Amy J. Bennett

Last night as I sat down to prepare my lesson for Sunday School I realized I had no more lessons this year.  We use StudentLife curriculum and this year we studied Consecration (to be set apart).  I realized I was going to have to share something on my own and felt like all year while teaching consecration, I’d been pushing a very judgmental view of God down their throats.  And while that is one side of Him, He is also and good, loving, forgiving and gracious God.  The phrase “God is Good” kept popping in my head.

So I came up with an acrostic for that using characteristics or names that tell why God is good…gracious, omnipotent, defender, integrity, shepherd, omniscient, omega, Daddy.  I gave supporting Scriptures for each and tried to put some personal accounts in some of them.  Anyway, I made it clear it wasn’t much of a planned lesson but I really felt like God had led me to it.  One student even asked if I had really done it all last night.  I had so much stuff, I had to scramble through the last few.  As you can imagine, talking through all those characteristics can really get you fired up about how good God really is.

And then something really cool happened.  I went up to “big church” and sung in the choir…which I haven’t done in 4 weeks and guess what the song was we sang first?

Lord, You are good
And your mercy endureth forever
(repeat)

People from every nation and tongue
From generation to generation

We worship You, hallelujah, hallelujah
We worship You for who You are
We worship You, hallelujah, hallelujah
We worship You for who You are
You are good

Lord You are good
And You mercy endureth forever
(repeat)

You are good, all the time
All the time, You are good

God IS good but really, sometimes He’s just cool.

Short on time…my day yesterday was actually summarized by the people I was with…

Playdate for Emma and her soon to be classmate Cootiegirl.  The girls had a ton of fun.  Emma can’t wait to go play dress-up over there.  Emma did tell MIL last night she didn’t like the tea.  I was shocked because as Jaynee said, she was sipping it and never said anything to me during or after the visit.  I questioned her more on it and she just wants to try it without milk next time.   And Lexi did love it and so did I so I still count it a hit.

Heather and I went to see Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2.

You can ask probably anyone that knows me and they know I like to read books.  But I’m a fiction girl.  With the exception of the Bible of course, which I read this year and still quite proud of that.  So I’m shamed to admit I have never read one health and/or wellness book.

My mom gave me The Seven Pillars of Health by Dr. Don Colbert this week though and I’ve thoroughly enjoyed it.  Unlike that non-fiction stuff Scott watches on Discovery and A&E, this proved to informative AND I could put it into practice.

And while I’ve already been driving my family batty sharing all the information I’ve learned and obviously since this is my first health book, I’m no expert but, I of course have to let it all out here.  I just can’t believe how much my eyes have been opened.  Now all these things are sort of like “duh” I knew that but I think understanding why and getting a better picture in my head has really helped.

The seven pillars are

1. Water
2. Sleep
3. Food
4. Exercising
5. Detoxification
6. Nutritional Supplements
7. Coping with Stress

The book is broken down into 1 week on each pillar and each day you read a point about it.  There are a few I’d love to share

Water (by far the most interesting pillar).  I would recommend reading this chapter if nothing else

• He gave an analogy (that I connected with quite well) of a plant not getting watered enough.  The first thing that happens is the edge of the leaves turn brown.  In the same way, when our bodies are dehydrated, they take water from less important places like our skin and joints to make sure very important organs like our heart and kidneys are well taken care of.  Things like acne and arthritis can sometimes simply be cured by drinking more water.  Heather chimed in with the quote from someone that said, “it’s bad think you are less nourishing than a desert.”
• Water will slow the aging process and maintain your brain and memory
• Salads/fruits/vegetables all contain a high percentage of water
• All water is NOT created equal.  Tap water AND some bottled water can be bad for you.
• You should drink water out of a glass container, not plastic
• He recommends Penta water
• You should drink half your body weight in ounces
• He says drinking 1-2 cups of coffee is ok

Sleep

• You need 7-9 hours of sleep per night.  When you sleep less than that your body is like a cell phone that doesn’t get charged all the way..it doesn’t last as long.
• People that sleep 9 instead of 7 hours have greater “natural killer cell” activity which destroy viruses, bacteria and cancer cells.
• Depth of sleep is just as important.  He even went a little further to say dreams that occur in deep sleep bring images up from our unconscious soul so we can get meaning from them.  He backs it up with examples from Biblical times of God using dreams to make people aware of things.
• Naps are good

