past month has been crazy, but in the midst of it, God has been crazy gracious and kind to us.

where to start? first i will update on what is going on with the kids. after asking for them to be moved to a different home (due to my pregnancy and inability to keep up with them; we got the van issue resolved), they were supposed to be moved in mid-february. from mid february to early march they kept telling us that there were no homes available but that they were looking. at the beginning of march, they told us that they are going to try to expedite the reunification process and that the kids will most likely go back with their mom in early may. after praying and thinking about it, we decided to agree to keep them until may, because it would be best if they just have one stable home between being taken from their parents and going back to them.

however, since then it is really beginning to look like the social workers are just telling us what we want to hear so that they dont have to deal with the headache of moving the kids to a new home. the kids were supposed to start overnight visits with their mom more than a month ago, and now they wont be starting for another 2 weeks at least. we are pretty sure that no judge in his right mind will put the kids back with their mom after just one month of one over night visit per week. but in the midst of this, we know that God has a purpose for keeping them here longer and we want to be faithful to loving and serving them and teaching them about jesus while they are with us.

over the past two weeks, lovely girl and i have bonded in a big way. i dont know exactly what happened but we have just grown much tighter. i love the way that any time i get near her she clings on to my shins for dear life, or the silly, giggly faces she makes all of the time. her walking has exploded, and she went from taking a few steps here and there to walking all over the house all of the time.

this month middle brother had a birthday, which means that we no longer have two two-year-olds in the house (that was the case for about a month and a half)! now we are at an even 1, 2, 3 and 4 years old for the ages of our kids.

we have requested a week and a half of respite care, so tomorrow night i will be driving them to the homes they will be staying, and we will pick them up next friday. we have really needed a break for a while, and this is much needed. we plan to take an overnight trip to san diego next weekend (it will be our first outing alone since getting the kids last july!). in addition to relaxing, i will need to spend a big chunk of time figuring out our taxes (which will be really complicated this year due to the fact that alex started his business in november, and we haven't kept good financial records, shhh dont tell the irs) and getting a couple major things done around the house.

please pray for us, that we would be really refreshed with this time off and connect with one another and with God. please pray also that this would spur us on to finish our last month with them well, and that this time away would not cause us to take steps back in our relationships with them and influence on them.

our day to day life has also changed in a big way in the past month. at the beginning of march, i started up again at my job (i had told them that i could start again, thinking that the kids would be moved before march!). i am just working about 5 hours a day and the kid that i work with has pretty easy behaviors to deal with (this was literally an answer to prayer, praise God). this has been both hard and good. its hard to have to wake up and get ready and get out of the house at a certain time each day (while helping to get the kids ready as well). it is hard to be away from the house each morning since so much of my responsibility lies here. its hard to not be the main influence in the lives of my children any more (though we are very fortunate to have it work out that my mom is watching them while i am at work). on the other hand, i see God's grace in it a lot. the kid i work with is usually pretty good, so my mornings with him are not too stressful. even better, he usually comes about a half hour after i start and leaves about a half an hour before i finish, so i get paid for about an hour each day that i am doing nothing! when i come home, i usually feel pretty refreshed (minus my normal pregnancy tiredness), and ready to jump into taking care of the kids and keeping up with household duties.

another change is that alex isn't around nearly as much any more. this is because he started a second job about the same time that i started working again. he is really enjoying his job so far and is doing really well at it. an added bonus is that many of his coworkers are christians. he has to wake up at about 5am to get there and has a fairly long commute each way, but he doesn't complain at all. in fact we both feel that this really is God's grace to us in many ways; not only financially, but also in giving alex more structure to his day.

my pregnancy continues to go well, by God's grace. i am feeling less tired these days (though still more tired than my un-pregnant self) and much less nauseated. i have had fewer food aversions, which is also nice (especially since i am responsible for feeding 7 people 3 meals a day!). i am starting to show a little bit, which is fun. alex is especially excited for when i am showing even more and we go out places with the kids. the judgmental stares will be just great. (i have already gotten the comment, when people see the 3 boys and then lovely girl, "oh now you can finally stop")

that was march at our home! never a dull moment here with the costas :)

culinary adventures of the week

2011-02-23T00:30:00.000-08:00

i have been craving cereal like its my job recently. i finally found a recipe for granola that includes soaking (which makes it healthier and more digestible) so i can indulge my craving (why do i try to limit my whole grain intake?).

i definitely recommend it... especially since i already ate about half of one of the cookie sheets of it before it even cooled down :) if you are interested, i used this recipe (tweaked a bit) from one of my favorite blogs, passionate homemaking.

and later this week i plan to make homemade vanilla extract.

3 things that have affected me this week...

2011-02-22T04:05:00.000-08:00

...by shifting my focus off of myself and on to christ

1.) hope for your dark night of the soul - being a melancholy, i am all too familiar with dark nights. but i dont want it to be this way. i was affected by bob kauflin's story of a 3 year long struggle with deep hopelessness:

About a year into the process I talked to a good friend, Gary Ricucci... I said, “Gary, I feel hopeless all the time.”

He said, “You know, Bob? I think your problem is that you don’t feel hopeless enough.”

I don’t know what I looked like on the outside, but on the inside I was saying, “You are crazy. You are crazy. I feel hopeless.”

He said, “No, if you were hopeless, you would stop trusting in yourself and rely completely on what Jesus Christ accomplished for you.”

That was the beginning of the way out. And I remember saying to myself literally hundreds of times—every time these feelings of hopelessness and panic and a desire to ball up in a fetal position would come on me—“I feel completely hopeless because I am hopeless, but Jesus Christ died for hopeless people, and I’m one of them.”

Over time I began to believe that. And today when I tell people that Jesus is a great Savior, I believe it, because I know that he saved me. That’s where my joy comes from. My joy comes from knowing that at the very bottom, at the very pit of who I am, it is blackness and sin, but the love and grace of Jesus goes deeper.