Food

• The book got a little on the scientific side and this was the stuff we already know…more fruits and veggies and less read meat.
• He had a spiel in there on MSG (and other things) in processed food.  I couldn’t believe how many products have that in them.
• I was also disgusted at the knowledge that white bread is first gray and they have to bleach it to make it white.  Yuck.  Only whole wheat bread for me now.
• He spent a lot of time on fats and oils and which were good and bad.  A few things from that I learned where trans fats are bad, vegetable oil is bad and deep-frying is bad.
• An interesting one here…don’t eat the charred part of something off the grill.  It has toxins in it.

Exercise

• We all know exercise is good.  He went through a lot of reasons why and talked about target heart rates and recommended exercises and such.  The one analogy that stood out to me though was the fact that our bodies are made up of 2/3 water. If you think of a cup, puddle or pond that eventually is convered in slime, gunk and breeds disease without being stirred, it’s the same for our bodies.  Moving water thrives and when we exercise our bodies we are refreshing our bodies and clearing them of toxins and giving ourselves strength and energy.

Toxins

• This basically went through what we know as well..toxins come through the air we breath, food and water we digest and even cleaning solutions that come in contact with our skin.
• A few things he recommends…clean your air filter monthly, dispose of toxic chemicals properly, switch to natural cleaners or at least wear gloves, buy indoor plants to clean the air naturally, put dust covers on your pillows and mattresses.
• He also says fasting and sweating can both detox your system.  If you don’t sweat much (like me), consider visiting a sauna regularly.  Sweat naturally detoxes you.  Fasting gives your GI tract a break.
• There is also something called Divine Health Living Food you can take for a day to help detox.

Nutritional Supplements

• If you are under 50, take a whole-food multivitamin, a phytonutrient powder and an omega-3 supplement.  If over 50, also take antioxidents, calcium, Vit D and a sublingual B12, and a digestive enzyme after each meal.
• Sit in the sun without sunblock for ten minutes each day IF you don’t have a history of skin cancer.
• Eat a salad with all the colors of the phytonutrient rainbow each day.
• Be careful your fish oil pills aren’t rancid.  If it smells fishy, it’s bad.

Stress

• Understand what you can and can not control
• Be thankful
• Laugh every day
• Practice breathing exercises
• Forgive others
• Make to-do lists but allow for some not to be completed.

I’ve literally scratched the surface on what he shares in this book.  Like I said, even the first chapter on water is worth the read alone.  There’s just no way you can read all this and still wonder why everyone around us is getting sick and has cancer!  Seriously, if you have all these toxins in your body from sodas and alcohol and food and air and then you are very sedentary and add stress on top of that, well no wonder!! (Clearly not blaming all diseases and cancer on food/water/air)

I know I personally have made changes.  I’ve gotten up every morning this week to exercise, I’ve met my water requirements for a few days now and I’ve done pretty good eating (save the birthday cake yesterday).  And FYI, the almond butter he recommends is NASTY!  I’ll go for natural peanut butter, thankyouverymuch.  Now I just need to add some vitamins, (more) laughter and some sweat (shouldn’t be too hard in 100 degree weather) and I should be good to go.

I’m not really in the mood for a mushy anniversary post but 10 years ago today Scott and I got married.  I think the hoopla of last weekend kind of dulled the moment of today.  In fact, just as I’m sitting here someone on the phone asked Scott if we’re going out to eat for lunch since he’s working tonight and Scott says sarcastically, “I ain’t spendin’ no more money on her.”  I think that about sums up how we feel about our anniversary today.

In all seriousness I can say ONLY by obeying God and submitting to Him together has our marriage lasted ten years.  I thank God for the provision and direction He has provided us.

I can’t tell you how much we NEEDED last weekend.  I realized last night while talking to a friend over coffee that Scott and I have NEVER been ANYWHERE ALONE (overnight) since our honeymoon.  It rekindled our marriage and love for each other and I’m so happy that I can sit here and say I’m ecstatic we’re married and honestly looking forward to the next ten.

We made our evening visit over to our neighbor’s house. Now our neighbor has quite the sense of humor so it’s hard to tell when he’s being serious but he says, “I’m going to have a party tonight at my house.” I said, “Really? How come?” He said, “Well, it’s raining, those guys are going to be in the shed to try to stay dry.” Nice. He continues to say he had five white guys out there earlier today. Scott and I have been home all day and my office looks out on his backyard. There was no one outside all day. Then he goes on to ask us if we knew if you went to North Carolina and bought a gun, they won’t let you bring it home that day. Oh. my. goodness. Scott makes small talk about the gun and says he wants to see it when he gets it. He says it’s just a small pistol since he just needs to shoot from the house to the shed. He’s sort of laughing at this point so I’m not really sure how much he’s joking. He then says (I think jokingly) that if he shoots him and takes him down, he’ll go out and shoot him again but if he gets back up, he’s going inside and locking the door.

Is it bad that our elderly neighbor’s imaginary friends are more interesting that us?

If you watch So You Think You Can Dance, you’ll recognize this guy.  I’m glad somebody really cool used his talent.

Rickey has all the short versions on his site.

I mentioned recently in a post that sometimes I’m unhappy with myself as a mother and wife.  Most of that concerns “wifely and motherly duties”, simple things like cooking dinner, washing clothes and making beds.  Or even things for myself like exercising.  Heh, as far as that is concerned some days I’m glad to just get myself a shower.  And I understand I have two young children, I have a job and really, a part-time job now with the OTH site and I shouldn’t be too hard on myself.  But sometimes, I get on this kick that I’m going to put my family, home and health on priority number 1.

Since this weekend, I’ve been on that kick.  In all honesty, we’d gotten to the point that we were eating out almost all the time.  And if we did eat a home-cooked meal, I was making breakfast or spaghetti or we were eating at one of parents’ houses.  I think it culminated in Asheville.  We ate so much food and it was good, yes but I was so tired. of. food.  Tired of eating out.  Tired of eating bad food.  Tired of paying to eat bad food.  Not that the food in Asheville was bad but it just put me over the edge on food eaten at a restaurant.

So since we’ve been back I had planned on eating in.  Sunday night we did eat out for Heather’s birthday and that’s obviously fine, Monday we ended up eating at Scott’s parents and then last night we ate in at my Mom’s.  Tonight the kids will be with MIL.  So much for cooking dinner.  But I did fix lunch in this week and today I cooked some salsa chicken in the crockpot for lunch and we all sat and ate together.  Well, even when we do eat take-out we eat together but still.  I fixed us a salad and had some strawberries and blueberries set out.  And I just felt so much better about the whole mom thing.

Then last night I started reading the book 7 Pillars of Health that my mom gave me and it talks about all this…going to sleep at a better time, drinking water, taking vitamins, eating better.  It all just falls in together.  Either my home and health are a priority or they aren’t.  Either I’m doing a good job keeping up with dinners, exercising, etc or I’m not.  I’ve just found that I have to make an effort and when I do, I feel so much better.

So I’m not making any promises but I really do want to try to eat and drink better, cook more often, exercise more, straighten up more and just do better.  You know, I’m thinking this whole 30s thing isn’t turning out so bad after all.

So every day we get some updates as to our neighbor’s visitors in his backyard.  He had the cops out there again this morning.  We were over there two nights ago and he told us while sitting on his front porch the guy was standing by the door at his shed.  I walked back there and nothing.  I have yet to see anything anytime they call.

But then Scott got a call from his wife last night saying that her husband made her look out the window at 4am this morning and she saw the guy “dancing a jig” out by the shed.  On the phone she says I was doubting him, but now I’ve seen him for myself.  In the background Scott said you could hear him saying something about people not thinking he was crazy now.  Their daughter also said his wife was taking up for him.

So..did he put her up to that call so we wouldn’t think he was crazy?  Did she set up that call herself so her husband wouldn’t look crazy to the neighbors?  Or do we really have a man dancing a jig every night at 4am in the neighbor’s yard?  I honestly have no clue.

*Update* Apparently the sherriff’s dept has now called Social Services.  Who knows what will happen now!