2.) Romans 8:1 sermon by my favorite man in the world - our church has studied romans 7 for the past few weeks, and debated over whether the "i" who anguishes over sin and slavery to the law in v. 13-25 refers to paul or is a literary device for non-believers. alex and i lean towards the later (much less popular) belief.

one of the reasons alex believes this, as he pointed out in his sermon, is that there is no other precedent in the NT where someone so heavily focus on their sin with so little hope. his exhortation to us was to passionately pursue christ and look to Him and not at our sin, and the sin will just seem to fall off.

you can listen to it here

3.) Francis Chan's Desiring God Pastors conference talk - wow this man is intimate with God. and it doesn't come from thinking about himself. it come from a passionate prayer for ONE THING: "to dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life and gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and inquire in his temple" (ps. 27:4)

Lord, let this be the one thing that i seek.

february at our home, our pet chicken and tuna melts

2011-02-17T21:41:00.000-08:00

february at our home has been a month of transition in many ways. the biggest transition is that the kids are being moved to a new home (long story, maybe the topic of a future post). originally it was supposed to happen this week, but its going to be delayed a bit (due to a current shortage of foster homes). another transition is that my mom (finally!) moved in with us. she has been a HUGE help with the kids. also, I am going to be starting up work again (tomorrow is my first day!). so, lots going on and lots changing. sometimes change is interesting and fun, but sometimes i just wish that life would be a bit more smooth...

in other news (which is very exciting for me but may not interest you as much... its ok, i am not offended :) )... we may be getting a chicken!!! ever since i have been getting into local real foods, i have been really wanting to get chickens (and a goat... but chickens are the first step :) ). Eggs from the store come from factory farms where the chickens get little exercise and horrible nutrition (sadly this is even true of most organic eggs), but when they are in your backyard, you can make sure chickens are getting lots of grass, bugs and cage-free time, which makes their eggs' nutrition go way up (and their cholesterol content way down). plus they are super fresh and less likely to have bacteria like salmonella!

a couple days ago, i was talking about my desire for chickens with a friend from our natural food co-op. They currently have chickens but need to get rid of them and they have one left! Now, I always figured we would own more than one (don't chickens get lonely?) but after finally checking into our local laws on this, I found out that we are legally only allowed to own one chicken in long beach (unless we had a much bigger yard). so one would be perfect! We would still need to but eggs, but this will supplement our nutrition well. there is a chance we may be moving soon, but if not we may be the proud owners of a chicken!!!! :D

in other news, i have posted a real food friday recipe over at somaticos: this week, tuna melts! mmmm... i am biased, but they are delish.

spicy beef burrito bowl recipe

2011-01-14T06:45:00.000-08:00

over at somaticos.

we have had these several times recently. they are yum.

wow. let this be me.

2011-01-14T06:43:00.001-08:00

By faith Moses, when he was grown up, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter, choosing rather to be mistreated with the people of God than to enjoy the fleeting pleasures of sin. He considered the reproach of Christ greater wealth than the treasures of Egypt, for he was looking to the reward.
(Hebrews 11:24-26 ESV)

Adotion "waiting lists"

2011-01-08T08:55:00.000-08:00

A reader writes to Andrew Sullivan:

I’m flabbergasted by your quote of Ross [Douthat] stating that “would-be adoptive parents face a waiting list that has lengthened beyond reason.” They do not. I’ve adopted two children, and the waiting list is not long. It doesn’t even exist: there are 500,000 children in foster care in the US, and 100,000 of those are available for adoption today.
Well, ok, but you want an infant? No problem: less than a month after we adopted our first child, our agency called us asking if we knew anyone at all with a completed home study. They had a healthy baby boy in a hospital and nobody willing to adopt him. (Agency rules didn’t allow us to take him before our first was completed) For our second, the agency tried for days to contact us around Christmas since we were the only people on the list who were willing to take him.
Why was it so hard to place them? Simple: the adoption market is built around healthy white infants. If you’re willing to remove even *one* of those conditions, the waiting list is short to non-existent.
There’s no shortage of children to adopt; the waiting list exists solely because adoptive parents want to wait for the “right” kind of child. Please don’t perpetuate the myth.

HT: Justin Taylor

pumpkin coconut soup recipe

2011-01-07T07:04:00.000-08:00

...and three more health benefits of coconut.

read all of this and more over at somaticos today!

the pill's dirty little secret

2011-01-04T20:29:00.000-08:00

"Suddenly, one anxiety—Am I pregnant?—is replaced by another: Can I get pregnant? ...The Pill didn’t create the field of infertility medicine, but it turned it into an enormous industry. Inadvertently, indirectly, infertility has become the Pill’s primary side effect."

new york magazine has a very informative article on the lesser-known side effects of the pill. yet another reason to avoid it.

read on here.

5 reasons you should love soup...

2010-12-24T06:44:00.000-08:00

... and also a (super easy!) recipe for black bean soup today over at somaticos. this soup will literally take you less than ten minutes of hands on time and will serve a lot of people. especially great if you are having guests over for the holidays!

click here to read on...

new recipes

2010-12-17T20:08:00.000-08:00

in the past couple weeks i have been experimenting with some new recipes, and i have posted some of them over at somaticos!

click here if you want to learn how to make:

lamb gyros (with more about why we chose grass-fed meats)

avocado tuna salad (and read about our avocado problem)

where is your mind during prayer?

2010-12-12T09:20:00.000-08:00

"how easily we convince ourselves that we are praying to the Lord when in reality we are locked in our own thoughts. we need to ask: if i'm happy, am i really rejoicing in Him or am i rejoicing in my own self-satisfaction? if i'm worried or afraid, am i truly and humbly asking Him for help or is my mind busy trying to work our some plan (however spiritual it may seem) for getting myself out of trouble"

-mike mason, as quoted in prayers of an excellent wife

encouragement for young moms

2010-12-07T20:23:00.000-08:00

have i posted this one before? oh well, even if i did, it is worth repeating.

DA Carson:

"Martyn Lloyd-Jones once spoke with a group of medical students who complained that in the midst of their training and the ferocious work hours they really didn’t even have time to read the Bible and have their devotions and so on. He bristled and said, “I am a doctor. I have been where you are. You have time for what you want to do.” After a long pause he said, “I make only one exception: the mother of preschool-aged children does not have time and emotional resources.”

It is important to recognize, too, that there are stages of life where you really don’t have time to do much, and you shouldn’t feel guilty about it. Children will sap you. If you have three children under the age of six, forget serious reading unless you have the money for a nanny. When our youngest finally went off to kindergarten, we celebrated that day—I took my wife out for lunch. Only then could she get back into reading again. It’s the way life is. You have to be realistic."

HT: Take your Vitamin Z

a conundrum

2010-12-07T06:30:00.000-08:00

if john the baptizer was filled with the holy spirit from the womb (luke 1:15), does that mean his physical birth was re-birth?

or does it mean he was reborn before he was born?

the whole grain myth

2010-12-06T06:22:00.000-08:00

"Many of you have been intrigued and surprised by Alex's series on the long distance cardio myth (you can read the series here, here, here and here). Sometimes we think that living in America we always have the best and most up to date information, but that is not always the case.

As I have done more of my own research into nutrition recently, I have found another myth that I have fallen into: the importance of carbohydrates in our diet, and especially whole grains. My previous mentality was that whole grains should be the majority of my meal at every meal, but not so any more..."

read on here

one food to AVOID to boost your immunity

2010-12-03T21:50:00.000-08:00

i just finished up a series at somaticos about various foods to eat to boost your immunity. today, i am writing about one food to stay away from, as it will weaken your immunity.

wonder what it is? i will give you a hint: i can almost guarantee that you ate some of it today.

read more here.

did you miss part of the series? click to read more about boosting your immunity with:

praying for the grace to be a joyful melancholy

2010-12-02T15:32:00.000-08:00

last night at our community group we talked about thankfulness, God's sovereignty and how he designs hard things for our good and His glory.

of course that got me thinking about our kids and how God has designed this situation for me and for us.

things are often hard these days. i am experiencing a lot of vacillation. one minute i love being with the kids and thankful for God's work in their lives. but the next minute i am overwhelmed and thinking about everything i wish i could be doing as a mother that i cant with so many kiddos running around. i often feel like i am running on empty, leading me to be negative and joyless.

but here is the thing. i know myself and even if i had lots of time and an easy job i think that i would still find ways to feel stressed and overwhelmed. the reason i think so is when i think back over the past 4 or 5 years, i would say that i have felt overwhelmed and drained most of the time... during college, during my STINT year in germany, during my internship year at ohio state and also our first year in california as i worked as a behavior therapist.

i know that part of it is my personality. i am an introvert, and it seems like God is constantly putting me in positions where i am pouring myself out in the lives of other people. furthermore, i am an overachiever so i am constantly buried under the weight of my expectations on myself. and being a melancholy-phlegmatic, by nature i look for what is hard, and i wallow. it is very easy for me to be down and hard for me to be up.

but i dont want to be that way.

and if that was the end of the story, i would have reason to mourn. BUT...

for while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. for one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die— BUT God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
(Romans 5:6-11 ESV)

but i say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. for the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do. but if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. i warn you, as i warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. BUT the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. and those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.
(Galatians 5:16-24 ESV)

my soul is bereft of peace;

i have forgotten what happiness is;
so i say, “my endurance has perished;
so has my hope from the LORD.”

remember my affliction and my wanderings,
the wormwood and the gall!
my soul continually remembers it
and is bowed down within me.

BUT this i call to mind,
and therefore i have hope:
the steadfast love of the LORD never ceases;
his mercies never come to an end;
they are new every morning;
great is your faithfulness.

“the LORD is my portion,” says my soul,
“therefore i will hope in him.”
the LORD is good to those who wait for him,
to the soul who seeks him.

it is good that one should wait quietly
for the salvation of the LORD.

(Lamentations 3:17-26 ESV)

that last verse especially strikes me. how un-american to wait for something, let alone wait quietly! though it is un-american, it can and will happen by his grace (free gift).

and ALL of this is by his grace. i need it.

that is why i am praying for it.

two great reasons NOT to include santa in your celebration this year

2010-12-01T04:05:00.000-08:00

photo © 2009 Andrew Kitzmiller | more info (via: Wylio)
"celebrating santa and a manger will postpone a child's clear understanding of what the real truth of God is. it's very difficult for a young child to pick through a marble cake of part truth and part imagination to find the crumbs of reality. we want our children to understand God as fully as they are able, at whatever age they are. so we try to avoid anything that would inhibit or distort their understanding.

[also] think how confusing it must be to a literal thinking, uncritical pre-schooler. santa is so much like what we're trying all year to teach our children about God. look at all the "attributes" of santa:

he's omniscient- he sees everything you do
he rewards you if you are good
he's omnipresent- at least he can be everywhere in one night
he gives you good gifts
he's the most famous "old man in the sky" figure

but at a deeper level that children cannot comprehend yet, he is not like santa at all. for example, does santa really care if we're good or bad? think of the most awful kid you can remember. did he or she ever not get gifts from santa? what about santa's spying and then rewarding you if you're good enough? that's not the way God operates. he gave us his gift- his Son- even though we weren't good at all. "God shows his love for us that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us" (romans 5:8). he gave his gift to make us good, not because we had proved ourselves good enough."

-noel piper, treasuring God in our traditions, p. 80-81

the magician's nephew

2010-11-30T15:57:00.000-08:00

recently, i have been needing some light reading to help my brain relax (i was trying to get through desiring God, but that just wasn't working after a long day with kiddos).

remembering how much i loved the chronicles of narnia as a kid (even before i was a christian), i decided to pick up the series and read it again. i am almost done with the magicians nephew after just a few days of reading.

i am loving it!

not only do i love the fantasy/epic genre, but i especially love the spiritual parallels of the book which i was blind to as a child. here are a few quotes that have really stuck out to me (they are probably more meaningful in the context of the book, but hopefully you will get something out of them as well).

aslan the lion speaking, speaking to the talking beasts after he created narnia:
"before the new clean world that i gave you is seven hours old, a force of evil has already entered it; waked and brought forth by this son of adam... but do not be cast down... evil will come of that evil, but it is still a long way off, and i will see to it that the worst falls upon myself."

[just like how the gospel is preached even in the first few chapters of genesis. beautiful!]

after the main character, digory, completed an important task given to him by aslan:
" 'well done' said aslan in a voice that made the earth shake. then digory knew that all the narnians had heard those words and that the story of them would be handed down from father to son in that new world for hundreds of years and perhaps forever. but he was in no danger of feeling conceited for he didn't think about it at all now that he was face to face with aslan."

[that makes me think about heaven and what our good works will feel like there as we are commended. we will be in no danger at all of being proud, standing in front of jesus!]

i cant wait until we have kiddos old enough that we can read these stories to! :D

boost your immunity with thanksgiving leftovers!

2010-11-26T11:42:00.000-08:00

today i am over at somaticos, with the last of a four part series on boosting your immunity naturally.

today's post is especially timely as it includes a recipe for your thanksgiving leftovers!

dont miss out!

my best motherhood practice

2010-11-20T12:45:00.000-08:00

inspired by girl talk (a blog by carolyn mahaney and her daughters), proverbs 31 and several older women i respect, i make an effort to rise each morning 1-2 hours before the kids do. this, by far, has been my single best practice in motherhood.

rising early allows me to pray, read scripture, think through the day for a bit and get a head start on housework before anyone else is awake. i usually try to have breakfast and lunch made before everyone else gets up, and i usually start laundry and get other various housework done.

i usually try to spend about 15 or 20 minutes praying and reading God's Word (this is much less time than i would prefer, but a reality at this current life stage). after that, to keep my heart focused on God, I will listen to a sermon as I get things done around the house. often times, i will go to desiring God and look up a sermon on the passage of the bible that i just read. if not that, then i usually listen to a mark driscoll sermon.

as a side note: i most definitely do not do this every morning! i am a realist and i know that its not always possible. when i am too tired, i sleep in. i know that God made me to need sleep and I humbly submit to that. but i pray for His grace to wake me up early, and he often answers that prayer. I give him the praise and glory for making that possible.

our foster care experience by the numbers

2010-11-19T20:35:00.000-08:00

17 ...number of weeks we have had the kiddos so far (wow... it feels like it has been forever. did i ever not have kids once?)

18 ...number of doctors/dentist appointments since we have had the kids (and 5 more in the next two weeks)

10 ...number of appointments for developmental assessments and psychological counseling

360 ...minutes per week driving the kids to and from parent visits, which is

200 ...miles per week driven to and from parent visits

2 ...average number of hours each week we spend filling out paperwork for matters relating to the kids

assignments we have been given for the kids from our agency and the preschool oldest brother attends (i'm pretty sure that there has never been a day since we got the kids that we have completed all of these things):
30 ...minutes per day reading to oldest brother
15 ...minutes per day doing homework assignments with oldest brother
20 ...minutes per day helping oldest brother learn to cut with scissors
20 ...minutes per day helping middle brother learn how to draw
20 ...minutes per day playing catch with youngest brother

just wanted to share that little slice of our life with you. seeing this all written down makes me realize why it feels like there aren't enough hours in the day!

boost your immunity with friendly bacteria

2010-11-19T06:20:00.000-08:00

did you know that eating bacteria will help protect you from bacteria?

catch me over at somaticos for this week's real food friday where I share about how food with friendly bacteria helps to protects us from unfriendly bacteria and viruses. and a recipe for a pumpkin parfait!

read it all here.

the mental shift from adoption to foster care

2010-11-16T22:50:00.000-08:00

the past few weeks it has become more and more clear that we are most likely in a foster care situation with the kids, and not adoption (ie they are only going to be with us short term, and then be reunited with their mom.) this could change, but that is how it is looking.

this realization has brought a range of emotions and thoughts.

some days, i wonder why we are putting up with all of the grief from our social workers when this isn't getting us any closer to our "goal" of adoption.

on the other hand, it has instilled a (good) sense of urgency in me to not waste any time with them, especially relating to spiritual matters. i am trying to incorporate the gospel throughout the day: teaching them about jesus, the bible, sin and salvation. they are so young and we (probably) don't have much time with them!

sometimes i daydream about life without 4 kids. if they are reunited with their mom, i think i will sleep for four days straight afterward... that is how behind on sleep i am (despite the fact that i average 8 hours of sleep at night... but 8 hours is nowhere near enough for how much these guys wear me out!). if we didn't have kiddos, i probably wouldn't be battling my acid reflux so hard... something that i HATE because it is forcing me to be on OTC meds daily.

sometimes i daydream about life with maybe just two kids. maybe a girl just like lovely girl and a boy like little man. i would have plenty of time to spend with them... lots of tickles, lots of hugs, no stress... (i know, this is unrealistic... but i am allowed to daydream).

and then there are times that i just keep thinking over and over about how these guys really fit so many of the hopes that we had about the type of kids that would be placed with us. and i also think about how much work we have put into training and teaching them, and the big improvements we have seen in their behavior. and these thoughts make me sad to think that we might not have them with us long term.

but then i think about things i would like to do as a homemaker that i do not have time/energy/mental capacity for ever since being blindsided (in a good way) with four kids. and i think about how i would spend my days differently if our family situation was different.

and i think about the guilt i feel for not spending enough time with them, not having as much direct impact on them as i would like, and then i feel like it would be better for them if they weren't with us (and they would probably agree... they ask for their "number one mommy" every single day, multiple times a day).

there is really no point to this post, just some rambling thoughts. but ultimately i do have to say, i am so thankful that God has instilled in me a deep belief in and trust in His sovereignty (though its still an area i need growth in). otherwise, i would be going nuts right now. He already knows the future of these kids, and already knows what we need in serving them.

thank you Jesus for being the same yesterday, today and forever, in the midst of my ever-changing life.

boost your immunity with raw garlic

2010-11-12T21:52:00.000-08:00

catch me today over at somaticos where i am continuing my series on boosting your immunity with real food.

this week's food: garlic (yum!) with a recipe for guacamole.

this has been encouraging to me this week

2010-11-11T11:52:00.000-08:00

but recall the former days when, after you were enlightened, you endured a hard struggle with sufferings, sometimes being publicly exposed to reproach and affliction, and sometimes being partners with those so treated. For you had compassion on those in prison, and you joyfully accepted the plundering of your property, since you knew that you yourselves had a better possession and an abiding one. Therefore do not throw away your confidence, which has a great reward. For you have need of endurance, so that when you have done the will of God you may receive what is promised.

(Hebrews 10:32-36 ESV)

how to do a push up

2010-11-10T06:47:00.000-08:00

click here to see a really hot guy teach you the right way to do push-ups. :)

[ok, i admit, i am biased]

foster care: proof that legalism doesn't work

2010-11-09T10:36:00.000-08:00

"for in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything, but faith working through love" -galatians 5:6

this has been a trying time. not only has parenting the four kiddos been especially hard recently, but to top it off is the added pressure of the social workers breathing down our throats daily.

we have been battling our social workers the past few weeks. we cant live up to the standards that they have for us... it is basically impossible. first, we were told that we need to be much more careful with the kids as a result of a series of injuries. (just to clarify: by injury this includes a dot on lovely girl's face the size of the tip if a ball point pen, among other very minor things). nearly every conversation with our social worker she reminds me that i need to take the kids for another doctor visit (visits which are already scheduled... yet she feels the need to remind me again.) and the latest was yesterday when the social workers decided that they don't like the fact that we use cloth diapers and are asking us to switch to sposies (the answer, for the record, is no. i told her that i believe that organic cotton is much better next to babies' skin than chlorine, plastic and other chemicals. i have yet to hear a response to that one).

when they say these things, i want to scream. i want to yell and make them see how much we are serving these kids above and beyond the rules, because we care. i want to tell them about how patient i am with them when they are acting crazy after parent visits. i want to tell them how we almost exclusively give them homemade meals made with nutrient dense, mostly organic food. i want to tell them how we have cleared our schedules so that every single night of the week since the kids came to us, we give all four kids a bath, brush three sets of teeth, put them all in clean jammies and read them all several stories before bed. i want to tell them about how i basically quit my job to stay at home with them and provide the most quality care possible, rather than shipping them out to a daycare. i want to tell them about every time i have given them a hug when they look sad. i want to tell them about how we pray with them and comfort them when they wake up screaming in the middle of the night.

but these things dont matter to the social workers. they are all about following rules and regulations. the problem is that many families do foster care just for the money (though I cant understand this... the money really isn't that great at all), and the social workers believe that if they make you follow all of the rules, that you are caring for the kids. but that is not true, which is proven by the number of families who do foster care and follow all of the rules, but fail to nurture or love on the kids at all.

in our case, they dont care about all the things we do right. i could write pages and pages about what we do because we love the kids. they care about the couple of things that they view are not going so well, and their utmost concern is to fix these minor things rather than be happy that we love the kids. and our love is getting "results" (even though we are not all about results): i have reported to the social workers the dramatic decrease in tantrums, the big increase in sharing toys, their use of "please" and "thank you", even the fact that their psychologist terminated services after just 4 weeks because (as she put it) she cant do anything to add to or improve upon what we are doing with the kids.

as these things stewed around in my mind today, it dawned on me that this is a great illustration of loving God vs legalistically serving Him. when we love God, we want to go above and beyond the letter of the law. the bible helps us understand what God desires from our lives, but it is only a starting point to begin learning how to love and serve Him. on the other hand, legalism is a set of rules. if any of these rules is even slightly broken, the result is guilt and fear. in legalism, love is not the motivation, results are. but with love, the "results" come naturally as the love flows out.

seeing up close the vast difference between legalistic care and loving care in the foster care system, God has really taken it deeper into my heart of why he wants our love, not our legalistic service. Lord, give me true love for you and not a heart of legalistic service!

[as a side note, prayer would be greatly appreciated. i am having trouble discerning if all of this headache is merely God bringing us through trials and persecution, or if he is gently closing the door on these kids being in our lives. pray that He would give us wisdom and that we would walk by faith.]

boost your immunity... naturally

2010-11-05T03:00:00.000-07:00

Today you can catch me blogging over at Somaticos!

This November, my Real Food Friday posts are going to focus on foods that naturally boost your immunity. I am kicking off the series with coconut oil, and a recipe for No Bake Chocolate Coconut Bars.

Lets just say that when I make these, they dont last long in our house. :)

Happy immune boosting!

a call for suggestions

2010-11-03T11:03:00.000-07:00

It has been great to get such good feedback from people about our new God-centered health and fitness blog Somaticos!

We really want to serve our fellow brothers and sisters in Christ, so I want to open it up for you to send us your suggestions on topics relating to health, nutrition and fitness. What do you want to improve in? What do you want to know more about? What kinds of recipes would you like to see me post?

I look forward to hearing your thoughts!

[if you dont want to post your suggestion as a comment, feel free to email it to me at: sarah(dot)hope(dot)costa(at)gmail.com]

two exciting announcements

2010-11-02T10:10:00.000-07:00

my first announcement is a new blog that alex and i have started together. the focus is on God-centered health and wellness, and you can find it here at http://www.somaticos.com/. we both firmly believe that striving for wellness is a component of a God-honoring life. unfortunately, our society often times idolizes health and fitness. on the other hand, many people in america (including many christians, sadly) have given away to laziness and gluttony, to the damage of their health. our hope is to educate people and assist them in a God-centered, healthy lifestyle.

(alex has written about a biblical perspective for being in shape, which you can read here.)

i will be writing a weekly post called "real food friday" in which i will share the joys and health benefits of real food along with a weekly recipe. I have already written posts on green smoothies and homemade salad dressings which i encourage you to check out.

my second exciting announcement is probably more exciting to me than to you, but i have begun to venture out into the exciting world of sourdough!

sourdough utilizes wild yeasts from the air to bring rise to baked goods. this is truly a provision from God and people have been using it for thousands of years. the advantage of sourdough over modern forms of leavening is that it is cheaper and the souring process makes nutrients in the dough much more available than using store-bought yeast or baking soda. furthermore, the souring process in a sense "pre-digests" the flour, making it easier for the body to digest (some people with gluten intolerance can eat sourdough baked goods with no ill side effects). in other words, sourdough is traditional, healthy and cheap. just my kind of thing! :)

a week and a half ago, i began culturing my starter. it took about a week to get my starter in an active state. and since it has become usable, i have made sourdough pancakes and crackers. my boys have already asked numerous times for the crackers, even though i just made them last night! i look forward to also trying pizza crust, crepes, muffins, pie crust, cookies and eventually (when i feel bold enough) bread!

i am very excited about this because i feel like i finally have a healthy way to serve wheat to my family without feeling a compromise or paying for expensive sprouted-wheat bread.

unfortunately, i am not able to enjoy any of the sourdough right now :/ but that is a topic for another post.

product review: Little Beetle cloth diapers

2010-10-25T04:00:00.000-07:00

about three months ago, i embarked on the overwhelming journey of deciding which brand of cloth diapers to purchase. if i was a patient person, i may have ordered several different brands of diapers and tested each one out before making an informed decision.

however, i was eager to start cloth diapering after we got the kids and decided to do all of my research on the internet and jump in with two feet. my initial research (before we got the kids) helped me to land on a fitted diaper with a separate cover diapering system (the other two types are an all-in-one or a pre-fold). if you are in the midst of this decision diaperpin.com is a great resource, and simple mom also has a good series about cloth diapering going on right now.

long story short, i ended up ordering little beetle diapers. i want to share the positives and negatives. i dont share this claiming to be an expert, i have only been a mom for three months and a CD'ing mom for about two, and this is the only system i have used (besides a couple of gerber prefolds that i have around to use in a pinch). but i want to give you my initial impressions here.

the good part of the reason that i chose these diapers is because they are environmentally-friendly. the diapers are made of an organic cotton/hemp blend, and the covers are made of wool. the wool covers are surprisingly water resistant (though not 100% waterproof) and i like the idea of wool in order to avoid plastic as much as possible, and to have something natural against my babies' skin.

the diapers themselves have a removable insert, which makes them easier to dry and allows me to adjust the absorbency depending on my need (for example, we use double inserts at night). i chose the snap closure kind, which sometimes is a bit of a hassle when i am in a hurry, but i prefer overall to pulling out diaper chains from the wash (which can happen with aplix closures).

i have found these diapers to be very absorbent as well as easy to use (alex has never complained once about them). The few times we have had leaks were always because either the diaper cover was not on correctly or because we waited way too long before changing them (that sometimes happens when you are running around after four kiddos). We have only had a blowout once or twice (when lovely girl was teething and having constant diarrhea for about a week).

the bad wool covers are a bit more complicated than plastic. they have to be lanolized (ie re-waterproofed) every month or so, and have to be hand washed in the sink. when we first got them, lovely girl's messy diapers often spilled out onto the covers, which was a hassle to almost daily clean a diaper cover. since then i have realized i should just only spot clean when that happens (duh! cant believe i didn't realize that earlier). plus we must be getting better at putting the diapers on correctly because this rarely happens now. despite these drawbacks, i still think i prefer the wool covers to plastic ones.

we have also had some issues with ammonia burn, but i dont think that this is the fault of the diapers, its either our hard water or the detergent we are using. we are in the process of trying to solve the ammonia problem, but for now we are just using sposies at night, which has temporarily resolved the issue.

the bottom line: would i buy it again? when i ordered the diapers, both lovely girl and little man were in size two diapers, which means that if we ever get/have an infant at some point, we are going to need buy more diapers in size one. i have been thinking about whether or not i would buy these diapers again and frankly i am not sure yet. i am very satisfied with the performance of these diapers, but part of me would like to try something else just to get a better idea of what is out there. in short, i would lean toward probably buying them again, but i'm not for certain.

my review of these diapers cannot be separated from a review of the company i purchased them from, eden cloth diapering. i cannot give a high enough recommendation for this company, mostly because of the stellar customer service. part of the reason i purchased these diapers was because of all the help the owner of the company gave me. before i even made a purchase, she answered all of my questions in several different lengthy emails. when i explained our family situation to her, she was willing to put together a package for us at a discounted price to fit our diapering needs. since my purchase, i have been able to email her at any time with more questions. furthermore, her thorough responses are also always timely: i have always gotten a response to my emails within a day or two.

i am under the impression that it is a small company and their product line isn't super-extensive, but it focuses on eco-friendly CD'ing options and various other baby products. i appreciate that it is owned by a mom who has lots of experience and thinks through the products that she offers.

if you are looking for a cloth diapering store, i highly recommend hers. and if you happen to email her with a question, tell her you heard about her from the crazy mom in california with four foster kids ages four and under.

in summary: if you know me, you know that i am frugal and will do almost anything to save a couple dollars (that is part of the reason we cloth-diaper over disposables). there are less-expensive cloth diapering systems out there. and even for this specific system/brand, i could have gotten it a little cheaper at another online store. but i decided to go with a brand that i felt is high-quality and worth paying more for, from a company that is also high-quality because of their personal service. and i am satisfied with my investment.

missional mothering

2010-10-24T09:30:00.000-07:00

"Young mother, it seems like everyone wants something from you. And you’re probably already giving way more than you ever thought you could give. But even with all your giving, you might struggle with guilt—lingering, joy-drenching, energy-sapping guilt—that you should be doing more, giving more, accomplishing more.

Don’t waste that guilt. Pay attention to it. Use it. Take it out of the shadows and examine it in light of Scripture. Is this a godly grief that leads to repentance or a worldly grief that produces death (2 Cor. 7:10)? Is it life-giving or life-depleting? Ask yourself, does this bring fresh joy and peace to those nearest me, or does it add unnecessary stress and strain to my home?"

read the rest of the article by jani ortland at the resurgence

hoping to win this week...

2010-10-23T09:08:00.000-07:00

here are some great giveaways from some blogs that i follow. i hope i win!

a pizza making kit from passionate homemaking

high quality fermented cod liver oil from kitchen stewardship (CLO is the only supplement that i give my family... NO multivitamins for us!!)

a book on herbal nutruting from keeper of the home

all three of these blogs are high quality and i recommend them to you for more than just their giveaways :)

its gonna be two babies

2010-10-21T21:16:00.000-07:00

tonight before bed, the boys and i were praying for "number one mommy's" [ie their birthmom] unborn baby.

as he was bouncing up and down while doing circles [a typical activity during prayer for these guys], oldest brother announced "its gonna be two babies".

my ears perked up. "by two babies do you mean two babies in number one mommy's tummy or one baby in number one mommy's tummy and one [insert lovely girl's name]?"

*blank stare*

"are there two babies or one baby in number one mommy's tummy?"

"two babies"

now, oldest brother is four and often gets things mixed up. so i'm not putting stock into birthmom being pregnant with twins. but its a slight possibility at this point.

that would be crazy!!!!

one of the most encouraging passages about ministry in the NT

2010-10-21T06:49:00.000-07:00

"The kingdom of God is as if a man should scatter his seed on the ground. He sleeps and rises night and day and the sees sprouts and grows; he knows not how. The earth produces by itself, first the blade, then the ear, then the full grain in the ear. But when the grain is ripe, at once he puts in the sickle, because the harvest has come."

mark 4:26-29

[if i didn't believe that God is sovereign, i would probably have already gone nuts by now]

sneaky liver

2010-10-17T18:27:00.000-07:00

recently, i have been getting into using organ meats, particularly liver, in my cooking. these days, organ meats are overlooked because of their taste and because of their high fat and cholesterol content (but i am not afraid of fat or cholesterol). however, traditionally organ meats were not only used but prized. people spent hours preparing them and they were given as a first food when weaning (chicken
liver was lovely girl's first real food!).

we now know that organ meats are very high in nutrients. "Organ meats are the most nutrient-dense part of the animal—from ten to 100 times richer in vitamins and minerals than muscle meats" (source).

here are some ways that i sneak organ meats into our meals on a regular basis:

soup broth i find that i can get away with about a cup of pureed liver in a large pot of soup, and more in a pot of chili.

taco mix after finely chopping them, i add all of the organ meats that come with a whole chicken into our taco filling. this will work with many dishes that call for shredded chicken.

meatloaf meatloaf is great! you can also sneak lots of veggies in there too.

my next adventure is to try to make pate and other dishes specifically for organ meats. i cant wait! :)

sneaky vegetables

2010-10-15T21:05:00.000-07:00

if you know me, you know that i like vegetables.

i like them for their taste, but especially for their nutritional value. vegetables (especially leafy greens) really pack a punch nutritionally, so i try to include them with every meal.

"every meal? even breakfast?" you may be wondering. yes, its true. i would say that the majority of breakfasts that i serve have vegetables. here are three ways that i make sure my family starts off the day with veggies.

green smoothies

though i call them green smoothies, these smoothies are rarely actually green. to our morning smoothies i will add all types of vegetables (depending on what we have at the house): carrots, cucumber, summer or winter squash, kale, spinach, bok choy, or mustard greens. if you have a right balance of fruit and veggies and blend it for long enough, the veggies aren't even noticeable.

egg fritatta

i love eggs! if they weren't so expensive i would probably serve them more than i do (we usually eat them about once a week). veggies go pretty naturally with eggs, so its not too much of a stretch here. i put an emphasis on the veggies, and use about a half to whole cup of chopped veggies per egg. i always use chopped onion in my eggs, and in addition to that 2-3 other veggies, such as cabbage, leafy greens, peppers and tomatoes. to simplify my life since we got the kids, i usually make this in a baking dish, and bake it at 350 degrees until it is done.

anything squash/pumpkin

i LOVE squash season! there are so many delicious ways to serve this amazing food. you can put squash or pumpkin into pancakes, waffles, muffins or bread. you can even put them in eggs (trust me... i have done it on more than one occasion).

this week, i baked butternut squash sprinkled with sucanat, cinnamon and butter. when it was done i mashed it with a fork and served it topped with some lightly sweetened homemade frozen yogurt. it was delish!

another breakfast i have in mind for a day soon is pumpkin parfait: mixing mashed pumpkin and plain yogurt together, topped with pumpkin seeds and chopped toasted pecans.

sneaky vegetables in other meals:

*finely chopped veggies in meatloaf. this is an especially great way to get in more leafy greens! make the meatloaf with a chopped onion, a chopped bunch of leafy greens (i usually use kale or mustard greens), a pound of grass-fed ground beef and a couple of pastured eggs and you will be having a nutritional heyday.

*mashed cauliflower. it is similar to mashed potatoes, but it is less starchy, and helps pack in more vitamins. Here is one suggestion on how to make it.

*on many recipes that call for rice, i will replace about 1/4 of the rice with grated summer squash.

happy vegging! :)

i would love to hear your suggestions on how you include more veggies in your meals. leave a comment to share your tips!

twice the loveliness?

2010-10-09T14:05:00.000-07:00

the first time that alex saw birth mom, he suspected that she was pregnant again [baby girl was 5 months at the time, by the way].

recently we found out that this is true. there has been lots of speculation and discussion between alex and i about the gender of the baby and her possible due date. [to be clear, if the child was taken from mom, we would be first to get the call, but she would probably only be taken if she tests positive for drugs. which might not happen, because it seems as though mom is clean right now, as far as we can tell]

on thursday, after the parent visit, the social worker told me that the baby is a girl. a girl! my heart soared. i felt almost as happy as i would be if i found out i was having a girl. that moment reaffirmed my love for these kids and my desire to be in their lives. i prayed [i think for the first time?] that God would definitely allow us to adopt them [all 5... or more?], though i know that his plan is perfect, no matter what it is.

i think i would have been just as excited to find out that she is having a boy. just getting more of an idea of who might be a part of our lives soon is exciting. but when i found out it is a girl, all i could think about was all the loveliness of lovely girl, and how that soon may be doubled. that would be, in a word, awesome.

we are suspecting a due date in january, plus or minus. but this is a total guesstimate.

in other news, oldest will start pre-school this week! i have mixed emotions but i am mostly excited. more on that in a future post [if i get around to it!]

in still other news, i have ventured out into a new realm of the culinary world... fermenting vegetables! so far i have made garlic and dill carrots, jalapenos, and sauerkraut. and right now a batch of ketchup is fermenting. yum! more on that as well in a future post [if i get around to it!] but until then, i recommend this recent blog series from nourishing gourmet if you want to know some of the many benefits to lacto-fermentation.

more older brother quotes

2010-10-07T15:45:00.000-07:00

"Where is grandma?" [refering to my mom]
"She's at Hio"

"i'm gonna wet you!"
[when he splashes in the bathtub]

more quotes here

more good stuff from revelation

2010-10-06T15:44:00.000-07:00

in addition to some great descriptions of jesus, revelation 2 and 3 is also full of some great promises. jesus promises that "[to] the one who conquers..."

"...I will grant to eat of the tree of life which is in the paradise of God." (2:7)

"...will not be hurt by the second death." (2:11)

"...I will give some of the hidden manna, and I will give him a white stone, with a new name written on the stone that no one knows except the one who receives it" (2:17)

"...I will give authority over the nations and he will rule them with a rod of iron... and I will give him the morning star." (2:26-28)

"...will be clothed thus in white garments, and I will never blot his name out of the book of life. I will confess his name before my Father and before his angels." (3:5)

"...I will make him a pillar in the temple of God. Never shall he go out of it, and I will write on him the name of my God, and the name of the city of my God, the new jerusalem, which comes down from my God out of Heaven, and my own new name." (3:12)

"...I will grant him to sit with me on my throne, as I also conquered and sat down with my Father on his throne." (3:21)

this gets me excited for the new earth!

good stuff from revelation

2010-10-06T06:38:00.000-07:00

the other day i was studying revelation 2 and 3.

i love how jesus is described in these chapters:

"him who holds the seven stars in his right hand, who walks among the seven golden lampstands" (2:1)

"the first and the last, who died and came to life" (2:8)

"him who has the sharp two-edged sword" (2:12)

"the Son of God who has eyes like a flame of fire and whose feet are like burnished bronze" (2:18)

"him who has the seven spirits and the seven stars" (3:1)

"the holy one, the true one, who has the key of david, who opens and no one will shut, who shuts and no one opens" (3:7)

"the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of God's creation" (3:14)

oldest brother quotes

2010-10-05T16:00:00.000-07:00

"yeah and jesus killed the sheep"

-oldest brother, in front of the doctor who was examining him. he was a little fuzzy on the story we had read the day before from our big picture storybook bible

"be strong, and courageous,
go go God!"

-oldest brother, when he is trying to sing "be strong and courageous, God is never going away"

"him is weak and him is strong"

-oldest brother, trying to sing "they are weak but he is strong" from "jesus loves me"

"mommymommymommymommymommymommymommymommymommymommymommymommymommymommymommy..."

-how oldest brother starts out pretty much every sentence from his mouth [he has a stutter]

update on the kiddos

2010-10-04T22:10:00.000-07:00

here is an expert from an email to my cousin (i am too busy to write something new but this will have some stuff most of you dont know)

so a summary on the kiddos... overall, i think we are seeing lots of improvements in them, but the day to day is still pretty hard usually, so sometimes i wonder if there is any progress... but i am pretty sure that we are seeing progress. the oldest ( he just turned four last sunday) has been having tantrums a lot in the past few weeks, but they seem to be decreasing. they almost always start when he doesn't get his way. we are assuming that if he cried enough that he would get his way with his birth parents. i think (hope) that they are decreasing because he realizes that that doesn't work with us. but he is stubborn... i have seen him tantrum for over an hour when he doesn't get his way.

but on the upside, though the tantrums are hard, since he is the oldest, he is much more teachable and able to help out with his siblings. he always loves to hear stories about "jesus with the nails on his hands". every time we turn a page in our big picture storybook bible, he points to any random guy in the picture and says "HEY MOM!! LOOK ITS GOD!!!" hilarious and cute. and he is ready and willing to help with whatever i ask him to, even things like folding laundry and sweeping the floor (not that he does either of those things particularly well... but the boys dont do well playing together for long periods of time, so i give him tasks like that to keep him busy.) we have also started working on shapes, colors and letters with him. colors he got in about a week, shapes are getting there but he is still a bit fuzzy. letters are a lot harder (he knows letter "a" now... and even "b" on good days. he gets really excited and points out every single letter "a" he sees).

the next oldest brother (2 1/2) is definitely in his terrible twos, and sometimes mimicks some of oldest brother's tantrum behaviors, but overall his behaviors are much more manageable. he has the cutest dimples and loves getting hugs and cuddles all day. his speech is literally indecipherable... i dont know if he has a speech delay or if that is normal or what. sometimes anthony can help translate but its hard.

i wish that i had more one on one time with the middle brother because his older brother totally overshadows him and is always trying to steal my attention. its hard to do anything with the older two boys because they are often fighting or doing other things to get the attention of whatever adult they are with.

both older boys are totally in the stage of "what's that?" "why?" and "where is ___?" sometimes its a good teaching tool, but i dont even think they listen to my answers because they usually interrupt my answer with another question. in my tired moments i resort to "because" or "why not?". its almost like they are afraid of silence because they are constantly talking and asking questions. talking constantly is a huge drain on me, since i am an introvert.

the youngest brother gets even more overshadowed because of his two older brothers. when he came to us he had two words, and now he has tons, easily over 20! its been cool to see him blossom in that way. he did have what was considered a speech delay when we got him, but now he is typical. sometimes i forget that he is just one year old and expect him to behave like his brothers but i love that he is still in the stage where peekaboo is just about the coolest thing on earth. he likes to be held a lot, which is endearing but also hard because there is so much to do for each of them all the time that i cant hold him as much as he wants. he is a classic "insecure attachment" case (which is very sad), hence the constant desire to be held.

lovely girl (who just turned 8 months!) is just a darling. she is just too cute to forget about, so for the most part i would say that her brothers dont overshadow her. that is because her temperament and personality is so silly and adorable... definitely a contrast to her brothers who are constantly hitting and whining. she just got her first two teeth last week and she loves to stand with a support. she puts everything in her mouth... last week, i looked over and green foam was pouring out of her mouth. i had a heart attack until i realized that it was just caused a small piece of chalk she was gnawing on (my first thought was that it was some kind of a chemical).

those are some quick updates. i hope to post some quotes from the oldest brother. he is just too funny sometimes without knowing it.